The Orville - Seth MacFarlane takes on Star Trek

Seth always seems to pound a punchline into oblivion. It’s like the does not believe that we can get the joke until he beats us over the head with it 300 times. I much prefer McFarlane working in the background instead of in a starring role. This could be fun, if someone can rein him in but if it end up to be A Million Ways to Die… IN SPAAAAAAAACE! Im out.

crossed with Galaxy Quest.

Should never ben mentioned in the same breath as anything McFarlane does until he does something on that level. Not a Family Guy fan (obviously), although I thought it was ok and even funny at times.

What, specifically, do you think this lifts from Galaxy Quest? And no, the core concept of spoofing Star Trek doesn’t count.

Abandon ship!

Other reviews seem to agree. This is a semi-serious show, and not at all the goofball comedy the commercials have been selling it as.

Seems like it’d have to be semi serious… Couldn’t keep up a goofball thing in live action for a whole show.

Red Dwarf, Other Space, and a some others managed to be pure comedies.

Wait, so this show sucks? I did not see that coming.

This makes me even more mad that FOX rejected the scifi comedy pilot made by the people behind It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Sounds like it’s better than Inhumans.

At least The Tick was awesome.

When I thought this was going to be Family Guy in Space I was kind of curious, I figured there would be plenty of groan-inducing punch lines, a few actual LOL-worthy zingers and the requisite wildly inappropriate scene or two per episode.

But now it’s an hour long DRAMA? Like a real Star Trek show only with the occasional MacFarlane humor bit inserted here and there? I don’t even know how to process that. I can’t conceive of any way in which this show isn’t going to be terrible. And yet I may still watch the first couple of episodes just to see how bad it can get…

That actually sounds super up my alley. . .

This is kind of what that Tim Allen movie was though, wasn’t it?

Apparently, Seth MacFarlane approached CBS Paramount with his take on Trek before Star Trek Discovery went into production. Like, an actual sincere Star Trek series with him as the showrunner. That didn’t work out, and somehow, he was able to get Fox to fund this instead, which is everything he pitched to CBS, but without the Star Trek name. A bit of humor, this is Seth MacFarlane after all, but mostly a straight-up sci-fi Star Trek show.

The whole enterprise (har har) is odd.

Honestly though, I love me some star trek.

Me too. And I’m willing to cut a Trek show some slack. It usually takes a season or 3 to get good. So I’m willing to watch The Orville for 3 seasons, hoping it can get better.

But if it’s still bad after 3 seasons? I’m out.

(This rule only applies to Trek or Trek-like shows. For all other shows, like Supernatural, Firefly, The Flash, Buffy, for instance, if I don’t like the pilot episode, I’m out).

No, really it wasn’t. It was an out-and-out comedy. I mean, it had heart, so it wasn’t just a series of gags, but it was very much playing for laughs at every opportunity.

I’m actually more intrigued by the show now, though I don’t have a lot of hope for it. I don’t really have any appetite for another spoof space show after Red Dwarf and Other Space, but I could certainly go for a mostly dramatic space show leavened with humour (ie Firefly). For what it’s worth, the AV Club’s fall TV preview is positive about it.

Oh, to be sure. It was definitely a comedy, but when I say it was “serious” I mean it wasn’t just family-guy level slapstick the whole time.

There’s a niche between comedy and drama, and that is rousing adventure. Maybe that is what Orville is aiming for, and it will only swing to ha-ha or whah-whah for variety and story reasons.

Best case scenario: this show will be the Babylon 5 to Star Trek: Discovery’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Two shows that seem to cover familiar ground, with one show having a much more impressive pedigree. The new kid on the block has significant flaws but winds up being a significant contribution to the medium. Worst case scenario: it’s Space Rangers.