[tv / HULU] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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[tv / HULU] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Daehawk »

Brannon Braga posted this....his new show.

http://www.fox.com/the-orville
The Orville is a one-hour science fiction series set 400 years in the future that follows the adventures of the U.S.S. Orville, a mid-level exploratory vessel. Its crew, both human and alien, faces the wonders and dangers of outer space, while also dealing with the familiar, often humorous problems of regular people in a workplace…even though some of those people are from other planets, and the workplace is a faster-than-light spaceship. In the 25th century, Earth is part of the Planetary Union, a far-reaching, advanced and mostly peaceful civilization with a fleet of 3,000 ships. Down on his luck after a bitter divorce, Planetary Union officer Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) finally gets his chance to command one of these ships: the U.S.S. Orville. Determined to prove his worth and write a new chapter in his life, Ed finds that task all the more difficult when the First Officer assigned to his ship is his ex-wife, Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki). As the new commander, Ed assembles a qualified, but eccentric crew, including his best friend, Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes), who has problems with authority, but is the best helmsman in the fleet; Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald), one of the Union’s most accomplished physicians; Bortus (Peter Macon), an alien from a single-sex species; Isaac (Mark Jackson), an artificial life-form from a machine society that thinks biological life-forms are inferior; navigator John Lamarr (J. Lee), whose casual humor cuts through even the most dire situations; Alara Kitan (Halston Sage), a young, inexperienced security officer whose home planet’s high gravity gives her superior physical strength; and Yaphit, a gelatinous creature voiced by comedian Norm MacDonald. Somehow, Ed and Kelly must put the past behind them and, with the help of the crew, navigate fascinating and sometimes dangerous adventures in outer space, as well as the tumultuous and captivating day-to-day personal relationships with their colleagues.[
Seth MacFarlane as Ed Mercer, the captain of the Orville

Adrianne Palicki as Kelly Grayson, the first officer of the Orville and Ed's ex-wife

Scott Grimes as Gordon Malloy, the helmsman of the Orville and Ed's best friend

Penny Johnson Jerald as Dr. Claire Finn, one of the most accomplished physicians in the Planetary Union

Peter Macon as Bortus, an alien from a single-sex species

Mark Jackson[5] as Isaac, an artificial life-form from a machine society that thinks biological lifeforms are inferior

J. Lee as John LaMarr, the navigator of the Orville with a casual sense of humor

Halston Sage as Alara Kitan, a young inexperienced security officer from a planet where high gravity makes her stronger

Norm MacDonald as the voice of Yaphit, a gelatinous creature

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Last edited by Daehawk on Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [tv] The Orville

Post by Smoove_B »

So it's like a Galaxy Quest TV show? I guess it's possible it'll be good but I know people are rather hot and cold over Seth MacFarlane.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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I think McFarlane can be funny and entertaining. It's Braga I can't stand.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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ding
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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Daehawk wrote:ding
ah, my hot pocket is done.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by tgb »

Sounds like it has tons of potential. Imagine. A show about a bunch of humans and aliens in a space vessel trekking amongst the stars.

It's a wonder it hasn't been thought of before.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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I admit, it is oddly reminiscent of Moonlighting.
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Re: [tv] The Orville

Post by Rumpy »

Smoove_B wrote:So it's like a Galaxy Quest TV show? I guess it's possible it'll be good but I know people are rather hot and cold over Seth MacFarlane.

That's the first thought that came to mind. My guess is that it will be a mix of that and Redshirts, which itself is being considered as a series. The odd thing is, I think Galaxy Quest was being tossed around as a TV show at some point, but not sure what came of it. Maybe this is a genesis of that.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Isgrimnur »

Good to see Palicki get a job after getting screwed on the Agents of Shield debacle.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by McNutt »

That trailer did not bring the funny.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Smoove_B »

That's weird because I thought the trailer looked entertaining. I like Seth MacFarlane's humor so I'm likely biased, but I'll give it a go when the show airs.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by LordMortis »

Smoove_B wrote:That's weird because I thought the trailer looked entertaining. I like Seth MacFarlane's humor so I'm likely biased, but I'll give it a go when the show airs.
I'll TiVo it until I'm bored or hooked.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Zaxxon »

The trailer looks... Really good!
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Re: [tv] The Orville

Post by Jeff V »

Smoove_B wrote: I know people are rather hot and cold over Seth MacFarlane.
More like he's off or on. When he's on, there's none better. When he's off though, he can be truly dreadful. Sometimes he flips from one to the other from one scene to the next.

I hope he's on with this one.
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Re: [tv] The Orville

Post by Kraken »

Jeff V wrote:
Smoove_B wrote: I know people are rather hot and cold over Seth MacFarlane.
More like he's off or on. When he's on, there's none better. When he's off though, he can be truly dreadful. Sometimes he flips from one to the other from one scene to the next.

