Space Force: Netflix Announces Steve Carell Comedy Series From Creator Of The Office
The Space Force is ready to blast off... to Netflix.
The streamer released a brief, suitably majestic teaser trailer for the new comedy series based on one of the most baffling presidential announcements of 2018 from co-creators Steve Carell and Greg Daniels, who gave us the U.S. version of The Office. Carell is also set to star, according to Collider.
Those of us even remotely capable of keeping track of the seemingly never-ending stream of... how shall we put this... interesting statements made by President Donald Trump will remember that last year, he proposed the creation of a branch of the military to be based in space. At a meeting of the National Space Council, the president had this to say: "We must have American dominance in space. Very importantly, I am hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces... Our destiny beyond the Earth is not only a matter of national identity but a matter of national security."
Now, we don't take political stances here at Looper, but it is merely our impartial observation that the idea was greeted with widespread derision by the press. More than one observer drew immediate parallels to the late President Ronald Reagan's ill-fated Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposed space-based missile defense program that was colloquially referred to by journalists of the '80s as "Star Wars," in reference to a popular film series which you may have heard of. The potential future merits of such a defense program aside, the president's seeming sense of urgency in proposing its creation — along with the fact that he actually used the words "Space Force" — caused many learned observers to label the idea as wasteful and unnecessary, if not downright silly.
Knowing an excellent comic premise when they saw it, Carell and Daniels apparently jumped into action with all due haste. The trailer for their series, which dropped this morning on Netflix's YouTube Channel, is set to the stately strains of the classical piece "Also sprach Zarathustra" (best known as the theme music to Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey), and depicts the Sun rising over the Earth as the series' synopsis is spelled out in stark white text: "On June 18, 2018, the Federal Government announced the creation of a 6th major division of the United States Armed Forces. The goal of the new branch is 'to defend satellites from attack' and 'perform other space-related tasks'... Or something. This is the story of the men and women who have to figure it out."
The series will reunite Daniels with Carell, who starred in The Office for nine seasons between 2005 and 2013. While Carell has been consistently resistant to revisiting his iconic role as Michael Scott, the beleaguered regional manager of the Scranton, Ohio branch of Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company, the prospect of working with Daniels (who also went on to create Parks and Recreation) to satirize the concept of a directive-light U.S. Space Force was apparently too enticing to resist.
Carell is currently hard at work on an as-yet unnamed series for Apple TV, which takes place on the set of a morning talk show and is being co-produced by Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. Since that project is currently before the cameras, we can't expect production on Space Force to begin any time in the near future, and of course no release date has been announced.
But is that going to stop us from getting unreasonably excited about this series? Absolutely not. The Office was a gem, Carell is one of the most brilliantly understated comedy performers of his generation, and if ever there was a real-world premise ripe for Daniels' brand of satire, this is it. Rest assured, we'll be keeping a vigilant watch for any details Netflix has to offer on Space Force, and will report them the minute they become available. To infinity... and beyond!