Evil (2019) s03e01 – The Demon of Death

The opening titles for this episode show up about halfway through the forty-five-minute episode. They’re full “movie” credits, getting all the guest stars, going through the entire crew; big stylistic flex because “Evil” knows it’s earned it, at least for this episode.

The action starts right where we left off, Katja Herbers and Mike Colter finally giving in to their sexual tension—he just needed to become a priest for them to give in—and it’s an intense scene. It’s got episode-long repercussions; it’s a long-threatened plot point, and the show delivers on it. Actually, lots of this episode is just “Evil” fulfilling promises.

For example, there’s no more delay with Herbers telling her kids Michael Emerson is a bad guy and needs to be treated as such. Of course, she doesn’t mention the reason he’s interested in Maddy Crocco is because they got her at a demonic sperm bank or something, but the kids have a good plot in this episode. The show’s obviously still doing its “this online thing is probably dangerous for your kids,” but it’s a valid one this time and has a solid conclusion.

Then Patrick Brammall’s back home, seemingly throwing a wrench in Herbers and Colter’s timing, but then he decides to pick a fight with literally demonic mother-in-law Christine Lahti. Lots of promise for that story arc coming up; a couple of Lathi’s scenes are particularly great. The character’s got much more potential when not playing rube to Emerson.

The investigation plot involves a twenty-one grams-type experiment. Scientist Ruthie Ann Miles (who’s good but barely in the episode) wants the Catholic Church to provide her with someone dying so she can measure the weight to the picogram. They give her dying, bah humbug priest Wallace Shawn. Only when they try to weigh his death… Shawn comes out alive and cured. The show doesn’t get into the science, instead focusing on a rejuvenated Shawn’s new outlook, including his friendship with monsignor Boris McGiver. It’s probably McGiver’s best acting on the show, though he’s never had anything particularly difficult before. And Shawn’s a delight.

Also regulars Andrea Martin and Kurt Fuller show up for a little scene together, which also has Martin and Herbers meeting for the first time. Again, it’s future promise stuff, with everyone thinking about Herbers and Colter only not knowing what’s really going on. Though Herbers and Colter have different perspectives as well.

Aasif Mandvi doesn’t get anything to do but support. He’s excellent as always, just wish he’d had a little something more but setting the tone for the season—they get to use curse words intentionally now, with this season their first written from scratch for streaming versus broadcast—is more important.

Written by series creators Michelle King and Robert King (he also directed), it’s one of the stronger hours of “Evil” I can remember. Partially because it doesn’t make any significant fumbles, but also because the cast does so well with the material.

One Night in Miami… (2020, Regina King)

I fully expected One Night in Miami to end with a real-life picture of the film’s historical subjects. The film recounts—with fictional flourish—the night of February 25, 1964, when Muhammad Ali (then still Cassius Clay) defeated Sonny Liston to become the world heavyweight champion. He celebrated his win with Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke. One of Miami’s subplots (or, at least, frequently referenced details) is Malcolm X being a camera geek. But director King never goes to the “real,” instead letting her cast carry the film to its devastating finish.

Kingsley Ben-Adir plays Malcolm X, Eli Goree plays Cassius Clay, Aldis Hodge plays Jim Brown, and Leslie Odom Jr. plays Sam Cooke. There’s a small supporting cast, basically Joaquina Kalukango as Betty X, and then Lance Reddick and Christian Magby as Ben-Adair’s Nation of Islam bodyguards; they’re kind of buzzkills for the evening.

The film’s based on screenwriter Kemp Powers’s stage play, though the film never feels stagy. King keeps it very open until the four men get into the room together, starting with prologues for each. The film opens with Goree winning a bout in England, which allows for Michael Imperioli and Lawrence Gilliard Jr. cameos in his corner. Goree’s Miami’s most singularly dynamic performance. It’s not his movie overall, but he’s always in the spotlight. He’s the champ, after all.

Odom’s prologue involves him modifying his show to play for the shitty white people at the Copacabana. Odom gets to do three “live” performances in the film, though he’s constantly teasing a jam session. His role is the film’s toughest.

