The Orville

[Gman]

I'm glad The Orville has been so well received.  MacFarlane is a huge Trek/Star Wars nut, and Roddenberry would be proud of what he's done with this show, being the real "new" Trek show out there right now IMO.  Norm McDonald has been great, just his voice makes me laugh still.  Everyone on the show has been great in fact. 

I saw an interview Seth MacFarlane did with George Lucas, it's on Youtube if anyone cares, really shows the depth of knowledge he has about the SW universe, he's a serious fan, that's for certain.  Same with Trek, I read a blurb that Ronald D Moore wrote about Seth McFarlane and his Trek fandom and knowledge - if you can impress the guy who largely wrote/produced DS9 and most of the Battlestar Galactica reboot, you're good at it.

Very glad Fox renewed The Orville for season 2, I'll bet we see a long, long run out of this show, MacFarlane and his writers have done great so far, and there are endless directions they can take this and be successful in making old school, and new school, Trek/SciFi fans react positively. 

[Wiley]

I don't know if I agree that it fits as new Trek, Trek always seemed to me to take itself a lot more seriously than The Orville.  It still feels to me like a parody, and refreshingly a parody that doesn't bash you over the head with silly slapstick parody references every 7 seconds like most do these days.  They have a very good balance of humor and drama.

I'm 3 episodes in and absolutely loving it.  Glad it's been renewed.

Wiley.

[Randy1]

GMan has a good analogy there in regarding to star trek. 

The best show on fox since Firefly.

[icepac]

I really like this orville.

[jimbo71]

[icepac]

Trumped by the ultimate orville.

[BoilerDown]

I've seen all the episodes now.  I like the show, but yeah, its still a parody.  A fan parody, and an homage to Trek, but still a parody.

The thing that bothers me the most about The Orville is that it won't inspire anyone to become an astronaut like Star Trek did.  They just leave the science completely out of it, and what attempts they make are purposely ridiculous.  I think because of this the show fails at one of Star Trek's primary missions.

All the other stuff is there though, especially the social commentary.  I particularly liked the direct democracy episode.  They need more episodes like this that are more original and not re-worked Star Trek plots.

Oh yeah, the other thing that bothers me is Seth's voice.  Every time I close my eyes I see Brian (the dog) from Family Guy instead of him.  IMO he typecast himself as a cartoon already.

All this said, I like the show.  Its the closest thing we have to a spiritual successor to Star Trek.  Closer than Discovery in most ways. I hope it keeps going for a long time.

[Wiley]

They just leave the science completely out of it, and what attempts they make are purposely ridiculous.  I think because of this the show fails at one of Star Trek's primary missions.

That's one of the elements I kind of like.  It's really little different from Trek spewing some string of meaningless words or reversing the polarity on something to fix everything.

It's mostly not the best and brightest, it's more "average Joes in space", which is why I think it's popular.  But I get your point about the science.

Wiley.

[Skuzzy]

Sure the science is wonky, at best, but then again, it is just used as a vehicle to move the story along and as long as the stories are like that finale they had, then I hope this series sticks around for a long time.

[AKKuya]

Sure the science is wonky, at best, but then again, it is just used as a vehicle to move the story along and as long as the stories are like that finale they had, then I hope this series sticks around for a long time.

It was renewed for a 2nd season.

[Skuzzy]

Yep, yep.