Deep Space Discounts - TV Tropes

"Sleep, work! Sleep, work! Sleep, work! Sleep, work!"

-Opening Theme

Deep Space Discounts is an animated web series created by DeepBlueInk.

Deep Space Discounts is a space-sailing superstore run by a group of extraterrestrial misfits, each paying off their life sentences through mind-numbing retail work. We follow Immy (Cat Protano), the store’s first ever human inmate, who must adapt to her new life amongst criminals, aliens and dissatisfied customers. Among her coworkers are the optimistic and encouraging Vee (Jenny Yokobori), cranky slacker Kip (Barrett Leddy), the friendly but terrifying Clayre (Marissa Lenti), the perpetually chill Gub (Kieran Regan), and Bucket, a robot who's... around. All of which while being ever loomed over by company mascot, DeeDee (Brian David Gilbert).

The series launched on January 3rd, 2025, with new episodes released weekly on YouTube, before wrapping up season 1 on January 31st of the same year. You can find the first episode here.

Trope examples in Deep Space Discounts include:

• Ambiguous Criminal History: Deep Space Discounts exclusively employs prisoners to operate their stores, and as such all of the main cast have some sort of criminal record. Immy's is drawn particular attention to due to her not only being the only human present in the store (and possibly in greater intergalactic society as a whole), but her sentence of nearly 425 years is considered exceptionally long by the rest of the store's crew.
• Capitalism Is Bad: An undercurrent of the series; the plot kicks off after Deep Space Discounts is accused of not paying its employees a livable wage and fires its workforce to replace the employees with prison convicts. The main cast's labor is also implied to be unfairly compensated as demonstrated in "Five Minutes", where the result of Immy's Hard-Work Montage in the beginning barely shaves any time off her sentence, keeping her trapped and in service to the company. DeeDee spells it out best in the introductory video:

  "[You] provide us with grit, determination, free labor, and loyalty! So that we can provide you with seven^* meals every week."

• Cephalothorax: Beep is a round critter with no distinct head and body.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Immy’s full first name is Imogen, but she prefers to be called by her nickname, mainly because she’s heard her full first name countless times during the imprisonment process.
• The Ending Changes Everything: The first season finale ends with the investor reporting that Immy the human is doing excellently as a retail worker. There’s a shot of a document showing her prisoner number, #0000000001, implying that there are plans to sentence over a billion humans to deep space retail work.
• Extra Eyes: Clayre has four eyes.
• Fantastic Drug: The store's Neurovision devices appear to act this way, with Gub frequently using them to zone out and Immy's attempt to use one being presented as having a series of odd visions that give her a panic attack.
• Fish out of Water: It's established that humanity has no knowledge of the larger intergalactic community, meaning that even despite Deep Space Discounts resembling a standard superstore chain, Immy is otherwise wholly unprepared for her new life.
• Foreign Queasine: In the third episode, Immy gets bored of eating “egg” (the only Earth meal available), and decides to try one of the other options. The first option she dispenses is a rapidly bubbling yellowish liquid. She decides to stick to “egg”.
• Funny Background Event: In episode 2, as Gub is explaining neurovisions to Immy, there's a guy in the background touching the 'Orb That Gives You A Moustache And Amnesia' repeatedly.
• I Ate WHAT?!: After the egg Immy was given as food hatches, Immy realises with horror that she hasn't been eating chicken eggs.
• Institutional Apparel: DeeDee (being the mascot for DSD and its Incarceration Alternative Program) is dressed in a modern-looking orange jumpsuit. The cast's retail uniforms allude to this somewhat, with orange pants and the lower halves of their polo shirts being orange.
• Longer-Than-Life Sentence: Whatever crime Immy was sentenced for was severe enough to warrant nearly 425 years' worth of prison time.
• No Biochemical Barriers: Averted and Discussed - Episode 3 involves the gang encouraging Immy to try a new food from the store's meal dispenser (seeing as the only option listed for human consumption is "Egg"), and much of Immy's hesitation comes from having no idea if any of the food meant for her co-workers' species would be toxic to her.
• Prisoner's Work: Deep Space Discounts' day-to-day operations are staffed entirely by their Incarceration Alternative Program, where the store acquires prisoners from the intergalactic prison system to act as slave labor in exchange for reduced sentences and one meal per day.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Beep, the adorable alien that hatches out of Immy's food in episode 3.
• Rubber-Forehead Aliens: The aliens that appear as employees and customers largely look like humans with odd skin tones and hair colors and a few odd features like Extra Eyes and antennae. The most alien-looking alien is Gub, who appears to be made of slime, but is still largely human-shaped.
• Ship Tease: Between Immy and Vee. Particularly at the end of episode 4, when Vee has just shown Immy her secret hideaway in the warehouse, and Immy is trying to say that she and Beep will only show up there again with Vee's permission:

  Immy: I-I mean, wh-when we're invited or, umm... We'll knock! And y-you can, um, you know, w-when you need a "break away from everyone", you can—
  Vee: [interrupting] Immy...I don't need breaks from you.
  [Immy blushes]

• Sinister Surveillance: All of the DSD employees are given wristbands that act as terminals to DeeDee, an AI program that serves as both the store's mascot and surveillance system. His presence in their lives is emphasized through posters of him covering the store walls.

  DeeDee: I'm everywhere!

• Soul-Sucking Retail Job: Deep Space Discounts is a store staffed entirely through enslaved prisoner labor, with the closest thing to managers at their stores being the AI Mascot meant to surveil them. Multiple posters around the store are displayed that are meant to demoralize the staff and encourage customers to abuse them, their only compensation is time reduced from their prison sentences, and their only benefits are a single complimentary meal per day. Even prior to the Incarceration Alternative Program's existence, the store was the subject of lawsuits and labor strikes, where their solution to those problems was to fire all their workers and start using prison labor instead.
• Token Human: Immy is the only human employee in Deep Space Discounts, and the only human in deep space at all.
• Translator Microbes: The wristbands the workers use act as these, translating everything (except for profanity) into the wearer's native tongue.
• TV Head Robot: Bucket is a robot with this design, expressing themself by displaying words and images on their screen.
• The Unreveal: Immy’s records are shown at the end of episode five, but the section showing what she was sentenced for is covered.
• What Are You in For?: The rest of the employees, especially Kip, are justifiably curious as to what Immy's conviction was for, given her sentence and the fact that she's a human.
• "Will Return" Caption: The finale of the first season ends with a stinger of Bucket floating in space with the words "DSD WILL RETURN" displayed on their screen.
• Workaholic: Immy becomes one in episode 4 in the hope that if she can work hard enough, she can reduce her sentence and get out early. Unfortunately, all her effort barely puts a scratch in her sentence.