Originally an internet short, the first full season of Final Space arrived on Netflix in mid-2018. The animated sci-fi/space comedy/drama tells of Gary (voiced by co-creator Olan Rogers), an idealistic, if not delusional, prisoner on-board the spaceship Galaxy One who is sucked into an intergalactic struggle between The Lord Commander (a terrifying David Tennant) and a small, innocent looking creature he dubs Mooncake, which is in fact a planet destroying alien life-form.
+ the show absolutely nails both sides of it’s genre styles: the comedy is hilarious, and endlessly quotable, whilst the drama made for some painful silences. The small glimpses of something much darker beneath the surface are enough to keep you guessing, once you can deal with what you’ve seen
+ the cast of characters is fantastic, as humans, robots, animal-human hybrids and aliens all join the core cast at various points. Multi-eyed, overly inquisitive alien Tribore (also voiced by Rogers) is an absolute favourite of mine
+ various famous voices show up at times, with a cast including the aforementioned Tennant, as well as John DiMaggio, Gina Torres, Keith David and Ron Perlman (the latter two of which have prominent roles in Adventure Time, though amusingly they are reversed roles here)
– it seems to petty to judge a single season of 10 episodes on something like this: but it feels unfinished. At several points it felt as if plot lines were dropped or brought in from nowhere without the proper build-up (or recovery period) I feel they deserved. I’m sure this will be remedied in the future, but for now it is worth noting
> I found that the best way to describe the show was if Futurama was animated similarly to Adventure Time, and written by the team behind Rick and Morty. Having said that, the animation is not that CalArts noodle-arm style, and the writing is not quite as edgy or pop-science as Rick and Morty has become
Should you watch this show: If you are a fan of any of the shows listed above (and frankly, I doubt there is anyone who is not a fan of any of them) there will be something there for you. I enjoyed this, and while I don’t think it has knocked any of the top animated show of all time down a peg, it is a very clever, very enjoyable addition to the genre.
MoshFish Reviews 