I happen to be, in my own time, a lover of sketch comedy, stemming from watching College Humour in high school, and recently I’ve become familiar with Eternal Family, a network that specialises in all kinds of Adult Swim-YouTube-esque shorts that bounce between f*cked up and just plain weird. Now, far be it from me to hyper-fixate on something, but The Astronauts has caught my attention because… God, space would just be like that, wouldn’t it?
Created by filmmaker Graham Mason (who has been extremely busy for the past 10 years), The Astronauts is extremely easy to watch. The longest episode is only six minutes long, and it’s an extremely basic plot – two astronauts, Kurt and Roy, not particularly best friends but part of the same crew, get stranded in space after their spaceship explodes while they’re out on a spacewalk (as in, out of the ship). Episodes are self-contained, and you’re unlikely to miss anything big and pivotal if you skip one.
It’s basic in nature, and if you spent any time bingeing the YouTube comedy world, you’d know that that’s one of its strengths. It takes an extremely basic concept and just walks with it. Nothing too ambitious, not too many plot twists, no need to rush, just a slow burn that has you either laughing at the awkward small talk, or you’ve got it on in the background to fill the noise (like it was queued up from YouTube autoplay).
Don’t know what the hell I’m talking about? Here’s the whole first episode.
I know it’s a low-budget comedy, but part of me is terrified of this (in a lightweight way). You watch your ship explode and then you’re just caught in a vacuum for… Well, as long as it takes for you to just die (which is, yes, one of the plot points). Space is f*cking huge and it’s unlikely anybody will be able to rescue you. Being stuck out there with anyone else, you’d be quick to run out of small talk to make as well, which… You know, that one’s fine by me, I’m an introvert anyway. Other stuff happens, like eventually the duo begin to drift, and eventually, they get a wrong call (something I assume could happen in a sci-fi space-faring future).
Oh, it’s space by the way, and although there’s no gravity, it’s not like a swimming pool. You can’t just swim to safety because there’s nothing to push yourself against. Moving yourself around won’t get you anywhere any quicker. Don’t take your helmet off either, you will die extremely quickly for multiple reasons. Thank god these two had the buddy cord to keep them from drifting apart.
Or maybe I’m just reading into it too much. In any case, Pedestrian Group, our parent company, has launched a 24/7 channel, PEDESTRIAN TELEVISION, where it’ll be hosting all kinds of shorts, like the one hyper-fixated about above, along with other TV shows and movies. It’s chaos-focused with a bit of College Humour and a YouTube Vice documentary vibe to it.
PEDESTRIAN TELEVISION launched on October 25 (on 9Now), so maybe you’ll see The Astronauts floating by when you tune in. It’ll also be available to stream on-demand.
Image: Graham Mason