I hope he's on with this one.
I'd go along with that. A lot of his humor is kinda META, self-referential, pop-culture stuff that just goes right past me. Juvenile potty humor leaves me cold, too, and he does that.

I do like the premise, though, so I'll give it a chance. I'm still watching The Last Man on Earth, for some reason, so I guess I'm not that discerning.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by LordMortis »

I'm good until he

1) Draws out a gag "to absurdity" which translates as boredom to me.
2) Gets preachy. He flows in and out of moral/political comedy. Sometimes I'm enjoying him and out of nowhere he just becomes preachy, even usually agreeing with POV, he's just comes off as a dick an not so funny.
3) He goes into musical mode. Musical comedy is a rare gift. He doesn't have it.

It's my hope 3 doesn't fit and the he doesn't have so much control that 1 and 2 become an issue.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Rumpy »

I thought it was a pretty good trailer. But it remains to be seen how long this they can make a series out of this. Still, for what it is, and the people involved (lots of Trek people!), it looks more exciting than Discovery for me.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Fretmute »

This appears to have a dramatically higher budget than I would have expected.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by msteelers »

Does Fox let their shows go up on Hulu? I'm intrigued enough to give this one a shot.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by hepcat »

Yup, they sure do.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by LordMortis »

I hope that review is wrong. I've been looking forward to this for quite some time.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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Seth MacFarlane’s ‘The Orville’ sets off for a humorless (and lifeless) void
Spoiler:
What on Earth (or any other planet) possessed Seth MacFarlane to create and star in a spoof of “Star Trek” in its late-1980s “Next Generation” mode that isn’t funny at all?

I don’t mean that “The Orville” (premiering Sunday on Fox) is full of tawdry, inane, ill-advised jokes that weren’t funny to me personally; I mean that the show is an airless vacuum, with only a few nominal attempts at ironic wit. Something terrible happened on this voyage: MacFarlane decided to make “The Orville” sincere.

Thus the show immediately and ignominiously becomes the first real stinker of the fall season, a deep-space dud, recommended only for those who like to study cases of creative bankruptcy. Fans of MacFarlane’s “Family Guy” and “American Dad” stand to suffer the most, expecting (as they should) a wildly inappropriate sendup of the namby-pamby galactic harmony that serves as “Star Trek’s” moral engine, which, despite its honorable altruism, is always ripe for satire. But people who have understood MacFarlane’s other side — whether as a sentimental Sinatra-style crooner or reviving Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” or as a slapstick movie actor — will also wonder what went wrong here.

As one of the very few people who will ever admit to repeatedly enjoying MacFarlane’s widely panned 2014 western spoof “A Million Ways to Die in the West” (hey, I’m not proud), I was hoping “The Orville” might be similarly laden with a combination of blunt humor and genre appreciation. Instead, MacFarlane and company seem primarily interested in bringing back something that is long gone — those syndicated “Next Gen” episodes that presented 20th-century ethical qualms and then provided peaceful outcomes, where politeness thrived among species.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Holman »

Ah, well.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Kraken »

That sounds unexpectedly dreadful. Speaking as someone who finds MacFarlane's snarky pop-culture potty humor only occasionally funny, I won't miss all the expected in-jokes. But it sounds like there's nothing else there to replace them.

And yet I will watch it anyway, because I am an incurable Trekker. Maybe it will get better if it lands with a loud enough thud. If it gets retrofitted into Family Guy In Space, though, I'm out.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Max Peck »

Seth MacFarlane Discusses “The Orville,” “Star Trek,” and the Struggle to Make Science Fiction Funny
With a few exceptions, sci-fi seems to be pretty devoid of humor, unless the audience is laughing at campy set design or bad alien prosthetics. Why do you think that is?

Oftentimes in science fiction, you’re dealing with life-and-death topics that are so grand and operatic in their size and scope that it’s a hard thing to weave humor in there without it seeming out of place. “The Orville” tries to recapture a kind of science fiction that celebrates human advancement and achievement and intellectual evolution rather than going for the cheap thrills of the zombie hunt. The inclusion of humor in “The Orville” is like an experiment.

But what accounts for the grim tone of so much recent (and excellent) sci-fi—“District 9,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Expanse”? Does dystopia make for better drama?

I’ve been asking myself this question for a while. Dystopia is good for drama because you’re starting with a conflict: your villain is the world. Writers on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” found it very difficult to work within the confines of a world where everything was going right. They objected to it. But I think that audiences loved it. They liked to see people who got along, and who lived in a world that was a blueprint for what we might achieve, rather than a warning of what might happen to us.

Did you draw on that utopian “Star Trek” vision at all in making “The Orville”?

