Everyone knows Seth MacFarlane is a huge Star Trek fan because he got the opportunity to play a minor engineering crew member on Enterprise over a decade ago. However, I guess the Paramount people weren’t interested in letting him lend his clout to start a new series, hence the streaming-only Discovery. He did manage to get a couple former producers from the Next Generation through Voyager eras to join along with ex-cast members to work on this tepid alternative; they contribute via directing (Jonathan Frakes) or making guest appearances (Robert Picardo).
It’s also hard not to make comparisons…
- Gruff, male, Worf-like alien. Check.
- Blunt, perplexed, pseudo-robot, learning about the human condition. Check.
- Crew member who is practically a liquid. Check.
- Interstellar, multi-racial government and star fleet, the Planetary Union. Check.
- Color-coded uniforms based upon ship duties. Check.
- The starships have a little stretchy move before they jump to FTL speeds. Check.
- Recycling the plots which the other Star Trek shows covered. Big fat Check.
There are some things I am impressed with in McFarlane’s defense…
- The ratio of non-human aliens on the ship is higher than Star Trek‘s.
- The aliens are much more than just an appliance on the forehead and often human-like aliens just resemble us which I’m OK with.
- The Union’s main rival isn’t driven by honor, money or assimilation. The Krill’s religion says all other life is inferior so they have no problem exterminating all non-Krill life.
- There’s no transporter, shuttles are needed to land on planets or transfer between vessels. I’ve become an opponent of transporters due to the reality of what really happens when people are converted to energy…they die.
- MacFarlane must’ve called in some favors too. Liam Neeson and Charlize Theron make guest appearances. These two only do movies normally.
There are a few things The Orville needs to ditch because on par with nails being dragged on a chalkboard.
- Stop interjecting comedy into the show. Namely the one liners Captain Mercer makes or observations made by the crew. They’re forced and they fall flat.
- Ditch the 20th/21st Century references made by the crew. The Orville takes place in the early 25th Century. We don’t use slang from the Enlightenment or Victorian period so future humans are going to move on. I also doubt they will have much interest in our SitComs, movies and music from that far back neither. Most people only read literature from the near past as a school assignment, rarely by choice.
- I don’t buy the dynamic of the captain and first officer being divorced from each other. Babylon 5 tried in its last season, it was implausible and felt forced.
- A lot of reprimands got handed out to the crew. The admiralty would likely demand a change of personnel and/or keep the Orville on a shorter leash.
The biggest surprise is Fox giving the show another season after the initial 12 episodes. The Orville looks expensive and Murdoch’s people are notorious for being cheap, all those crappy “reality” shows pad the network’s schedule. I think MacFarlane will use the down time to review what worked and what didn’t, he’s come a long way since Family Guy. The show has potential. It needs time to develop and find its own voice like Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica (2003) and Star Trek: The Next Generation did. All three of these had rocky first seasons too and last one was almost cancelled after a year.
In conclusion, if you like Sci-Fi, give the show a try while ignoring the failed humor. All 12 episodes are available through Hulu and I imagine On-Demand via cable operators. More than I can say for Star Trek Discovery which is on a service to subsidize Old People TV.