NEWS COMMENT 9 New sci-fi comedies make science look sane and everyone else mad... ViewByPaul Dempsey From Manchester

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a really bad one (with its producers even poised to take ‘Space Force’ as a trademark before the Pentagon). Its targets are contemporary and earthbound, including the jingoism of the current administration, Sino-US rivalries and the fetishising of the private sector across government. Here, we could do with something completely different in every respect. The two shows also have excellent pedigrees. Avenue 5 is led by Armando Iannucci, the satirist behind The Thick of It, Veep and the superb new movie adaptation of David Copperfield. The cast is helmed by Hugh Laurie, with Rebecca Front as an obnoxious passenger, and Silicon Valley’s Zach Woods A still from Space Force offering another peerless display of neurotic – a hit sci-fi comedy shown on Netfl ix middle management. Space Force reunites two key figures behind the US version of The Office, showrunner Greg Daniels and star SCI-FI Steve Carell. So, fair targets with the right fingers on the trigger. Unfortunately, neither show quite yet works. This is not uncommon, even Lockdown for take-off applying to some of the greatest sitcoms. As a friend who has worked in a ‘writer’s room’ once explained, their first seasons are often about finding how an ensemble will work with these promising together in the longer term, both in terms of the script and the chemistry of the cast. The good news then is that you can watch both shows gelling, and there are plenty of laughs new sci-fi comedies along the way. Resolving another issue, though, may need more finesse. We expect sci-fi shows to have WE ARE GOING through a mini-renaissance insurmountable right now, given how it big sets and flashy special effects. Sitcoms of a sci-fi comedy. During the Covid-19 reminded us not only of the risks but also of often work best in a very banal environment, lockdown, we have been urged to stream two space flight as one of the foremost human so you focus on the script and performances. new sitcoms, Avenue 5 (Sky/Now TV) and achievements in exploration. You do not want the audience to be distracted Space Force (Netflix), and a Red Dwarf However, Avenue 5 and Space Force to the point where, as the late Barry Norman special (UKTV Play). explore new comic territory to show that the put it, “you hum the scenery”. Avenue 5 and Space-based comedy is notoriously subject has acquired a few absurdities of Space Force have those big sets and SFX, difficult. Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs continues late. Set 40 years in the future, Avenue 5 thanks to huge budgets provided by to claim a cult following, but it is among fans leverages the barmy idea of space tourism, respectively HBO and Netflix. And your eye who laugh at the in-jokes rather than the real stranding a bunch of rich morons in the does wander. But that’s hopefully fixable. ones: the latter are mostly dire. heavens on an interstellar cruise liner that The last important point to make is that if Part of the challenge is that we do not also hosts a plethora of mankind’s worse you watch these shows through an think of the subject as especially funny. qualities. The notion that Star-Trekking engineering prism, it feels good to find people Space flight still carries a lot of risk. I had should strive for bolder ideals makes it work, out there ready to satirise some of what is butterflies watching the launch of the particularly during its many scabrous happening right now. Both Avenue 5 and crewed Nasa/SpaceX mission, as probably moments. We do deserve better than this. Space Force are necessary and yet friendly did many of you. Set in the present, Space Force takes its fire. And, even better, where sanity does get a You could then argue that last year’s name directly from Donald Trump’s latest look-in, it is almost always down to the

AARON EPSTEIN/NETFLIX AARON Apollo 11 anniversary made this challenge galaxy-class attempt to turn a good idea into engineers and scientists. Now that is progress.

www.EandTmagazine.com July 2020 Engineering & Technology