Space Force review: Blatant political references in an oddly familiar style

Netflix’s latest mockumentary, Space Force, starring Steve Carell is an interesting watch, filled with occasionally subtle and mostly ‘in your face’ references to American politics in a rather familiar style. Greg Daniels and Steve Carell come together again after the American version of The Office to create what is an interesting comedy about the very nascent US armed services’ sixth branch, Space Force.

The screenplay and dialogues seem to be bottled in a style that is similar to The Office. This almost feels like a great example for the old adage, “Don’t try to fix what is not broken”. The style however works well with Carell’s character General Mark Naird, in his rather familiar mannerisms and how the story has been weaved.

Based on political happenings in the recent past, the show does not shy away from political references. From POTUS’ Twitter obsession, typos, his character as portrayed in the show to the first lady’s ideas for Space Force’s uniform screams Donald and Melania Trump, who are never referenced by name. The right wing-left wing polarisation is a constant theme in all ten episodes of the show. General Naird’s initial hesitance to not indulge in political debates, soon gives way to him taking sides. There are episodes dedicated to the US-China rivalry, US’ relations with Russia, even India’s ISRO ends up being the cause of a kerfuffle in an episode. If politics and international relations is something you want to stay away from, this is not the show you should watch.

An Elon Musk-like character, Edison Jaymes, played by Kaitlin Olson appears in the seventh episode of the show. The entire episode is dedicated to portraying a fictional version of the relationship shared between Musk’s SpaceX and NASA, a government body. Edison Jaymes’ name is a blatant reference to Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla. Edison and Tesla were scientific nemeses.

The Office, which debuted 15 years ago, pales in comparison to Space Force when it comes to production quality and grandioseness of the set. Justice is done to what many imagine space to be like. CGI is used liberally to show the moon, rocket launches, animals in space, disintegrating satellites among other things. Space Force’s campus is a particularly impressive show of production design, similar to that seen in Hollywood movies with a significant budget.

Steve Carell’s character, four-star General, Mark Naird, almost in every episode, starts off as a hard to deal with, highly-disciplined, and unshakeable character but in the last few minutes of these episodes, he turns into a soft, very insightful person and becomes more ‘human’. Towards the end of the season, however, the character feels a fair bit different from the one that the show introduced to us in the pilot episode. With more focus on General Naird’s family and relationships, he seems to care less about him heading the sixth branch of the US military and more about his personal life in the last couple of episodes.

To conclude, the show is a fairly interesting watch if you are interested in satirical portrayals of US politics, US’ relations with various nations and Steve Carell for the cult-like following he has garnered due to his character in The Office. Otherwise, blatant references to politics, international relations, and the familiar screenplay style may throw you off. It may be unfair to compare The Office and Space Force since they are a decade-and-a-half apart and they belong to slightly different sub-genres but Greg Daniels and Steve Carell reunite for the first time after The Office and a lot was expected from the duo, which they have, to some extent, managed to live up to. A better balance of subtle, serious, and over-the-top characters would’ve helped this show reach its potential much more than the current set of characters.