Science friction
HOW NEW SITCOM SPACE FORCE IS SHOOTING FOR THE MOON…
Space Force is not about Space Force. That is to say, Netflix’s new 10-episode sitcom, co-created by The Office US dream team Greg Daniels and Steve Carell, is not an insider’s view or exposé of the real-life space-warfare branch of the US Armed Forces. “We’re doing a fictional work of the imagination here,” says exec producer Daniels. “I don’t know how accurate it is.” However… “Sometimes there’s a bit of humorous overlap,” he admits. For example? “Well, one of our early ideas was that our Space Force would have camouflage fatigues with the pattern of the Moon’s surface on them as seen from a telescope, which we thought was funny – you’re never going to be outside of a space suit on the Moon, so why would you need camouflage?! But then the actual Space Force released their fatigues, which have a jungle print! [laughs] Different, but equally absurd...”
Both Space Forces evolved concurrently. In 2018, after news broke of plans to establish the United States Space Force (USSF) as an independent military service (a deal officially sealed last December), Netflix exec Blair Fetter sounded out Steve Carell, who sounded out Daniels, who immediately pictured Carell as the general in charge of the new branch. Decent but somewhat delusional, former pilot Mark R. Naird shares similarities with Carell’s Office manager Michael Scott - but Space Force is a different type of workplace comedy. For one thing, it offers a departure from the mock-doc style of Daniels’ best-known work. “I love mockumentaries,” he says. “But after nine years of The Office and seven of Parks And Recreation [which Daniels co-created]… that’s a lot of time to be doing that style. The subject matter of Space Force is more grand; it involves this goal of putting ‘boots on
the Moon by 2024’. So it felt like we needed a grander style of filmmaking to capture that.”
STRANGE DAYS
Daniels cites such cinematic touchstones as Robert Altman’s M.A.S.H., The Right Stuff and Dr. Strangelove. “We talked a lot about [Kubrick’s movie],” Daniels recalls. “It was interesting to take the visuals from that and yet still do something that had grounded, character-based comedy.” Space Force is a timely satire, but it’s also been built to last, he says: “It’s set in the world [today], but our hope is that people will still enjoy it 15 years from now. They won’t need the newspaper headlines at all.” Daniels compares Space Force’s tonal balance to one of his earlier hits. “I did a show called King Of The Hill [19972010], which took on a lot of topics, but attempted to stay respectful of the characters.”
Malkovich’s Mallory was clearly not briefed on the right golfing attire.