Hodge’s prologue has him visiting a white family in his hometown, thinking things have changed since he’s now the star of the NFL. Not so much. Unlike Goree or Odom’s prologues, the film doesn’t give Hodge the opportunity for honest reaction, which sets him up for the film’s most important part. Hodge works his ass off in the part, and it seems like overkill at the beginning, but then it becomes clearer why he’s doing it as the film progresses.

Those prologues are all set at some time before the One Night, with the fight taking place eight months before; the Ben-Adir prologue leads right into the main action. He and Kalukango are (justifiably) freaking out about Ben-Adir’s plan to leave the Nation and start his own organization. He hopes he’ll be able to convince Goree to come along with him on this Miami trip.

One Night in Miami is finite historical fiction, but King and Powers entwine it with actual history’s expanse. Even if the audience may not, the filmmakers know what happens to the subjects and how their stories end. They’re focusing on a point before tragedy, but also one where Ben-Adir can see that tragedy in the distance well enough to describe it.

After a brief, fantastic Liston match—where King is able to give Goree an even better spotlight than before—the action moves to the motel room, where the film will spend the majority of the remaining runtime. King and Powers open it up a little, with a liquor store run, a parking lot conversation, a rooftop dialogue exchange, but really it’s about this room.

Only Ben-Adir knows the plan. Both Hodge and Odom expect more people, some booze, and a better setting. Goree’s got a basic idea of Ben-Adir’s constraints for the festivities, but not his intentions for the evening; (hopefully) no one who knows about Ben-Adir’s plans to leave the Nation is talking about it.

Ben-Adir’s plan quickly derails as he and Odom’s mutual needling turns serious. Ben-Adir doesn’t think Odom is taking his position as a Black singer seriously; Odom thinks Ben-Adir’s a killjoy. It gets more and more serious, with Goree trying to play peacemaker while Hodge waits until the fists fly to get involved.

The film’s great success with these scenes is getting the exposition in; Ben-Adir’s Malcolm X is a natural lecturer, giving Miami a lot of exposition dump leeway, but having Odom’s Cooke default to personal attacks brings in a lot of character and relationship backstory. All four men have existing history with one another, but it’s all implied, even when they talk about it. King and Powers only have one flashback, and they save it for something everyone needs to see, not hear about.

As the night goes on, people will pair off for private conversations. Hodge provides counsel to everyone at one point or another, with his conversation with Ben-Adir the most affecting. It’s when all Hodge’s character work pays off. Meanwhile, Odom and Goree have a different conversation—in many ways, Goree can synthesize Ben-Adir and Odom’s hopes and dreams, with Hodge being the experienced elder statesman.

So while Goree starts Miami and the whole film’s “about” him because he’s the champ, the conflict between Ben-Adir and Odom is the centerpiece, and then Hodge actually holds them all together.

The best acting overall is Ben-Adir or Hodge, though Goree’s the most impressive. Odom’s excellent, too; it’s just less his film than Ben-Adir or Goree’s. Hodge’s the fourth wheel, so when he proves himself so essential—Hodge’s performance as Brown, not just Brown’s part in the narrative—he’s spectacularly impressive.

King’s direction is phenomenal. Early in the film, she gets to show off the grandiosity of the era, especially with Goree’s boxing matches. But those scenes are still all very focused. When she scales down for the conversations, she widens the narrative distance to make room for all the actors. The Night is about Ben-Adir because he’s the only one who sees destiny waiting for him, but King makes sure the other actors still get to build their characters when Ben-Adir’s running the conversation. Thanks to King, Miami doesn’t just not feel stagy or like a stage adaptation; that origin is actually a surprise. The direction is so focused on the minutiae of the performances, not the dialogue deliveries. It’s not about who says what next; it’s about how hearing something or thinking something affects how someone reacts. It’s about the performances, specifically Ben-Adir and Hodge’s performances.

All the technicals are outstanding—Tami Reiker’s photography, Tariq Anwar’s editing, Barry Robison’s production design, Francine Jamison-Tanchuck’s costumes. And Powers’s script’s superlative.

