(upbeat music)
- (Helen) Hello Wisecrack - Helen here,
beaming to you from the comforts of my apartment.
A lot of people talk about being productive
during quarantine - writing books, making
short films, reading all the classics, inventing
calculus…
But I have them all beat -- because during
this time, I have finally immersed myself
in the greatest cultural catalogue of them
all: Netflix.
I have studied everything this great purveyor
of ‘Entertainment’ has put out...
But there’s one show I was most excited
to sit on my couch and kill half a day watching
-- Space Force.
The show seemingly had everything going for
it.
It’s creator Greg Daniels had already made
not one but two modern TV classics.
Plus, it featured an amazing cast: Steve Carrell,
John Malkovich, Jane Lynch, Fred Williard,
Lisa Kudrow, Ben Schwartz & Patrick Warburton
paired with a ridiculous premise.
I was *so* hopeful.
And then - this:
Just a dogpile of bad press, and I don’t
think it was just “reviewers being out of
touch.”
This show is, in my very scientific and not-at-all-arbitrary
opinion - bad.
Not exactly Bright bad, but still a colossal
disappointment.
- I let you down
- (Helen) It left me wondering: how could
so many talented people produce such a misfire?
How did a tried and true formula go so wrong?
Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition
on Space Force: What Went Wrong.
First, a quick recap of the series.
The TV series presents a fictionalized account
of the US military’s newest branch - the
Space Force - as it tries to get “boots
on the moon” by 2024.
Steve Carrell stars as General Mark Naird,
a hard-nosed general appointed to lead it.
Naird constantly has to balance the demands
of his chest-thumping White House superiors
with those of his scientific team -- led by
Adrian Mallory, who questions if it’s logically
or even ethically possible to get back to
the moon on such a tight time-frame.
Making matters even worse, Naird’s family
life is quickly spiraling out of control.
His wife is in prison and his teenage daughter
resents him for being a workaholic.
Faced with both professional and personal
uncertainty, there’s only one place where
Naird can find relief:
- (Naird) Largo.
Montego, baby why don't we go (continues singing)
- (Helen) Space Force, at its heart, gives
us two tv shows in one half-hour-ish package:
first, a wacky office sitcom a la The Office
& Parks and Rec, and second - a political
satire in the vein of Veep.
But by constantly straddling this line, Space
Force doesn’t quite succeed as either…
So let’s break down how it fails on both
counts.
PART ONE: THE WORKPLACE SITCOM
Since the advent of television, the workplace
sitcom has provided an easy-to-shoot setting
for a group of eccentrics to gather round
and crack wise.
From McHales Navy to Taxi to Cheers to Ally
McBeal to Archer, the workplace has served
as a backdrop for various characters to both
come together and clash -- their personality
differences providing conflict for each episode.
- Because these corporate bag munchers owe
me $630 for my goddamn Flex account!
- (Helen) In Comedy: A Geographic and Historical
Guide, scholar Maurice Charney uses Cheers
as the prototypical example of the workplace
sitcom.
He writes,
“[it] is... the most ritualized sitcom format
-- as it relies on the repetition of a setting,
of each character’s traits, and of each
set of conflicts and alliances…
It presented a set of highly ritualized characters
whose personality traits were extremely fixed,
and who interacted with one another in the
same ways each week.”
Each episode of Cheers is structured pretty
much exactly the same, revolving around bartender
Sam Malone as he tends bar and deals with
patrons and employees.
The workplace, aka the bar, became idealized.
Not necessarily because of the job itself
-- but because no matter the problem, each
character could always rely on the people
there to have their backs.
Sam was always willing to lend an ear to Coach,
Diane, Carla, Cliff, Norm & Fraiser.
Just take it from the Cheers theme song--
- (singing) “Sometimes you wanna go where
everybody knows your name…”
- (Helen) The same was true of other workplace
comedies of the era and of those that preceded
Cheers -- on Ally McBeal, it was the law firm,
on Taxi, the garage dispatch center
However, as television aged, the depiction
of the workplace on sitcoms became far darker.
Take Greg Daniels breakout adaptation of The
Office.
The workplace became an existential prison.
And the shared experiences characters bonded
over, when they bonded, were centered around
their incompetent and incredibly offensive
boss.
Dunder-Mifflin is a complete dead-end for
each character.
