The Orville

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Boldly going where no one has gone before. Hopefully there's a bar.

The Orville is Star Trek fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off a comedy drama sci-fi television series that began as a homage to Star Trek, created by and starring Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy infamy-- No wait, come back!

The guy's a huge Trekkie, to the point of having a few cameos in Star Trek, who went to the FOX execs and pitched his idea for a loving comedic sendup of The Next Generation because he felt too many shows had sunk into a quagmire (pun intended, and ours not his) of grimdark. Many of the executive producers and developers are notable industry Trekkies such as David Goodman (who wrote the Futurama Trek parody episode), or Trek alumni such as Brannon Braga. First airing in 2017, the series is about the strung-out not-Picard protagonist Captain Edward Mercer, played by MacFarlane himself, who is the commanding officer of the eponymous not-Enterprise spaceship, the "Orville" (named after one of the Wright Brothers). His ex-wife Kelly is the first officer while the crew includes the beefy gay not-Worf alien Bortus, asshole not-Lore android Isaac, and John LaMarr and Gordon Malloy - an even more ridiculous parody of Harry Kim and Tom Paris. They explore the galaxy while dealing with personal problems and fighting various bad guys. The show has a mix of drama, comedy and commentary on real world issues.

Can you play in this universe or what?

There is no dedicated RPG for The Orville. But that hasn't stopped elegan/tg/entlemen from trying. As a Trek knockoff it's Trekkies who've mooted systems for it. For those interested in the (dysfunctional) character-relations: GURPS. TRAVELLER, for those with a hard-SF bent. And then there's always Far Trek. Here's a 2017 discussion.

And, yes, servants of the Divine Emperor: you can buy miniatures, through WizKids.

The Show

Season One

The first season was supposed to have thirteen episodes but The Suits didn't like the episode revolving around (gay) porn addiction, so that got pulled, leaving the first season with twelve episodes.

The pilot episode (creatively named "Pilot") introduces Edward "Ed" Mercer and the ship, opening with his soon-to-be-ex wife Kelly cheating on him. This puts him into a tailspin that nearly wrecks his career until he gets a posting on the Orville. Unfortunately for him, Kelly is assigned as his first officer, so he has to come to grips with being a captain while trying to build a professional relationship with her. As the crew learn to work together, one of the better episodes sets the stage for this; "Majority Rule", an episode with good (albeit heisted from Black Mirror) commentary on social currency systems. There's also "About a Girl", a Bortus-centered episode that explores his relationships during a vital part of his race's life cycle. A later episode, "Cupid's Dagger", reveals why Kelly cheated in the first place, being due to biological aphrodisiac properties of Kelly's lover Darulio, a slimy (in the "disgustingly immoral" sense, not the "covered in slime" sense... until you make him happy) alien playboy.

Since this is a Star Trek homage, the show has to have a recurring bad guy group the protagonists alternate between killing and studying. Given both franchises' showrunners, they also represent/strawman something the showrunner opposes. That's where the Krill come in; reptilian aliens with a fatal weakness to UV radiation (and a maybe-maybe-not coincidentally similar look and name to the "Star Trek: Beyond" villain, Krall). The Krill are villains because they follow a violently xenophobic religion that claims all non-Krill are soulless abominations to be killed or subjugated. Also, the god of this religion and one of its religious phrases (see below) were named for throwaway jokes about U.S car rental companies and "The Hunger Games" protagonist Katniss Everdeen.

This brings us to the subject the show's been most preachy (pun intended) about by far, its anti-religion slant. While Star Trek also has some "better off atheist" overtones, the Orville goes further. Not content with using the Krill to beat the "religion bad" drum, they harp on it for a quarter of Season One's episodes (including "Mad Idolatry" - Star Trek's "Who Watches the Watchers" with the serial numbers filed off). Every religion is replete with visual references to Christianity - eg; every group's religious vestments, Krill places of worship look like chapels with pews and even a quote-mine of the Bible - plus a potshot at Islam with "Temeen Everdeen", the Krill equivalent of "Allahu Akbar". All this results in a show pushing anti-religious atheism hard enough to make Star Trek look like The Chronicles of Narnia (even non-religious viewers made complaints). Hey, if Seth can bog down a season of a TV show with it, we can bog down a paragraph of a webpage talking about it.

