Pages in this blog

Friday, June 5, 2020

Space Force, WTF?! [Media Notes 34]

To paraphrase a cliché about Los Angeles, Space Force is a bunch of gags and other incidents in search of a story. Here’s how Wikipedia introduces it:
Space Force is an American comedy web television series created by Greg Daniels and Steve Carell, it centres on group of people tasked with establishing the sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces, the United States Space Force. It stars Carell, John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Diana Silvers and Tawny Newsome. The series premiered on Netflix on May 29, 2020.
OK.

It’s a satire, but of just what? I know that President Trump proposed that the country stand-up (when did that term enter the common lexicon?) a military force dedicated to (the defense of American interests in) space? Has he actually done it? Does Space Force actually exist? It turns out that it actually does, and has a budget. But it hasn’t done enough to have any presence in the ongoing barrage of news cycles. So it serves this show as an empty cypher, a black hole to attract whatever drifts by.

There’s a hilarious sequence in the second episode where a monkey undertakes an extravehicular excursion to reattach solar panels that the Chinese have cut from an American satellite. In the sixth episode where we see a video in which the force’s chief scientist (played by John Malkovitch) has declared his love for one Jerome, of the participants in a lunar habitat experiment. In the eight episode there’s affecting conversation between the military head of Space Force (played by Steve Carrell) and his wife (played by Lisa Kudrow); she’s in prison – we don’t know why – and they’re on a conjugal visit. There’s the teenage daughter (played by Diana Silvers) in and out and around and about. There’s more and there are others, but really, WTF?

No comments:

Post a Comment