Rav and her team meet with a NASA representative to plot a potential rescue mission, while an engineer working in a hidden part of the ship has a surprisingly optimistic theory about how long it will take to get home.

We’re only two episodes in to Armando Iannucci’s sci-fi sitcom and things have gone from bad to worse. Having come to terms with the fact that it might take three years to get three years home after their interstellar cruiser was knocked off course, there’s false promise of a quicker return and the matter of a golden coffin and three see-through corpse containers stuck in perpetual orbit around the craft.

Captain of this ship of fools is Hugh Laurie’s Ryan Clark, not actually a captain and being leaned upon to resolve matters. He’s continually locking horns with self-appointed people’s spokesperson Karen (a formidable Rebecca Front) and trying to get the best advice from Being Human’s Lenora Crichlow as tech Billie McEvoy. Josh Gad’s interminable millionaire Judd must surely be two episodes award from a one-way trip to the airlock, and sleazy ex-astronaut Spike Martin (Voyager’s Ethan Phillips) is a pathetic punchbag for the females he patronises or tries to hit on.

Verdict: It’s too early to tell if the regular format will be the oddball characters trying out another new way home. But the narrative is almost incidental, as the greatest fun is in watching the fine cast winding each other up. 7/10

Nick Joy