Final Space, and tonal inconsistency
Final Space is a show created by Olan Rogers that aired its first season between February and April on TBS. The story centers around Gary, a prisoner aboard the space vessel "Galaxy-One", whose chance encounter with a bizarre alien lifeform leads him on an intergalactic adventure in which the whole universe is at stake.
Like most shows on TBS, Final Space is primarily a comedy, but there's also a large focus on serious drama with surprisingly deep character driven moments, and a slew of high octane action sequences. In fact, the show gets so dramatic and intense, I actually forget that it's a comedy most of the time, until another joke forces its way in like a sewing needle pricking one's finger. It's a shame because the show is much better suited to its dramatic focus than the often forced comedy and it just can't seem to blend them together all that well.
See, Final Space is a show I really want to love because it's full of absolutely stellar content. The premise doesn't excite so much, but the plot has overall great direction and mostly excellent characters (with a couple that unfortunately drag the show down). The art direction is fairly simple when it comes to the characters, but the backgrounds and set pieces are some of the best I've seen in any show this decade. The animation is fantastic, and does an excellent job elevating every moment with well grounded, fluid movement. Final Space in its prime is either deeply moving, awe striking, or legitimately hilarious. As a whole, however, Final Space is conflicting and largely shackled by tonal inconsistency, and that might be a result of its genre.
I love that the art team makes a concerted effort to really push contrasts in their backgrounds. The show overall has fantastic clarity, both in its still moments and its active ones.
Final Space is categorized as an action "dramedy", a hybrid genre of drama and comedy. At its heart, the show is comprised of magnets of similar poles, struggling to get along. Usually the goal of a drama is to explore tragedy through self-reflection and conversation, and via trials that reflect emotional conflict in a physical way. By contrast, the goal of comedy is to offset tragedy with a dose of levity or absurdity, usually reveling in bad circumstances rather than improving them. Often a drama is focused on delivering the needs of the characters, where a comedy is focused on delivering the needs of the audience. However, there are ways in these each of these genres fall short, namely that dramas can often be too heavy for the average audience and comedies have a more difficult time creating a satisfying empathy with their characters. The advantage in combination is that each genre helps to stymie the problems caused by the other, creating either a comedy with serious character development, or a drama that's just light enough to reach wider audiences.
Hybridization only works, however, when the genres are blended properly, and often requires that one plays shadow to the other. There are plenty of successful examples of this within animation alone, not to speak of the many live-action alternatives. Adult Swim's The Venture Bros. is an action comedy with a teaspoon of drama, but the show understands that humor is the main driver of tone, using the action and drama to explore more dimensions of comedy and add a sense of gravitas. Netflix's Bojack Horseman is a dark, harrowing character study that incorporates black comedy and absurdity both to give the show identity and to help loosen the grind. Wanna get genre crazy? Steven Universe is an action comedy drama slice of life musical, and it's probably one of the most successful shows aimed at young audiences right now. But in each of these examples, there's an understanding of tone: The Venture Bros. is firmly planted as a comedy, Bojack Horseman is primarily a dark drama, and Steven Universe is largely slice of life, balancing its other elements always in service to its characters. These fusions are focused and wonderful, and enable the telling of otherwise unwieldy stories.
Final Space is not nearly so graceful, its mixture much more oil and water. Sure, the show does have a fairly even balance of action, comedy and drama, but these elements are all so rigidly assembled and without fluidity. It's not uncommon for a dangerous action scenario to be broken by a random bit of slapstick, or for a dramatic moment to be offset unnecessarily with a joke. After finishing the show's 10 episode first season, I still can't firmly tell you what the tone of the show was. I saw a story that really wanted to be this epic space adventure, but it force-feeds so much humor that it's difficult to take any of it seriously. There's also a huge focus on heavily dramatic character moments, shedding a deep reaching light into the cavernous depths that some of its cast has to offer, but those moments are often distracted by jokes, quips and occasional action scenes that try to steal the thunder. And with the sheer amount of humor the show broadcasts (which makes sense, it's a TBS show after all) I was inclined to label it a comedy, but there's enough serious drama and non-humorous action to make that reading incomprehensible. This all makes Final Space an incredibly frustrating show to watch. The individual elements are all acutely strong (except the humor, which I think is wildly hit and miss), but when they are all given equal gravity, the focus gets stretched in every direction. Try watching the trailer at the top again; can you identify the tone they're setting?
Hope is not lost, however, as Final Space recently got renewed for a second season of 13 episodes. As with many shows of this generation, the advantage of feedback nearly guarantees future content will only improve (See also: The Venture Bros., Bojack Horseman, Steven Universe, etc.), though I am worried the existence of the show on TBS, a channel whose slogan is "We're Comedy", will inhibit Final Space from ever fully excavating the depths of its vigorous emotional core. Final Space is a story with nearly infinite potential, but before venturing any further, it needs to discover how it wants its audience to feel.
If you're curious about the show (or maybe you missed the first airing), the first episode can be watched for free.
