The last episode aired in 2022. Do the sets, costumes, and other assets still exist? Is anyone under contract?
Seth MacFarlane Created "The Orville" To Fulfill A Need Star Trek Had Abandoned
- Thread starter Danja
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It's not necessarily about the number of episodes, but the model of storytelling. Red Dwarf only had six-episode seasons but still made the most of out of deliberately-loose continuity, having a new plot each week, a focus on consistent characters confronting chaotic situations (as opposed to the modern doctrine that the focus should be on characters having perpetual growth), etc.
Production took longer with heavy computer special effects, while TNG could make quick turn around with cheap fast FX that often worked and is still good to this day. You can do a lot with swirly gases, pantyhose cases, and glitter in water. Hell, if it wasn't for this forum, barely any of us would know Beverly was checking to see if her tricorder was pregnant, but the futuristic "device" she was using was a pregnancy test piece of plastic, but look how they got away with that for so long.
Well, it's a bit of both. More episodes means more flexibility in having a mix with some serialized stories, some standalone stories, some mostly standalone stories that still move an arc forward a bit. Fewer episodes, less flexibility.
No. In fact, when the rumors of S4 being in pre-production were circulating a year ago, they even said then that the sets would need to be rebuilt.
Seems like the only shows that get 22-episode orders are crime procedurals and sitcoms that don't come with heavy VFX budgets.
Yup, everything was struck at the end of season 3, and I think contracts all lapsed.
Thinking back to season 3, that prolonged production period due to the pandemic turned into a living hell for some folks of the cast because it froze their availability, which meant they couldn't get other jobs. J. Lee fell on hard times, and Adrianne Palicki has been... certainly vocal about not going back to the show because the production snafus.
Well, probably not everything was destroyed. We know after decades that certain props and parts are kept and re-used in other productions, re-painted, decorated a little differently, and sometimes depending on the prop itself -- just re-used without change. I'm sure some stuff is still sitting in a prop warehouse somewhere. And by Crom let's hope some actors and crew stole stuff, too, so it can be used again. I remember the TNG cast being asked what they stole, at a convention, and Marina talking about how she had to steal things because they wouldn't let her (or them) have anything after seven years. I hope the stealing tradition continued.
IMHO the best part of the Orville (by far) is they kept alive a key part of the Trek formula: that episodes be about something beyond plot. This is something that modern Trek has largely forgotten, beyond SNW, for some reason.
TOS began this formula, since it had its roots in Twilight-Zone style anthology stories, only with a more positive spin. Episodes often had a "moral of the story" or a very clear allegory the show clubbed us over the head with. Berman Trek continued this, but as the shows developed into true ensembles, they also added the "character focus" episodes. That's not to say "big plot" didn't sometimes happen, but these were often set aside for major events like season finales.
This is just mostly absent from Kurtzman Trek. It's not that there aren't some thematic elements, but they're pretty muddled, touched upon briefly and then backed away from rather than being focused on for a solid episode. This is even in spite of the fact that some of the shows (like Discovery) actually got more episodic over time, with episodes having concrete plots. Yet in spite of this, I don't really understand what question a given episode is asking us. Often, it seems like it's asking little other than watch, and tune in next week.
The Orville gets this aspect of Trekkian storytelling. While not in every episode, most are based around theme and character, rather than just filling time with plot machinations. Some aspects of the shows don't work for me (Season 1 has too much unfunny comedy, and even in Seasons 2/3, there's just as many misses as hits). But it's kept this mode alive - a mode that we don't really see today much other than in more mean-spirited shows like Black Mirror.
TOS began this formula, since it had its roots in Twilight-Zone style anthology stories, only with a more positive spin. Episodes often had a "moral of the story" or a very clear allegory the show clubbed us over the head with. Berman Trek continued this, but as the shows developed into true ensembles, they also added the "character focus" episodes. That's not to say "big plot" didn't sometimes happen, but these were often set aside for major events like season finales.
This is just mostly absent from Kurtzman Trek. It's not that there aren't some thematic elements, but they're pretty muddled, touched upon briefly and then backed away from rather than being focused on for a solid episode. This is even in spite of the fact that some of the shows (like Discovery) actually got more episodic over time, with episodes having concrete plots. Yet in spite of this, I don't really understand what question a given episode is asking us. Often, it seems like it's asking little other than watch, and tune in next week.
The Orville gets this aspect of Trekkian storytelling. While not in every episode, most are based around theme and character, rather than just filling time with plot machinations. Some aspects of the shows don't work for me (Season 1 has too much unfunny comedy, and even in Seasons 2/3, there's just as many misses as hits). But it's kept this mode alive - a mode that we don't really see today much other than in more mean-spirited shows like Black Mirror.
i wonder if there will be a season 4
Extremely unlikely.
The only thing that frustrates me about The Orville is that its popularity has had a (in my opinion harmful) impact on the Trek franchise. Since the show was so well received, the current Trek administration took that as a queue and swung the pendulum way too hard in the direction of making Trek overly light, frothy, silly, and irreverent.
Otherwise, I think it was a fun little show.
Otherwise, I think it was a fun little show.
...Trek administration...?
And Trek has always been light and silly. Even renowned dark series, Deep Space 9.
And Trek has always been light and silly. Even renowned dark series, Deep Space 9.
I remember when we called them "The Powers That Be".
TPTB
You have 1970s convention-era Roddenberry and his worshipers to thank for the completely false narrative that Star Trek was about a gang of pacifists trying to avoid violence/ never seeing it as the correct/only course. It was that belief which played a major role in shaping the often heartless TNG (along with a number of additional reasons).
I just find it weird calling them the "Trek administration."
lol there is probley alternate earths where orville got renewed right after season 2 aired on fox then after got renewed for 3 more seasons
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