If there ever was a lethal comedy combination from the early 00s it would be Michael Scott from The Office and Phoebe Buffay from Friends.
Imagining those two characters together (especially in the workplace) would certainly be the perfect disaster — confusion, mayhem, some seriously good banter and a whole lot of laughs would ensue.
Of course, streaming giant Netflix saw the potential of these two characters, and while they haven’t created the perfect mashup spin-off series, they have cast the actors that played them in a brand new workplace comedy.
Space Force will launch on May 29 on Netflix, starring Steve Carell as Mark R Naird, and Lisa Kudrow as his wife, Maggie.
The series will centre on Naird, a four-star general and decorated pilot who dreams of running the Air Force but instead finds himself tapped to lead the newly-formed sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces: the titular Space Force. Naird is then tasked by the White House to get back to the moon and achieve “total space dominance”. Meanwhile, his wife finds herself growing in a new direction after sublimating parts of herself to her husband’s career for two decades.
In a new trailer released by the streaming service, Carell’s character is seen to be struggling with his new-found command — with one colleague even calling his new gig a “sh– show”.
And while his world seems to be imploding around him, the commander has one way of calming himself down. Enter the relaxing tune Kokomo by The Beach Boys — but we’re warning you, you won’t be able to get the song out of your head for the rest of the day.
WATCH: The official trailer for Netflix’s Space Force. Story continues…
In a new interview with Carell (via Netflix), the actor said that the series 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,” Carell said.
“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. 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.”
Space Force was created by Greg Daniels and Carell (who co-created The Office) and also stars John Malkovich (Billions), Diana Silvers (Booksmart), Tawny Newsome (Brockmire), Ben Schwartz (BoJack Horseman), Jimmy O. Yang (Silicon Valley), Noah Emmerich (The Spy), Alex Sparrow (UnREAL) and Don Lake (Pup Academy).