Picture this: You’ve been on a small spaceship for five years serving a prison sentence, your only friends are the various robots and A.I. on board, the loneliness is threatening to consume you when out of the blackness of space floats a sentient green orb whose language mostly consists of “chookity” and “pok.” The little alien attaches itself to your face (in a cute way, not in the terrifying Facehugger-from-Alien way) and you become instant best friends.
The underrated animated space opera Final Space begins with this chance meeting and goes on to chronicle the adventures—and often misadventures—of Gary Goodspeed (the aforementioned lonely prisoner, voiced by series creator Olan Rogers) and Mooncake (the aforementioned orb, also voiced by Rogers).
Well, technically it really starts with Gary hopelessly floating through the debris and bodies leftover after a huge space battle, before cutting back to his first encounter with Mooncake. But you’ll need to watch the first season to find out how that comes to pass, because this article will be spoiler free.
“Traps are just open casting calls for heroes”: The Setup
Gary’s life goes from monotonous to chaotic pretty much as soon as he befriends Mooncake. Turns out the adorable alien is capable of destroying planets and he’s being hunted by the evil Lord Commander (David Tennant), who needs him for some sinister purpose involving the mysterious “final space.” Gary ends up needing to save not only Mooncake, but also the entire universe as a result of a breach in space.
Along for the ride aboard the spacecraft Galaxy One are H.U.E. (Tom Kenny), the ship’s deadpan A.I., KVN (Fred Armisen), Gary’s hated insanity avoidance robot, Avocato (Coty Galloway), an anthropomorphic cat/bounty hunter, and Quinn (Tika Sumpter), a badass member of the Infinity Guard. Gary dubs this ragtag crew the Team Squad. There’s also a host of notable comedians and actors who pop up in voice cameos or as characters later in the show’s run, including Conan O’Brien (who also serves as a producer), Steven Yeun, Jane Lynch, Ron Perlman, Alan Tudyk, Keith David, and John DiMaggio, among others.
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Final Space takes inspiration from a raft of beloved sci-fi shows and movies. Our protagonist, Gary, feels like a mix between Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy and Fry from Futurama. Avocato shares some definite character DNA with Han Solo (and sure, he’s also a cat-man like Cat from Red Dwarf, but that’s where the similarities between the two end) and the Infinity Guard is reminiscent of Star Trek’s Starfleet. The show’s comedic style—which is largely a blend of silly and dark humor—owes a lot to these earlier shows and movies, and its moments of loving satire echo Galaxy Quest. But it should be noted that Mooncake made his debut as a cute, small, green alien with limited speech and great power almost two full years before Grogu began capturing hearts in The Mandalorian.
There are also many direct homages throughout Final Space, from nods to sci-fi classics to pastiches of The Shining and Footloose. Going through all of these tributes—some of which are obvious, while others subtly flash by—would be a whole essay in and of itself.
While this patchwork of influences is clearly apparent, Final Space still manages to blaze its own path as a rollicking interstellar adventure. Sure, Han Solo might spring to mind when Avocato first laser blasts his way onto the scene, but you’ll very quickly realize that he’s his own character, apart from the familiar echoes.
So: A cute planet-killing alien, an unlikely group of misfits, and a universe-threatening breach sounds like the makings of a fun space opera right? It is, but it’s also so much more.
“As a team. As a squad… As a team squad”: Why You Should Watch Final Space
Final Space aims to make the audience laugh (and it succeeds), but at its core it’s a story about the life-changing value of found family and friendship. The Team Squad are stronger together and are willing to make sacrifices for each other. Gary may be immature, but he’s also eternally optimistic and will go to the end of the universe—quite literally—for his friends. Quinn is self-assured and self-reliant, but she learns that depending on others isn’t a weakness. Avocato has rough edges (to say the least), but he strives to be better as a result of the genuine bonds he forms.
The Team Squad may have been brought together by Gary, but they’re far from just side characters in his story. They all have complex backstories that feature trauma, abandonment, death, guilt, and loneliness, lending each character their own particular depth and richness. Their histories also feed directly into the main storyline in satisfying ways. While catching glimpses into their often tragic pasts, we also see how the frenetic events of the show continually change the characters, though I can’t get into specifics without entering spoiler territory. Even the seemingly simple and straightforward characters—Mooncake, H.U.E., and KVN—benefit from this treatment to a certain degree.
The high stakes science fiction plot and emotionally-driven personal stories of Final Space are wrapped up in some truly beautiful animation. The character designs are colorful, the spacescapes are cinematic eye candy, and the renderings of the various sci-fi concepts within this world are creative. Seriously, animators deserve a raise.
The final flourish is the series’ excellently crafted music, which perfectly matches each scene. The score ranges from simple and contemplative piano tracks in quieter moments to melancholic lyrics for emotional scenes all the way to epic orchestral music for high tension action sequences.
None of this is to say that Final Space is perfect. Even Rogers himself admits that in season two network interference meant that “we went a little too hard on the comedy I think, and a little bit too hard on the drama, like too much of both at specific times.” Season two also becomes more episodic (but still ties things into the overall story arc), and while the adventure-of-the-week ideas are often fun, the show really shines as a fully serialized story in seasons one and three. Despite these minor faults, the series is absolutely worth a watch if you haven’t seen it before.
“Always meant to be together, but never meant to be”: The Cancellation
I hope I’ve convinced you to give Final Space a shot, but here’s the bad news: In 2021, after three seasons, the show was cancelled—a victim, like Batgirl and Snowpiercer, of Warner Bros. Discovery’s massacre of movies and TV shows in the name of tax write-offs. Not only was Final Space cancelled without being given the chance to wrap things up after a cliffhanger in the season three finale, it’s also been pulled from streaming services in America. While it’s still available on Netflix in other countries, that’s only going to be the case until the end of 2023. Physical versions of seasons one and two can be bought secondhand, but season three was never released in a physical format.
Creator Olan Rogers has been vocal online about his journey with Final Space and it’s clearly a passion project that he’s not willing to give up on. He managed to sell the show off of the back of an independently-made short pilot episode that was uploaded onto his YouTube channel in 2016 and now he hopes that it can be saved by another animated short. In 2022 he launched a Kickstarter campaign for an animation called Godspeed. “I plan to take the ideas I was going to use for Final Space and make something entirely original for obvious legal reasons,” Rogers writes. “This is the only way I can think of to grab their attention and show them there is an insanely passionate fandom here!”
The goal for Godspeed was $80,000, a target that was hit within hours. $464,438 ended up being pledged, and money can still be donated through the official website, which is a testament to how beloved Final Space is within its relatively small, but very enthusiastic, fanbase. Godspeed is currently in production but the impact it has on the future of Final Space—if it has one at all—won’t be clear for a while yet. What is clear is that Rogers is extremely dedicated to Final Space, and hopefully that dedication will pay off in the long run.
You might be asking why you should bother giving Final Space a chance when you know that you’ll be frustrated come the season three finale. To that I say, watch the season one trailer and tell me you really don’t want to see more of that little green blobby creature. No, but really, I say in all earnestness that Final Space is a space opera that’s as heartfelt as it is hilarious. It’s been unfairly cut short like so many shows before it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching.
If we borrow some of Gary’s unwavering faith that everything will turn out okay and reach towards that goal, then maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance that the show will be resurrected. The Team Squad flourished when given the love that they deserved—maybe that’s true for Final Space too.
Lorna Wallace has a PhD in English Literature and is a lover of all things science fiction and horror. She lives in Scotland with her rescue greyhound, Misty.
