Avenue 5

It's like the miscegenated offspring of a quickie three-way between Lost in Space, Love Boat and Veep: sometimes funny, often inane, and usually obsessed with conjugation of fornicational verbs.

I’ve seen four episodes provided for review, and so far Avenue 5 is silly, sometimes uproarious, and even occasionally moving as it explores these questions. The series takes a minute to find the right rhythm, which it unfortunately can’t maintain with any regularity, but there’s a spark of imagination and enough narrative complication to make the show an intriguing watch as it attempts to find its balance.

The show threatens to become unwieldy at certain points, as Iannucci tries to keep all the many characters — and their secrets — in the mix while establishing the world of the future and moving the story line forward. But then “Veep” took a little while to come together, and I have faith in Iannucci’s guiding hand.

Some of them [characters], most notably Gad’s petulant Judd, are best in small doses. Others, like Laurie’s shapeshifting captain and his unexpected foil of Billie, get better and better the more we get to know them. ... If “Avenue 5” wants to get more mileage out of its premise, it’ll have to find some newer gears within it for its excellent cast and intriguing characters to play with beyond pure frustration.

HBO made the first five episodes available for review, and in the early going “Avenue 5” doesn’t entirely work but neither is it the disaster that befalls the show’s ship and passengers.

A goofy HBO comedy from "Veep" creator Armando Iannucci, which has its moments but never consistently feels out of this world.

“Avenue 5” seems more likely to just drift off into the void. There are, of course, good people at work here. Hugh Laurie stars as the spaceship’s clueless commander, Josh Gad is the clueless zillionaire funding the spaceship, Suzy Nakamura plays the tycoon’s clueless assistant. You get the drift.

One of the show’s major problems, through four of the season’s nine episodes, is that it’s hard to tell what the targets are. ... These characters banter and kvetch and berate one another in dialogue that’s cutting and foul-mouthed and largely flat, or at least not as sharp as we’ve come to expect from these writers.

“Avenue 5” has impressive visuals and cool sets. And every once in a while, someone from the gifted cast makes contact with a real zinger. Mostly, though, this is a stunningly off-key effort, delivered in a broad and ear-shattering tone.

The biggest surprise is a disappointing one: that Veep creator Armando Ianucci’s first TV series since he left behind Selina Meyer is kind of an unwieldy mess. The good surprises may eventually solve the bad one, but it’s hard to tell based on the four episodes provided for review.