When President Trump announced in June 2018 the setting up of a new US military unit called Space Force, it was hard to take it seriously.
It sounded like a bad Hollywood sci-fi parody and you half expected "from the creators of Police Squad!' to be added to the title or Leslie Nielsen to appear on a poster promoting it.
To make matters worse, when the President unveiled the new logo for his big idea during his impeachment trial in January, it looked awfully like the logo from 'Star Trek'.
Trump's Space Force dream was waiting to be satirised and Netflix stepped into that breach, commissioning a 10 episode series from Steve Carell and Greg Daniels, his collaborator on the US version of 'The Office'.
As the series prepared for its launch in May, expectations were sky high.
As the world wrestled with the grim reality of Coronavirus, we all wanted a good comedy to lift our spirits.
Carell was cast as General Mark R Naird, the first commander of the fictional version of Trump's new unit but there was an impressive supporting cast too headed by John Malkovich as the chief scientist, Dr Adrian Mallory.
Lisa Kudrow, Noah Emmerich, Fred Willard, Dan Bakkedahl and Jane Lynch were all given roles.
So why does Netlix's sitcom never achieve lift off?
At the start of 'Space Force's inaugural 10 episode run, Carell's military hero General Naird is summoned to the Pentagon by Bakkedahl's Secretary of Defense John Blandsmith, believing he is about to be made the head of the US Air Force.
Emmerich's arrogant General Kick Grabaston, Naird's military nemesis, gets the plum job.
Naird is handed the role of Commander of Space Force and is in a state of shock.
To make matters worse, Baird's wife Maggie, played by Kudrow, emits a weird crying noise when he informs her they will be moving from Washington DC to Space Force's headquarters in Colorado.
Maggie, for reasons never explained, doesn't make it to Colorado though and ends up in prison.
Nevertheless Naird goes to Colorado with his surly teenage daughter, Diana Silvers' Erin who resents being made to uproot from the US capital.
The team assembled around him at Space Force is mostly oddball, with varying degrees of competence.
Malkovich's smart but exasperated Dr Mallory leads a team of sceptical scientists that includes Jimmy O Page's Dr Chan Kaifang.
There's a vacuous, incompetent, millenial, social media obsessed communications consultant, Ben Schwartz's F Tony Scarapiducci - often referred to (cover your ears) as "Fuck Tony".
Naird's adjutant, Don Blake's General Bradley Gregory is so ill equipped to serve as a deputy, you wonder how he attained his rank.
There's a running joke about Alex Sparrow's Russian space liaison Captain Yuri 'Bobby' Telatovich who seems to only be there to obtain state secrets for the Kremlin, even when he is dating Erin.
Tawny Newsome's pilot Captain Angela Ali seems to be the most competent of the US military and emerges as a candidate to be an astronaut.
Having assembled this cast, with the late Fred Willard also playing Naird's father, Carell and Daniels somehow manage to squander the opportunity to create anything remotely funny.
It is hard to believe a project featuring Carell could fail to raise one laugh but prepare to be amazed, if you can bother wading through the 10 episode run.
As a political satire, 'Space Force' doesn't even ignite one cylinder.
Oblique references are made to Trump during the show - Naird is told the President expects boots on the moon by 2024 but the note actually says boobs.
Trump's penchant for business people being catapulted into roles they are ill equipped for is parodied in an episode where Kaitlin Olson's tech entrepreneur Edison Jaymes is called in by the President to help.
However none of these jokes have sufficient bite and it seems beyond commissioning a series poking fun at the concept of Space Force, Carell and Daniels are not prepared to boldly go beyond doing that.
There's an attempt to even the political score with a poke at the Democrats, with Concetta Tomei, Alan Blumenfeld and Ginger Gonzaga playing versions of House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate minority leader Chuck Schuner and the left-wing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But the episode where they lead a sceptical Congressional delegation's visit to the Space Force headquarters quickly runs out of gas.
Watching comedy should never feel like a chore but every episode feels exactly like that.
The overall impression is of a show that is so in love with its initial concept, it forgets you need humour.
Its plots and characters are so lazily constructed, you cannot be bothered to invest in them.
Episodes about animals being sent into orbit, a war games scenario with Garbaston's Air Force team and an attempt to root out a possible spy for the Indian Government are tired and frankly boring.
And the pervading sense of laziness is illustrated by the fact that Daniels and Carell can't even be bothered to explain why Kudrow's character is in prison.
With the exception of Malkovich, who desperately tries to breathe some life into the show's comatose scripts, there's a sense that a lot of talent is being wasted and underused.
Lynch barely gets to bare her comic teeth as the Navy's Commander in Chief.
Emmerich's Grabbaston seems flat and one dimensional.
Willard seems to be there because they needed someone to play an avuncular granddad.
It's hard to understand why Kudrow even agreed to a role that condemns her to the sidelines for much of the run.
In the absence of anything funny, Schwartz and Blake also overplay their hands by pretending to be zany, while Silver grumps her way through proceedings.
And while Malkovich and Carell undoubtedly have a decent comic chemistry, they are left floundering because the material is simply not up to scratch.
In an odd way, 'Space Force' seems aptly Trumpian.
It's a flashy production, accompanied by a huge fanfare, but lacking in any substance.
If Netflix wants to keep the engines burning, they would do well to call in someone with enough grit to do proper, bear your fangs satire.
However Armando Iannucci is not available.
He already has his own sci-fi spoof on the go 'Avenue 5'.
It seems Netflix, you have a problem.
('Space Force' was made available for streaming on Netflix on May 29, 2020)
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