Steve Maryweather (Will & Grace’s Sean Hayes), known to his friends as Mary, is the valedictorian of his spy class: the fittest, smartest secret agent coming through training that year. Q Force is not going to be one of those, and I do wonder how many viewers will have the patience to wait for it to get better. More than any other genre, comedy can take a few episodes to find its tone and rhythm even shows that settled into greatness, from Schitt’s Creek to Parks and Recreation, had a slow ascent. But in order to get beyond the “sashay away” sloganeering and gags about how heterosexual men love smelling their own farts, you have to sit through two episodes that suggest it may be that bad, after all. Q Force is not nearly as bad as that clip suggested. In a world of clever adult animated comedy, from Big Mouth to BoJack Horseman, that first glimpse set this up to be a throwback dud. Online commentators were unimpressed by its rainbow-flag-waving, “yas queen” posturing. This animated series, about a queer group of spies operating an offshoot squad in the fictional American Intelligence Agency, failed to put its best foot forward with its teaser, which was a ragingly unfunny series of LGBTQ+ cliches and bad jokes. W hen a trailer for Q Force (Netflix) was released in June, it caused a kerfuffle on social media.
