Moonbase 8

One of the reasons Moonbase 8 works as well as it does is that it’s deliberately not telling stories on a grand scale. Its episodes and its scope are streamlined and focused, and the things its characters confront are purposely not grand at all. It helps, too, that the team behind it shares the same deadpan comic sensibility.

Unlike other ambitious adventures into the night sky, “Moonbase 8” is grounded; there’s room for creative expansion in future seasons, but this is a small-scale mission that’s off to a solid start.

While “Moonbase 8” is often more relaxed than laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a step up from Netflix’s “Space Force,” which tried way too hard and wound up being seriously underwhelming.

The series might lack the audacity and boundary-pushing of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! or Mister America, but it has enough low-key moments of invention—like the trio taking time out from their training to gamely participate in product testing for a new Snickers bar, or a climatic celebratory dance in newly delivered NASA jumpsuits, soundtracked by Billy Joel—to make you want to see what direction this star-studded lunar vehicle is going to steer toward next.

Moonbase 8 is, initially, more lackluster even if bursts of humor and humanity break through the subdued (or possibly "subtle," if you prefer) trappings. It could be more or better.

A droll but dull comedy. [9 - 22 Nov 2020, p.8]

Almost all of it just lies flat, and the choice to give the theoretically meatier dramatic material to Armisen rather than Reilly feels particularly odd. All three guys come across as cartoons, but Skip especially, because pathos has never been part of Armisen’s indelible skill set.