YMMV / Final Space

A-D

• Adorkable:
  • HUE in Season 2, as he becomes a Robot Buddy who wants to be useful on the Crimson Light, and is more chill and amiable than his Season 1 self. This is emphasized by his interactions with AVA and Mooncake.
  • Jeremy, one of the Arachnitects. In "The Sixth Key", he gets very excited about Bolo's Badass Boast, which seems to slightly annoy his leader. He sheepishly replies with "I got inspired...".
  • Evra endeared themself to many viewers with their excitable nature and cute Ship Tease with Ash.
• Angst Aversion: The series built a reputation as being one of the darkest and most tragic adult cartoons — one of the darkest and most tragic cartoons period — in the history of Western Animation, which has steered away a good number of people from wanting to check it out.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • John doesn't seem very phased when Gary warns him that his best friend, Jack, will become a galaxy-ruling tyrant who causes his son a lot of trouble.
  • Little Cato seems largely unaffected by his experience while trapped in the time shard during "The Other Side". By the following episodes he is still the same energetic and largely upbeat Spider Cat, despite going through 60 years of isolation and going insane as a result, and in general never seemed to be affected by it at all. He does later call back to the experience as a "pain spot" in Season 3, but that's about all we get.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: With the series confirmed cancelled, a vocal portion of fans warn newcomers not to waste their time, as season 3 ends on an unresolved cliffhanger with Invictus breaking out of Final Space. However this may change with the announcement of the graphic novel; Final Space: The Final Chapter.
• Award Snub: Many fans were annoyed that the series didn't receive even a single nomination at the 2021 Emmy Awards.
• Awesome Art:
  • The series is very fluid in its style and the design of the background and the characters itself.
  • The space backgrounds are all photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Enter One" by Sol Seppy plays at the end of Chapter 6 during Avocato's Heroic Sacrifice. On a lighter note, from the same episode, the rock score that plays when Gary and Avocato free-fall to, and then planet-jump between, the two planets of Zetakron Prime, really signifies the rescue of Little Cato that's about to happen.
  • Chapter 4 gives us a space opera version of "Gallows" by Shelby Merry when Gary and Mooncake venture out to gather energy from a nearby dying star.
  • The radio song that Gary And Mooncake cry over in chapter 7 is a more somber version of “When The Darkness Comes” by Shelby Merry.
  • The haunting "When the Night is Long" by Shelby Merry on chapter 9 just as the Earth is being slowly destroyed.
  • "Light Runner", the absolutely epic song that plays during the planet-jumping sequence.
  • "Homeslice", which starts somber, and eventually builds up into a spine-chilling, triumphant music befitting the scene where Bolo and Mooncake forge the Titanslayer sword.
  • "At Last" by Dodie, an ending theme packed with soul-crushing finality befitting the main crew beholding the worst possible outcome of their actions becoming reality.
• Badass Decay:
  • The Lord Commander gets this hard in the Season 3 finale and final episode of the series. Despite finally becoming a titan, betraying Invictus, and killing every titan that comes his way (including Bolo), he ends up on the receiving end of an embarrassingly quick Curb-Stomp Battle from the recently turned Ash and sentenced to a Fate Worse than Death by Invictus. Granted, Ash had gotten a significant power upgrade from Invictus, but still.
  • Bolo perhaps gets this even more. After Lord Commander successfully merges with the titan incubating inside Earth, he quickly stabs Bolo in the chest and unceremoniously rips off his head in less than a minute. Considering that Bolo was shown fighting and killing other titans, he should've at least put up a fight rather than just stand there. Even Lord Commander lampshades it.
    Lord Commander: I thought you'd give more of a fight!
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Fox and Ash. Some see them as fun characters with a lot of potential, while others see them as unnecessary stereotypes who only serve to crowd the cast. Fox especially, since unlike Ash, he doesn't have much backstory to make him stand out and gets killed off in Season 3.
    • Ash became an even more divisive character in Season 3 during which she pulled a Face–Heel Turn. Some find it hard to sympathize with her due to her constantly blaming Gary for Fox's death, even though he was very clearly framed by Invictus for it (something which Bolo outright confirms, although she STILL doesn't listen) and blatantly believing Invictus' lies, despite the fact that Invictus is so Obviously Evil it makes her look completely idiotic. Others continue to cut her some slack since her life is constantly hammered by a torrent of loss and misfortune even before she met Fox and Clarence, tempered even further by Invictus' deep-digging corruption and gaslighting, as well as the Team Squad not acting as the best of support networks despise their good intentions.