One Night in Miami is a singular film about singular subjects. It’s an exceptional, profound motion picture.

Evil (2019) s02e07 – S Is for Silence

Silence is a humdinger of a concept episode. It’s so good it doesn’t even matter at least two plot questions never get resolved or even seriously addressed. However, one of them presumably will come up later in the season, involving an unexpected character. The team is investigating a possible sainthood at a monastery. It’s a silent monastery—it figures into the plot—so no talking. It’s also super-sexist, so Katja Herbers can’t play with the boys when they’re doing the saint investigation.

Instead, Herbers has to bond with young nun Alexandra Socha, who’s doing a bunch of manual labor while the monks sit around and pray. The monastery makes wine, and Socha gets the taste of recycling bottles and whiskey-soaking the barrels to sell said wine to hipsters. Socha turns out to be really important to the episode mystery, and the relationship between her and Herbers is easily the best single episode character development the show’s ever done. Excellent acting from Herbers and Socha, who never get to talk.

While Herbers has that arc—and generally gets cast aside from the main plot for her girl parts—Mike Colter and Aasif Mandvi also have their own plot lines. They’re only ever able to talk when they can get off the property (otherwise speaking will unleash a demon in the monastery because Catholicism is silly), so everyone’s got to get through their own plot, mostly on their own. Mandvi’s investigating the miracles and the demon and gets scared. He also gets to bond with one of the monks over geek stuff.

Colter bonds with boss monk Kenneth Tigar (a very familiar character actor who’s delightful here) and thinks about maybe joining the silent order and just escaping the world. Colter gets the best self-reflection scene, which includes thought subtitles. They’re well-executed and well-written, but also really funny. And remind when “Evil” might be able to have a little more fun. This episode’s a break from the travails of the main plot lines; it’s almost wholly detached, save one of the big unresolved plot questions, which—thanks to some horrifying events—works out reasonably well.

Great acting from everyone, excellent direction—from show co-creator Robert King (he and other co-creator Michelle King get the script credit). It really shows off the potential of “Evil,” given the cast's ability and the creators' imagination.

There’s also a “Star Trek” reference, which seems really appropriate for “Evil” (now streaming exclusively on Paramount+), and an excellent sense of humor. The bonding arc between Herbers and Socha will probably be a series high, though I’d be surprised if they’re ever able to get a better overall episode out, either. Silence is a sublime success.

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021, Shaka King)

Judas and the Black Messiah has some third act problems. They end up drawing too much attention to LaKeith Stanfield’s character—the Judas—not having enough, well, character. Especially since director King uses footage of the real guy (it’s a true story) in the denouement, after opening the film with Stanfield in old age makeup playing the guy in the footage.

The film’s about Fred Hampton (The Black Messiah, played by Daniel Kaluuya) and Bill O’Neal (Stanfield). Hampton was the chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party. O’Neal is the FBI informant who aided in his murder. In 1989, O’Neal gave an interview for Eyes on the Prize 2 where he explained his informant status and complicity in the murder. The entire transcript is available online, with King using some of the unaired footage, which suggests he had access to the whole thing. Only O’Neal—in the interview—utterly copped out on accepting any responsibility for being a Judas. And the film doesn’t empathize with him about it, severely knocking down the effectiveness of Stanfield’s performance and even story arc. Particularly since—after an action beat—instead of seeing Stanfield’s reaction, the film uses Jesse Plemons’s white FBI guy as the scene protagonist. Basically once we get a scene of Martin Sheen in J. Edgar Hoover makeup being a scumbag and Plemons deciding he’s going to go along to get along, that plot line starts going downhill.

It unfortunately coincides with Hampton’s temporary release from jail, which has King shifting the perspective on his storyline from Kaluuya to Dominique Fishback, as Kaluuya’s conflicted girlfriend. So. Third act problems. The film’s able to do a last minute save thanks to the historical facts, which it presents on title cards (though, given Stanfield’s narrating from go and then the title of the film, it might’ve been better with the cards at the beginning versus the end); King does that ever precarious move in the biopic of bringing in the real people. It works thanks to Fishback’s person’s future, but also—and more complicated—Fred Hampton footage. The title cards draw attention to Hampton’s age at the time of his assassination—twenty-one—though Kaluuya’s not twenty-one. And Stanfield’s not twenty-one either. So there’s this biopic-y feel all of a sudden; it doesn’t have long enough to be problematic (would it have been better with age appropriate leads, et cetera) because of the real Hampton footage.

