The Office may be leaving Netflix, but the streaming service is keeping Steve Carell. The iconic actor behind Michael Scott has once again reunited with Greg Daniels, the creator of the fan-favourite NBC series, for a whole new kind of workplace comedy. While The Office was set in the dull daily grind of paper company Dunder-Mifflin, Space Force kicks things up eight thousand notches, with Carell playing four-star general Mark R. Naird, new leader of Space Force, the sixth branch of the US Armed Forces. In the first trailer for the series, we see that just because the Space Force involves life, death, and the government, doesn't mean the employees are any more competent or the daily goings-on any less hilarious.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Naird is the reluctant leader of the Space Force branch, which is a real thing once uttered by Donald Trump.
"This is a great adventure we are embarking on today," Carell says in the trailer to inspire his new team. "There will be setbacks but greatness was never won without sacrifice."
That sacrifice includes an exploding prototype that was worth the cost of "four middle schools."
It's for this reason that Naird's reports don't necessarily believe in him or the mission, and it doesn't help that he's juggling both the entire militarisation of space and family issues. Diana Silvers stars as Carell's daughter, whose behaviour in school earns her a suspension. That, plus resistance from the government, puts Naird under so much pressure that he has no choice but to break out into a rendition of "Kokomo" by The Beach Boys. This is a comedy, after all.
The series also stars John Malkovich, Tawny Newsome, Ben Schwartz, Lisa Kudrow, Jimmy O. Yang, Noah Emmerich, Alex Sparrow and Don Lake. Space Force premieres on Netflix May 29. Watch the teaser trailer below.