  • Gary himself. Many fans enjoy his manic energy, cute character design and fatherly input while others find him too annoying and loud. While he did get toned down significantly as the show went on, there are still a few people who find him irritating.
  • Tribore. Some see him as a funny Comic Relief character who brings some levity to the show as it gets increasingly darker, while others see him as an annoying and unfunny Creator's Pet who has almost no relevance to the story.
  • Sheryl became one in the Season 2 finale. Many people aren't willing to forgive her for blaming her son Gary for everything that went wrong in her life and then flat-out attempting to kill him, which many see as unforgivable. The fact that she's rather Easily Forgiven doesn't help matters. However, some people actually like her due to her realizing the gravity of her misdeeds and attempting to become a better person in Season 3.
  • Clarence. Some find him entertaining and like that he's voiced by Conan O'Brien, while others find him irritating and unfunny and just wish he'd drop dead. However, his return in Season 3, in which he performed a Heroic Sacrifice to help the crew escape Final Space, managed to bring some people around.
  • Quinn was arguably this since day one; you either love her for being a heroic go-getter and her progressively adorable chemistry with Gary or you dislike her for her stern disposition and find her relationship with Gary to be shoe-horned in and unnecessary; doesn't help that she get into many ship-related kerfuffles between Quinnary and Garycato fans.
  • KVN, on whether or not he's genuinely funny and charming or an annoying, tension-killing pest; considering the characters in-universe also find him irritating, this may be an invoked example.
• Broken Base:
  • The fanbase seems to be split on Season 2. Many enjoyed it for the improved visuals and animation as well as character writing of which included giving Gary Character Development (going from a hyperactive Manchild to a more mature leader-type character), and some have found it to be better than Season 1. However, there are quite a large amount of fans who were turned off by the rather unfocused plot and episodic format, new characters that didn't add much to the story, pointless sub-plots, and, perhaps most notably, the gross-out humor prevalent in many episodes.
    • Season Two's format. Some enjoy the more episodic nature of this season as it gives time to fully explore every character while others prefer season one's serialized approach as it feels much more like a dramatic, interconnected story.
  • Avocato being Back from the Dead. Many are happy that he's back as they felt that his death happened too early in the show and that he wasn't fully explored enough. Others believe that his death was the perfect send off for him and that his revival undercuts the sheer impact of Chapter Six's ending.
  • Season 3 has grown to be divisive as the months have gone on. For as much as it's been praised for returning to the serialized approach of the first season except significantly Darker and Edgier, taking big swings and providing some much-acclaimed character work, animation and acting (namely in the episodes "All the Moments Lost", "The Chamber of Doubt" and "Forgiveness"), you do have fans that aren't so pleased with the directions taken and lament the needlessly bleak and arguably clumsily-written choices made with characters like Avocato and Ash, the numerous characters getting Killed Off for Real, Tribore and Quatronostro's arc taking up too much screentime for how uninteresting it is and dragging down otherwise good episodes like "One of Us" and "Change is Gonna Come", and the continued struggles at balancing out the main cast, with the likes of Sheryl and especially Fox not getting enough material for some fans' liking.
  • The quality of the series as a whole has led to varying opinions. Some view the series as criminally underrated and a great step forward in adult Western Animation due to averting the Animated Shock Comedy format by having a heavier focus on drama, having a serialized storyline, showing off amazing animation, containing a cast of likable, well-acted characters, and still having a sense of humor. Others view it as a very mediocre or sub-par show due to having an inconsistent tone, extremely hit-or-miss humor and voice performances, bland and underdeveloped characters, and a fairly unoriginal plot. And then there's a few who feel like the series had the potential to be a truly great show, but the execution left something to be desired.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After everything he's done, it's very satisfying to watch Gary and his father take advantage of time freezing to deliver an absolutely savage beatdown on The Lord Commander. Although he is still Jack at the time, he was already set to become who he is now once time unfroze.
    • And for those who weren't gratified by the above instance because of the Jack thing, it's immensely satisfying when the present day Lord Commander gets impaled by Nightfall and slowly dies over the course of several deliciously drawn-out moments, chronologically just after he's tortured Mooncake and caused the destruction of Earth all for his vain and entirely self-centered motivations.