It’s impossible to have someone—anyone—play Fred Hampton. Even with the magic Kaluuya makes in his performance, it’s nothing like the actual Fred Hampton. Even in a thirty second clip, it’s clear he’s singular and the tragedy of the story punctures the soul. So King manages to all of a sudden go unsteady with the real O’Neal footage—basically using it to cop out to not giving Stanfield a fuller character—then to immediately ratchet it tight with the rest of the title cards and the Hampton close. Even if the Hampton close does Kaluuya no favors. Between the actors and the truth, King chooses the latter.

Otherwise, Judas and the Black Messiah is spectacular.

Until the second Sheen scene—Sheen opens the film lecturing to an auditorium of FBI agents about the dangers of Black people getting rights (generally getting rights; he gets specific in the scene opposite Plemons later) and it’s unclear he’s J. Edgar Hoover, unless the makeup was supposed to be a giveaway—but until that second Sheen scene, it’s Kaluuya’s film. Stanfield and his occasional narration and his meeting up with Plemons is just the narrative angle on introducing Kaluuya and the Black Panther chapter.

Kaluuya transfixes. He starts quiet in a speech to a college—where he meets Fishback and she plants the seeds to their romance, which is fantastic throughout—getting louder and louder until he sort of projects out of the screen. It’s one of the great performances from go, with Kaluuya capably handling his reduced presence and King’s revised narrative distances. But he’s the film. Even when he’s no longer the film, he’s the film. Right up until reality crashes in.

Stanfield’s good but it’s a bland part. Everyone else in the Panther party is better, starting with Fishback, but also supporting players Ashton Sanders and—especially—Albee Smith. Smith ends up with the most consistently tracked arc (versus Stanfield’s arc really being Plemons’s, Kaluuya’s transferring to Fishback) and it’s phenomenal. Darrell Britt-Gibson gets to play the sturdy sidekick guy throughout and is ever reliable. Great cast, great performances. King does really well with his actors.

Technically, it’s always outstanding. Sean Bobbitt’s photography is great, Craig Harris and Mark Isham’s score, Kristan Sprague’s editing, Sam Lisenco’s production design is excellent. Judas always looks, sounds, and moves great.

Okay, minus the Sheen and FBI stuff. King doesn’t know how to do the bad guys winning.

Judas is a big, gut-wrenching success for Kaluuya, Fishback, and King.

The Alienist (2018) s02e05 – Belly of the Beast

Did I say nice things last time about Lara Pulver, who plays the object of Daniel Brühl’s affection. I need to take them back. She and Brühl go on an Absinthe date and it’s a very underwhelming scene.

We’ve just recovered from the cliffhanger postscript and the whole city is looking for Rosy McEwen. Everyone’s busy and distracted enough—both the character and the writers, it turns out—they let Dakota Fanning gets away with not really calling the cops to a crime scene. Instead Douglas Smith (who looks so underwhelmed to be here) and Matthew Shear stand-in for the cops, which doesn’t seem likely.

The writers distraction has to do with keeping Ted Levine away from Fanning even though they ought to be on a collusion course. Levine has a pretty nice moment—for him on this show—opposite Michael McElhatton as the show closes down one of its plot lines. I was wondering how they were going to serialize the story and apparently we’re getting the first four episodes doing one thing, the second four episodes doing something else. With some crossover. But with McEwen established as the main villain now… well, time to concentrate on the “Angel of Darkness.”

So it’d be nicer if McEwen were better. Or if the narrative weren’t weird about her. She and boyfriend Frederick Schmidt’s sex life gets a very unnecessary emphasis, while trying to gross out the audience. And Fanning and Brittany Marie Batchelder. Black woman Batchelder gets some more to do, including having Matt Letscher and daughter Emily Barber—Barber is ostensible man of action Luke Evans’s fiancée—be racist at her just to show off how awful rich people were in 1898 or whatever, but nothing after that message is delivered.

