Hugh Laurie captains a sinking space cruise ship in teaser for Avenue 5

Hugh Laurie stars as Captain Ryan Clark in Avenue 5, a new comedy series from HBO.

Passengers and crew aboard a luxury spaceship find themselves in grave danger in Avenue 5, the new "space tourism" comedy series from HBO. Judging by the first teaser, the show looks like it could be a sharp, witty addition to the cable giant's slate of programming.

Clearly there's an appetite for space-based comedy in Hollywood these days, as Netflix teased its own comedy series, Space Force, earlier this year, with three major vets of TV's The Office on board, including Steve Carell as both a co-creator and a star. Netflix has yet to release many details about the series. All we know is that "The goal of the new branch is 'to defend satellites from attack' and 'perform other space-related tasks'... or something," per the Space Force teaser text. "This is the story of the men and women who have to figure it out."

We don't know much more about Avenue 5, but it also boasts some serious comedic chops. The series is the brainchild of Armando Iannucci, best for creating the stellar HBO comedy series, Veep, which won multiple Emmy awards over its seven-season run. And before he was Dr. Gregory House in the US, Laurie was best known across the pond for yukking it up as one-half of the comedy duo in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (with Stephen Fry), as well as his hilarious turns in Jeeves and Wooster and the various Blackadder series.

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