Update: Our reviewer found that Steve Carell and Greg Daniels’ new Netflix series Space Force manages to mine plenty of comedy from the strange and occasionally terrifying place where America currently finds itself. Read the full Space Force review for more.
It’s been a while, but Steve Carell is headed back to the small screen in a big way. Not only is The Office veteran set to play a role in Apple’s TV adaptation of Brian Stelter’s Top of the Morning, but he’ll also star in the Netflix comedy Space Force, which was inspired by President Donald Trump’s real-life plans to take the U.S. military to the stars.
Carell co-created the series alongside The Office head honcho Greg Daniels, who will board Space Force as showrunner and executive producer. Netflix describes Space Force as a “workplace comedy centered around the people tasked with creating a sixth branch of the armed services,” so despite the far-out premise, both Daniels and Carell should be on familiar ground.
Space Force was inspired by the news that the Trump administration plans to establish a sixth branch of the military called, well, Space Force. The new organization will be charged with protecting American interests in space and foiling the efforts of countries like Russia and China to develop space-based weapons.
A brief Space Force teaser posted on social media pokes fun at the Trump administration’s plans for military expansion, quoting directives to “defend satellites from attack” and “perform other space-related tasks,” before cheekily adding, “or something.”
Netflix ordered Space Force directly to series, although the final number of episodes the show will receive depends on how the writing process unfolds. Like the real Space Force, the Netflix comedy won’t come cheap. Carell will receive over $1 million per episode to appear on the series, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Carrel has not been a regular on television since leaving The Office in 2011, although he has been a fixture at cinemas ever since. The actor can currently be seen in Beautiful Boy, Welcome to Marwen, and Vice, another political send-up.
Netflix hasn’t given Space Force an official release date, but the streaming network will have to move fast if it wants to beat the real thing. In August 2018, Vice President Mike Pence revealed that the White House wants to get its Space Force up and running as early as 2020.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.