The conclusion is thriller stuff for Fanning and Evans, adequately directed by Clare Kilner, and while the episode’s fair for this series… if I’d noticed Gina Gionfriddo co-writing when I watched it… I might’ve gotten hopeful. I’m glad I didn’t see her name so I didn’t have to be disappointed.

The Alienist (2018) s02e04 – Gilded Cage

I did go into this episode somewhat hopeful. It’s not the same writer as last episode, but it’s the same director (Clare Kilner). Sadly, outside some good direction to Luke Evans, who still has zippo to do in the show—though he gets a subplot about supporting Black female reporter Brittany Marie Batchelder at the New York Times in the late 1800s and… I mean, okay, there are some jokes. The show doesn’t make them. But it’s not hard to roll your eyes at the show’s desperate attempt to elevate Evans to professional respectability without actually giving him anything to do for himself.

It’s fine, I mean, Batchelder is good. Better than most of the cast. But she really ought to be working with Dakota Fanning because it’s Dakota Fanning’s show.

The episode’s main plot is Fanning’s detective Melanie Field undercover at Michael McElhatton’s hospital, which is also an abortion clinic for the rich guy’s mistresses, whether they want an abortion or not. There’s some actual tension and suspense with that storyline, which is something for “The Alienist: Angel of Darkness.” The first season was viciously cruel to its characters. This season is a lot less intense for them (and the viewer), despite the whole kidnapped baby thing. Especially since it seems possible the currently kidnapped baby is going to survive. It seems long (halfway?) into the season to kill it later.

Oh, there’s also Evans’s engagement ball, which Fanning kind of crashes and kind of ruins by being supportive of Evans but not romantically interested in him, a very evil thing for a woman to do, no doubt. Lots of jokes at Evans’s fiancée Emily Barber’s expense. Though no creepy stuff this time for her and dad Matt Letscher. I’ve cooled on Letscher on the show. The characters are all very one note, especially this season’s characters; even Ted Levine in his leprechaun impression is better than the new players.

There’s a potentially interesting development after the big—and narratively destitute—suspense sequence. It’d help a lot if Field were better or the writing were better. The episode introduces Lara Pulver as a love interest for Daniel Brühl, which is not a great sequence but if it keeps Brühl from messing up the main plot, I guess it’s fine.

The episode is decidedly lesser than the previous one, but… at least it’s half over. And maybe the previous episode’s writer will be back. Fingers crossed anyway.

The Alienist (2018) s02e03 – Labyrinth

Okay, whoever oversees “The Alienist” and thought to hire Gina Gionfriddo to write this episode but not the whole series… is it good this person hired a competent writer, or is it bad they knew to hire a competent writer but chose not to the rest of the time. Given the show is all about Dakota Fanning and her late nineteenth century female detective agency—Gionfriddo writes Fanning so well I want a team-up with “Miss Fisher,” time differences be damned—someone should’ve thought to get a writer who can write for Fanning. And Gionfriddo does a fantastic job with it. It does from being peculiarly not as bad as usual to actually not bad to wait a second to oh, wow, it’s actually good. Is “Alienist: Angel of Darkness” going to be good now?

No.

No, it is not. Because even though Gionfriddo writes this great arc for Fanning as she goes to visit Michael McElhatton’s hospital of horrors, where she meets and bonds with nurse Rosy McEwen, everything falls apart once Fanning checks in with Daniel Brühl. There’s a big exposition dump as Fanning recounts everything, which manages to be double negative—not only is it an utter waste of the audience’s time, having Fanning report to Brühl’s got some optics. Or would, if anyone was pretending Brühl’s important to the story. Oh, wait, he gets Bruna Cusí to almost sort of remember something important but not really and it takes up half the episode and they pretend it’s thrilling and dangerous.

Except it’s not.