    • Although it doesn't last long, watching Gary use his robot arm to shoot Lord Commander right in the face is a glorious sight to behold.
    • While Invictus is the bigger evil, watching it and Ash break the Commander's fingers and then leave him imprisoned inside of a similar prison to the one that Bolo was in can be rather satisfying to watch.
  • Clarence getting reamed out and abandoned for his treachery and near-Accidental Murder of Fox in "The Set Up" is well-deserved. Bonus points for leading to his Heel–Face Turn come season 3, showing that he actually learned to take a hint.
  • Gary defeating his mother Sheryl and calling her out on her horrible behavior and her petty reason for hating him is extremely satisfying to say the least.
• Cliché Storm: Everything, from the plots to the characters to the dialogue. Naturally, it's all an Affectionate Parody, or at the very least Tropes Are Tools and/or Narm Charm.
• Complete Monster:
  • Invictus, the Greater-Scope Villain of the series, is an ancient, malevolent being whose only desire is destruction on a mass scale. In the beginning, it poisoned the Titans' minds, turning them against their creators. Spending millennia crafting a plan to escape Final Space, Invictus corrupts the Lord Commander and uses him as a pawn, making it indirectly responsible for the Lord Commander's worst crimes. Upon his death, Invictus takes Quinn hostage—as well as killing alternate reality versions of Gary to make them apart of its morbid collection—and possesses the primary Gary, using him to try to kill Avocato and Little Cato. Sensing Avocato as being stronger, Invictus takes him as a vessel, forcing Little Cato to shoot his own father to save Gary. Feeding on the life forces of dozens of captives, Invictus subtly manipulates Ash into betraying Team Squad, killing and maneuvering Fox's corpse to make it seem that Gary killed him. When it is released from its prison, Invictus leaves the Lord Commander to rot for all eternity before escaping Final Space to kick start the end of everything.
  • The Lord Commander is a tyrannical overlord bent on becoming a godlike being and ruling all dimensions. Throughout the series, the Lord Commander would continually demonstrate his madness, whether by ordering Avocato to destroy the country of Ventrexia; ordering his lieutenants to kill their firstborn children as a display of loyalty; corrupting a portion of the Infinity Guard to his cause; or overseeing the construction of a laser designed to expand a breach in space-time. The Lord Commander would lure his arch-enemies into a prison planet, then tries to force a possessed Little Cato to murder his adoptive father Avocato, culminating in the latter performing a Heroic Sacrifice when the Lord Commander plants a sticky bomb on his son's back. The Lord Commander then traps Mooncake in a laser machine which painfully forces him to create a portal to Final Space, which caused the Earth to be sucked into it. Resurrected by Invictus, the Lord Commander is revealed as the one who had Avocato murder Little Cato's birth family, before betraying his master in favor of merging with a Titan incubating inside the Earth's core to gain immortality. After succeeding, the Lord Commander destroys the planet from the inside, before killing numerous Titans, including the heroic Bolo.
  • "The Grand Surrender": Werthrent, the fire serpent god of Ash's homeworld, is a cruel being who demands endless sacrifices. Devouring countless innocents, including children, Werthrent keeps them alive and suffering within himself, draining their minds and turning them into agonized zombies who remain in agony forevermore.
• Crack Pairing: Sheryl and Avocato are often paired up mostly because many see Avocato as a good replacement to John Goodspeed, despite little to no interaction onscreen.
• Creator's Pet: Tribore has become this for some. He's supposed to be the wacky Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass character but some find him too annoying (his lisp in particular) and unfunny who appears too often. This was taken a step further in season 2 where he joins the main cast, making the already large team of characters even bigger. The fact that he keeps coming back and has almost nothing bad ever happen to him has made people see him like this.
• Creepy Cute: Ash rides the line well enough between "scary and mentally-disturbed" and "sweet, childlike and Woobie-ish" that she won a lot of people over pretty quickly. Enjoy the "cute" part while it lasts before Invictus steps in.
• Critical Dissonance: Critics have been mixed towards the series; fans and members of online animation communities, however, have been far more positive with the series, especially once it more clearly started to develop into a more serious plot driven show, and because of it trying hard to not be reliant on vulgarity and meanness for the sake of it like Animated Shock Comedies are so often known for. Season 2 received somewhat more positive reviews from the professional critics that did review it, although it also didn't receive as many reviews from them as the first season did due to a lot of critics being underwhelmed by the first season and not feeling like the show was worth their time as a result.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Has its own page.
