Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fired on Mars’ on HBO Max, An Adult Animation Comedy About A Guy Displaced At An Intergalactic Corporate Outpost

Created by Nate Sherman and Nick Vokey and based on their original short film of the same name, Fired on Mars (HBO Max) features the voice of Luke Wilson as Jeff Cooper, an amiably bland graphic designer whose life goes haywire when his employment at a corporate settlement on Mars is suddenly terminated. So, can the rhythms of a workplace comedy survive in the human-averse environment of the red planet? In addition to Wilson, Fired on Mars includes the voice acting talents of Tim Heidecker, Pamela Adlon, Stephen Root, and Frankie Quinones. 

FIRED ON MARS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: “I’ve been having a lot of fun with the little zen garden you sent.” Outside his corporation-provided residence pod, the wilds of Mars are wind-whipped and inhospitable. But inside, Jeff Cooper (Luke Wilson) is leaving a desperately cheery video message for Hannah (Chase Bernstein), his girlfriend back on Earth.

The Gist: “I think I’m finally getting a feel for things up here,” Jeff tells Hannah through the video chat box, which is framed in the throwback fonts and design of an Apple Macintosh. “Up here,” of course, isn’t just the fourth planet from the Sun. It’s the formulaic workplace and extended stay living facilities of Mars.ly, the Earth-based startup that has splashed its genial, calculated branding (“Mars: Yeah, we went there”) across every available surface on its corporate campus. A formidable landscape looms outside floor-to-ceiling windows in the commissary, people huddle in office drone cubbies and glass box meeting rooms, and tech bro big boss Darren (Tim Heidecker) periodically checks in from an earthly golf course via a tablet on a spindle he controls with a joystick. Up here, there’s a music director, there’s a saltwater pool, and there’s a baby with Mars.ly-branded crib mobile. The company thought of everything, Jeff tells us, and transported it here. “They even paid a guy to sleep,” and a man is seen floating in an isolation tank. “Ted. He got paid to sleep.”  

But as Jeff is happily designing his latest round of signage and newsletters, he is summoned to the office of Brandon (Sean Wing), who teams up with a tablet-squawking Darren to give Jeff the boot. The beancounters back on Earth decided Mars.ly’s colony no longer required its own graphic designer. But boot him where? Shouldn’t they have thought of this before he commuted 200 million miles? Dismissed by his bosses and alienated from his team, Jeff resorts to a lonely existence of binge-eating chips and watching DVD box set marathons in his Mars pod. It really puts the “Space” back in Office Space. 

Hannah is distant, too, and not just physically. As he feels her pulling away, swept up in her own work at Mars.ly’s California office and spending more and more time with her manager Jonathan (Cory Loykasek), Jeff is subjected to a kind of corporate purgatory by Darren and Brandon. Remember the guy who was paid to sleep? He was inserted into an open position instead of Jeff, which means his tank requires a new resident. But while he’s confused and hurt, Jeff is determined not to accept that fate.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There’s a sense in Fired on Mars that our modern civilization won’t eradicate or outrun corporate brainworm thinking simply by traveling to the stars, which is something Avenue 5 also emphasized during its two seasons at HBO Max. And in addition to Fired, the streamer’s adult animation slate features Birdgirl, where workplace laughs combine with human absurdities and superheroine antics.    

Our Take: When Jeff’s bosses and peers turn on him, they really turn on him. It’s one thing to be cashiered by your checked-out tech world bosses, but do the people on his old work team really have to bite on his helpful nature right out in the open? Combine this mean-spiritedness with the seeming convergence of him staring down a video chat breakup with Hannah, and Fired on Mars really sticks it to Jeff within its first 25 minutes. But while all of that does provide plenty of fodder for workplace humor jabs, it also seems to be building a template for something deeper and maybe more weird. Was Jeff really fired for being the only expendable piece in Mars.ly’s extra-planetary corporate project? Really? They fired the guy who crafts admittedly mundane office communications over the fringe-vested “musical director,” whose only gig is playing plinky new age on a synthesizer in the commissary? It feels like Fired is setting up Jeff’s experience as the driver toward his discovery of something larger at work on the red planet, some kind of chicanery Mars.ly bros like Darren and Brandon have been privy to for awhile. There is even a brief reference to human-alien porn in Brandon’s office, a la Paul Verhoeven’s Mars-based classic Total Recall. 

So, Jeff has already been shit-canned on Mars, and it’s only been one episode. What will he do with the rest of his time there? Ideally, Fired on Mars will manifest more of its acerbic workplace humor and reveal more of Jeff’s character as he interacts with the individuals within Marsl.ly’s operation who also stand out, namely Pamela Adlon as a departmental manager named Reagan and Ted (Frankie Quinones), her suddenly-not-sleeping employee.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: After being forced by his bosses to take himself off their hands, Jeff decided to take evasive action. But where do you disappear to when your live/work environment is threatened on all sides by the cold void of the Mars surface? And after receiving a profoundly frustrating butt dial from Hannah – transmitted live via satellite from across the galaxy – Jeff finds himself in a cracking predicament with an airlock.

Sleeper Star: Frankie Quinones makes an immediate impression as Ted, that is once his character climbs out of his sleeping tank, and his brief first episode appearance makes us hope there’s more to the emerging dynamic between him and Jeff. (Quinones is also terrific as Luis on This Fool, which Hulu recently renewed for a second season.)

Most Pilot-y Line: “Tweaks to the structure,” “We’re gonna need you to trust the process on this one,” and of course, “Full transparency – access to food is gonna be kind of a problem.” Fired on Mars has the vapid and infuriating corporate speak of its Mars.ly honchos completely dialed in.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Fired on Mars finds a lot of low-hanging fruit as it skewers a brainless corporate culture that would build its red planet facilities to look exactly as soul-crushing as an Earth-based airport office park. But there seems to be something even funnier and more abrasive lurking in the unused corners of Mars.ly’s settlement, with Jeff’s experience of displacement as the driver.    

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges