The Orville: Season 1

I have been a fan of Seth MacFarlane's work for a long time. Pretty much every year I have a couple of days that I binge watch Family Guy and it's always a fun time. I absolutely love the Ted movies, and I even liked A Million Ways to Die in the West.

But MacFarlane has been doing Family Guy for close to twenty years now... doesn't that blow your mind? I think anybody at that point would want to eventually move onto something different. That's exactly what The Orville was. While it wasn't advertised that way, it is definitely Seth MacFarlane's attempt to move onto bigger and better things and create a different challenge for himself. And surprisingly enough, despite all the criticisms that I will definitely get to, MacFarlane still has his die hard fans that will defend this show to the point of blocking me on Twitter because I dare say something bad about this show. I always thought this was assumed but if we learned anything from 2017, it's that we all have differing opinions on a lot of things. Film and TV is subjective and it's okay to like something I don't (not saying I don't like this show). With that disclaimer out of the way, let's talk about The Orville: Season 1.

The Orville mainly centers around the character of Ed Mercer (played by MacFarlane), a Union Star Captain in the 25th century. In the first scene he discovers his wife and a fellow Union Officer,  Kelly Grayson (played by Adrianne Palicki) cheats on him, ending their relationship.

Some time passes and while Ed has been in a slump, he is picked to Captain the USS Orville and head the voyages it takes into deep space.

Aboard The Orville is a group of officers that are the crew. These officers include Lieutenant Gordon Malloy (played by Scott Grimes), Ed's old friend he brings on, Doctor Claire Finn (played by Penny Johnson Jerad), the Orville's chief medical officer, Lieutenant Commander Bortus (played by Peter Macon), an alien whose species is only male, Lieutenant Alara Kitan (played by Halston Sage) another alien who is the chief security officer whose species has incredible strength, Lieutenant Commander John LaMarr (played by J. Lee), who I'll be honest, until one of the later episodes, doesn't have a whole lot to do in this show unfortunately, and Isaac (voiced by Mark Jackson), a robot with incredible intelligence.

There are other members of the crew who are tertiary characters like a gelatinous blob named Yaphit (voiced by Norm MacDonald), but the stories of the season mainly follow the main characters listed above.

But of course, every Captain needs his first officer and for Ed Mercer, things get sticky when he's informed his ex wife Kelly will be joining him as his first officer.

Now in case you're sitting there wondering why this all sounds familiar, different crew members filling in different jobs on the deck of a star ship, it's because it is exactly Star Trek. You'd be right that sounds familiar.

Now if you're sitting there thinking that the characters mentioned sound a little funny, the situations building sound comical in nature, the trailers and advertisement sound like it's going to be fun and comedic, and the fact that Seth MacFarlane has traditionally been a comedy writer and director, and all of this sounded like it was just going to be Family Guy in Space... well you'd be wrong. You'd be partially right if you said it was Star Trek with comedy, but even that isn't totally correct.

I want to talk about the comedy right off the bat because it is the biggest eye sore in this entire season.

Like I've said, Seth MacFarlane is predominately known for his comedy and his comedy has always been known to be the raunchy, boundaries pushing kind. That's just not the case in The Orville. The comedy, when it exists, is pretty tame and PG, MAYBE PG-13 rated. And that's just not MacFarlane's strong suite.

You can tell there are some MacFarlane-isms there just trying to get out but it's very subdued and really falls flat a lot of the time. There's a couple that break through the barrier MacFarlane clearly has for himself but even near the end of the season I was cringing at the attempts at humor that just didn't work. And when you're known for comedy and the trailers for the show advertised comedy, I think a lot of people thought this was going to be Family Guy in Space and it really wasn't.

Now that's not a bad thing that it's not Family Guy in Space. I actually think it's really great that MacFarlane wanted to branch off and do something different than Family Guy, or Family Guy with a Teddy Bear, or Family Guy in the old west. But the way the show was sold to people, including myself, prepared us for something totally different than the end result. Think about it this way.