• Cult Classic: The show received mixed reviews during it's first season, and despite Growing the Beard, never achieved the same level of recognition as its peers such as Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty. That being said, it still achieved an impressive 8.2/10 on IMDb, and there was a massive outcry when it was cancelled and written off. When the graphic novel was announced, the initial pre-orders sold out within 28 hours. Over 27k pre-orders have been sold as of this writing.
• Draco in Leather Pants: The Lord Commander has a rather large following of people painting him as a tragic character who was forcibly corrupted by Invictus, despite his heinous actions. This is largely in part due to him being voiced by David Tennant.

E-R

• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • John Goodspeed, Gary's dad, is surprisingly popular for a minor Posthumous Character.
  • The sassy gatekeeper in Bolo's mind from Chapter 8 has been rather well-received by fans as well.
  • Bolo himself also qualifies due to having a cool demonic looking appearance, being on the side of the good guys, and having a brilliant baritone voice due to Keith David being his voice actor.
  • Shannon Thunder has gained popularity amongst the fandom as well for her crush on Tribore and formatting like the Distaff Counterpart of Gary.
  • The early pilot and Gary Space versions of the characters tend to get more fan art than a lot of early conceptual versions of other cartoon characters get, even managing to find a way to intertwine the two prototypes into this show's canon in fanworks.
  • Plenty of fans latched onto Ash's sister Harp in spite of her not living beyond her debut episode. Expect to find a fair share of AU stories and fanart where she avoids being surrendered to Werthrent.
  • Kevin van Newton is relatively well-liked due to his Cloudcuckoolander tendencies and helping the Team Squad try to escape Final Space. Fans were saddened by his Heroic Sacrifice to help the squad escape.
  • Despite only turning up in one episode, Evra left a really good impression for being an adorable, shape-shifting Nice Girl with some real solid chemistry with Ash, and for being a welcome bright spot in her life coming off of her adopted brother's death. Some fans wish they could've stuck around after.
• Estrogen Brigade: The show has a very large female fanbase, attributed to the cast consisting primarily of attractive males with troubling personal lives combined with an abundance of Ho Yay.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • The Lord Commander is an unrepentant monster, but his powers, screen presence, and voice make him a very cool villain to watch.
  • There is also Invictus; its amazing name aside, Invictus is a very manipulative force of evil who spouts several small, yet hard-hitting lines, and its ram-like, skeletal true form is an amazing sight to behold.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Gary and Avocato, thanks to all the Ho Yay and heartwarming moments between them. It helps that Gary persued Quinn when the latter made it clear that she's uninterested at first.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Gained one with both Infinity Train and Glitch Techs as both shows gained a Channel Hop to a streaming service (Cartoon Network to HBO Max for the former and Nickelodeon to Netflix for the latter) and have fans petitioning for more seasons. The creators of Final Space also joined in on spreading the petition.
  • There's a good degree of overlap between fans of this show and fans of The Owl House and Amphibia, two other action adventure comedy-drama works that dropped their respective seasons not too far apart from one another. TOH fans in particular can sympathize with Final Space fans over how both shows and their respective creators were rather egregiously Screwed by the Network.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Suffice to say, the show was a hit in the UK when it arrived on Netflix; David Tennant voicing the Lord Commander might have something to do with it.
  • It's gained a noticeable cult following in Japan, complete with fanart and doujinshi. Not too surprising considering it's a weird sci-fi cartoon with cute characters and lots of drama.
  • The show is very famous and popular in Brazil, with there being several groups and accounts on Facebook and Twitter dedicated solely to the Brazilian fanbase.
• Growing the Beard: Season 1 was divisive to put it mildly. With many detractors pointing to the show's overreliance on obnoxiously loud comedy, and the polarizing reaction to Gary's early characterization. Season 2 alleviated this, toning Gary down just a touch while still leaving him as the oddball he is, injecting more serious moments and epic sci-fi moments, and introducing the duo of Fox and Ash to the group to give Gary more people to bounce off of. Hence season 2's much more positive reception. Season 3 goes even further with its greater emphasis on character backgrounds and development, going more in-depth with the storylines, and having a more melancholic tone.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • When Gary is transported through time by Bolo and meets his dad, he mentions that the caterpillar his dad gave him (the original Mooncake) died only days after John gave it to him. Later, in "The Notorious Mrs. Goodspeed", we learn that Gary lost Mooncake I when a pair of bullies knocked the jar out of his hand, presumably killing it. In retrospect, Gary's oddly angry response to Mooncake I dying so quickly suddenly makes more sense — Gary lost the last thing his father had given him because of a random teenager's cruelty.
