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IMAGINE being stuck at sea on a ship full of entitled jerks who are more worried about their dinner order being wrong than the fact that the boat is sinking.

That is the gist of HBO鈥檚 Avenue 5, a new farce from Armando Iannucci, the creator of The Thick Of It and Veep. The show has a fairly solid premise: what if space tourism takes off, but the company running it is led by callous buffoons? Watching dozens of actors fling themselves across a room to simulate a spaceship鈥檚 gravity changing is a great way to start a series, and it signals the kind of ride Avenue 5 takes us on.

In the first episode, the Avenue 5 鈥� a ship that looks like a luxury department store (think Harrods or Saks Fifth Avenue) 鈥� encounters some trajectory problems. Passengers are told that instead of their planned eight-week holiday, it will take three years to get them back to Earth.

You might think this would send people into absolute terror or even depression. But everyone on board seems consumed with petty worries. They are caricatures of affluence and privilege, and while that can be funny if played right, here it is merely grating. And there is an emotional flatness to the show that would serve a mundane workplace comedy better.

I was surprised that I didn鈥檛 care about any of the passengers, and instead found myself wondering about what Earth in this near-future fiction is supposed to be like. We get a few glimpses, and hear passing comments about the toxic Pacific Ocean and children dying of famine, though little else is revealed in the first episodes.

鈥淎 dead guy in a coffin is jettisoned and ends up orbiting the craft, a macabre reminder of the stakes鈥�

The guests aboard the Avenue 5 include a bossy retiree and her lapdog husband, as well as a couple in the middle of a marital breakdown. These are common tropes that get old quite quickly.

I was more amused by a dead guy in a coffin that is jettisoned from the ship and ends up orbiting the craft, passing by the impractically large windows in a macabre reminder of the stakes, which feel surprisingly low for a show about a doomed spaceship.

The most interesting characters are the crew and the ship鈥檚 owner, Judd Herman, an eccentric billionaire whose haircut is a perfect send-up of space entrepreneur Richard Branson鈥檚 coiffed golden locks.

Josh Gad plays Herman as an incompetent with a heart of stone. He cares only about his money and his own happiness. His exasperation at being stuck in space is more about inconvenience than concern for anyone鈥檚 safety or comfort, and Gad conveys this so ridiculously that you can鈥檛 help but chuckle.

Herman has no idea how to run a spaceship, and he isn鈥檛 alone in that. The notion that the people in charge are idiots usually makes for good fun, and if anyone can inject a few more laugh-out-loud moments into this show, it is Gad.

Then there is the captain of the Avenue 5, Ryan Clark, played by Hugh Laurie. Here the star of House shines again. Though his American accent is spot on, it quickly becomes apparent it is fake and the angrier he gets, the more British he sounds.

His horror upon discovering that 鈥� spoiler alert 鈥� his crew isn鈥檛 all it seems and his disdain for the dummies around him gave me something realistic to cling to in a show full of outlandish moments. Here鈥檚 hoping Laurie can steer Avenue 5 to something punchier than its current simple silliness.