I have to admit to never being a big fan of Seth McFarlane’s. I’ve never watched Family Guy, and I don’t really care for his sense of humor, which often boarders on being extremely childish and way too on the nose for my taste. So when I heard that he was doing The Orville, a science fiction series for Fox, I figured that I would avoid it like the plague, just like I’ve avoided Family Guy and his film projects. What convinced me that The Orville would be bad was the trailer for the series, which made it out to be another laugh-riot spoof, this time on science fiction shows (and I’m not adverse to a good SF spoof--I loved Galaxy Quest--I just didn’t want to see one done by McFarlane).
But then I discovered something interesting. Shortly before the pilot for The Orville was to air, I found out that the series was not a spoof, and that it wasn’t even a comedy. Intrigued by this turn of events I watched the pilot, which was written by McFarlane and directed by Jon Favreau (who also directed the first two Iron Man films, and the remake of Disney’s The Jungle Book). And, lo and behold, I enjoyed it very much.
The Orville is the name of an exploratory-class starship that McFarlane’s character, Ed Mercer, takes command of after he suffers through a rough year when he divorces his wife after he catches her cheating on him (with a blue alien). His personal confidence shattered, Mercer’s career as an officer with the Union (an interstellar exploratory group not unlike the Federation from Star Trek) takes a sharp nosedive and his receiving command of the Orville is seen as his last chance.
Of course the kicker here is that his ex-wife, well-played by Adrianne Palicki, joins Mercer aboard the Orville as his XO, or executive officer. But that’s really the only major comedic twist in the pilot, and it’s later rationally explained within the story how it really came to be. Other cast members include Scott Grimes (from McFarlane’s American Dad--but who I recall from 1986's Critters) as the helmsman and Penny Johnson Jerald (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Castle) as the ship’s doctor.
The Orville is really more of a loving homage to Star Trek, particularly to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Instead of a knee-slapping comedy, The Orville is actually McFarlane’s shot at creating a legitimate science fiction series, and the universe-building that he devotes to this project is impressive. Like Next Generation, the Orville flies in a utopian future that’s set several hundred years in the future, but unlike Next Gen the characters are not as perfect--they’re more like regular, everyday people who screw up on occasion. They also gossip about each other, drink sodas on the bridge, and have an overall laid back attitude that I found refreshing.
What’s also refreshing is how the series embraces a bright, cheery future for the human race. While I’m a huge fan of the dystopian SF stuff--the Mad Max and The Hunger Games series are among my favorite films--I still need to see an SF project with an overall positive feel every now and then. The Star Trek TV series (especially the Trek sequel series in the 1990s) used to fill that need for me; they were a weekly reminder that, despite the problems of the present day, we will still be here to see better days as a race in the times to come.
It was this strong message of optimism that McFarlane projects so strongly in The Orville that gravitated me to it. Of course, this review was based only on the first episode, which managed to evoke all the best feelings of Next Gen and DS9 for this old Trek fan, and because of that I’m willing to give it a shot. The Orville is trying to be the ST: The Next Generation for a new generation, and that's not a bad thing. For that lofty goal, it deserves to be viewed with an open mind--much like how in this same fashion the best Star Trek episodes could be enjoyed. -- SF
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