  • The scene in "The Closer You Get" after Avocato is possessed by Invictus is put in a new light given the reveal in "The Ventrexian" that Little Cato is actually the child of the former rulers of Ventrexia whom Avocato killed.
  Little Cato: You're not my dad!
  Avocato: Neither is he!
  • Shortly after Gary gets a replacement arm, it flips out and interrupts one of his transmissions to Quinn, even when he's trying to impress her. All in good fun. Then Season 3 reveals it's got the same Arm Cannon/blade features as the S.A.M.E.Ss and it's a blast to watch. This excitement is then brutally stomped out when Invictus wrests control of that same arm from him to pull a Frame-Up on him by killing Fox, permanently damaging his standing with Ash and setting the stage for her Face–Heel Turn.
  • HUE denying Gary any cookies was funny. Him wanting to offer Gary one when the Lord Commander trashed the Galaxy One, but there being none left was sad. Him giving one to Gary after he's forced to kill Fox in a desperate attempt to comfort him, only for Gary to break the dispenser in grief-filled rage just hurts to see.
• He's Just Hiding: Despite getting his head ripped off onscreen, many fans believe that Bolo could return somehow. The first piece of evidence they use is that fact that Bolo's head is still intact, and when Bolo killed the lizard Titan and Oreskis, he made it a point to destroy their heads, invoking Bizarre Alien Biology. The second piece of evidence is the fact that Bolo went down anti-climatically at the hands of a newly Titan-ified Lord Commander, and many feel that if the Titan really was to die, it would be more climatic in a manner befitting the Team Squads most powerful ally
• He Really Can Act:
  • Olan Rogers has the task of juggling an assortment of roles on the show, big and small (Gary, Mooncake, Tribore, Biskit), and he holds his own in making them funny and endearing. He also gets in some terrific dramatic chops that absolutely sell Gary's panic and emotional vulnerability during most of the heaviest moments across the show. Highlights include his reasoning with Quinn about staying alive and preserving Avery's memory in "All the Moments Lost", begging Invictus not to use his built-in Laser Blade to kill Fox in "The Chamber of Doubt", his impassioned speech to Avocato and nervous apology to Ash in "Forgiveness", and the sheer tragedy of the resurrected Zombie Gary's story in "The Dead Speak".
  • Coty Galloway has been lauded for his performance as Avocato, not just lending credence as a hardened, charismatic badass but absolutely nailing his guilt over killing Little Cato's parents without ever telling him when the subject comes to light in "Forgiveness" and "The Devil's Den".
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some people just watch the show to see David Tennant as The Lord Commander. This may have even been the reason he was brought back in Season 3.
• LGBT Fanbase: This show garnered such a fanbase mainly due to the tremendous amount of Ho Yay present in the show. Gary and Avocato in particular got a lot of shippy fanart.
  • Gary himself is popular among transmaculine folks, see Trans Audience Interpretation below.
• Love to Hate: The Lord Commander is arguably one of the most evil villains in all of Western animation, yet it's for this reason that he really stands out in the fandom and steals nearly every scene he's in thanks to David Tennant's very against-type voice performance.
• Magnificent Bastard: Bolo is the Team Squad's most powerful ally and was the only Titan not corrupted by Invictus. Before the events of the series, he was imprisoned by his fellow Titans for sealing the portal from Final Space, preventing them from invading the universe. In the present day, he reaches out to Gary Goodspeed and guides him towards the dimensional keys needed to free him, but to ensure that Gary follows through, conceals the fact that a sixth key - a Human Sacrifice - is also needed. After being released, he continues helping the Team Squad, while completing his own agenda of killing his corrupted brethren. When Lord Commander merges with a Titan and destroys the Earth, he orders the Team Squad to flee, and upon being stabbed by him, calmly bids Gary farewell before getting his head ripped off.
