Moonbase 8: Season 1

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.