Fired on Mars: Fired on Mars

May 8, 2023 12:22 PM - Season 1, Episode 1

I found myself devouring "Fired on Mars" last night, anyone else getting into it? From the IMDb description: Jeff Cooper has to reinvent himself after being fired from his position in the space start-up Mars.Iy. With no chance to return to Earth, he has to find meaning in a dangerous, alien, but familiar corporate landscape.

YT trailer

posted by elkevelvet (4 comments total)

I’ve watched the first two episodes. As a graphic designer myself, I felt attacked (in a funny way) the whole way through the first episode. The end of the first episode and the beginning of the second got really surprisingly dark, but then the second episode turned into a very conventional workplace sitcom that barely had anything to do with being on Mars. Haven’t watched any further, though I suspect the cliffhanger at the end of episode 2 might be a major reset of the story.

elkevelvet, does it indeed go in a different direction from the office assistant storyline?
posted by ejs at 1:24 PM on May 8, 2023

The show does not stay lodged with the office assistant storyline.. I'd call it 'dark' for any number of obvious reasons but there are real horror elements in the toxic workplace/late capitalism critique. Obvious comparisons to shows like "Office Space" but the animation definitely lends itself to a different vibe
posted by elkevelvet at 2:00 PM on May 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

We watched ep 5 last night and, in a spoiler free way, I think it's safe to say it does go different places, different enough that as this point I have no idea what's going to happen next. From the first episode I was worried I would find Jeff just a bit too cringingly awful (or perhaps a bit too close to home to my various paranoias), and he's definitely threading the needle in terms of overall protagonist sympatheticness as a loveable doofus without much loveability, but I have found my enjoyment of each offering increasing as the episodes progress.
posted by Sparx at 7:00 PM on May 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

parts Silicon Valley, Office Space, Kafka, and an animation style reminiscent of Archer

I think this one is worth getting invested
posted by elkevelvet at 11:06 AM on May 10, 2023