• Memetic Mutation: Bolo is Eren. ^note Upon being freed by Gary and escaping Inner Space, Bolo states his desire to kill all Titans, a sentiment that was shared by Eren Yeager at the beginning of his respective series, Attack on Titan, several years prior.
• Moe: Thanks to the fairly cutesy designs, most of the characters look like they would squeak and giggle if you poked them.
  • Mooncake! Planet-destroying aliens have never been cuter.
  • Gary, being the Adorkable Woobie Keet he is, especially when presented through flashbacks as a child or a baby.
  • Quinn is also plenty cute herself, being a lovably no-nonsense Tsundere, and in "All The Moments Lost", we see flashbacks of her as a child and in dire need of consolation.
  • And then there's Little Cato. Him as a baby is especially adorable...
  • Harp's Boyish Short Hair, Woobie status and being Ash's twin except without the creepy factor lands her in this category.
  • Biskit, who is incredibly cheerful and very, very tiny.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Lord Commander crossed it somewhere before the series started by ordering his generals to kill their firstborns as a show of loyalty.
  • Todd from the Season 2 episode "The Happy Place" is revealed to have crossed it a long time ago when he lured dozens of crews onto his ship to drain them of their life essences as a means of fueling the galaxy.
  • Ash crossed it when she remorselessly tortures Mooncake to drain his powers, seemingly killing him to release Invictus, despite being very aware of his plans to consume life across every dimension and Mooncake never, ever wronging her.
• Narm: Some people found Avocato's death hard to take seriously due to the over-dramatic music and slow-mo with close-ups of the characters' faces, especially Little Cato's.
• Nausea Fuel: The entire Clarence plot in "The Lost Spy".
• No Yay: Even putting aside the fact that creator Olan Rogers prefers to see their dynamic as that of siblings as well as the events of the last two episodes, the AshCato ship has received quite a bit of backlash for various reasons (the fact that Ash is slightly older than Little Cato, the homoromantic subtext between Ash and Evra, those who share Roger's sentiment about seeing them as a brother-sister duo, etc.).
• Obvious Judas: even before the episode “The Set Up” aired, a lot of viewers already anticipated that Clarence was going to betray the Team Squad, given his selfish and backstabbing criminal behavior in episodes before this. It’s especially seen in season 2 when he is shown to not care much about helping Gary get the dimensional keys to free Quinn, often trying to prevent Gary from getting the keys as seen in “The Grand Surrender” or purposely stalling the mission to focus more on performing cons on other people.
• One-Scene Wonder: The zombie Gary that comes to his senses in "The Dead Speak" after Ash exorcises Invictus from his mind stuck out to a lot of viewers thanks to his heartbreaking manic explanation of what he's been through, as well as an incredible performance from Olan Rogers.
• One True Threesome: Avocato/Gary/Quinn, also known as "Polyspace" is shipped as an alternative to the Quinnary and Garycato pairings as an attempt to pacify the Ship-to-Ship Combat.
• Periphery Demographic: Despite being aimed for adults, a large amount of parents have confessed to letting their children watch the show, likely because of its more idealistic tone than a lot of other adult cartoons, less explicit vulgarity, and child-friendly-looking designs for the main characters. It helps that it was originally conceived as a Cartoon Network show during its "Gary Space" days.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading:
  • Word of God says that Ash and Little Cato are just good friends. Despite this, they get a lot of Ship Tease.
  • While Gary and Quinn are without a doubt the show's Official Couple and there are shippers of this pairing, Gary is often shipped with Avocato because of how much chemistry Gary has had with Avocato compared to Quinn before Season 3 properly expounded upon the Quinnary dynamic, it doesn't help whatsoever that poor Quinn was out of the picture in Season 2 because she was trapped in she show's eponymous wasteland prior to the Team Squad saving her in the end.
• Popular with Furries: Unsurprisingly, Avocato and his son Little Cato are very popular with the Furry Fandom.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • The pairing between Gary and Avocato is referred to as Garycato by fans.
  • For those who aren't bothered by the pairing, Little Cato and Ash are referred to as AshCato or GravenCato.
• Rooting for the Empire: After he betrays Invictus and becomes a titan, some were rooting for The Lord Commander to kill Invictus since the latter is responsible for everything bad happening and The Lord Commander can come across as the less dangerous of the two, even if he's just as evil. Or just because he's voiced by David Tennant.

