Name: Moonbase 8: Season 1
Genre: Comedy
Released: 2020
Duration: TNaNHNaNM
Cast: Fred Armisen, John C. Reilly, Tim Heidecker

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Three decisively mediocre astronauts (John C. Reilly, Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker) living in a NASA test environment vie for the chance to be selected to go to the moon. While working vigorously to complete their training, a series of unexpected circumstances forces the astronauts to question their own mental sanity, trust in each other and whether or not they’re cut out for space travel.

2020USAA24, Showtime

Comedy

All Reviews (8)

Creator:: Jonathan KriselTim Heidecker
Cast:: Fred ArmisenJohn C. ReillyTim Heidecker

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Dry

Stationed at NASA’s Moon Base Simulator in Winslow, Arizona, three dedicated astronauts (and one football champion) attempt to qualify for their first lunar mission.

Rats

Rook’s video correspondence with his family leads to a serious case of homesickness that has him contemplating leaving the team.

Quarantine

When Cap and Skip both get sick it leads to vastly different quarantine experiences for each of them. Rook is left alone with a new female member of the team.

Visitors

The team learns about the program’s budget cuts and what impact they will have on their mission going forward. When Elon Musk’s SpaceX sets up camp right next door, Cap, Skip and Rook invite them over for... MORE a welcoming tour and to make a mutually beneficial proposition.

Move the Base

When Cap becomes an unwitting participant in a psychological test created by Skip’s father, it leads to friction between the two of them. Rook proposes a game night as a team bonding exercise, but Cap... MORE has a more extreme solution in mind – to move the base.

Beef

When an angry group of ranchers threatens the team for invading their land, they’re forced to decide between abandoning the mission or standing their ground. With a cattle drive coming their way, Skip hatches a... MORE risky plan that requires them to use all their training to pull it off. Season finale.

Moonbase 8: Season 1 / Reviews

Vulture

One of the reasons Moonbase 8 works as well as it does is that it's deliberately not telling stories on a grand scale. Its episodes and its scope are streamlined and focused.

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Slant Magazine

The series suggests a more conventional comedy, with jokes that are intended to be taken at face value.

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Film Threat

Not exactly must-see viewing. It's a low-key comedy since it's just three guys isolated in a single location with an occasional visitor to spice things up. Fortunately for us, we're trapped with the right three guys.

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Rolling Stone

Almost all of it just lies flat, and the choice to give the theoretically meatier dramatic material to Armisen rather than Reilly feels particularly odd. All three guys come across as cartoons, but Skip especially, because pathos has never been part of Armisen’s indelible skill set.

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Boston Globe

When the material rises to the occasion of their talents, “Moonbase 8” is the kind of comedy Steve Carell’s “Space Force” wanted to be. ... But alas, the material. The writing has a flatness about it that, at first, seems like a comic tool intentionally trying to evoke a deadpan vibe — before it simply seems like a lack of imagination.

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A.V. Club

Even when the premise feels overly familiar in the wake of similar comedies (to say nothing of all the recent space-race dramas), Heidecker, Reilly, and Armisen generate enough oddball chemistry to power a remote lunar base.

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Variety

There is quite the understated humor that one would expect from the show’s stars and creators, which can make the series hard to get into at first. The first two episodes are certainly more of a light chuckle than any big laughs, but as the season progresses—and honestly, by the third episode—the show’s rhythms and idiosyncrasies are quite apparent. ... “Moonbase 8” is a project that manages to combine their [Armisen, Heidecker, Krisel, and Reilly's] collective talents into something both weird and heartfelt.

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RogerEbert.com

None of these three [actors] are rewriting their comedy handbooks as much as bringing their A-game to some sharp writing and allowing their different styles to bounce off each other. It makes for a tight, quirky comedy that has more laughs in its blessedly brief three-hour total running time for this six-episode season than most comedy films released this year.

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