Avenue 5

The passengers on Avenue 5 bought a luxury space cruise. They did not buy the competence necessary to get them home. When the voyage goes wrong, reassuring announcements become almost as dangerous as the problem they are supposed to explain.

Hugh Laurie is very funny as Captain Ryan Clark, a man trying to project calm in a workplace spectacularly unsuited to it. Josh Gad's wealthy owner and Zach Woods's customer-relations manager provide two different versions of being no help whatsoever. The expensive surroundings make their inadequacy better: this much money ought to have purchased a workable plan.

Armando Iannucci brings the overlapping panic familiar from The Thick of It into a science-fiction setting. Not every gag lands, and the broader physical comedy is less precise than his strongest political work. But the cast can make an argument over a bad decision entertaining long before the next disaster arrives.

Give it a chance if the prospect of appalling management in deep space sounds appealing. It is a smart, chaotic comedy rather than a serious space adventure.