RED ALERT! Billed as the spiritual successor to Galaxy Quest, Seth MacFarlane’s new show The Orville copy/pastes the Family Guy creator’s same old jokes and adds millions in effects. Let’s get this out of the way from the start. If you’re looking for this to be something like GQ the TV show, then you will be sorely disappointed. Wait for the Amazon reboot. The Orville is less GQ and more an attempt by MacFarlane to fulfill a childhood dream of being on a Star Trek show, which is great. He even utters a line about a boyhood dream not two minutes into the first episode. More power to him. But this isn’t a Star Trek show, and so the dream should take a form with its own direction and purpose. Instead, it’s Macfarlane’s usual shtick in space.
The Orville stars Seth MacFarlane (he also wrote and created the show) as Captain Ed Mercer, a talented starship officer who falls on hard times when he finds his wife cheating on him with an alien. Cue the first dick joke. Mercer is given one last chance to command a ship of his own, the titular Orville. To make it as contrived as possible, his ex-wife (Adrianne Palicki), also an officer, is assigned as his second-in-command. In the first episode, they’re sent on a uninteresting mission which becomes a battle ground between Mercer and the antagonist aliens known as the Krill.
1. Don’t Let Seth MacFarlane Write Episodes
Yes, he created Family Guy and American Dad. And yes, we know MacFarlane has a huge following. MacFarlane is wildly talented. But for many others, he’s hit or miss.
MacFarlane’s biggest issue is that he’s a one-trick pony. It’s dick and fart jokes and pop culture references. In a modern world setting or animated show, it’s great. In a show taking place 400 years into the future, where the dynamics of language should have changed, it’s just dull. It’s proof MacFarlane can’t write anything else but Family Guy-style stuff. So, like Star Trek, the show should use an ace team of writers who can balance out the humor with the drama. MacFarlane clearly can’t contain himself from inserting jokes into every damn scene no matter how out of place or out of character it is. That will ruin Orville quickly.