The good stuff is the McEwen and Fanning bonding stuff and the Fanning detecting stuff. The rest of it is just “Alienist” crap, complete with Matthew Shear’s ostensible C plot turning out to be an absolutely nothing subplot because “Alienist” loves to feint at subplots for the familiar background players. Always has.

And Luke Evans?

He’s in this show still.

It’s unclear why. Even more so than Brühl. Just give Fanning a show. And hire Gionfriddo to run it.

Time Lapse (2014, Bradley King)

While I do not have much if anything nice to say about Time Lapse, including not liking the title, it’s somewhat admirable director and co-writer King and producer and co-writer Bp Cooper were able to keep it going for an hour forty. They sort of faked it past the ninety minute mark, sort of into actual indie territory but also not. Because despite being able to get that hour forty from a movie with three characters and two locations. Guest stars are infrequent and brief. Jason Spisak’s questionably Russian bookie shows up the most but it’s not like Spisak helps the movie. More actors wouldn’t help. In fact, having Amin Joseph and Sharon Maughan just around a little bit, they seem a lot better than they might if they were doing more.

The most surprising thing about Time Lapse is it isn’t Canadian. It was not filmed in Canada. Danielle Panabaker is not Canadian. I watched “The Flash” for five years; always assumed she was Canadian. Lead but second-billed because he’s not on “The Flash” Matt O’Leary. Also not Canadian. Very surprised. George Finn—who basically does a Kyle Gallner impression, which is a very strange approach to one’s acting choices but whatever—he’s not Canadian. I think I’m giving Canada an undeserved bad rap these days. Canadians make “Kim’s” and “Schitt’s.” Americans do not.

Anyway. My probably stale distrust of Canadian productions aside, Time Lapse is kind of… well, it’s basically Shallow Grave with a time travel MacGuffin thrown in to keep things interesting until the inevitable if not predictable—got to get it to the hour forty over the ninety minutes—plot twists in the third act. King and Cooper, as writers, have some good broad concepts and no idea how to execute them in the script and the ideas they do confidently execute, particularly in the third act, are where the movie loses whatever goodwill it’d been passively culling for eighty-five minutes. O’Leary has a few good moments. Not the monologues or the big eureka moments, but he does have some decent to solid moments of acting. He doesn’t seem miscast. Whereas Panabaker and Finn are both quite obviously miscast. Finn’s just terrible. I mean, yes, the dialogue’s atrocious and the character relationships lack requisite depth but Finn’s still pretty terrible. Panabaker’s just terribly written and miscast. She’s got a really bad part. It’s frankly inconceivable King and Cooper could pull it off. Any of it really.

Including believably costuming and making up Finn.

With a higher concept, Time Lapse might be watchable—if long (after a mind-numbing first act, the second bounces back hard and is genuinely engaging for a while). Or a better cast. Or better filmmakers. Sadly it doesn’t have any of those things.

Though nothing is ever worse than Andrew Kaiser’s music. It’s atrocious and there’s a lot of it.

Fleabag (2016) s01e01

I’m going into “Fleabag” fairly cold; I know it’s supposed to be great, I know Phoebe Waller-Bridge is supposed to be great (and she was funny in Star Wars Han Solo in a voice performance and men hate her Carrie Fishering the new James Bond), and I know she talks to the camera. And I knew about the Obama thing. But I didn’t realize it was kind of like stand-up visualized….

And I also realize if I’d been watching it in 2016 when it first streamed, I’d probably have a “Louie”-related name for this comedy sub-genre.

But “Fleabag” also occupies a fairly filthy—by, let’s say, 1990s standards—comedy space. Waller-Bridge’s narrator delights in the being a degenerate, which leads to some really funny scenes but also potentially presses some sympathy boundaries. Is there going to be a point where “Fleabag” goes too far….

I mean, I’m sure for some viewers but whatever.

I also don’t want to suggest it’s limit-testing comedy or Waller-Bridge is toying with the idea of sympathetic or reliable narrators. The episode is very much this lyrical look at a day in the narrator’s life, through her perception of the events; a stand-up joke delivered like a sonnet reading in camera aside while physically rendered in, you know, expert twenty-first century comedy detail. We don’t appreciate how much better comedy film and television have gotten in the last fifteen years, just in terms of visual possibility.

