Command Z review: Steven Soderbergh's surprise series is like a silly Black Mirror

The American director is not known for his comedy output but pulls it off in this online-only show

Michael Cera as Kerning Fealty in Steven Soderbergh’s Command Z. Photo: Extension 765

Director Steven Soderbergh has always been something of a prophet of the future. Remember Bubble, his 2005 film set in a doll factory? The film was released simultaneously in cinemas, on DVD and on cable.

Theatre owners were up in arms, but it was the perfect prediction of the streaming age business model to come. Now, the director behind such illustrious films as Traffic and Erin Brockovich, is trying his hand at a different type of crystal ball-gazing with his new series Command Z.

A secret project that’s caught everyone unawares – until it dropped this week – the show is divided into eight episodes of varying length. Available via the internet (for $7.99, the fee is being donated to charity), it’s a sci-fi comedy starring, among others, Michael Cera, who is having something of a moment after appearing in the first episode of the new Black Mirror season and Barbie, as Ken’s friend Allan.

Here he plays Kerning Fealty, an Elon Musk-like billionaire entrepreneur who died years ago on a trip to Mars, when his rocket was hit by an asteroid.

Spoilers ahead

Now, Kerning is incarnated as an AI image – just his head appearing on a screen. He’s gathered three employees, the naively enthusiastic Jamie (JJ Maley), the cynical Emma (Chloe Radcliffe, also one of the show’s writers) and the largely disengaged Sam (Roy Wood Jr) for a 10-day top-secret mission, Command Z. With this threesome collected in a dingy room – they all arrive in yellow hazmat suits, suggesting the outside world has already succumbed to ecological collapse – the plan is to send them back in time to subtly influence future events.

There will be no physical departures here; rather, it turns out Fealty has bankrolled a band of physicists back in the early 21st century, who were creating an artificial space-time wormhole. Thanks to the pandemic, when everyone was using hand sanitiser, they were able to smuggle nano-bots hidden inside the antiseptic gel into people’s blood stream.

What does all this mean? That Jamie, Sam and Emma can each access the interior consciousness of select people – people who are close to those in positions of power. It’s rather like the film Being John Malkovich, where John Cusack’s puppeteer finds a portal into the mind of the titular actor.

So suddenly, this trio of influencers – “the great American fix-it crew”, as they’re known – are able to whisper in the ears of titans of tech, politicians and religious leaders to change the course of history. In episodes three and four, titled The Pryce is Wrong and The Pryce is Wrong II, for example, the target is an amoral Wall Street asset stripper, Kohlberg Pryce, played by Liev Schreiber (last seen in more gentle surrounds, in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City).

After trying to inhabit his assistant, they go for the jugular – with Sam’s consciousness invading the man’s dog, Benny. Suddenly, much to the shock of Pryce, the pup can communicate with him.

“I really wish you were a better human,” Benny tells him, as Pryce starts unburdening himself, confessing all his sins (“I bought the Jonas Brothers just to keep them off the air,” he says). Needless to say, he changes his path after this once-in-a-lifetime encounter.

Jamie (JJ Maley), Sam (Roy Wood Jr) and Emma (Chloe Radcliffe) in Command Z. Photo: Extension 765

Each episode is followed by cinematic recommendations in the credits. “For more information on time travel,” we’re told to watch The Terminator, Brother Future (a very obscure TV movie from 1991) and Run Lola Run. Later, in an episode that deals with nuclear energy, we’re told to check out The China Syndrome, Chernobyl and 2022’s Atomic Hope, a documentary about a small band of activists who believe nuclear power is the solution to the energy crisis. Amongst the wacky comedy, then, are tools for education if you wish to find them.

Soderbergh is not a director known for out-and-out comedy (unless you count the unintentionally hilarious Magic Mike’s Last Dance). But he certainly has an oddball sense of humour. One of his best films was Schizopolis, from 1996, in which he starred – a very surreal knockabout farce that took inspiration from the energy of Richard Lester, director of The Beatles’ movies A Hard Day’s Night and Help! This isn’t quite on that level – it’s more like Soderbergh’s own riposte to Black Mirror – but it’s got a streak of silliness running all the way through it.

Filled with ideas and invention about the shape of things to come, it’s also populated by surprise guests. Zoe Winters, who plays Kerry in Succession, pops up as a crusading politician, while The Usual Suspects’ Kevin Pollak also appears. While the final episode, where we come to realise Fealty’s true intentions, is a bit of a let-down, underneath it all lies a positive message: “Small improvements can lead to big improvements,” Fealty says.

Surely that’s something we can all embrace before our futures are ruined.

Available to buy and watch on commandzseries.com