We’ve seen a lot of teasers and trailers for Seth MacFarlane’s upcoming ‘The Orville’ and now the series creator is sharing some of his direction for the show. While he addresses the comparisons to ‘Star Trek,’ he does say that his point wasn’t to make a comedy but something that was fun, “optimistic” and “forward thinking” in a way that ‘Strek Trek’ used to be. As interested as I was in the show before, it would actually seem that I was underestimating what MacFarlane wanted to deliver and now am going to check it out for sure.
The news came from the Television Critics Association during a panel for the show from Fox. It was here we learned that while ‘The Orville’ was initially being labeled as a comedy, it is now being considered an hour long adventure show.
While some of the concepts will be recognized by Trekkies such as synthesizers instead of replicators and The Union instead of The Federation, it won’t actually follow the same format. MacFarlane did, however, state:
“I miss the forward thinking, optimistic, aspirational space that Star Trek used to offer. It’s a space waiting to be filled in this day and age when we are getting a lot of dystopian fiction.”
If it had to be compared to ‘Star Trek’ at all it would be more fitting to compare it to a different series than the upcoming ‘Star Trek: Discovery‘ as the showrunners will be “doing something a little more old-school” with the series. (This is evident with the high usage of practical effects instead of CGI.) However, don’t go hoping for a season long story arc as “Each week you’re seeing a little movie, and there will be some variance in tone” that will give them the “breadth and variety to tell a different story each week while staying true to these characters.”
It’s hard to tell how the show will play out but we’ll find out when it debuts on September 10th, 2017 over on Fox.
Are you looking forward to ‘The Orville’? Do you think that some happier science fiction will be a nice change of pace from what we’ve seen in recent years? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Entertainment Weekly
