The Orville: Seth MacFarlane's new Star Trek spoof TV series

[Brundle-Fly]

Watched the trailer for this tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXzN39rF5eU

Could be the Galaxy Quest TV show that never was? I'm not the biggest Family Guy fan in the world so I have reservations but this teaser looked quite fun (if you like a bit of sci-fi comedy).

I've no opinion on MacFarlane but I gather he's Gervaisian kryponite to some on CaB? I liked his vocal performance in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008) if that helps?

http://www.space.com/36887-the-orville-fox-tv-series-seth-macfarlane.html

Spock thoughts?

[Mobius]

Doesn't look too bad actually, but does he have to have a talking non-human thing in fucking everything he does? for fucks sake

[up_the_hampipe]

Seth MacFarlane is quite an awkward actor. I'll give it a shot though. Doesn't look very funny from the trailer, but there's rarely good comedy trailers.

[Bazooka]

Nah.

[Blumf]

MacFarlane's a Trekkie, so I'd hope he does this justice (like Galaxy Quest), but you had that whole ex-girlfriend (or whatever) thing, that just seems boring. Plus, as mentioned, he's not the greatest actor.

We'll see.

[Brundle-Fly]

It insists it won't be a Futurama knock off but more a TNG pisstake.

Hmm... I'm sure there will be many parallels to Futurama because they'll face a similar "Simpsons did it!" South Park dilemma with a sci-fi comedy set on a manned spaceship in the future.

[Captain Z]

[tag]I wish I could fly right up to the stars but I can't[/tag]

[Ignatius_S]

Hard to tell from the trailer, particularly as MacFarlane says that it's focussing on the humour rather than the science fiction element.

When it's come to live-action roles (including playing himself), I've always found MacFarlane wanting and that was going to be my main concern here. However, based on this, I'm cautiously optimistic about his performance.

Although MacFarlane is a Trek fan, I'm not sure this is necessarily a good thing in itself; passion can override objectivity. With the FG Star Wars spoofs, the law of diminishing returns set in very quickly after the first one and the love of the source didn't resolve the issues. This is a passion project but the type of programme that I wonder if there's a huge market for.

MacFarlane says that it isn't going to the Family Guy in space – and I suspect that could be an issue as it wouldn't tap into his natural demographic.

Also, from what he's said (e.g. 'digging deeper than Galaxy Quest') -
http://trekmovie.com/2017/05/22/seth-macfarlane-the-orville-will-be-more-star-trek-than-futurama/ - my impression is that it runs the risk of being neither fish nor fowl. The series was being touted as a comedy-drama, but my gut feeling is that neither element will be very satisfactory.

[SteveDave]

(TAG) Hyperdrive renewed for series 3 (TAG)

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It made me think of Hyperdrive as well. Also, A Million Ways to Die in the West, with MacFarlane pretty much playing himself commenting on the genre tropes, rather than playing a character. It could be alright, I suppose. It'll probably get cancelled after one series.

[olliebean]

This'll be shit, I reckon.

[Alberon]

I'm trying to reserve judgement but I expect it won't be fit to polish Galaxy Quest's boots.

[Brundle-Fly]

To reiterate what someone once said on the internet twenty years ago

I suppose we have to give these things a chance .

[Spiny Norman]

The trailer contained some funny stuff but what I worry about (not in the sense of actually losing sleep of course) is that the ideas run dry after a while. Galaxy Quest only had 90 minutes so it didn't have that problem.

[Petey Pate]

Parodying Star Trek is what Seth MacFarlane's been doing before he even started his career.

Life of Larry

[Jock Macabre]

It's gonna be utterly shite, but I'll watch it and love it nonetheless.

[JoeyBananaduck]

Think perhaps my absolute soul-consuming loathing of Seth MacFarlane and everything he ever had anything to do with might preclude me enjoying this.

[Blumf]

Think perhaps my absolute soul-consuming loathing of Seth MacFarlane and everything he ever had anything to do with might preclude me enjoying this.

Reminder that Alan Bennett himself appeared in Family Guy

[Alberon]

The Orville has screened its first three episodes for critics and the verdict is... not good. Even by Seth MacFarlane's low live action standards.

From Variety

When the dust settles, "The Orville" may emerge as the most inexplicable show of the new season. It certainly never makes a convincing case for its existence. The first impression — that it exists so that creator and star Seth MacFarlane can do elaborate "Star Trek" cosplay — is only reinforced over the course of the tepid trio of episodes that kick off the show.
...
As an actor, MacFarlane displays basic competence, but he does not have the charisma or chops to carry an entire season of an hourlong drama, nor is he able to set the right tone for the show. Of course, that would be difficult for anyone, given "The Orville's" inconsistency about what it wants to be. It tries to be light and comedic, except when it's a morality play or an action hour or a hangout comedy set in space. It doesn't help that most of the jokes don't display the liveliness of a batch of Tribbles.
...
There is an attempt to do something unusual with one species: An officer aboard the Orville named Bortus (Peter Macon) is from a planet populated exclusively by males, as is his mate, Klyden (Chad L. Coleman). The third installment, which is devoted entirely to their efforts to expand their family, is one of the most spectacular and unfortunate storytelling fails of the year.

An air of self-congratulation hangs over the entire hour, as if MacFarlane, who wrote it, couldn't get over his awe at his own bravery in engaging with a difficult, complex topic. Without giving anything away, suffice it to say that the show takes a big creative swing tackling issues of gender and identity, but it does not connect, and the end result is disastrous. If it's challenging for "The Orville" to wring laughs from the audience, it's all but impossible for it to earn the dramatic (and tone-deaf) conclusion it attempts in the third episode.

