One of the few certainties in life is that Seth MacFarlane’s dream project is to make his own Star Trek series. How can you tell? He basically took the premise of Trek and crafted Orville out of it.
Simple premise. MacFarlane is Ed, the captain of an exploratory space ship 400 years in the future. They’re exploring the universe and getting into shenanigans. Think Star Trek: The Next Generation but with about as much as edge pushing comedy as you can have on a network television show.
There’s a genuine joy to the show that’s hard to find in network television because MacFarlane has finally found a live action role for him to play. After being the voice of Family Guy and the Ted franchise to much success the one thing missing for MacFarlane was a role he could take as himself. Ed Mercer is the perfect role for MacFarlane; it harnesses that energy and allows him to riff on every captain from Star Trek.
There’s a joy in MacFarlane that radiates from the screen; he may have gotten famous from being Fox’s king of animation but Orville is the project he was meant to be in. His handprints are all over the franchise; it’s a legitimately good sci-fi show as well as a legitimately funny comedy. It’s the sort of piece that makes you think of what MacFarlane could do with a Star Trek property.
In an era where Star Trek: Discovery was counted on to launch CBS’s all-access app, Orville is the science fiction property worthier of Gene Roddenberry’s legacy.
There are a lot of extras that give you a ton of insight into the show’s production.
20th Century Fox presents Orville (Season 1). Created by Seth MacFarlane. Starring Seth MacFarlane, Adrianne Palicki, Scott Grimes, Penny Johnson Jerald, Peter Macon. Run Time: 526 minutes. Not rated . Released on DVD: 12.11.18
