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News Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville

Theme song sounds fine. And I liked the Soundcloud cue very much - sounds like Goldsmith.

I'm sure going to enjoy the thirteen episodes of this that McFarlane gets to make. :lol:
 
9 reviews and 8 are bad...but I have the DVR set since I'm seeing TWOK that night. We'll see.

RAMA
 
Considering their fall preview recommended watching the show, I expected A.V. Club's season review (based on three episodes) would be more optimistic but they gave it a C-. I'm still going to watch the show and hope for the best. I'm thinking (and hoping) it'll be like Eureka, simply light-hearted fun and we shouldn't think too deeply about it.
 
The Hollywood Reporter:


The Orville is a reminder that Seth MacFarlane is also the devoted geek — said only with respect — who earned a Grammy nomination for an album of standards and last used his Fox leverage to remake Cosmos. There are no tongues in the cheeks of The Orville. It's the work of a fan of Star Trek trying to make a Star Trek show, without any of that pesky darkness or edginess modern audiences might expect. And also without paying anything, other than clear respect, to the Roddenberry estate. From Joseph A. Porro's crew costumes to John Debney's score to the tremendous makeup team to the mission/alien-of-the-week episodic structure, the primary note on every creative decision was presumably either "Make it more Star Trek" or, after a while, just a wink and, "You know what to do."

If you just take it on faith that he's following in the footsteps of William Shatner rather than American Dad guest star Patrick Stewart (or even Scott Bakula), the woodenness of MacFarlane's lead performance isn't unacceptable. Even if Steven Soderbergh confusingly saw fit to cast him as a British fop in Logan Lucky, MacFarlane isn't a rangy actor, and the closest he comes to rapport with his scene partners is longtime American Dad collaborator Grimes, who gives the show a welcome looseness. Palicki's mostly a good sport. Macon gets impressive mileage out of a monotone character under inches of latex. And I can't tell if there's a performance there, but there's something charmingly self-effacing about red carpet–friendly ingenue Sage rendering herself only partially recognizable beneath an alien forehead and standard-issue space uniform.

The highest compliment I can pay to The Orville is that while the three episodes I've seen only fleetingly work, I don't question MacFarlane's sincerity, nor the sincerity of episodic directors Jon Favreau and Star Trek franchise veterans Robert Duncan McNeil and Brannon Braga. The retro-futuristic effects in The Orville work well, and the show looks like it cost Fox a fair amount of money. Whether viewers will respond to sincerity and professionalism, but limited mirth and very few thrills, when they've been promised Seth MacFarlane hilarity remains to be seen.
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Based on limited information, there seems to be more energy, more of a sense of fun to The Orville. Discovery feels more like it takes everything very seriously, one of the aspects of the Berman years that I most disliked.

I'll have to wait and see the episodes to see how they shake out.
 
BillJ said:
Based on limited information, there seems to be more energy, more of a sense of fun to The Orville. Discovery feels more like it takes everything very seriously, one of the aspects of the Berman years that I most disliked.

I'll have to wait and see the episodes to see how they shake out.
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I agree. It's great in this day and age to be able to see clips of shows and all much faster given social media and technology, but judging based on those few small things is silly.

I'd rather watch it as a whole and make my decisions then. It's a TV show, I can turn it off if I don't like it. Simple, not much of my life invested.
 
The Reporter reviewer is right about Seth's acting, at least in MHO... While he can be extremely funny, he is a little one-note in the things I have seen him in... Much like Harrison Ford has become over the years, which made his return to Han Solo so refreshing in TFA. He definitely is better on mic with animation, but I'm interested to see if he's able to expand his range if the show is given a chance to continue.
 
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