Sleeping Trees: Sci-Fi?

Following up on 2015's Mafia?/Western?, the Sleeping Trees trio return triumphantly to the Fringe for another physcially elastic, impeccably scored and endlessly energetic trawl through genre's murky waters, this time targeting science fiction with their distinctive brand of affectionate parody. This is no unimaginative retread of familiar territory, however; while some of the jokes might be obvious, they are never lazy. Sleeping Trees' style of humour is as eclectic as their inspirations, ranging from high to lowbrow, satirical to absurdist, childlike to profane, and rarely missing their mark.

A simple-minded pig shit farmer on the backwater planet of Outer 'Armsway is swept into interstellar intrigue by a gruff space adventurer and his incredibly impractical, aptly named robot, Guns-For-Hands. Meanwhile, from his lunar exile, a would-be galactic tyrant builds a Francophone robot army with the aid of a mad scientist who's significantly madder than most.

Sleeping Trees obviously have some love for the object of their mockery, which serves to make it all the more informed and imaginative – but also an unforgiving eye for its cliches and self-indulgences. That a pig shit farmer is unknowingly the most powerful being in the universe is a well-earned dig at every yokel to turned out to be a Jedi or a wizard, while the villain's booming, jovial tones are a disturbingly accurate recreation of Flash Gordon-era Brian Blessed. Honestly, this alone would be worth the price of the ticket, but luckily for us, there's very little in the show that isn't.