Avenue 5 (HBO)

[sanman]

Absurdly rich billionaire decides to do space tourism, builds absurdly luxurious cruise ship in space. Absurdity ensues.

[sanman]

https://www.space.com/hbo-avenue-5-space-comedy-premiere-date-trailer.html

A second trailer for HBO’s new space comedy "Avenue 5" starring Hugh Laurie has arrived and it promises madness and mayhem aboard a luxury space liner, called (as the series name suggests) the Avenue 5. This is not Virgin Galactic suborbital space tourism, this is full-scale interplanetary indulgence.

The series begins as Avenue 5's is en route on its eight-week flight around Saturn. Everything looks "OK-to-go," but when the ship unexpectedly develops technical difficulties, it’s up to Capt. Clark (Laurie) and his crew to calm the upset passengers and find a way to deal with the unfortunate events unfolding on board.

https://www.hbo.com/hbo-news/avenue-5-comedy-series

What is it? Avenue 5 is a space tourism comedy set 40 years in the future when the solar system is everyone’s oyster. Hugh Laurie will star as the Captain, and with him in charge, nothing can go wrong.

Who’s in it? Laurie will play Ryan Clark, captain of space cruise ship Avenue 5. Suave, outwardly confident, controlled, and personable, Ryan is the man you want in charge of a crisis.

Josh Gad as Herman Judd, the billionaire face and name behind Avenue 5, and the whole Judd brand, including hotels, fitness clubs and space tourism. Judd is used to a life of luxury; his fortune was made from holiday resorts and he thinks he’s good at everything else. Terrible at science, he leaves that to the experts he employs to give him the answers he wants.

Zach Woods as Matt Spencer, head of customer relations. Despite being a nihilist, Matt is a nice guy who can’t wait to get to the end of his final cruise before promotion to a more senior role on Earth. He has a performance background, but gave up trying to make it as an entertainer years ago.

Nikki Amuka-Bird as Rav Mulcair, head of Judd Mission Control on Earth. Extremely intelligent, intense, and slightly odd, she is frustrated and exhausted by lack of control. Rav is racked with guilt at having sent her two best friends into space in an attempt to fix their failing marriage.

Rebecca Front as Karen Kelly, a born leader who illicitly boarded Avenue 5 using her sister’s non-transferable ticket. Strong-willed, articulate, likeable, Karen soon finds herself becoming the voice of the passengers, enjoying her newfound power.

Lenora Crichlow as Billie McEvoy, second engineer. Young, outspoken, smart, career-focused, but exhausted by responsibility, Billie loves building and fixing things. She is terrified of dying in space.

Suzy Nakamura as Iris Kimura, Judd’s right-hand-woman. Straight to the point, sharp and serious, Iris has a very particular sense of humor. Iris is a “fixer,” there to work out what Judd wants, even if it’s unclear, and make sure it happens whilst ensuring it doesn’t cause anyone or anything any harm.

Ethan Phillips as Spike Martin, elderly space enthusiast and former astronaut. Spike is a grizzled womanizer and heavy drinker who is also surprisingly good with kids. Spike thinks he should have a higher status due to his achievements as an astronaut, but not many people know who he is. He often boasts of being the first Canadian to land on Mars, which isn’t strictly true.

[IanO]

Shades of "Starship Titanic", an old video game written by Douglas Adams.

[Jarnis]

Watched first episode. Not impressed, but will give it another episode or two.

[sanman]

The background of events:

[spoilers]The luxury space cruise ship Avenue 5 is on its maiden 8-week cruise around Saturn, when suddenly it experiences an anomaly called a "gravity flip" which then causes it to miss a scheduled gravitational slingshot maneuver, so that it ends up in a different heliocentric orbit which could take it up to 3 years to return to Earth.

During this anomalous "gravity flip" event, not only are numerous passengers injured after being tossed around, but also very crucially the chief engineer for the ship is doing a routine EVA outside and is killed when he collides with and gets impaled by his own screwdriver.

This chief engineer had been the real technical brains of the operation, while the captain was merely an actor who had been hired to hired to play the role of a ceremonial leader and interact with the passengers and crew. A stint as captain aboard a previous space cruise ship Avenue 3 had earned him an exaggerated reputation as a hero, for allegedly handling a fire outbreak which was really simply put out by the onboard sprinkler system. Faced with the newly emerging crisis situation on Avenue 5, the captain (played by veteran comedic actor Hugh Laurie) is forced to step up to the plate and become the leader he had thusfar only pretended to be.
[/spoilers]

So, shades of GalaxyQuest in that last bit.

I realize this is sci-fi -- and comedy sci-fi at that -- so it's going to require a heaping dose of suspension-of-disbelief.

However, here's what interfered with that.

[spoilers]The story takes place about 40 years into the future. The anomalous event is called a "gravity flip" and happens while the giant ship is passing near an asteroid. It seems to be implied that gravity onboard the ship is generated by some shipboard system, which had some kind of unforeseen interaction with the passing asteroid for some reason. I don't see how we get StarTrek-like artificial gravity technology within the next 40 years.

This anomalous event causes a huge shift in internal mass by hurling passengers towards one side of the ship (sort of like if all the passengers on an ocean-going ship were to rush to one side of the ship). This then causes a significant change in the ship's trajectory, so that it misses its scheduled rendezvous with Titan for gravitational slingshot maneuver. Because of this, their 8-week cruise is now stuck on a journey for 3 years.
I don't see how an internal mass shift can cause a change in an object's trajectory.
Cassini used gravitational slingshot against Titan to slightly change its trajectory near Saturn, but it wasn't trying to loop around back to the Earth.

During this anomalous event, the ship's chief engineer and the real brains of the operation, "Joe" is killed in the middle of his EVA carrying out routine work outside the ship. He instructs his assistant engineer to reset the ship's artificial gravity, and she promptly does so without first warning him, so that he hurtles into the side of the ship and is impaled on his own screwdriver.

When his spacesuited body is retrieved and pulled inside the ship, his blood is found to have frozen solid, allegedly in the "cold of space". I would've thought his blood would've boiled off into the vacuum of space instead.
Oddly unfortunate that the most important technical guy was doing an EVA outside prior to a critical trajectory-change maneuver. But if everything goes right, then we don't have a comedy.
[/spoilers]

Anyway, this is not The Expanse.

[sanman]

The 2nd episode of Avenue 5 has in one of its early scenes (about 5 minutes in)  a view of the Judd Galaxy corporate headquarters building. (Judd Galaxy is the space tourism company created by flamboyant billionaire Herman Judd, which operates the Avenue luxury space cruiseliner ships.) The shot pans slightly to fix on a large launch vehicle looming behind the building and mated to a gantry -- it appears to be SpaceX's Starship, bearing the Judd Galaxy name on it. Well, at least they're current. We're told that Avenue 5 is so large that it has its own gravitational pull.

[tea monster]

I love how Hugh Laurie looks like Count Dooku's younger cousin.