An upcoming comedy show is boldly mocking what everyone else is, well, already mocking: The Space Force.
The military’s newest branch, which was officially established in December with the passage of this year’s defense appropriations bill, has faced a lot of tough questions since the idea was first announced: “what are they gonna do, clean up space trash?” or “yeah, but what will the song be,” and “who are they gonna fight, Space ISIS?“
It also spawned a satirical workplace comedy from Netflix titled, you guessed it, Space Force. Created by the guys behind The Office, Greg Daniels and Steve Carell, Space Force will star Carell alongside John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Tawny Newsome, Diana Silvers, Jimmy O. Yang, Alex Sparrow, Noah Emmerich, Fred Willard, and Jessica St. Clair, among others. The show is expected to premiere sometime in 2020.
Earlier this month the series’ Twitter account took a swipe at the military’s newest branch when they tossed out a mock-up of the uniform’s they’ll be using on set.
https://twitter.com/realspaceforce/status/1218666992540012551
The Twitter post came on the heels of a photo from the official Space Force account showing their new name tapes, which got a lot of news publications all hot and bothered for some reason, while everyone else wondered why they were rocking woodland camo.
Now, I can’t stress this enough, but Space Force (the show) is expertly trolling the actual Space Force, and it’s not just the uniform gag, or the fact that the comedy’s entire premise is built around (mockingly) answering the question “what the hell are we doing here?”
They even went so far as to grab the Twitter handle @realspaceforce .
That’s right. A Netflix show has a better account name than the military branch it’s based on, which is @SpaceForceDoD .
https://twitter.com/seewhatsnext/status/1085597548864200704
The Space Force (the military branch, since that’s something I feel like I have to specify these days) did not respond to Task & Purpose’s questions on whether the Netflix show’s Twitter handle had anything to do with their choice of account name, or why the military account is listed as having been created in March 2009, despite the Space Force not existing until late last year.
None of which is really surprising, after all, since we’re dealing with the great unknown. But the truth is out there, and we’ll be following this closely.