Review: Godspeed “Pilot”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

As space shuttles try to escape the Earth because of some freak black hole, a woman named Iris decides to stay in order to help who’s left. Two years later, she receives a transmission from her Uncle Ryan to return to the spot she left and makes her way back with her robot buddy Bowie. Once there, a new ship touches down and she meets a giant cat alien named Kingslayer, who reveals that Iris’s father is still out there in space after working with her mother to stop a great evil. Iris and Bowie decide to join this crew to go find them.

OUR TAKE

It would be kind of an understatement to say that Final Space was dealt a bad hand back when it started back in 2018. Initially planned to help kick off a block of animated shows on TBS, it would then moved from there to Adult Swim after the AT&T merger with WB, followed by two more seasons where it struggled to maintain ratings and was swiftly canceled and removed from virtually all streaming services in 2021 as a tax write off as a result of the Discovery merger. With whatever pull he had left, creator Olan Rogers managed to get the opportunity to make a limited run one-shot comic that will release next year, but is pretty expensive. Suffice it to say this whole experience was pretty disappointing for him as a creator, leading to him using his now open schedule to work on his next big project, Godspeed, which was funded by a Kickstarter. Except, instead of pitching the show to networks like before, Rogers posted the pilot for free on Youtube much like the pilot short to Final Space was all those years ago, this time also with a Kickstarter page. The goal: raise enough money to make a full season of ten episodes through the fans alone.

But how is the pilot itself? Well, much like Final Space, Godspeed is heavy on the vibes, with much of the focus being on getting a feel for this version of Earth that is facing increasingly abnormal weather as a strange phenomenon is space makes it more and more uninhabitable. Iris, voiced by Bryce Charles, wanders these wastelands with Bowie, voiced by Rogers, looking for some sign of civilization or at least a way to survive. Fans of Final Space may notice some familiar voices near the end, which will lead many to wonder if this is a continuation of that show, which Rogers addresses on the Kickstarter. Since those characters are technically owned by Warner Bros Discover, they can’t make a DIRECT sequel to that show’s cliffhanger ending (aside from the aforementioned comic), but there’s nothing saying they can’t make something legally distinct, the best kind of distinct. And with that, we’ll see where they’re able to take it from there. Currently at $154,000, they’ve already hit their initial goal of making at least one more episode, but the next is $600K, with an end goal of $6 million. We’ll see where it lands in 18 days when the campaign ends, but for now, I’m eager to see how Godspeed takes off.