Avenue 5 is not just good – it’s galactically good.

Putting aside any expectations for another serving of Iannucci’s savage satire, Avenue 5 is still a sharply-written comedy with a strong cast and an enjoyable mix of highbrow punchlines, broad physical comedy, and silly sight gags, one involving a radiation shield of human excrement.

Fans of Iannucci’s razor sharp wit may be let down by a show that doesn’t have the laughs per minute of his last HBO Emmy juggernaut, but be patient and you’ll find that “Avenue 5” develops into its own bizarre creation, a commentary with memorable characters on how disaster makes actors of us all. I’m not sure how this plays out over the run of a series, but it will certainly be entertaining to watch it unfold.

Avenue 5 is taking its time to find a theme and story to coalesce round them. By the end of the four episodes available for review, the plot had been back and forth along a few grooves that were already beginning to feel well-worn. The rest remained a disparate collection of delights and longueurs, despite the formidable talent before and behind the cameras.

Some of them [characters], most notably Gad’s petulant Judd, are best in small doses. Others, like Laurie’s shapeshifting captain and his unexpected foil of Billie, get better and better the more we get to know them. ... If “Avenue 5” wants to get more mileage out of its premise, it’ll have to find some newer gears within it for its excellent cast and intriguing characters to play with beyond pure frustration.

“Avenue 5” has impressive visuals and cool sets. And every once in a while, someone from the gifted cast makes contact with a real zinger. Mostly, though, this is a stunningly off-key effort, delivered in a broad and ear-shattering tone.

Hugh Laurie — steering the (space)ship here as bearded Captain Ryan Clark — can’t save this HBO series from its over-reliance on leaden jokes and cardboard-cutout characters.

Avenue 5 looks really promising. I love the basic premise of the show and I have no doubt Armando Ianucci will fully exploit the show’s comical potential in future episodes. I’m on board!

Good production values & reasonable performances in service of dumb jokes and cruel snark passing for wit. Just not my taste.

Nah. Trying to be the Orville or maybe loosely Red Dwarf, but its all over the place. I like Billie, but only because she's hot. So much not really going on here.

I gave it a shot solely because of Hugh Laurie, he didn’t carry me to the end, i just don’t get what the creators are trying here, its got some of the hallmarks of great British comedies but they have been **** as if they are aiming for an American audience, there is a Douglas Adams vibe in the setting, a big fake cruise so confident in its automation that all the crew are essentially just actors incapable of facing catastrophe, but the scope is too big, British comedy doesn't work with large ensembles, there is no identifiable straight man to tether the crazy too and the characters are too pigeon holed into roles, someone desperately needed to be on set to tell all the actors “never go full ****” Compare these characters to say Dave Lister, yes he is a slob and yes he is stupid and yes he’s thrown into wacky catastrophe in episode 1 but his reactions to this are believable and relatable and thats where the humour came from, Dave was never full **** slob, he was that roommate you had at Uni slob. Or to Hugh’s own prince/lieutenant George the mans a caricature of British upper class which made his isolated madness and general ignorance of reality a cross that the normal man personified as blackadder must bear. Even george wasn't full **** ignorant snob The engineer seems like shes set up to be the straight man, but making her responsible for a death in the first half robs her of that and she cant be everywhere at once to balance out the infuriating interactions between stock unfaithful couple with stock nihilist PR guy or stock busybody with stock rich moron.

It's really weird this got made. It seems to dwell for a good portion of the season on a joke that it took wall-e ten minutes to make ten years ago. "idiocracy crony capitalism may wind up landing ignorant people in space ships that they don't understand how to fly. The rich mostly play at being productive while the real heroes slave away in obscurity." The problem with these jokes is that they wouldn't be funny even if they were accurate enough to resonate. Nobody interested in science fiction isn't aware of programs like space x. All the characters that you're supposed to take for granted have serious existential problems. . as in I've never met or seen any version of them in existence. A captain who hasn't worked hard for their job, a space program owner who doesn't understand engineering, a nihilists who isn't in high school, crew that is only show, people who think American accents are more authoritative than British accents (never existed just hasn't I'm American we love British accents a lot and always have they specifically sound authoritative) Ironically the diverse engineering team is by far the most believable part of the show - which somehow seems to be thematically problematic since they're clearly meant to be a narrative flip except they're already the most believable part and it's still now - whereas the show is set in the future, where it will presumably be more diverse? It's all a bit sadly angry ignorant college cry. If it's just meant as a bit of funny fun then the themes shouldn't be allegorical - or at least it should be allegory that is somewhat reflective of reality on any level. I understand that some people may find the allegories compelling. . . that's sad for them I guess. I hope they can do good things despite misunderstanding reality so deeply. People often do. There are millions of little misunderstandings about real life and accidentally self defeating loop holes throughout. For example the "real engineering team" works in dirty disorganized spaces and don't appear to shower even though nobody is making them. This is not only a poor reflection of the actual behavior of ship crews but seems to insult the people that are supposed to be the heroes. It's hideous mistreatment is probably the funniest part of the show. Icing on the poo pie is that the musical score is for some other show entirely. It's just face spankingly bad. Over and over. Also it's a space show that trashes the only astronaut character. . . huh? There's plenty of funny things to do with an astronaut character but they make fun of him mainly for being a nerd. he's not cool hahaha, nobody will have sex with him hahaha . . in a sci-fi. . it's baffling. Maybe next time hire writers who are curious about meaning instead of children who think they have answers. Also having writers who like the source material would be smart.