Netflix Review: SPACE FORCE Feels As Unnecessary As The Real Thing
Getting Greg Daniels and Steve Carell together sounds like a mission for success, but quickly crashes and burns from poor jokes, overacting (even for a comedy), and outlandish plots. This show isn’t horrible, but it isn’t good either.
The show begins with a real dilemma if a launch to space is ready or not. The idea is good, the drama feels real enough, the jokes at Steve Carell’s character and rough life are fine. But the problem is fixed really quickly and then wrapped up by the end. The show then reveals that it’s a sitcom, the episodes have very regular story pacing, A-B-C plot lines and the characters seem to never learn or change practically at all. This would be fine, except the main plot is an ever-growing story and journey to gain space supremacy. It feels like the pacing and plot is a drama, but the characters are from a comedy. All this equates to major plotlines happening but the character’s reactions feel bland, fleeting and pointless, as if they would be just as happy or sad if literally nothing happened.
Along with this rant, the show's direction, cinematography and acting all feel weird, unimpressive and frankly kind of cheap. It honestly feels like they had six months to write, film and edit this show. I love Steve Carell, but instead of Carell from The Office, Dan In Real Life or Little Miss Sunshine, it feels like Evan Almighty. He is doing the best with what he has, but the character just feels unnaturally written. The other actors all did great in their rolls, but the characters, their choices and conversations all feel very artificial and thrown together.
There are some good moments sprinkled about. Some jokes do land really well and made me forget about all the negatives because they were so funny, but it happens like once an episode if you’re lucky. A few of the more heartwarming moments and side characters really shined too, but lead to too much. Each episode felt more like a long form skit about Space Force instead of a fully developed show.
It may seem like this show is really bad, it isn’t. I am just pointing out the bad things in detail because this show had a lot of potential to begin with; the outstanding cast, crew and concept. If a season 2 comes around, hopefully we’ll see a greater focus on better character development, some semblance of realism and much better comedy.