It was important to take a cue from Gene Roddenberry that somehow we’ve gotten past money. Money can’t be a factor. It’s too primitive. I really love that, in “Star Trek,” reputation becomes the main form of currency in the absence of money. When you think about it, it’s not the warp drive, it’s not the transporter, it’s the replicator. We give a little nod to that in “The Orville.”
For better or for worse, it sounds like the show is what it was intended to be, and the critical reviews are largely punishing it for not being what the reviewers expected. I wouldn't be surprised if audiences shun it for the double sin of not being MacFarlane's signature slapstick as well as being heavily influenced by ST:TNG without actually being Star Trek. Regardless, I'll be checking it out. Of course, it's on Fox, so in the event that I like it, it'll be cancelled by mid-season. :)
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Holman »

Judging from that trailer:

If it's not a satire, it's a sitcom. Good sitcoms are rare.

If it's not a sitcom, it's a Star Trek knock-off that will be judged against Star Trek's high bar.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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Max Peck wrote: For better or for worse, it sounds like the show is what it was intended to be, and the critical reviews are largely punishing it for not being what the reviewers expected. I wouldn't be surprised if audiences shun it for the double sin of not being MacFarlane's signature slapstick as well as being heavily influenced by ST:TNG without actually being Star Trek.
Did you read the reviews posted here? They're knocking it not for being a TNG copy with MacFarlane humor. They're knocking it for being a terrible TNG copy with terrible 'humor.'

Whether or not that's fair, we'll see tomorrow. But the consistency of review opinion isn't giving me much hope.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Buatha »

Well, I don't have a wonderful ratio with critics, so I will enjoy it without too much bias. I like what I've seen and heard so far, but I find viewers are super critical and generally ruin it for those who are less so (i.e. Stargate Universe).
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Daehawk »

If I want to watch something Ill watch it and make up my own mind. Not a lemming. I usually like his humor. But I dont watch tv right now either.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Max Peck »

Zaxxon wrote:
Max Peck wrote: For better or for worse, it sounds like the show is what it was intended to be, and the critical reviews are largely punishing it for not being what the reviewers expected. I wouldn't be surprised if audiences shun it for the double sin of not being MacFarlane's signature slapstick as well as being heavily influenced by ST:TNG without actually being Star Trek.
Did you read the reviews posted here? They're knocking it not for being a TNG copy with MacFarlane humor. They're knocking it for being a terrible TNG copy with terrible 'humor.'

Whether or not that's fair, we'll see tomorrow. But the consistency of review opinion isn't giving me much hope.
I didn't say that the reviews said that. And I posted one of the two reviews here, so yes, I did read at least one of them (actually, I did read the other one also). Does that mean I have to accept them at face value without any further context or seeing for myself whether the show works for me or not?
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Zaxxon »

Of course not. But it does mean you probably shouldn't surmise a different reason behind the criticism than the one they presented unless you have a reason to do so. Especially when they directly address the fact that it not being what they expected wasn't the problem.

I am hoping I like it. We shall see.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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Max Peck wrote:Does that mean I have to accept them at face value without any further context or seeing for myself whether the show works for me or not?
Yes
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

Honestly, this show sounds rubbish and doesn't interest me at all; mainly because I suspect Braga and MacFarlane lack the talent to make something like this work. In reading the reviews, it seems extremely trite and derivative, which doesn't surprise me at all.

MacFarlane's right that sci-fi comedy is a tough nut to crack, particularly on TV. But when you think of the best examples, off–the–wall originality and dialogue are usually critical to their success (e.g. Red Dwarf, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Futurama, Invader Zim, Rick and Morty). Red Dwarf deftly handled the life-and-death tropes MacFarlane mentioned in the above interview from the very first episode; Holly, the incredibly droll ship's computer, informs Dave Lister of the death of the entire ship's crew, and managed to make it funny.

Much as I'd love the idea of an amusing Starflight/Star Control II-type TV show, this likely ain't it.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by hepcat »

I was going to mention Quark, a short lived sci fi sitcom from the 70s, but then I watched some clips of it on YouTube. It did not age well. I remember it fondly probably because I was about 8 when it first aired. And at 8, Orville probably would've been funny too.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by morlac »

I wasn't planning on watching it but Football went right into it and then I saw: Directed by John Favreau in the opening credits. I was entertained enough that I will watch the second one. There were a few cringe worthy moments and the comedy seemed out of place at times but for me it was mostly hits. Also, the special effects were better than I expected and the show must have a pretty big budget. I will report back after the second episode.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by MonkeyFinger »

Ah... Quark. I was a wee bit older than 8 at the time but I too have fond memories of it . No plans to go back and watch it so as to not ruin them. :P

I'm basically in the same camp as morlac right now. We'll see.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Zaxxon »

I watched and thought it was not very good. Maybe not terrible, but it did not keep my interest. I'll still probably watch the next one nonetheless. Hoping it just needs to hit its stride.
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

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Does it have a talking baby or a talking dog?
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Re: [tv] The Orville .......Seth MacFarlane

Post by Zaxxon »

hepcat wrote:Does it have a talking baby or a talking dog?
Does a talking plant count?
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