S-W

• Salvaged Story: Seasons 2 and 3 make a point of toning down Gary's loud, hyperactive nature a decent bit, introducing more characters to push him more towards a comedic Straight Man role for the likes of Clarence and his kids to bounce off of, which several detractors of his initial characterization found easier to swallow. There's even some open Self-Deprecation with regards to his noise level in Season 1.
• Sending Stuff to Save the Show: Since it's cancellation, and eventual tax write-off made by Warner Bros. Discovery, much of the fanbase and even series creator Olan Rogers refused to give up on the show. Olan would launch a very successful Kickstarter campaign involving an animated short called Godspeed, heavily influenced by the show, as well incorporating unused ideas from planned future seasons into it. Also, fans on social media demanded to renew the show, as well several products on the online shop Star Cadet, including t-shirts and caps. After 2 years, on April 24th it was announced that the show would get an ending in the form of a self-published graphic novel named Final Space: The Final Chapter, set to release in 2024.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Between Garycato (Gary and Avocato) and Quinnary (Quinn and Gary), which some turning the two into rivals for Gary's affection. Gary and Quinn officially consummating their relationship near the end of Season 3 didn't help.
• Signature Scene: Each season has its own respective moment that's most recognizable by fans:
  • From Season 1, we have Avocato dying within the closing minutes of Chapter 6, due to the powerful moment associated with it, the suddenness of the death, and showing the audience the series' willingness to kill off a main character (at least for a while). The destruction of the Earth in Chapter 9 is a close second for similar reasons.
  • From Season 2, we have the fight scene between Gary and his mother Sheryl, namely the conclusion of said fight where Gary finally chews out his mother for her destructive behavior and pushing it all on him.
  • Season 3 has two: First is the fight between Gary and Avocato, namely because it demonstrates how broken the two men are and was the first moment in the series where audiences got to see the normally stoic Avocato cry. The second is when Ash betrays Team Squad and takes Little Cato with her.
• Spiritual Successor: This is the closest we'll get to a Borderlands animated series, albeit a decidedly Lighter and Softer variant.
• Strangled by the Red String: More than a few people have had this opinion about Gary and Quinn, at least during the first two seasons. While a few episodes to go from "can't stand him" to "be madly in love with him" isn't unusual in the medium, the fact that it takes 5 episodes for both to consider each other the most important thing in their lives was pushing it a little. At the very least, Season 3 gives some nice development for the pairing to smooth things out and lend it a greater degree of credibility.
• The Scrappy: While a lot of characters on the show are Base Breaking Characters, none of them are without their fans. Todd Watson is not one of them, mainly regarded as the weakest villain (let alone weakest character) in the series for his confusing and convoluted backstory like how he somehow crafted an entire powerplant operating like a Lotus-Eater Machine slowly killing thousands by sucking the happiness out of them merely as an elaborate revenge scheme against Gary, who he blames for the entire earth getting destroyed. Suffice to say no one was particularly upset when this dud of a villain was unceremoniously Killed Off for Real. Not even being voiced by Alan Tudyk could help his character any.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: This show, having a serialized format tries to give many of the characters decent screentime but there are a couple of examples.
  • Bhero, the alien cyborg who is The Dragon to the Lord Commander. He only appeared in 5 episodes and did not have much screentime in each appearance. It is never explained how he became a cyborg or why he is working for the Lord Commander. Also he is never mentioned by name in the show. He even gets killed by Little Cato in the season 1 finale.
  • Shannon Thunder, the Abhorrent Admirer towards Tribore, is never introduced by name on the show and only had a few scenes of screen time in chapters 9 and 10. To make matters worse, she is one of five characters whose fate in unknown by the time of the season 1 finale.
  • Many viewers feel this way about Avocato, believing that he tapped out way too early in the show. And though he did come back, he was possessed by Invictus in the very next episode, and is presumably hiding in Final Space. Finally, this was remedied when he came back seemingly for good in the Season 2 finale.
  • Fox. Unlike his adoptive sister Ash, Fox didn't get much Character Development and his past as a Child Soldier during the Tryvuulian-Ventrexian war doesn't get a lot of focus. The latter of which isn't even brought up until after his death in Season 3.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Little Cato joining a gang of bounty hunters could have been explored more, since it lasted only one episode and the only meaningful thing that came out of it was Gary adopting Little Cato. Even still, the rest of the plots of the episode felt more self-sufficient aside from Sheryl teaming up with Todd, with even Clarence getting his clothes back after leaving without them at the end of the episode.