Jim, the everyman hero of the series, hates
his job, openly stating that--
- (Jim) Well if this were my career, I'd have
to throw myself in front of a train."
- (Helen) Aside from the occasional light
of an office romance, Dunder Mifflin is marked
by soul-crushing monotony.
- (Stanley) This here is a run out the clock
situation, just like upstairs.
In Season Two’s The Office Olympics, we
see how each employee copes with their pointless
jobs -- crafting elaborate games for themselves
just to pass the time.
And Dunder-Mifflin (unlike the bar of Cheers)
doesn’t seem to bring these eccentrics together
- it divides them.
- (Stanley) Boy have you lost your mind because
I'll help you find it!
- (Helen) While they eventually about-face
later in the show, much of the early seasons
of The Office deal with the antagonistic relationships
between co-workers.
For instance: in Season One’s The Alliance
- after rumors of downsizing begin to spread,
people at the office begin to form secret
pacts against one another.
- (Michael) There's no downsizing!
- (Dwight) But if there were, I"d be protected
as Assistant Regional manager?
Later in the series, when the employees dare
to even think about joining together and unionizing,
the Dunder Mifflin higher-ups squash the comradery,
threatening to dissolve the branch completely.
- (Jan) If there is even a whiff of unionizing
in this branch, i can guarantee you the branch
will be shut down like that *snaps*
- (Helen) Dunder Mifflin is repeatedly shown
to be a toxic environment -- one in which
stupidity and boorishness are promoted.
Look no further than Jim’s boss, Michael
Scott, who is proven time and again to be
an impediment to productivity.
Michael claims to have his employees best
interests at heart yet whenever he feels challenged,
he immediately sells them out.
- (Michael) The guys downstairs are thinking
about forming a union and they have some good
points.
- (Jan) What?
A union!
- (Helen) If you’ve ever wondered why he
hates Toby so much, it’s likely because
he’s the only person who can challenge his
antics.
- (Toby) Michael you still can't make fun
of people for race or gender or sexual orientation.
It -
- (Michael) Who, who let let lemon head in
the room?
- (Helen) Or consider the time when Jim takes
a private meeting with the CFO and Michael
mistakenly thinks this means Jim must be angling
for his job.
To ensure he doesn’t get fired, Michael
badmouths Jim to his higher-ups -- thereby
sabotaging Jim’s promotion.
- (David) Constant office distractions, spend
way too much time at reception, antagonizes
salesmen, not at all what he thinks he is.
- (Helen) How bad is Dunder Mifflin?
It’s so bad that employment Lawyer Julie
Elgar even started a blog chronicling all
the actionable offenses that occur at the
company.
And it’s over 30 PAGES LONG.
In its later years, The Office softened some
of these edges -- many characters ended up
marrying their coworkers or forming unlikely
friendships with one another; yet Dunder Mifflin
itself always remained a destructive environment.
In The Office’s finale -- it’s telling
that, for a vast majority of the characters,
their happy ending involves getting away from
this corporate hellmouth.
Not quite as cheerful as, well, Cheers ... but
also not quite as nightmarish as The Office,
Space Force’s workplace-setting exists somewhere
between the two visions.
On one hand, the Space Force base is located
in the desolate wasteland of Colorado: a place
where the only sign of life is a single convenience
store patroned by meth-gangs.
It’s so bad that when Naird first tells
his wife where they’re moving -- she immediately
breaks down in tears.
Colorado, like Dunder Mifflin, is depicted
as a dead-end for Naird and his family.
When the series jumps ahead a year in the
opening episode, Naird’s wife is now literally
behind bars for unexplained reasons, and his
daughter has no friends or job prospects to
speak of.
Naird himself feels trapped -- his momentous
promotion to a 4-star-general is quickly undercut
as he becomes the 4-star-general of a branch
considered a joke amongst his peers.
- (Chief of Naval Operations) Well it's not
bull crap for Space Force.
First time with your keister in the hot seat!
Might be your last.
(laughing)
- (Helen) And yet the Space Force base stands
in strong contrast to these immediate surroundings.
Hidden behind a rocky mountain, the base is
a luxurious, high-end campus: Spacious, green,
and pristine.
Heck, they even have an ice cream stand.
So is Naird stuck in a dead end job or is
this the opportunity of a lifetime?
