Steve Carell heads into space to live out out the Trumpian dream in Space Force.
US sitcom kings Greg Daniels and Steve Carell are going big with their new Netflix comedy
JUST OVER A year ago, US Vice President Mike Pence announced plans to put American “boots on the moon” by 2024. Whether or not NASA manages this feat, in the meantime we can at least enjoy the new comedy that writer/producer Greg Daniels (Parks And Recreation) and his longtime collaborator Steve Carell have created about the maverick idea.
Their raucously funny ten-parter is partly a traditional workplace comedy, albeit where the workers are trying to make that new moon-landing mission happen, brought to us by the duo who gave us the American version of The Office, one of the ultimate examples of the genre. This, though, is not only one of the most highly ambitious examples of a workplace comedy, it also works as a Trump-era political satire.
“We wrote it in 2019,” Daniels tells Pilot TV, “so while we don’t ever mention Trump by name, it is a sort of a satire with spoof political figures. Steve is playing a General in the position of having to report to the President, and deal with congressional oversight, as well having to manage the people on the Space Force itself, which is obviously a real thing that’s happening. We felt there was a lot of comedy to be mined from those two elements.”
So while much of the show is rooted firmly in the Space Force base and in the General’s office in particular, it also veers off into the more political territory often occupied by Armando Ianucci’s shows such as Veep and The Thick Of It. One minute Carell’s General Naird is dealing with his doofus social-media advisor invading his desk space, the next addressing a cast of thousands in Washington DC, all filmed in epic, widescreen style. Similarly the tone shifts comfortably between slam-dunk sitcom gags and more satirical observations on the mad world we live in.
Daniels cites Stanley Kubrick classic Dr Strangelove as an example of a razor-sharp, provocative satire which was also very funny. The influence of that masterpiece on the tone
of Space Force is palpable, especially in the recurring scenes where Naird has to deal with the idiocy of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff, played by Jane Lynch
(Glee) and Noah Emmerich
(The Americans).
The show’s casting masterstroke, though, is in getting John Malkovich to play Naird’s irascible chief scientist, Dr Mallory, a role so tailored to the actor’s unique charisma, they just referred to the character as “Malkovich” in the original scripts. If that’s not starry enough for you, Lisa Kudrow pops up as well, to play Naird’s wife.
“Have you heard of the film It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?”, asks Daniels, referring to the legendary three-hour 1963 madcap caper, when he’s talking us through Space Force’s
extraordinary who’s who of comedy ensemble. “I think of this series in a similar way. Everywhere you turn there’s a huge comedy talent playing pretty much every role. So the cast has a bigger, more cinematic scope just like the show itself — we wanted the ten episodes to be more of a big happening than a traditional series”.
Also key to giving the show its Dr Strangelove-level of ambition, Daniels explains, was hiring British filmmaker Paul King to direct it. King not only made instant classics Paddington and Paddington 2, he also directed Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ spoof airport docusoap
Come Fly With Me.
“Paul combines the craftsmanship of the
Paddington movies with TV comedy instincts, which is exactly what we needed,” Daniels says.
If the challenge of making Space Force wasn’t enough, Daniels also has
Upload, another tenepisode, hugely ambitious sci-fi comedy series, launching on Amazon Prime at roughly the same time as Space Force is airing on Netflix.
“I’ve been working on
Upload for five years,” Daniels points out. “So it was never intended to come out at the same time. I did season two of Parks And Recreation at the same time as season six of The Office, so I had almost 50 episodes to supervise that year, and working on these two shows was almost as hard. And there are even more visual effects in Upload.”
You could say that creating these two big shows feels like the TV equivalent of getting those boots on the moon. If anyone can pull it off, Daniels can.