Moonbase 8 is a comedy series created and written by Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker, Jonathan Krisel and John C. Reilly, and starring Armisen, Heidecker and Reilly in the lead roles.
Moonbase 8 is a story of three average astronauts in one of NASA’s moon base training simulators located in Arizona, who wish to make it to the actual Moon Base one day. It is a workspace comedy like The Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and many others but it is not even close to the fun you have watching these series.
As a whole, although the episodes had good content which seemed well-thought, it lacked the punch to make it a laughing riot. It gives you an insight not only in the lives of wannabe great astronauts but also three white men who are trying to compensate for the emotional baggage that they carry.
The actors have done a great job and picked the traits that define them really well but the script is lacklustre and lacks the punch that you’d expect. This year we also witnessed Steve Carell’s Space Force which failed miserably to entertain the audience, even though the performances given by the actors were commendable. Working on a similar theme, Moonbase 8, too, fails to deliver the laughs.
The series tries to highlight the various facets of living in a pseudo-environment – pretending to survive on the moon seems like quite the tough job. When a scorpion gets into one of the astronaut’s suit, he panics, starts running and tears it away. It’s a funny scene which worked in the favour of the astronaut because he was on Earth. However, would he be able to handle the stress and difficulties that he faces on the moon?
The comedy series also mocks the three individuals from time to time because they think they are extremely intelligent and brave and keeps praising themselves. This behaviour makes them look like self-satisfied idiots who are living in the utopia of their own.
Overall: Moonbase 8
Moonbase 8 does have the potential to do more than follow the trend of mindless comedy shows, however, if the first season is any indication, they really need to step it up. The series needs to work on its comic timing and better framing of dialogues. It was not able to utilize the perfect comic situations and as a result, it was a mess of boring and dragged out scenes.
It’s a good show for background noise, but if you’re expecting a riot of laughter and entertainment then this probably is not a good idea.
Moonbase 8 is streaming on Voot.
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