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News Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville

Emh said:
I did and I was surprised that I wasn't engaged by it despite normally enjoying Neil deGrasse Tyson. I hated the crappy animated shortd that added nothing.
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Those were originally intended to be live action but after the first few episodes filmed delivered sub-par footage MacFarlane decided to animate them and the remaining sequences (with the animation studio he owns) to assure more consistent quality and reduced costs. A couple live-action shots from that original footage remained in the final product. The problem wasn't that they were animated, but that the writing for the show just wasn't that great overall.
 
I'm surprised by the reaction. Cosmos was the most fascinating, mind-boggling, stereotype-challenging documentary I've seen since BBC's Trilogy of Life films more than a decade earlier. I love the animations - G. Bruno, the woman stories, Fraunhofer, the Picard/Stewart voiceover.
 
Curious ...any idea what The Orville will be like... have a lot of raunchy stuff, or be more family friendly like TNG? My daughter was interested in seeing The Orville, but I told her I would have to see it first before letting her watch..

The Aspirational comment -- hopefully that's a good sign
 
I'm sure there will be the requisite toilet bowl and sophomoric humor that has come to be MacFarlane's hallmark, but consider also that it is network TV, so he can't get too outlandishly weird.
 
That doesn't always mean anything, just look how far stuff like 2 Broke Girls can go with their humor.
kirk55555 said:
Even if I hate it (which is about as close to 100% likely as you can get without being exactly 100%) I have no doubt it will still be the single best space opera-ish TV show this year, because its only competition is Discovery and Dark Matter and even Macfarlane can probably beat those two just by putting out something that doesn't make me want to break my TV immediately.
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There's also The Expanse, Killjoys, and Star Wars: Rebels.
 
JD said:
There's also The Expanse, Killjoys, and Star Wars: Rebels.
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I wasn't counting animation because its not quite the same thing and if I did I'd have to decide if I wanted to include anime (plus Rebels is made for people younger then the general audience to adult level sci fi I'm talking about). I don't consider Killjoys a space opera so much as just a show that takes place in space, so I didn't mention it. As for The Expanse, I forgot about it mostly because I prefer to forget it exists. Plus its more "space simulation" then space opera, and I also really don't count shows that can't get past Mars as a space opera (faster the light travel, even in a small area like Firefly, is also a requirement in my opinion). Its like saying a movie about people driving two blocks to a gas station is a road trip movie. The scale is just too small.

So, as far as I'm concerned, Orville's only competition as a Space Opera show is Discovery and Dark Matter, although I'd hear an argument for Killjoys (I suppressed the bit of that showI suffered through so I don't remember if it did more then be about some bounty hunters traveling between a few planets).

None of those three shows are worth the time, money or resources it takes to make them, but Orville will, in my opinion, be the only one that might be tolerable, at least slightly. To be fair, dark matter season 1 was actually good, which Orville has no chance of being, but DM season 2 was bad enough that Orville can beat DM post season 1 probably as easily as it will beat Discovery.

Kai "the spy" said:
You do know @kirk55555 will now tell you that these shows are the absolute worst things humanity has ever produced?! It's what he does.
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Well, The Expanse might be close to that, although if we go past TV shows then 2001 A Space Odyssey is the king of shit hard sci fi (by which I mean all hard sci fi, because its all terrible in my opinion). At least the Expanse probably has a story that doesn't take 5 years to actually start and probably doesn't end with complete gibberish. Outside of hard sci fi, Killjoys is also pretty rancid but probably no more so then Dark Matter post Season 1.
 
Kai "the spy" said:
You do know @kirk55555 will now tell you that these shows are the absolute worst things humanity has ever produced?! It's what he does.
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Yeah, at first I thought maybe he wasn't aware of them, but then I remembered I've seen him talking about how much he dislikes all of them, but by that point I'd already posted so it was to late. I really should know better by now when it comes to him.
 
Bry_Sinclair said:
Has there been any word on how The Orville will be released elsewhere in the world? Will it be on the likes of Netflix or channels/stations in different countries going to have to bid for it themselves?
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I wouldn't be shocked if it is on Hulu the day after. They seem to get to show all network tv shows that way.

Jason
 
That's not what he was asking, he wanted to know where it's going to be airing outside of the US.
 
RJDiogenes said:
^^ Sorry, no idea.

I'm looking forward to this. Visually, it looks great, and the people involved are all saying the right things. I have a feeling it will die a quick death, though, no matter how good it is.
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I suspect CBS will try and kill it as quickly as they can, can't have Trek's spiritual successor interfering with their bastardisation of the franchise.
 
I can't really see that happening at this point. They've been very open about what this is since the very beginning, and if CBS had a problem with it, I'm pretty sure they would have put a stop to it long before now.
 
JD said:
Yeah, at first I thought maybe he wasn't aware of them, but then I remembered I've seen him talking about how much he dislikes all of them, but by that point I'd already posted so it was to late. I really should know better by now when it comes to him.
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:rolleyes:

If I had a nickel for every time I see people complaining about other people having different opinions from them, I'd have enough to build a life size, working version of the Orville :rommie:
 
Listening to the interview, Seth talks about the show being partly a drama, partly comedic, and also having the optimism of Star Trek, plus, I assume, the Trek profundity, and it sounds like he's bitten off more than he can chew. He mentions that species that is all male and how interesting that could be, and it could be, but in McFarland's hands, how does this not evolve into a string of dick jokes?

From viewing the trailers, the show looks like an unfunny sitcom that takes place on a spaceship. HOWEVER, I will watch with an open mind and hopefully it turns out to be good.
 
Emh said:
Fox gave us and held onto for awhile The X-Files and Fringe so there's some hope...
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They're also holding on to Gotham so I don't place too much faith in their decision making. I like Detroit 1-8-7 which is a decent hit and I still expect them to pull the plug.
 
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