I did it all for the cookie.

Final Space has humbler beginnings than most, starting out May 2010 as series of three Youtube shorts by Olan Rogers, an animator who has compiled a vast gallery of animated stories on the channel over the years. Initially called “Gary Space”, the shorts followed the titular character crashing down on “a distant exotic planet of some kind” where he meets a green koosh-ball he names “Mooncake” and humorously kills indigenous lifeforms by accident. The three shorts span about 11 minutes in total and were initially planned for ten, but plans for the series evolved over time, with a new revamped pilot being posted in early 2016. The video somehow managed to catch the eyes of one Conan O’ Brien, who brought in members of his own team to help polish the show for pitching around various studios, and eventually bought by TBS. And so, here we are at the premiere.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Gary Space (creator Olan Rogers) has been on a prison ship for over five years after impersonating an Infinity Guard officer to hit on fellow officer Quinn Airgone (Tika Sumpter) and causing massive property damage a la Invader Zim. A week before the fifth anniversary and end of his imprisonment, Gary has managed to somehow maintain his sanity while dealing with onboard AI H.U.E. (Tom Kenny), overly-affectionate android KVN (Fred Armisen), and naming the many mindless worker bots around the ship, as well as keeping tens of thousands of video diaries addressed to Quinn. On a routine maintenance job, a green jellybean type creature smacks Gary in the face. Reminded of a caterpillar he owned before his parents’ deaths, he names the creature “Mooncake.”

Meanwhile, on Tera Con Prime, a mook arrives to report to the Lord Commander (David Tennant), who wants news on E-351 AKA Mooncake. His forces eventually find it on Gary’s ship, which H.U.E. takes a step to stop. Gary, eager for social interaction, is thrilled by this until they begin attacking. H.U.E. implores Gary to give up Mooncake, but he won’t let go of the only new friend he’s made in years, so H.U.E. “light folds” (basically hyperspace) the ship to throw off the soldiers. Unfortunately, this puts the ship right in the path of oncoming asteroids, with Gary only getting his helmet on seconds before being jettisoned into space. Still about to be imminently crushed by space debris, H.U.E. comes up with a plan to help Gary avoid certain death, but at the cost of Mooncake. Gary insists Mooncake’s safety and is rewarded by Mooncake unleashing its power to destroy the asteroids and getting him back to the ship. They also learn of a single surviving soldier, Avocato (Coty Galloway, and yes, his name is straight up pronounced like “Avocato”), who he manages to subdue, though he is warned the Lord Commander will find them. H.U.E. rewards Gary’s newfound courage with cookies.

The second episode begins with Gary recording another video log recapping the last episode’s events until they are infiltrated by another ship tailing them. Avocato identifies the attacker as Turk, a bounty hunter like him who is working for the Lord Commander. The only way to stop Turk from reporting back to his boss is cutting him off at the pass in Tera Con Prime (though not without placing a timed explosive in Gary’s head first to keep him from escaping). Homo sapiens aren’t exactly well-liked in this community, so the first step is getting identification papers doctored by Avocato’s contact, Clarence. In order to hide his human-ish nature, he puts on the skin of a recently dead alien. And if you’re wondering about the dark implications of that, don’t worry, because it turns out that skin is the mom of a family that Gary runs into and promptly destroys emotionally. Cato, meanwhile, eliminates Turk and wanders off to find his kidnapped son (who is NOT named “Guaca-meow-le” for some odd reason) but is ambushed and taken to Lord Commander to explain his delayed mission. Gary just so happens to stop by to save the day, though not before getting his arm yanked off and rushing back to space. The battle is lost, but the powerful friendship between man and man-cat is saved.

Alongside this is a plot where we finally check back in with Quinn, who investigates a crashed Infinity Guard ship that shouldn’t have and seeing a cosmic disaster on the horizon. She commits to the investigation despite receiving no support, and somehow ends up on Gary’s ship, looking much older and calling herself “Nightfall”, in order to give KVN new information and warning Mooncake to not be the reason Gary dies. Ominous.

OUR TAKE

While the original Youtube shorts oozed of 2000’s “LULZ RANDOM” humor, the series has a lot more dimension to it in comparison to fit with the style of the current decade. The designs are pretty simple, but other shows have done far better with worse, so that’s not much of a worry. The use of CGI to offset the 2D characters help give the world some added depth and alien-like qualities, which is good for a hard sci-fi show like this one.

The first episode was competent enough at introducing us to Gary and his situation, as well as a, peek at his backstory and his compassionate attitude towards dealing with seemingly innocent-looking creatures like Mooncake, while the second focuses more on Avocato and his dilemma of being a parent and a bounty hunter working for a Napoleonic dictator while also setting up the beginnings of Quinn’s storyline. Though while I will say I did see Quinn being the intruder coming (seeing how the voiceless masked figure turning out to be a girl is an overly tired twist by this point), I did NOT see it being her future self, so kudos there.

In terms of characters, we have a neat cast to start with. Gary is a bit like if Fry and Zapp Brannigan had a kid (though weirdly not voiced by Billy West), being both stupid with a good heart and overly brazen and confident. He values courage and friendship but goes about it in stupid ways, and his rambling can kind of ware on a viewer at times. Avocato is the token evil teammate with a child but slowly becoming good, so he’ll probably be the more compelling character to watch. H.U.E. is a workable enough straight man and KVN is…pretty annoying. Quinn’s story seems pretty disconnected from things (possibly by timelines?) and I don’t look forward to future interactions between her and Gary, but I am a bit intrigued where her investigation takes us. And lastly, David Tennant as Lord Commander, who I don’t know whether to be impressed because I hardly recognized his voice, or be worried because the said voice is a pretty standard evil gravelly voice.

TBS’ original animation selection is taking great strides with its premiering series, and a great cast, snappy dialogue, and a clear vision just might help Final Space stand out all on its own.

Score 8/10