Upcoming · HBO Max
Stuart Fails to Save the Universe pitches itself as a high-concept science fiction comedy where the stakes are genuinely enormous and the protagonist is genuinely, chronically unequal to them. The humor comes from that gap collapsing repeatedly: universe-ending crises deflate into small personal humiliations, and grand heroic moments curdle into awkward, low-grade disasters. It is absurdist sci-fi filtered through sitcom-scale self-doubt.
Stuart's incompetence is not a hurdle he eventually clears; it is the whole point. Each attempt to rise to the occasion becomes its own comedy of deflation, where the fantasy and science fiction machinery exists mainly to manufacture new and increasingly elaborate ways for things to go wrong for one very unlucky person. The cosmic backdrop makes the smallness funnier.
cosmic bad luck, underdog failure and Comedy
Comedy and Science Fiction
Season 1 · 10 episodes
HBO Max
Comic book store owner Stuart Bloom from The Big Bang Theory (2007) returns in a new series where he attempts - and apparently fails - to save the universe, staying true to his unlucky nature.
Start with the closest match, then check out two more shows with a similar feel, pace, mood, or theme.
A tale of the bungling of Armageddon features an angel, a demon, an eleven-year-old Antichrist, and a doom-saying witch.
Good Omens brings the same cosmic comedy energy as Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, with supernatural beings treating the end of the world like a messy errand. Expect warm banter, gentle chaos, and jokes that keep moving, even when the stakes feel huge.
An animated series on adult-swim about the infinite adventures of Rick, a genius alcoholic and careless scientist, with his grandson Morty, a 14 year-old anxious boy who is not so smart. Together, they explore the infinite universes; causing mayhem and running into trouble.
Rick and Morty delivers the same sci-fi comedy hit as Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, where big universe problems get crushed into personal, humiliating moments. The fast, mean jokes and family pressure land hard, and the danger ramps up quicker, darker, and stranger than Stuart’s bumbling failures.
Follows President Andre Curtis and his eccentric staff as they deal with various crises that Rick Sanchez typically ignores.
President Curtis shares Stuart Fails to Save the Universe’s taste for irreverent sci-fi mishaps, where competence is constantly undercut by bureaucracy and bad timing. You get workplace tension, escalating chaos, and sharp ensemble jokes, but the setting feels more office-bound and the pace stays brisker.
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