The best Star Trek in a lot of years is not a Star Trek at all. The Orville is a great TV show, a great homage to all sci-fi dramas (like Star Trek TOS and TNG) Seth MacFarlane managing to bring together two immense ideas, blending cosmic challenges, social and personal issues, all these while putting a smile on our faces. The series is putting ordinary people into extraordinary situations and seeing how they respond, but be aware, this is not “Family Guy” in space, and even if the action happens in space, the people are still grounded in the normal daily life, with normal problems. And this is awesome.
After Disney bought 20th Century Something, The Orville moved from Fox to Hulu, to benefit from the platform’s advantages in terms of production scheduling, deadlines, and (most importantly) episode durations, as Seth MacFarlane puts it:
“The biggest difference for me being on Hulu is that I don’t have to tell a story that’s exactly 43 minutes long every week because I have to make room for a certain number of commercials. That’s not how storytelling works — different stories are different lengths, and you start to fall into this cadence where you’re shaving scenes down, you’re cutting things that don’t need to be cut. The best part about being on Hulu is that those moments where you want to linger on an actor’s face because it’s meaningful and it helps to tell the story? You can do that. You have the time; you can be indulgent in that way.”
At the moment, only the first episode is up, it’s very good and it seems that the tone has changed a bit, moving from easy to digest light hearted comedy into a more serious space drama with comedic hints, like a fine wine.
As I said earlier, this is not “Family Guy” in space, and it’s great for what it is. Six popcorns and a space shuttle.
