News Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville

"A Million Ways to Die in the West"

 

This series looks like a nice homage to TNG. Might be worth checking out, even though I'm not a fan of Family Guy at all.

 

Still think this looks great.
Wow, Charlize Theron is a pretty major piece of casting.

 

I just know that the robot in this show will get it on with the one from "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt". It's inevitable now.

New trailer looks great! If there's a real vibe I'm getting here, it's less "Galaxy Quest" and more "Red Dwarf". Not so much a parody as a loving sendup of all the corny parts of Trek / Wars / Whatever that we know an love, done through the lens of a space-exploration-cum-workplace-comedy show.

The thing that makes me wonder is how much of MacFarlane's trademark crass humour had to be scaled back for him to get this show, and how it'll affect it in the longer run. Network shows are routinely committeed into oblivion, and when you have a guy like this ho developed AND stars in this show, you gotta wonder how much of his original vision is still here and how it'll affect his passion for it.

Mark

 

This is a really tough decision. On the one hand, I've always liked Seth MacFarlane's work.

He's saying all the right things, the trailer looks solid, and the show might actually have more of a Star Trek feel than Discovery has at this point.

But Brannon Braga is involved. There is no worse writer that gets work than Braga for me. To call Braga a no talent hack would be an insult to no talent hacks.

There was no bigger death knell to a Star Trek episode for me than "written by Brannon Braga."

So the show looks good, but Braga's involved. Looks good, but Braga's involved.

Holy mixed emotions!

I may actually bend and watch the pilot.

 

1) Despite his reputation, Braga is actually one of Trek's better writers. Indeed, many fan favourite TNG episodes were either written or co-written by him. I won't deny the guy has some crap associated with him, particularly in the later years of Voyager and Enterprise, but part of that was a result of getting frustrated and burnt out by UPN's restrictions and wishes. And he actually did work to avoid some of their more terrible ideas, like when UPN demanded they wanted a boy band on Enterprise who would perform a song randomly in every episode. And he paid for it by having the budget dramatically slashed.

2) While it's possible he may yet write an episode of Orville, it's MacFarlane and Goodman who'll be running it, and indeed, Braga's main focus is actually going to be directing episodes.

 

So is Braga "involved" with Palecki? (throw-back)

 

I'm still up in the air on this.... I like how this FEELS like Galaxy Quest but more of a spoof on a spoof... I like McFarlane in little doses... I think he can really write some funny stuff.. But god help me, if it's nothing but pot joke after pot joke, I'm out... Fart jokes, yes.. drug humor, no...

 

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but no he isn't. There's a reason he has failed in everything outside of Trek.

He could write his name and screw it up.

 

I think I'll have to mostly agree with Kirk Prime on Brannon Braga.

Looking over his writing credits on IMDb, for Trek, his good work are mere blips, the rest of mostly forgettable or even terrible. Hell, he helped write one of the worst episodes of TNG: "Sub Rosa" (teleplay).


According to his IMDb credits, he's also directing an episode of "the Orville".

Having said what I said, I'll still give him a chance. This is a Trek parody and he's not bound by the same Trek restraints.

 

I'm excited for this show. What will it be available on, Hulu?

 

It's Fox, so the episodes should be up day after they air.

Even if there were some bad choices made by him and Berman during their time in charge of VOY and ENT, Braga still did write some great episodes of both of them and TNG. He was also involved with some of the better later seasons of 24, and I enjoyed Threshold and Flashforward quite a bit. I wasn't able to keep up with Salem, but the handful of episodes I saw seemed pretty good.

 

So much hyperbole in this thread. Did Braga steal your wife or run over your dog?

 

So do you need a separate app/subscription for FOX or is it going to be available through Hulu, where some of Fox stuff is, but I don't think it's all of it?

 

I'll watch the pilot and give it a fair shake, there's loads of potential here, and I do like the ship, but I swear I've heard all the jokes before. I just hope McFarland can step outside of his own head and ego and write some fresh stuff, I don't want it to just be recycled Family Guy and American Dad jokes in space.

 

At least no one in this thread has begun conflating the full extent of his role over the Trek franchise yet. Way too often do people blame him for Insurrection and Nemesis (he wasn't involved with either) or even the proposed Romulan War movie Berman tried to develop as Trek XI (again, no involvement).

 

The operative word being "yet."

 

Why? Some of his Trek/Star Wars jokes/gags/bits/cutaways were funny as hell. Now he has a place to properly put them.

 

Fox has it's own free app, but it does make you log in with you cable provider, so if you don't have a cable provider you might not be able to use it.
All of the network and basic cable apps are free, except for CBS All Access, they are the only subscription based network app. They do put a handfull of the most recent episodes up for free for a limited time. Usually it's about 5 weeks, then they lock them so that only CBSAA subscribers can watch them.

 

Hm, I have a FOX slot under Hulu, but I haven't had tv in ten years, so I'm not familiar with these network subscriptions that exist outside of apps. That sounds annoying if I need to get a "cable" subscription to watch orville.