Against the void of space, Avenue 5 gleams. The luxury space
liner is three weeks into its maiden voyage, an eight week cruise around Saturn.
The ship’s design is sleek, with curved lines and a pristine white and gold
interior, and as the camera follows the confident, affable captain Ryan Clark
(Hugh Laurie), the calming score and smooth walk-and-talk direction reassures
the audience that they’re in safe hands. Yet right off the bat, something is
amiss on Avenue 5. One of the
helmsmen interrupts the captain to comment on a passenger’s name and appears
disinterested at best in his job, and over by the buffet line, an automated video
screen shows customer support crew member Matt Spencer (Zach Woods) inviting
passengers to brunch. This kind of ad would get old after a couple days in
space, let alone several weeks.
These discrepancies click into place when billionaire space
travel entrepreneur Herman Judd (Josh Gad) walks into frame. He’s the head of Judd
Galaxy, the company behind Avenue 5, and is an obnoxious, pampered baby. No one
in Judd’s life has pushed back on any of his decisions in a very long time,
even his seemingly professional right-hand-woman Iris Kimura (Suzy Nakamura).
Ryan is clearly exasperated with Judd, but even he puts up with Judd’s nonsense.
Suddenly the over-the-top decor, the incessant ads, and the
meaningless record-breaking—the largest yoga class in space!—all make sense.
Every aspect of the ship is based on Judd’s whims, and the premiere looks to be
setting up a capable core crew who will be tasked with juggling Judd’s
eccentricities alongside the squabbles of the entitled, difficult passengers. “I
Was Flying” introduces four such travelers: bickering couple Mia and Doug
(Jessica St. Clair and Kyle Bornheimer) and meddling busybody Karen Kelly
(Rebecca Front), who is shadowed by her pushover husband, Frank (Andy Buckley).
Mia and Doug’s “save the marriage” cruise has failed utterly and Karen would
like to speak to the manager, please. About everything.
Back at mission control, director Rav Mulcair (Nikki Amuka-Bird)
is monitoring Avenue 5’s progress. Everything is going well, though Rav’s
nerves seem stretched a bit tight. Judd isn’t satisfied, though; there’s a 26
second delay between the ship and mission control, and despite the fact that there’s
nothing to be done—Spoiler alert: space is big—Judd demands a fix. Two of the
ship’s engineers, Billie McEvoy (Lenora Crichlow) and Joe, are sent to pretend
to work on it. Joe is outside the ship in a spacesuit, messing with the coms, and
Billie’s inside watching the sensors when something goes wrong. The ship’s
gravity flips and everyone aboard is flung to the port side. There’s slapstick
and gross-out humor galore as the passengers are thrown around, including a
very unfortunate passenger in the spa whose acupuncture treatment winds up a bit
deeper than intended.
Billie resolves the situation in a matter of moments, but
the damage is already done. The ship has been knocked slightly off course; what
was initially an eight week cruise will now be a three year trek. Why wouldn’t
a ship like this have backup boosters or other rockets to adjust their trajectory
in the case of an emergency? Such questions can easily be chalked up to the
leadership of Herman Judd, and the unwillingness of anyone in his orbit to tell
him news he doesn’t want to hear. What matters now is the hard reality they’re
facing. Joe died in a freak accident when the ship’s gravity was restored, happening
to be yanked directly into his drill, so that makes Billie the new head
engineer onboard. While Matt spirals under the pressure of the passengers’
fears and concerns, Billie, Ryan, Judd, and Iris hash out precisely what’s
happened and what comes next.
That’s when the premiere’s big twist hits: Ryan is not the
captain of the ship, but an actor hired by the real captain, Joe, to deal with
the passengers and crew. Now that Joe is dead, Ryan has no idea what to do and
the only area he has much experience in is interfacing with passengers and
projecting calm and security. Apparently only Joe knew this, though Billie is unsurprised,
and that leaves Avenue 5 with a questionable, even nonexistent, chain of command.
Judd’s used to calling the shots, but he’s an idiot. Billie is the most
knowledgeable of the crew, but has no leadership experience. Ryan is in way
over his head, but removing him from command would send the already panicked passengers
over the edge. The premiere ends with Karen brewing up an s-storm among the
passengers, after finding out about their new return date, and Ryan heading out
to address everyone and do his best to keep the peace until mission control or
Billie or anyone else can save the day. And with that, Avenue 5 is off, its cards on the table and the writers ready to
have fun within a ridiculous, but fun premise.
On paper, the setup is interesting, and there’s certainly
plenty of material for creator Armando Iannucci to play with moving forward.
Unfortunately, the premiere is fractured, spending so much time setting up its
plot and introducing its massive ensemble that it doesn’t leave time to have
fun along the way. The two most distinct, memorable characters—Judd and Karen—are
intentionally irritating, and both have been placed in positions of authority
relative to the rest of the ensemble. No one talks back to Judd, and as a
(presumably) rich passenger, Karen is very comfortable throwing her weight
around. This, along with the strange choices around Matt, results in a
surprisingly imbalanced outing, one more annoying than entertaining.
While there are quite a few kinks to work out, this premiere
is worth watching if only for Hugh Laurie’s performance as Ryan. The scene revealing
Ryan’s actual role on the ship is fantastic, easily the best of the premiere,
and the new context given to Laurie’s accent work in this scene warrants an
immediate rewatch of the premiere. Laurie slips into and out of his American
and English accents even word-to-word, depending on the stressors of the
situation. He’s clearly having a blast and that alone is enough to keep viewers
coming back for more. Lenora Crichlow is charismatic and fun as Billie and will
be a good partner for Laurie as Ryan and Billie attempt to navigate their new
situation, and Suzy Nakamura is delightfully dry as Iris. “I Was Flying” is a far
cry from the cutting, brilliant premiere of Iannucci’s previous series, Veep, but if the writers can tweak the
power dynamics a bit, or even just give the audience a reprieve from the more
grating characters, Avenue 5 may find
its space legs.
Stray observations
- Welcome to The A.V.
Club’s weekly coverage of Avenue 5!
I was underwhelmed with the premiere, but given Iannucci’s track record and
this terrific cast, I’m hoping the series will gain steam quickly. - Surprisingly for an Iannucci show, the dialogue in the
premiere isn’t particularly memorable, but while Karen is far from my favorite
character, I appreciate Front’s strong performance. Karen’s self-censorship of
her swearing is a pitch-perfect character note, and likely a conscious choice
by Iannucci and the writers to distance the show from Veep. - Nikki Amuka-Bird is great as Rav, particularly as she gives
the Avenue 5 passengers’ loved ones a tour, while keeping a close eye on the
ship’s progress. More Rav moving forward, please! Also, her hair is fantastic
and legitimately one of my favorite things about the show so far. - I enjoy both Ethan Phillips and Zach Woods, but I can’t tell
what the writers are trying to do with their characters. Woods commits to Matt
the nihilist and his take on jazz fate, but it didn’t land for me. - I was pleasantly surprised to see Jessica St. Clair among
the cast. Hopefully the writers will give her and Kyle Bornheimer more to do. - Speaking of Mia, her loungewear is fabuous, as are a number of
the other costumes. I’m looking forward to seeing what else costume designer Suzie
Harman has up her sleeve, and whether the characters will be repeating
ensembles, now that they’re stuck with not nearly enough luggage.