  • Some fans have expressed disappointment at the fact that Sheryl and the Lord Commander don't really interact much with each other during the events of Season 3, considering the Lord Commander's past history with her husband John.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: A common criticism of Season 3 is that it is simply too bleak and hopeless, with each episode ending with the Team Squad in an even worse scenario than they were before with the Earn Your Happy Ending trope being thrown out the window. It gets to the point where some people don't care what terrible thing happens next since you just know nothing will get better for the Team Squad.
• Too Cool to Live:
  • Played for Laughs when the fandom cried after the Galaxy One was destroyed.
  • Played straight with Nightfall, Kevin Van Newton, and Bolo - all likeable, well-acted characters who sadly give their lives for the rest of the cast.
• Trans Audience Interpretation: Gary as a transman is a popular headcanon within the LGBT Fanbase, thanks to Chapter 8 where he's clearly upset about not being able to grow a mustache and John telling Gary he's "Proud of the man (he's) become." Also contributing to the theory is Gary's proportions being smaller and/or less muscular compared to most other male characters on the show.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Lord Commander, of all people, can actually receive this in one scene. Although Gary and his father John giving him a beatdown thanks to time freezing sounds completely well-deserved, he was still Jack at the time and hadn't officially done anything wrong yet, so it can come across as rather cruel and undeserved since he was a different person back then. However, the whole scene is Played for Laughs, so it might not have been completely unintentional.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • In their early scenes together, Gary's flirtatious behaviour towards Quinn, when she makes it extremely clear she's not interested in him and is openly irritated with it, is pretty much sexual harassment. Likewise, his constant daily video diaries meant for Quinn (which she never got) during his years imprisoned aboard the Galaxy One are supposed to be heartwarming, but instead they come across as ultra-creepy obsessive stalking, especially because she's a woman that he only knew for less than an hour.
  • Sheryl's Heel–Face Turn and acceptance from the Team Squad has been criticized for coming off as rushed and too forgiving of her terrible treatment of Gary, who in turn comes off as too lenient considering she abandoned her own son, nearly killed Nightfall and derailed the quest to free Bolo and save Quinn, and showcased a callous, vindictive attitude throughout. Season 3 does try and smooth things out with her Ace Pilot skills and nice bits of bonding with the crew, showing she is at least trying to be a better mother figure, but the transition can still feel slipshod and too little, too late.
  • Ash's Face–Heel Turn into joining Invictus and attacking Mooncake and the Team Squad to set it loose on the universe is overall meant to be a tragic affair after she's been driven past the Despair Event Horizon. However, whilst Ash's actions after their corruption is complete are intended to be pretty dang vile (which is in line with the show's consistent portrayal of Sheryl, Todd and Clarence's motives being absolutely no excuse for them hurting innocent people), and whilst Ash does have the excuse that Invictus is an Eldritch Abomination with a track record for convincing even the most powerful characters that they want to serve it; many viewers found it hard to feel for Ash's turn at all because: (A) she was unfairly lashing out at Gary and the rest of the Team Squad over things beyond their control, and (B) not even the Nightmare Fetishist norms of the culture Ash was raised in can excuse her suspecting Invictus is the good guy, when Invictus directly admitted to her face before her corruption that it would quote-unquote "burn this universe to nothing" if she ever helped it escape.
• Unpopular Popular Character: While KVN is the The Friend Nobody Likes to everyone except Fox, some fans loves him for his Plucky Comic Relief antics.
• The Un-Twist:
  • The "twist" that the Infinity Guard is corrupt and works for the Lord Commander is so blindingly obvious that even Gary sees it coming and lampshades it.
    Gary: What a twist!
  • Clarence being the traitor in "The Set-Up". Clarence being established as a back-stabbing con artist and him previously trying to abandon Gary and the Catos in "The Closer You get" made it glaringly obvious prior to the episode's airing that he would be the one who betrayed the gang.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The animation is quite fluid and detailed, particularly the space backdrops.
  • Special mention goes to the "lightfold" sequence of every starship featured in the series so far, such as the Galaxy One.
  • Mooncake's signature energy blast also never fails to look dazzling.
• The Woobie: Has its own page.

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