• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

News Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville

It's clear what is going on. CBS is arranging these bad reviews to erase the competition. Why do you think they had such a big budget for "Discovery?" A good portion of that money has to be sent out to the reviewers as a means of them giving a more "honest" opinion. At least that is what I am hoping for because I do want the show to be fun and I love conspiracy theories. The dumber the better, except for the few that end up being true.

Jason
 
I think there's too much comparison to Star Trek. Just because it's a sci fi show doesn't mean it should be held up to Star Trek standards. Yes it's a parody but it's its own thing.

The whole time Orville has been in production, it's been a "Star Trek Parody". They have people that worked on Trek both in front of and behind the cameras on the show. Now people don't want to compare it to Trek?
 
The whole time Orville has been in production, it's been a "Star Trek Parody". They have people that worked on Trek both in front of and behind the cameras on the show. Now people don't want to compare it to Trek?
I don't care personally. I just think the review is giving it a hard time because it's different from Trek.
 
FIVE reviews, not one.
My mistake, I thought we were just talking about this one vanity fair review. I haven't seen the others, it just seems this one review was overly critical because it wasn't trek.

Personally i don't care what there reviews are. The trailer looks good to me so I will give it a chance.
 
It's clear what is going on. CBS is arranging these bad reviews to erase the competition. Why do you think they had such a big budget for "Discovery?" A good portion of that money has to be sent out to the reviewers as a means of them giving a more "honest" opinion. At least that is what I am hoping for because I do want the show to be fun and I love conspiracy theories. The dumber the better, except for the few that end up being true.

Jason

Yes, because the entire world is full of conspiracy theories and anyone who speaks well of Discovery or the Kelvin films and ill of the competition? Well, they must be on either CBS or Paramount's payroll, right? It might not be that The Orville is actually a bad show? Maybe?
 
The whole time Orville has been in production, it's been a "Star Trek Parody". They have people that worked on Trek both in front of and behind the cameras on the show. Now people don't want to compare it to Trek?
I haven't really gotten the impression that it's parodying Trek, so much as that it is a comedy (or dramedy) that is done in a style similar to Trek. When you say parody, I tend to think of something like Futurama's Where No Fan Has Gone Before, or Galaxy Quest that is making jokes about specific elements of Star Trek, but I haven't really seen that here.
 
I don't think I've ever read a review for a TV show.
It's easier to just watch the thing, you can always shut it off the second you realize it's not for you :shrug:
 
Slightly off-topic, but I'm excited about how "USS Callister" from Black Mirror will compare to The Orville.
 
I don't think I've ever read a review for a TV show.
It's easier to just watch the thing, you can always shut it off the second you realize it's not for you :shrug:

Yeah, pretty much.

It's not like you're paying for a streaming service or anything. :lol:
 
Yes, because the entire world is full of conspiracy theories and anyone who speaks well of Discovery or the Kelvin films and ill of the competition? Well, they must be on either CBS or Paramount's payroll, right? It might not be that The Orville is actually a bad show? Maybe?

Orville might end up being a bad show. Then again that also might be part of the conspiracy! What if Seth MacFarlane is secretly working for CBS to make sure the Star Trek franchise makes a big comeback by making it look like nobody can compete against Trek since we know he is a fan Trek. Either way I am sure Alex Jones will get to the bottom of story and tell us.

Jason
 
A.V. Club recommends watching the show in their fall television preview. I'm sure they'll have a proper review in a few days but this brief note is encouraging:

What’s it about? Star Trek. Because make no mistake: Despite the copious drinking, despite the sentient oozes voiced by Norm Macdonald, and despite Seth MacFarlane’s face front and center, The Orville frequently feels like an honest-to-goodness attempt to do a surprisingly faithful (if comically dysfunctional) take on Star Trek on the cheap. The series stars MacFarlane as Ed Mercer, a top-tier captain for the show’s erstwhile Starfleet, whose career gets derailed when he catches his wife (Adrianne Palicki) in bed with a bright blue alien. A year later, he’s a drunken mess, who gets his last shot as a leader when the title ship—complete with a super strong but inexperienced security officer (Halston Sage), a humorless Worf-a-like from an all-male species (Peter Macon), and a robot science officer from a civilization that’s “incredibly racist” against all organic life (Mark Jackson)—gets a vacancy in command. Joined by his fuck-up best friend (Scott Grimes) and the aforementioned ex-wife as his second-in-command (leading to a running, bitter joke that’s not as funny as MacFarlane seems to think), The Orville charts a somewhat shaky give-and-take between riffing on the conventions of Star Trek and taking a shot at trying to replicate the real thing.

Watch, binge, or skip? After a rough start, The Orville actually manages to push out some decent sci-fi TV, without sacrificing bursts of slacker comedy from Grimes and fellow helmsman J. Lee. For instance: Give or take a subplot about Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the show’s third episode wouldn’t feel out of place on The Next Generation 25 years ago. In the end, it’s going to come down to how much you can take of MacFarlane’s fast-talking, awkward guy schtick; give it a watch and, if it doesn’t drive you off immediately, you might find something to like.​
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top