WiC Watches: Avenue 5

Image: Avenue 5/HBO

Episode 5: “He’s Only There To Stop His Skeleton Falling Over”

I don’t like the way this show is choosing its titles. “He’s only there to stop his skeleton falling over” is said by Captain Clark about Frank Kelly (Andy Buckley), Karen’s hapless husband and the man who last week pushed the button that set off the ship leak. Of course, the button wasn’t hooked up to anything, but that doesn’t stop the other passengers from piling on Frank and blaming him for everything that’s gone wrong on the ship, which is not orbited by a ring of frozen poop, in addition to those coffins.

Visuals like that are probably the most interesting thing about Avenue 5 right now; I wonder what else the ship will have floating around it by the time the first season is over, to say nothing of the just-renewed second season. Also great is how the restaurant onboard the ship looks just like a modern sports bar with a couple of sci-fi-y neon lights; again, technology has advanced, but culturally, humans haven’t advanced very far. Finally, I liked the show’s vision of the taxis of the future: slick self-driving automobiles that still need drivers, for some reason. Maybe it’s a union thing?

Anyway, the arc of this episode involves Clark and Billie successfully fixing the shit leak, Judd throwing a party, and the passengers turning on Frank to the point where they almost flush him into the vacuum of space. (“No, stop murdering someone!” yells Jordan Hatwal (Himesh Patel), the mediocre comedian stuck trying to entertain this disgruntled lot for the next three years.) That last one is easily the most interesting. If Avenue 5 ever goes full Lord of the Flies and the passengers mount Judd’s head on a pike outside his cabin, I will officially be interested.

There are hints that things might go there eventually, but this episode is mostly about the same meh jokes we’ve been getting for a while. Doug and Mia are still doing their angry-marrieds bit and Matt is still spectacularly bad at his job for no reason. Billie is upset she isn’t getting more credit for saving the ship, a classic sitcom storyline, and they really dig in to Jordan Hatwal’s awful stand-up set, which is cut off by Matt, Judd or Iris at every opportunity. There’s a place for cringe humor, but here it just seems manufactured, with all of the characters saying the wrong things at the wrong times because…funny?

I do like that the characters are starting to mix it up more, with Mia trying to go to bed with one of the good-looking nothings from the bridge and Doug drafting Spike to try and stop them. If this show is going to have staying power — and again, HBO has renewed it for what I hope are very good reasons — it’ll have to make full use of its ensemble.

Although it might not be enough just for the cast to interact; they’ve gotta do so in a way that makes sense for their characters. That’s a quick setup to me wondering what would inspire Iris to blame Billie, of all people, for the mini-riot that nearly dooms poor Frank. Like a lot of stuff on this show, it seems there just to be there, without much story or comedy logic behind it.

Also, Captain Clark’s husband and wife announce their divorcing him — they have a two-thirds majority. I thought it was an interesting idea to make Clark part of a throuple, but we didn’t get any chance at all to get to know his partners, and now they’re apparently out of the picture. So what was the point of having them in the first place? I’m not sure. I’m not sure of a lot.

Grade: C+

Bullet Points…In Space!

• “Best thing about doing comedy in space: literally no pressure.”
• “I’d always hoped that my last words would be better than, ‘Fuck me, no.'”
• “He’s so calm he could almost be British…Why did I say that?”
• “It was true when I said it, like a marriage vow.”
• “I’ll have another shot of water, please.”
• Daniel Radcliffe shat his pants at the Super Bowl. Sure.
• “You hurt him without my consent and involvement and I will hurt you deeply.”