When it comes to television, Greg Daniels is a golden goose. King Of The Hill, The Office, Parks & Recreation. All three of which could be touted the best television show of its given era. So, naturally, with anything that Greg Daniels creates, there’s going to be a great deal of expectation. Throw Steve Carrell into the mix, and you have greater expectations than Charles Dickens. So, naturally, going into watching Space Force this morning, I was on the edge of my seat. Then I remembered what I consider a major rule in the world of television. The first few episodes are for exposition and getting to know the characters. Of course, this doesn’t mean they’re not going to be funny (if they’re any good), but usually good shows, even The Office and Parks & Recreation take a few episodes or even a season to get into the really good stuff.
“…left to get his 18-year-old daughter through her senior year of high school as well as make sure that those boots get on the moon.”
Why am I saying all this? I’m trying to rationalize the somewhat lukewarm response I noticed in a Reddit thread that’s already going about the show. If I had read this thread before watching the show, I would have been kind of reticent about watching, and I’m hoping this doesn’t happen for some other people because the show is certainly funny. There’s a (SPOILER ALERT) dog-eating monkey that is referred to as a “chimpstranaut,” for God’s sake. Steve Carrell does an entire song-and-dance routine to “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys. I am getting ahead of myself here, however.
What is the show about? It’s a riff off of one of Trump’s more grandiose ideas that has not yet come to fruition (but you never know because it’s 2020 and this grand hellscape could produce god knows what else). It’s about getting “boots on the moon” by 2021, and newly appointed 4-Star General Mark R. Naird is the man who’s going to make that happen as the head of Space Force. So, the show presumably takes place in our current world, which makes it all the funnier to me. Naird moves with his wife, Maggie (Lisa Kudrow), and daughter Erin (Diana Silvers) from DC to Colorado. Somehow a year into the move, Maggie goes to prison, and Mark is left to get his 18-year-old daughter through her senior year of high school as well as make sure that those boots get on the moon.
"…It's about getting "boots on the moon" by 2021..."