Well, Space Force can’t really decide one
way or the other.
Sometimes the series is very critical of Naird’s
job and his attempts to militarize space.
After Space Force’s satellite is cut apart
by a rival Chinese satellite, Naird proposes
that they use a bomb to push the broken pieces
back together.
- (Naird) What about a bomb?
In my experience with the Air Force, that
was very often the right answer!
Very, VERY often.
- (Helen) Of course, Mallory shoots the idea
down -- because a bomb won’t work in the
vacuum of space.
- (Naird) Alright a big f***ing bomb, that
was my first instinct anyway.
- (Mallory) That's no better.
- (Naiad) Shockwave!
- (Chan) It's a vacuum
- (Mallory) Space is a vacuum.
- (Helen) Thus the idea of implementing traditional
military techniques is depicted not only as
wrong but as completely absurd.
In The Office, Daniels really explored what
it meant to be in a dying, pointless industry.
A place where your average employee can only
ask the basic question: Why?
And it seems like a similar opportunity with
Space Force - whereas the Office explored
the waning paper industry, Space Force explores
the waning of American hegemony.
- (Stramm) Hey Naird
- (Naird) Hm?
- (Stramm) If you need any help getting back
at the Chinese for what they did to your satellite,
a little ground and pound, whatever, I don't
know.
Let me know!
Marine's at your disposal.
- (Helen) And even if the Space Force itself
isn’t obsolete, it certainly seems frivolous
to many.
The show takes some strides in this direction,
basically reducing the conflict between China
and the US as a childish pissing contest mostly
involving vandalism [   But the series pretty
quickly backs off: the US actually is in a
military stand-off with the Chinese for space
dominance.
Daniels even stated that the more he researched
Space Force, the more sense the department
actually made.
“The more research that we did into it,
the more it didn’t feel like the problem
was all in the heads of people in the United
States, because there’s people in Russia
and China and elsewhere scrambling to get
up there…”
Unlike Dunder Mifflin, where the job was in
and of itself completely pointless, working
at the Space Force is treated as an integral
and worthwhile vocation.
So the series is stuck in a strange middle
ground -- both highly critical of the militarization
of space yet also treating it as a necessity
- which inherently makes satire more difficult.
To be fair, this middle ground was masterfully
tread in Parks and Rec: a show that skewered
dysfunctional local politics
- (Man) I think the slogan should be: "Pawnee:
Home of Crackers - The Orangest Goldfish in
Indiana"
- (Helen) While ultimately championing local
politician Leslie for her perseverance.
But the viewpoint of the show, unlike Space
Force, was clear: The democratic process is
messy, overly bureaucratic, and dominated
by rich idiots.
But we can still try to turn a giant pit into
a park - it just might take a few years.
- (Woman) We present the crown jewel of Pawnee.
- (Helen) Even more, Space Force is missing
a key ingredient that made The Office, Parks
and Rec, Cheers and pretty much every sitcom
ever made work: the ‘straight-man’ or
woman.
On Cheers, it was bartender Sam Malone, for
The Office - Jim Halpert, for Parks and Rec
- Mark and Anne.
These characters served as audience surrogates
for the series, the every-man or woman reacting
to the crazy hijinks that happen around them.
On The Office, Dwight, Michael and Angela
could be as insane and off-color as needed
but then you could always count on the camera
panning over to Jim, shaking his head in bemusement.
However with Space Force, there really isn’t
a traditional ‘straight-man’.
Naird is technically our entry-way into the
show, the point of view character.
Yet Space Force constantly distances us from
him by depicting him as a blustering idiot.
It’s Naird that tries to use a monkey to
fix a broken satellite and later accuses one
of his scientists of being a Chinese spy based
solely on his race.
- (Naird) Chan definitely.
- (Mallory) Chan is my number 2 I consider
him above suspicion.
- (Naird) Alright so we got Urie, Baxter,
Chan.
- (Helen) In these instances, the series cuts
to Malkovich’s Adrian Mallory as he shakes
his head in bemusement.
So is Mallory the every-man of the series?
Not quite.
While he balances Naird, he oozes pretension.
Mallory’s even more eccentric than Naird:
a self-centered hot-head, set off by anyone
who doesn’t take him seriously.
Without a straight-man or woman, the characters
on Space Force constantly veer between oscillating
extremes.
