Written by Peta Hardiman
I’m afraid Gary, there is no foreseeable outcome where you survive
Final Space is a Netflix Original 10-part animated series directed by Conan O’Brian. Originally marketed as a drama-comedy, it follows the adventures of Gary, a human nearing the end of his 5-year imprisonment aboard an otherwise empty space prison. Locked away for impersonating an officer in an attempt to land the girl then subsequently blowing up most of the street when he can’t quite work out how to drive the spacecraft he commandeered. Gary is our comedic relief character, in what turned out to be a much darker TV series than originally assumed.
If you watch the trailer for Final Space, you’d probably assume you where settling in to watch a TV show about a somewhat awkward guy, who manages to bumble along with his friends, and find a way to save the universe: semi-serious, but with enough humour to cut the drama. What you get instead is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.
During the last days (Day 1818 specifically) of his imprisonment, while watching what appears to be The Princess Bride, he’s hit in the face (literally) by a small green alien he dubs Mooncake.
They bond right away, which turns out to be a bad idea, because Mooncake is being pursued by the evil Lord Commander. Tiny, green, and incredibly benevolent looking, Mooncake possesses the ability to tear a hole in the fabric of the universe. This will lead to ‘final space’, a tactic the Lord Commander wished to utilise to cure himself of his mortal, at the expense of most of the life in the universe. Duh. This leaves Gary and his new best friend, alongside his robotic minder KVN (pronounced Kevin), his ships AI, Hue and a ship full of droids, to fight off the interstellar bounty hunters the Lord Commander has hired to reclaim Mooncake.
Final Space exceeded my expectations in a whole lot of ways, but perhaps most notably in how emotionally invested I got in the characters, most especially Avocato, one of the bounty hunters assigned to hunt down Mooncake for the Lord Commander, who’s plotline revolves around protecting the son being held captive by the man who’s giving him his orders.
Avocato joins Gary in his attempts to keep Mooncake away from the Lord Commander despite knowing that simply giving him back to the Lord Commander would be an easier way of getting his son back. Although, obviously, he has no way of knowing that Little Cato and himself would survive the opening of Final Space. The dilemma, however, hits you right in the feels. A father having to choose to leave his son in prison, at the hands of an evil dictator—even with the state of the universe at stake—is not the kind of decision you’d expect in a comedy show.
Of all the characters, Gary is the weak link, which is less-than-ideal, given that he’s the main character. However, it feels almost essential to have at least one aspect of really slap-stick basic comedic relief in a show that after episode three gets real, really fast. And he does have his redeeming moments. He’s incredibly loyal to his friends, and displays some incredibly heroic behaviour—not everyone would agree to traversing a hole in time-space, even for the good of the universe. But he’s very much a ‘one liner during sombre moments’ kind of character and borders a little bit on the crazy side with regards to Quinn. Quinn is the one main female character (well, sort of two) and was the woman Gary got sent to prison for trying to impress. During said imprisonment, it’s shown that Gary sent her daily videos describing how much he missed her. Which is a bit strange considering he’d never really had a chance to meet her properly.
Plot wise, Final Space was well-paced. With enough action and drama to keep the pace up, without feeling rushed or too slow, it moved along steadily for 10 episodes. The storyline isn’t a brand-new concept, but rather one that we’ve come to expect from years of shows like Futurama. That being said, the fact that it followed a single plot direction rather than making stand-alone episodes is a slightly newer concept. What was perhaps the best part of Final Space was that it didn’t shy away from emotion, either by way of character death, or even humanising the enemy. All of which cumulatively left me feeling that the producers wanted to make something a bit more than just another comedy show. Just look at the way each episode starts; Gary floating in space, surrounded by debris, talking to Hue as another minute of his countdown to oxygen runout passes. Certainly, that’s a bit more emotional than these shows usually get.
Overall, I really enjoyed watching Final Space. I binge watched all 10 parts in one day (it’s only 4 hours or so) and found myself getting somewhat unwillingly drawn into the lives of the characters on-screen. Final Space is working from a template that we’ve definitely seen before, but it’s using different ways to make the journeys of its characters seem like they’re worth taking.
