Did you laugh when Donald Trump proclaimed the establishment of a new branch of the military, the Space Force? Did you imagine him garbed as a Star Fleet admiral, taunting the Klingons as “losers” over a video monitor?
Steve Carell shared your amusement. As co-creator, co-writer and star of the Netflix series “Space Force,” he gives himself a chance to see where the joke will lead.
Carell plays the stuffed-shirt general given command of the new service. “I can be flexible if I’m ordered to be,” he insists in a character-defining moment. Carell’s Gen. Naird expects to sit at the Joint Chiefs’ table in the Pentagon; instead, he’s shunted off to Space Headquarters in an abandoned NORAD base near Wild Horse, Colorado. He is determined to carry out the commander-in-chief’s injunction to put “boots on the moon by 2024” even if he “can’t be certain where the boots will be made.” At headquarters, he is confronted by the Russian observer (i.e. spy) Yuri (Alex Sparrow)—“Your president wants good cooperation between U.S. and Russia” he says—and his science advisor, Dr. Mallory (John Malkovich).
Funny moments occur—Naird puts his feet up on a console and accidentally launches a rocket—but not often enough. The odd couple pairing of the pointedly stiff Carell and Malkovich’s feline officiousness is intriguing but—at least in episode one—the chemistry never sparks. “Space Force” will remind vintage viewers of the Mel Brooks-Buck Henry escapade “Get Smart”—at least the lesser episodes of the ‘60s television series.
