Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
More On:
Cult Corner
-
How 'The Stunt Man' and 'Hooper' Set The Standard For 'The Fall Guy' (The TV Show And The Movie)
-
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar’ on HBO Max, a Satisfyingly Loud 'n' Heavy Conclusion to a Cult-Favorite Series
-
'Food Of The Gods' Hits Differently In The Age of GMOs
-
'Carnivále' at 20: It's High Time To Dust Off This Dust Bowl Classic
When we talk about streaming culture, we’re usually enthusing about what’s new, but one of the best things about streaming is how it’s made old and obscure cult hits available to a new generation. Presenting Cult Corner: your weekly look into hidden gems and long-lost curiosities that you can find on streaming.
Science fiction and reality TV typically invoke two very different responses. One presses the limits of technological advancement and questions what it means to be human. The other features a lot more wine throwing. They’re two genres that seem like they would never go together, and yet Personal Space makes the combination work.
Created by Dana Luery Shaw, Zack Wallnau, and Tom R. Pike, Personal Space watches like a cross between a warped social experiment and a love letter to sci-fi itself. Set in an alternate timeline where America’s space program is far more advanced than it was in the ’90s, the series follows a crew as they slowly travel to a distant star. To help them retain their sanity, the crew of Overture has to endure hourlong sessions with the ship’s therapy computer. But unbeknownst to this crew, a new company, Actaeon, has bought the rights to this ship and all of its transmissions, and Actaeon is dead-set on making a reality show out of the confessional footage no one is ever supposed to see. Cue the snarky commentary.
In this way, Personal Space is a bit like The Truman Show meets Portal’s sinister AI GLaDOS, and it’s perversely addicting to watch. The Overture crew’s dramas are exactly what you’d expect from a space reality show. King (Battlestar Galactica‘s Richard Hatch) is frustrated with the ship’s new captain, Gartner (Battlestar Galactica‘s Nicki Clyne). Someone has been stealing rations from the biodome and refuses to confess. Doctor Blasto (Sean Persaud) continually practices the recorder to the frustration of everyone around him. However, as silly as these aggravations are to read, they’re surprisingly relatable. All of the drama in Personal Space derives from the same aggravations that have fueled reality TV for decades — lack of respect, in-fighting, deceit, sexual attraction, and general annoyance. As funny as the series can be, it’s also surprisingly human.
Personal Space marks one of the last projects Hatch completed before he passed away in 2017, and it has since been dedicated to his memory. The late Hatch’s performance certainly stands as one of the highlights of this webseries, but it’s the show’s loving treatment of sci-fi that sets it apart as a whole. Personal Space is a sci-fi series that passionately loves sci-fi but is unafraid to winkingly poke fun at its favorite topic.