Sometimes Naird is upheld as a beacon of virtue,
someone the audience should sympathize with
and relate to...
- (Naird) The founder of the Space Force.
That's going to be me.
While other times, he does this…
- (Mallory) You're overheating.
- (Naird) Sweat!
Is weakness!
Leaving the Body!
- (Helen) Ironically, this is a problem Greg
Daniels has dealt with before on...
Park and Rec.
Sure, Mark and Anne offered balance to Leslie’s
antics, but they weren’t quite central to
the show.
Just take it from Daniels himself-
“But [Parks and Rec] didn’t really hit
until Season 2, the big adjustment… was
that Amy Poehler was funnier being the smart
center of a crazy world than somebody whose
character flaws caused their own problems.
I would say by three or four episodes, we
had fixed that I think, personally.”]
It wasn’t until Parks and Rec created a
‘straight-woman’ out of Amy Poehler’s
Leslie Knope that the show was able to find
its footing.
And even when she got a little too into binders
and waffles - she was grounded with the down-to-earthness
of someone like Anne.
However, Space Force still hasn’t found
that balance yet.
But this balance is only half the story, because
besides being a work-place comedy, Space Force
is also trying to be a political satire.
PART TWO: POLITICAL SATIRE
Just as Space Force is wishy-washy about its
depiction of workplace antics,  it’s also
wishy-washy about its satire.
According to Daniels, Space Force is supposed
to be a commentary on how the idealism of
space has been co-opted by militaristic nationalism.
What was once about the idealistic pursuit
of human exploration--
- (Neil Armstrong) One small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
- (Helen) Has instead become all about national
and military dominance.
According to Daniels - “I think the show’s
feeling is more that it’s too bad we’re
now in this new phase [of space exploration],
where it isn’t about doing it for all mankind.”
In some moments, Space Force really nails
this satirical point.
- (Blandsmith) We need to hit back hard.
- We can bomb!
Big bomb, little bomb, smart bomb, stupid
bomb - there's one for every occasion.
- (Helen) Yet at the same time-- Space Force
constantly pulls its punches.
On a biting satire like Veep, the show takes
no prisoners -- every subject, every political
movement is open to ridicule whether liberal
or conservative.
Rather than attacking a political faction,
the show puts the entire political process
on blast.
- (Keith) People need to think he's in here,
leading.
- (Selina) But he's not.
- (Keith) He is, according to the rumor I
put out.
- (Helen) Space Force, on the other hand,
wants to be a satire of America’s militaristic
nationalism without letting itself be too
mean to the institution at the center of it.
As such, Space Force lacks any specific perspective.
Militarizing space is both absurd and a necessity.
General Naird is both a ‘Great Man’ and
a total buffoon.
The job is both noble and a dead end.
Space Force wants to have it every which way
-- and in the process it says nothing at all.
Just look at how the series treats its central
antagonistic relationship: Mark Naird vs.
Adrian Mallory.
In many ways this relationship is a mirror
image of our favorite local government odd
couple.
In Parks and Recs, the central antagonistic
relationship was between Leslie Knope and
Ron Swanson.
Leslie represented the textbook liberal.
She earnestly believed that through public
service, she could help fix the wrongs of
the world and build a better tomorrow.
- (Leslie) When we worked here together we
fought scratched and clawed to make people’s
lives a tiny bit better.
That’s what public service is all about.
- (Helen) However, Leslie’s boss, Ron, represented
the textbook Libertarian.
He believed that government should be virtually
non-existent
- (Ron) My idea of a perfect government is
one guy who sits in a small room at a desk,
and the only thing he’s allowed to decide
is who to nuke.
- (Helen) As such, Ron supported minimizing
the Parks and Rec department’s output by
hiring people who would do as little as possible.
- (Ron) I like Tom.
He doesn’t do a lot of work around here.
He shows zero initiative.
He’s not a team player.
He’s never wanted to go that extra mile.
Tom is exactly what I’m looking for in a
government employee.”
- (Helen) Now, naturally -- you would expect
Leslie and Ron to butt heads…
And yes, oftentimes they did.
- (Ron) Mmm mm mm!
Me want more pointless social programs!
Yummy yummy yum!
- (Helen) But as the series grew, the show
focused less on the antagonism between the
two and more on their unlikely friendship.
