Steve Carell is the World’s Best Boss once again, but the low stakes of selling paper in Scranton, Pennsylvania are much higher in his latest role as a general in the military. The first trailer for
Space Force has dropped out of the sky, or at least onto the internet, and depicts Carell returning to his comedic roots to play General Mark R. Naird, a decorated soldier put in charge of the laughable new department called Space Force. Naird is tasked with getting boots on the moon because…well, because. What kind of obviously fictional president would commission an operation like that?
Oh, right.The trailer opens with a shocked Naird at the Pentagon receiving orders to head the newly-announced Space Force, even laughing at the very real position before it's declared his. Naird reluctantly accepts his new posting, appeased by the hopes of earning another gold star. Naird and his family move to the remote base where the messiness of his new department includes being publicly questioned by a politician (who appears to be based on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and losing a prototype that is valued at the price of "four elementary schools." Worst of all; that seems like a typical day for the bumbling Space Force.
Carell leads the all-star cast, which includes John Malkovich as military advisor Dr. Adrian Mallory and Lisa Kudrow as Carell’s wife Maggie.
Parks and Recreation alum Ben Schwartz,
Silicon Valley’s Jimmy O. Yang,
The American’s Noah Emmerich,
Brockmire’s Tawny Newsome and veteran TV actor Fred Willard also star in the series. Jane Lynch appears as the Joint Chief of the Navy, while
Booksmart actor Diana Silvers plays Carell and Kudrow’s daughter Erin Naird, who appears to have an anti-authority streak.[video_embed id='1939142']The star of Mindy Kaling's new show reveals how she got the role of a lifetime[/video_embed]The stress of his work and family life eventually begin to take a toll on Naird, forcing the General to take some me-time in his office and perform a soothing rendition of The Beach Boys’ “Kokomo.”
Everybody dance now.
Space Force reunites Carell with
The Office’s Greg Daniels, who signed onto the show with only a title and a laugh from Carell. “Netflix pitched the show to me, and then I pitched the show to Greg, and we all had the same reaction to it. There was no show, there was no idea aside from the title,”
Carell told Indiewire. “It was really based on nothing, except this name that made everybody laugh.” Art imitating life?Although the current POTUS is never mentioned in
Space Force, the show makes its message of keeping space war-free pretty clear. “Space should be a zone of wonder, not conflict and death,” says Malkovich in the trailer. It seems to be go without saying but in the words of Billie Eilish, duh.[video_embed id='1952591']BEFORE YOU GO: Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher can’t stop laughing on ‘Tonight Show’[/video_embed]