From TVLine

Now this set-up might've worked as a half-hour comedy, since some of the interstellar gags actually land. (I enjoyed Norm Macdonald as the voice of an amorphous green blob, for example.) But as an hour-long drama, The Orville is downright tedious, with painfully earnest dialogue and melodramatic act breaks that verge on self-parody. Scene after scene lands with a thud, like you're waiting for a clever punchline that never comes. MacFarlane, and his show, take themselves so damn seriously that they suck all the fun out of space exploration.

From USA Today

The biggest problem with The Orville is that it can't strike a consistent or engaging tone, at least in the first three episodes made available for review. There are too few jokes for it to truly feel like a comedy (despite appearing that way in early promos), but attempts at humor muddy the series' ambitions as a pure sci-fi adventure. By flirting with two genres, MacFarlane has created a messy series that lacks focus.

Most of the time, The Orville is actually quite invested in the sci-fi world it creates. The series is surprisingly reliant on special effects and makeup, and builds an intriguing world with its own version of Star Fleet and a unique ship. And while it tells some interesting genre stories, the plots are undercut by a vomit gag or random jokes about who gets to be the car in a game of Monopoly.

From UPROXX

Ads for Fox's new sci-fi series The Orville have tended to paint it as Seth MacFarlane's Galaxy Quest, with the Family Guy creator and star riffing on Star Trek with a mix of irreverence and affection. This makes sense: MacFarlane is an unabashed Trekkie, and he's known primarily for crude comedy (and occasional tributes to movie musicals). If that's what MacFarlane and friends had made, it would still be a risk — MacFarlane has had many successes voicing animated or CGI characters, but the only other time he was a flesh-and-blood lead of something he created, it was A Million Ways to Die in the West — but it would be largely on-brand.

That's not what The Orville actually is, though. Instead, it's an hour-long drama that basically is 1990s Star Trek — or, rather, a mediocre facsimile of that era's lamest Trek components, and with MacFarlane (who also created the series) as the lead instead of Patrick Stewart. Every five minutes or so, all the technobabble will pause so that MacFarlane or one of his co-stars (including Adrianne Palicki, Scott Grimes, Peter Macon, Chad L. Coleman, Halston Sage, and Penny Johnson Jerald) can make a joke about alien genitalia or 20th century Earth pop culture — one episode manages to combine the two — to keep the Peter Griffin fans in the audience from tuning out.

So what the show seems to be is largely MacFarlane doing a Star Trek TNG (which is thirty years old now, lets not forget) homage with rejected Family Guy jokes stuffed randomly through the script. I'm really surprised this isn't a half-hour show.

The first two episodes air Sunday in the States, but this will not last long.

[Steven]

I came up with the joke when I was about 14 of the captain and female 2nd in command in a Star Trek type spaceship ending up having sex on the Captain's desk and someone's arse accidentally hits the 'self-destruct' button, cueing the ship computer needing to ask for voice-recognised verbal confirmation from the captain and 2nd in command who obviously are preoccupied and going "Yes!" over and over again due to the fucking which accidentally programs the computer to blow up the ship in a specified number of minutes, and hilarity ensues. There, Seth, you can have that one gratis.

[JamesTC]

A lot of critics these days equate 90s television with some sort of dark era before The Wire, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones created television. I can't take their criticism of the show's TNG elements seriously until I have seen it myself as they regard episodic television as caveman paintings.

Despite not liking Family Guy since it was cancelled the second time, I do really want to like this. I think a show like this has come along at just the right time. Bright and optimistic as a nice antidote to the perennially dark Sci-Fi and Fantasy we have these days. Not least the upcoming Star Trek Discovery.

A Million Way to Die in the West was terrible. So much so that the person I went to the cinema to see it with apologised for choosing it. So if it is like that, it won't take long for my patience to disappear. But if it does TNG style stories with a few silly MacFarlane jokes thrown in then I will take that at the moment.

[biggytitbo]

He's got an incredibly leaden touch as a light comic actor hasn't he, kills every possible funny line stone dead. The framing gag was alright, everything else as eerily unfunny.

[Steven]

He's got an incredibly leaden touch as a light comic actor hasn't he, kills every possible funny line stone dead. The framing gag was alright, everything else as eerily unfunny.

I'm looking forward to when he finally comes out as gay. Right after Simon Cowell, and Satan buying skiis.

[Sebastian Cobb]

This'll be shit, I reckon.

[Howj Begg]

I tell you what, if there's one thing in 2017 that needs taking down a peg or two, it's Star Trek.

Next I reckon he should come up with a spoof of All in the Family.

[JoeyBananaduck]

Reminder that Alan Bennett himself appeared in Family Guy

Everyone and their mother appeared in The Simpsons. Doesn't mean it didn't become third-rate shit.

[up_the_hampipe]

I used to think that the reason Family Guy became so atrocious was due to Seth Macfarlane's diminished involvement in the writing, but as he ventures into more of his own projects, it's clear to see that's not the case. He Gervais'd me.

[Ambient Sheep]

I rapidly got tired of Family Guy but am still pretty fond of American Dad.  Then again, apparently he's mainly just a voice actor on that, the other two co-creators are the real brains behind that project.

I was hoping this was going to be better than the actual official Star Trek revival, but judging from that trailer, it very probably won't be.  Agree that the framing gag was the best in it.

[idunnosomename]

God I'm glad someone is here to do a spoof of Star Trek. Long overdue

[Brundle-Fly]

Doesn't bode well then?