Steve Carell is back with Space Force, a new Netflix comedy he co-created with The Office creator Greg Daniels, and it all happened in such an unusual way according to the Oscar nominee.
The new series follows Carell as Mark R. Naird, a decorated pilot with dreams of heading up the Air Force, but those dreams are dashed when he finds himself selected to lead the newly created sixth branch of the US Armed Forces: Space Force. Mark moves his family to Colorado where he and a team of scientists and Spacemen are tasked by the White House to get Americans up into the cosmos once again.
John Malkovich, Diana Silvers, Tawny Newsome and Ben Schwartz also star alongside Lisa Kudrow, Jimmy O. Yang, Noah Emmerich, Alex Sparrow and Don Lake. See the new trailer below.
It’s safe to say Carell is not playing another Michael Scott here. The trailer also teases some of the guest stars including Jane Lynch and Fred Willard.
“Space Force came around in a rather atypical way. Netflix had this premise that they thought might make a funny show — the idea made everybody laugh in a meeting, an idea of a show about the origins of a fictitious Space Force. I heard about the idea through my agent, and Netflix pitched the show to me, and then I pitched the show to Greg, and we all had the same reaction to it,” Carell explained in statements released by Netflix. There was no show, there was no idea aside from the title. Netflix asked, ‘Do you want to do a show called Space Force?’ And I pretty much immediately said, ‘Well yeah, sure. That sounds great.’ And then I called Greg, and I said, ‘Hey, you want to do a show called Space Force?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s do it.’ And it was really based on nothing, except this name that made everybody laugh. So we were off and running.”
Daniels explained the two brainstormed quite a few times, creating the Mark Naird character and what they wanted to say with the show.
“We realized that the story had beautiful visuals and a mythic quality, and it echoed some of America’s best moments. It had a lot of heroism and yet it also had a strong satirical element. Suddenly everybody has realized that there are riches to be had on the moon, and we’ve got to stake our claim,” Daniels said. “It feels like there’s now a scramble to colonize space. The contrast between that and the super hopeful early days of NASA, when it was just such an achievement for all of mankind to get a person on the moon, is a good subject for satire.
“Once we had just the concept of Space Force itself, Greg and I sat down and we asked, ‘Well, what’s the show going to be? What will it be about?’ And we landed on the idea that it should be about the inception of Space Force. It should be about the person who is entrusted with the development, the creation of a new branch of the Armed Forces. And my character, General Mark R. Naird, is the person who’s drafted into creating this branch,” Carell added.
“We wanted to make sure that we were being accurate and more than respectful — I would say complimentary — of the military virtues that Steve’s character holds. We have astronaut advisors, science advisors, and our military advisor, Mark Vazquez, has been very useful in teaching us about military behavior,” Daniels concluded. “Both Steve and I have relatives in the military who we love and respect, and hope are going to enjoy watching the show.”
