In an interview with NPR Fresh Air, Paul Feig (Freaks and Geeks, Bridesmaids, the Ghostbusters reboot) claimed that comedy has never really done sci-fi right. The obvious examples, Space Balls and to an extent Tim Allen's Galaxy Quest, were less works of science fiction that were funny as much as they were blatant parodies of stuff that already existed. This inspired him to create the show Other Space out now on Yahoo Screen. To Feig the show could overturn typical sci-fi tropes and in some sense explore the limits of the genre, at least in the form of a single cam comedy.
His goals seem lofty, but the man's track record sort of allows for this. And this statement probably makes more sense in the wake of the news that he will direct the new Ghostbusters reboot. It's a story about random people fighting ghosts. Let's be honest. There's a lot of creative shit you can do with that. But Feig wrote the initial script for Other Space over 10 years ago (I'm pretty sure he said this anyway), and the only example of doing something different that he brought up in the NPR interview was that aliens didn't have to look like green monsters but that they could resemble humans.
The show is not some Star Trek parody, but it's basically The Office (Parks & Rec might be a more appropriate comparison) in space and I mean this as the highest compliment. Other Space is very enjoyable and funny, but it's essentially a workplace comedy on a spaceship. Yes, there's a robot and an A.I., but the robot looks like it came from an 80s movie with no CGI budget. There's nothing modern at all about the sci-fi element of the show.
This brings us to Ex Machina. The wonder in most of our favorite Sci-Fi films stems from an element of impossibility. Star Wars is set in a faraway galaxy, with different species, crazy weapons and magical powers. Terminator, Blade Runner and Back to the Future take place on Earth but in some twisted version of society. They were written during a time when personal computers were barely plausible. Ex Machina is the first film of its kind in the iPhone age that could very well take place in the present day.
In the movie, Oscar Isaac plays Nathan, a billionaire computer scientist who has developed the most advanced artificial intelligence system known to man. Domhnall Gleeson's Caleb is invited to the research facility to test the A.I. — a robot that looks like a human woman — and decide if its behavior is indistinguishable from that of a human. If the A.I. is as advanced as possible, this means it could feel and emulate human emotion. The movie brings up all sorts of issues regarding morality, trust, deceit, sexuality and manipulation.
While technology today is still pretty far from what's shown in the movie, it's not hard to imagine a situation like this. Machine learning and artificial intelligence today is already so impressive. Once your imagination starts to run wild, literally anything in this realm is possible. This is what sci-fi today is capable of. You can take today's technology, today's societal worries and today's political problems and flesh all that into a very real story. Not that there isn't room for Star Wars and the like, but this allows for a whole batch of ideas rooted in something modern yet familiar. Other Space is a fine show, and I hope more and more people watch it. It probably works better as it is than it would have been as some as sitcom version of Her, but at the same time, hey maybe there should be a comedy version of Black Mirror. Feig had the right idea to do sci-fi differently because the possibilities now are truly endless.
