If Armando Iannucci’s genius is founded on anything, it’s his acute worldliness. From his early news media spoof The Day Today to his excruciating political sitcoms The Thick of It and Veep, and films In the Loop and The Death of Stalin, he has set upon the corrupt and powerful with a caustic verve that gives him rightful claim to being the 21st Century’s greatest satirist. And his trenchant wit has been influential: its imprint can be seen, for example, in Succession, TV’s current greatest drama, a scintillating takedown of the media-owning super-rich created by one of Iannucci’s frequent collaborators, Jesse Armstrong.

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However those familiar with the Iannucci mode of comedy may be slightly nonplussed by his latest show, Avenue 5, so decidedly unworldly is it by comparison. Physically unworldly, in that it is mostly set in space, at a time in the near-future when space tourism is in full swing; and tonally unworldly, in that it is far more fanciful and well, plain silly, than his previous fare. The situation of the sitcom centres on the titular spaceship, a luxury holiday cruiser for guests to traverse our solar system.

Minutes into the opening episode, however, a malfunction with the gravity system results in a number of deaths and many more casualties, the whole vessel being knocked off course, and a new projected trip duration of three years. While the ship’s crew, led by dashing captain Ryan (Hugh Laurie), and its boorish tycoon-bro owner (Josh Gad) try to present an illusion of calm amid the escalating pandemonium, the passengers become increasingly exasperated at being lost in space.