This season picks up some time (maybe 6 months?) after the end of Season 1. The astronauts on the moon were all able to safely return to Earth. While season 1 had 10 episodes, season 2 only gets 7.
The season-wide theme is downsizing, err, I mean budget cuts. The current administration hates Space Force and just wants to slash their budget into nothing. The ridiculousness of the show has been amped up for this season. Did I say ridiculousness? I meant implausibility. They have a single manned mission, already enroute, to Mars. But because of budget cuts, the actual landing on Mars is cut. How is this possible? It isn’t. I am guessing the greatest cost is building a spaceship and launching it. Since this has already happened, that is what is known as a sunk cost. So why scrap a mission that literally will cost nothing more? Because the writers are writers, and not people with brains.
The lone astronaut is either left to die in space or is making an 18 month journey to Mars and back for nothing (that isn’t clear to me). I guess don’t believe everything you see in the movie The Martian, America doesn’t care about saving one man going to the Red Planet. Informationally Patton Oswalt is the person who was sent on that mission, the spitting image of what you think of when you think ‘astronaut.’
Ben Schwartz brings back some of that manic energy of Jean-Ralphio as he is super excited about lots of things, except the idea of not getting a raise. Gen. Naird’s wife’s crime is still shrouded in mystery. Captain Angela Ali (Tawny Newsome) returns now as one of the main cast members. She doesn’t like being called a hero, even though she went to the moon and helped bring back both the American and Chinese crews alive. Gen. Naird’s daughter (Diana Silvers) gets a lot more screen time, as she is brought on as an intern. Dr. Chan Kaifang (Jimmy O. Yang) becomes a super awkward guy trying to create a relationship out of a one night stand. And Gen. Gregory (Don Lake) abandons his recurring gag from season 1 and becomes a main cast member. John Malkovich is still very good, although his character Dr. Mallory seems to get more credentials every episode. Steve Carell is still Steve Carell, they do make a joke about his bizarre accent at one point, which was a big negative for me in season 1.
Overall the season was pretty blah. There were few laughs from me. Tim Meadows as the Secretary of Defense is, as he always is, a great addition, but overall I found the season kind of aimless and weird. Wacky in a not particularly funny kind of way.
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