Despite their political differences, Ron and
Leslie genuinely cared for one another and
helped each other both professionally & personally.
As such, Parks and Rec used Ron and Leslie’s
relationship to present an idealized form
of government -- one in which people from
opposing party lines could still come together
to get things done.
Just take it from Amy Poehler--
The show is about the fact that there’s
a lot of people who work together who have
nothing in common except for the fact that
they work together, That really describes,
to me, national politics.
People who have nothing in common except for
the fact that they work together and have
to find a way to work together and make change
happen.
Similarly on Space Force, Naird and Mallory
represent opposite ends of the ideological
spectrum.
Mallory embodies a kind of smug liberal intelligentsia.
Whereas Naird is your ignorant and blustery
military man.
- (Naird) I am, what used to be known in America
as, a man.
 
- (Helen)But unlike Parks and Rec, Space Force
doesn’t use this contrasting relationship
to comment on any larger issues.
Instead -- it’s just kind of all over the
place.
Sometimes Mallory is used as an obstacle for
Naird to overcome.
For instance, in the pilot, Mallory keeps
trying to underhandedly postpone Naird’s
satellite launch, stating the scientific dangers
of doing so prematurely.
But by the end of the episode, Naird follows
his gut and successfully launches the satellite,
proving Mallory’s objections to be unfounded.
However, in later episodes, Naird’s gut
military instincts are a liability, and it’s
Mallory’s cautious reasoning that saves
the day.
In episode five, Naird is only able to defeat
the rival Air Force’s team in a ‘test
skirmish’ because of Mallory’s deus-ex-machina
code.
Space Force seems unsure of which side it's
on -- Mallory’s intellectualism or Naird’s
jingoism.
It basically becomes a toss up each episode
on who will be proven right, as if since Naird
won the day last episode, now it’s Mallory’s
turn to do so.
And if the ultimate point is that both men
end up rubbing off on one another, creating
a new-middle ground… well, Space Force doesn’t
present that traditional arc either.
Instead, by the final episodes, both men suddenly
shift perspectives out of the blue.
After Space Force discovers that the Chinese
have established a base on the moon, it’s
Mallory who thinks they need to take a more
decisive, militaristic approach.
- (Mallory) What if your friend who runs the
Navy were to move a carrier strike group,
no, two carrier strike groups into the South
China Sea?"
- (Helen) Whereas Naird wants to try a more
diplomatic route and speak to the Chinese
General.
- (Naird) Sometimes it’s better that cooler
heads prevail.
- (Helen) Thus the characters don’t even
attempt to come to a middle ground; they simply
switch ideologies based on, well, plot.
The closest Space Force comes to making a
clear political point happens in the last
episode.
After Naird is ordered by his White House
superiors to burn the Chinese moon base to
the ground, he enlists Mallory to help defy
this order.
Naird then gives the following speech-
- (Naird) Forget how bad polio was, people
stop taking vaccines.
Forget how bad world wars are, people start
puffing out their chest.
The real enemy is arrogance.
- (Helen) This seems to be the ultimate point
of Space Force -- that both Mallory and Naird’s
arrogance often blind them to the correct
course of action.
If only both characters and the world at large
could put their egos aside, then the real
work could be done.
And yet nothing in the previous nine episodes
shows this point to be true.
Because it’s Naird’s arrogance in the
pilot -- that his gut knows better than science
-- that saves the day; and it’s Mallory’s
perceived intellectual superiority that allows
the Space Force to defeat the Air Force in
their skirmish.
All Space Force has proven up to now is that
Naird and Mallory should be staunch in their
beliefs in case they’re accidentally right.
Ultimately, Space Force twists itself so much
to appease every side that it forgets to say
anything interesting or really anything much
at all.
However it’s not all doom and gloom.
The first seasons of The Office and Parks
& Rec were similarly fraught with issues before
reversing course to become two of the most
beloved  modern sitcoms.
So if anyone can right this ship, especially
with such a great cast-- it’s Greg Daniels.
But what do you think?
Are we just cranky that Space Force hasn’t
lived up to the greatness of its predecessors,
or is it legitimately bad?
Let us know in the comments.
Big big thanks to our awesome patrons for
supporting our channel and podcasts.
And, as always, thanks for watching. Peace.