I haven't seen Get Out, believe me, I intend to very soon.

Get Out was written and directed by Jordan Peele. Jordan Peele is notoriously known for his work on Comedy Central on Key and Peele, a show that is very funny and not serious or scary whatsoever. When I saw the trailer for Get Out, I had no inkling that that movie was written or directed by Jordan Peele because it didn't look, sound, or feel like anything he had done before. I'm sure there are comedic moments in Get Out (again I still need to see it so I can't say for certain) but people knew they were getting a horror film when they saw the trailers and went to that movie.

With the Orville, we all thought we were getting Family Guy in Space because that's how it was advertised and that's not what The Orville is.

But what is the Orville if it's not Family Guy in space? Well, as I said in my review of the pilot (which feels like centuries ago), this show is not a parody or even really an homage to Star Trek as much as it is Star Trek with Seth MacFarlane as the Captain of the USS Enterprise.

Yeah things are called different names, like instead of The Federation, it's called The Planetary Union. But characters in the Orville meet the same basic character skeletons created in Star Trek or Star Trek The Next Generation. However, they do have their own MacFarlane twist but it does take some time for you to get familiar with these characters and understand exactly who they are.

Ed Mercer is a great example of this. While you learn a lot about him in the first few episodes, it does take pretty much the entire season for me to really get to know him and really care about him. MacFarlane is not exactly the strongest actor, but I do think after a season his acting does improve a little bit and I at least care a little.

And if there is something to be said about Star Trek helmed by Seth MacFarlane is that he has a large network and is able to get some really big stars on his show.

There's an entire episode where Charlize Theron guest starred. And it's not like she was a cameo for 5 minutes then left, she was the main focus of the episode. Even Liam Neeson showed up in an episode once. These are big name movie actors showing up in a small Fox TV show ripping off Star Trek.

But for as much crap as I give MacFarlane for basically creating a Star Trek rip off, I do give him a lot of credit for writing really creative and innovative storylines for this show. Again, going back to Get Out, nobody knew Jordan Peele could write horror or drama, and the same goes for MacFarlane, nobody knew he could write science fiction very well and there were a lot of times I was really impressed with the really interesting routes they go in this show.

Even when he would make fun of things like Star Trek in Family Guy, you could still tell that MacFarlane really respects these pop culture references he grew up with. You can see it in The Orville because while some of these storylines have been done before, he does create his own twists and turns on them. Now some of them have their own MacFarlane-isms in it like the fact that he is an outspoken atheist. That definitely shows up in one of the final episodes. But it's his perspective and overall I really enjoy a lot of the things he offers in this show.

There are definite flaws in The Orville. Not all the characters are really fleshed out and even when they attempt to flesh them out, they're still pretty weak. Penny Johnson Jerald is probably the most experienced actor in the entire group and it's pretty apparent and probably the reason it feels like she gets an extra episode over the others in there.

Like I said, the humor is a pretty big eye sore but it's not really the focus of the show. You'll get a laugh here and there but if you're more focused on the stories and the science fiction elements, you'll enjoy yourself despite the lacking humor.

Overall, it's not gonna be for everyone. If you didn't like Seth MacFarlane's work prior to this, you probably won't be swayed by The Orville. I personally have had a lot of fun reviewing this show all season and I'll probably keep watching it just to see where things go, but I don't think I would be watching it every week just for fun. I applaud MacFarlane for doing something different and I think it was a success. So I'm not totally sure if I'm totally recommending The Orville, but it's worth at least checking out the first few episodes.

But what did you think of The Orville? I know there are people out there that absolutely loved it... I definitely ran into them on Twitter... but hey that's why I do this thing. Let me know you're thoughts on the first season of The Orville and do you think it's going to last past two seasons? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. It's Christmas. If you're looking for a Yule Log, may I recommend watching Darth Vader burn? Enjoy!