Other Space – A Sci-Fi Show We’ve All Seen Before

In space, no one can hear you groan.

Paul Feig (of Bridesmaids and the upcoming all lady Ghostbusters movie fame) teamed up with Freaks and Geeks alums Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu to bring us Other Space. It's courtesy of Yahoo's original attempt to try and bring down Amazon. (Netflix laughs at both atop a giant pile of money)

It's about a bunch of loser 20 somethings (unlike the other loser 20 somethings on every other show) who are all given a ship for inexpiable reasons, get blasted into another universe, and have to...you're already not paying attention, are you?

On paper, it sounded like the american version of Red Dwarf. It's got the pedigree going for it and brought in the father of cult classic MST3K as well as the original voice of Crow. But in reality it plays more like the American pilot of Red Dwarf (which you should only watch if you are heavily sedated and/or trapped under a pallet of papadums.)

Before I get into the series review, I have to state a few things up front. I'm a huge MSTie. Like traded tapes, have all the books, introduced my husband to it, moved our honeymoon so we could catch Cinematic Titanic live, make my own iRiffs kinda of MSTie. I never get into the great Joel vs Mike debate and love them both equally.

Joel's voicing of Mayor Dewy on Steven Universe is adorable, and I look forward to hearing it every chance I can. Trace has a book called Silly Rhymes for Belligerent Children that cracks me up. I didn't come in to this wanting them to fail. The trailer for Other Space left me cold and wondering what was supposed to be funny, but even Pixar can have some bad trailers for great movies. Maybe they were saving all the good stuff for later.

The pilot opens with one Stewart Lipiski (Karan Soni) bringing hot dogs for his crew. During this mission, they get attacked and our plucky hero pulls of some idiotic move that saves them all. It turns out the dangerous mission no one ever survives from but Stewart did was all a simulation, a plot line ripped straight from a Star Trek movie (both the good and the bad one with Khan).

Back in a Holiday Inn meeting room we're all going to pretend is futuristic, the not-a-federation has decided "Fuck it, we're tired of looking competent." Despite the fact Stewart brought hot dogs to feed either actors or computer simulations during a test, they're going to give him his own ship.

Stewart is the eternally apologetic Gary Stu. Despite his being barely competent enough to handle a toaster, he's repeatedly handed everything he could ever want in life. Their maybe government, maybe corporation outfit gifted him a ship because their ratings were low and they wanted better PR. I'd have suggested filling the ship with adorable Otters to get up recruitment before the crew that's cobbled together to look good on a poster.

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