Or I don’t appreciate it enough.

So with “Fleabag,” episode one, which introduces Waller-Bridge’s narrator, her sister (Sian Clifford), her father (Bill Paterson), wicked stepmother (Olivia Colman), and blokes of various importance—there’s little portent to Tim Kirkby’s direction. But it’s excellent—the way it showcases Waller-Bridge without spotlighting; the narrative distance is exquisite, as is the show’s sense of timing. It always waits just the right amount after the punchlines.

I’m also now vaguely aware the project started as a stage monologue performance from Waller-Bridge, which makes a lot of sense, but I’m probably remaining ignorant until after I watch the show. Probably.

Space Force (2020)

Unloved and Misunderstood

“Space Force” | Season one, 10 episodes | Netflix, 2020

While comedic sitcoms usually take a while to find their footing on the way to a successful vehicle, the creators of “Space Force” seem to be striding the fence here in their pursuit of a balance between comedy and darker social satire. Steve Carnell and Greg Daniels have literally packed each 30 min episode with enough material to stretch it to an hour, but that would effect the flow too much, so “Space Force” conforms to the half hour format in hopes of finding an audience with the average limited attention span for comedies these days.

Carnell plays the general in charge of Space Force, Trump’s latest invention to keep his simple take on reality and romantic notion of what armed forces should be now. Now I should state that Trump is never mentioned by name, nor are really any references here specific, but alert sycophants should pick it up they’re talking about here and now. While some of these jokes are simple and obvious, “Space Force” is loaded with quieter, subtler, textural elements that belie more than just your typical half hour sitcom.

First, casting John Malkovich as his civilian counterpart, is a perfect compliment/foil for Carell’s by the numbers, stiff, obedient military character. They really don’t plow against one another in the typical protagonist/antagonist relationship, but rather compliment each other in their cooperation and clashes, bringing for a genuinely unique approach to what one would be expecting from such a relationship. The setting of “Space Force,” with its pseudo sci-fi action genre, makes the most of the thirty minute drive toward a conclusion with lots of tidbits that you have to look for to appreciate totally. It’s not necessarily about the absurd reality of its situation, but the reactions and motivations of its characters here that keep you interested. The nuances of their relationships, coinciding with the genuinely human dictates of what they’re about drive your interest.

It has plenty of humor, but no laugh tracks here, you either are paying attention and getting the jibes, or you’re not, which is ok. The serious manner depicting its characters gives it a feel of caring and understanding, not two dimensional characters in service of the unusual two plot story carried to a neat conclusion, but gives it an outlier feel.

Also present in this dramedy are some solid use of bit casting, giving its humor weight and double take seriousness for a two edged sword type of approach. While it’s finding its way, Space Force never goes the easy route in its ten episodes (except for perhaps the one featuring a competition between two warring military factions to control Space Force). Also wildly unusual are Carell’s relationships with his wife (Lisa Kudrow, of all actors, who was thrown in jail for life after the first episode for a reason we still don’t know), his complicated, uncomfortable yet very funny scenes with a female head contractor at the base, and his abrasive, yet acceptable ones with his rival heads of the other branches of the armed services of whom Space Force is consuming larger monetary budgets than theirs. Jimmy Yang, quietly and carefully understated as Malkovich’s head assistant, and Tawny Hewsome, as Carell’s aide de camp in a spectrum of roles, are fleshed out nicely, and add greatly to overall recipe. Perhaps Diana Silvers, as his put upon daughter, is still in its developmental infancy stage, is the least satisfying, but since she plays it straight and isn’t out of place I’ll forgive this.

The stories of “Space Force” aren’t just about the ridiculousness of the current world and of the current Washington administration, or even the semi fantasy world the characters live in. While it’s finding its feet in its first ten episodes while trying something different, it succeeds more often than not, and I genuinely hope to see a second to witness whether they succeed. A personal experiment for Carell and Daniels, one that deserves to find an audience and reach its conclusion.