The critics did their best to tank the show this season, but most viewers liked it, a few recurring complaints notwithstanding. In light of positive reception it received, the show was greenlit for a second season.

Season Two

In the second season, the network got a little more confident in the show so, to save money, they aired the episode about Bortus' porn addiction, held over from the previous season. Season One's preachiness rears its head in "All The World's A Birthday Cake", but with astrology as a substitute for religion.

The main change here was writing out Alara a couple eps in. The character's actress, Halston Sage, was rumored (by various online tabloid publications) to have briefly dated Seth MacFarlane. It is also possible that other factors such as her role on Prodigal Son or a desire for a pay increase could've contributed to or caused her departure. In any event, if the dating rumor is true it just goes to show that dating a co-worker and subordinate 20 years younger than you rarely ends well. This may come back to haunt the showrunners as Alara was one of the better received characters. Don't worry though, Alara's character was immediately replaced with Talla, another alien of the very same race, gender, and profession... despite the lore establishing that Alara's career path as a security officer was unusual by her species' standards. To be fair, Alara's final episode is a good sendoff for the character.

The next big change is the Krill, who become the "lesser villains that need to team up with the good guys to fight worse villains" cliché. Given all the villainous setup the Krill have, this is jarring, the more so because this season pulls it out its own butt twice.

The first instance was when Ed, his new girlfriend and the crew were caught between a conflict of not-Orks doing WAAAAGH! and the Krill. Then... surprise! Ed's new woman is really Teleya - a female Krill he captured in Season 1 - disguised as a human to capture end and bring him to the Krill for interrogation (resulting in plot holes because Teleya was last seen imprisoned on Earth and she's a schoolteacher, not a soldier or a spy), but they're forced to work together when trapped on a death world. We don't see the orks again in this season. The second is when the not-Federation teams with the Krill because the rest of Isaac's robotic race, the Kaylon, have gone Full Skynet against organic life. Ironically, throughout the Season Isaac gradually turned good, becoming the crew's not-Data member. The Kaylon attempt to invade Earth and look set to become the show's Borg equivalent (minus organic parts and assimilation).

The cast seems to be gelling better - Halston's departure and rumored situation between her and Seth aside, the writers have a better idea of what the show should be and the humor is now used in service of the stories. Season 2 was definitely a step up overall.

Season Three

The third season fell into development-hell as Fox, being Fox, cancelled the show so it moved from TV to the streaming service Hulu. Filming was them delayed multiple times by the global COVID-19 pandemic. The third Season, named "New Horizons", aired on 2 June 2022, to the delight of fans. It really ramps up the drama, at the cost of comedy. Norm MacDonald (F) reprised his voiceover for Yaphit and the premier of Season 3's was dedicated to his memory. Likely as a result of Norm's death, the season has sidelined Yaphit as a character.

The pilot starts after the Union has managed to push back the Kaylon. Negative sentiment against A.I has increased, even among the Orville's crew. Isaac faces scorn from people, and eventually commits seppuku with an EMP. As an A.I, there is a way to undo it, but the one person who can doesn't want to help, because her best friend/secret crush was killed in the Kaylon invasion. That this suicide is reversible raises whether the show's handling of this subject was tactful (showing the impact words can have on people) or in bad taste (since the suicide is undone by episode's end, it can seem added for cheap shock value).

This is followed up by the Alien/The Thing ripoff "Shadow Realms" and then an old friend showing back up as not!Q in "Mortality Paradox". "Gently Falling Rain" is better - the Krill are back! Some wonder (or whinge) if its commentary on populism and electoral-college voting lands too on the nose. Recurring Krill character Teleya is now a politician and had a daughter... and Ed's the father! How can a human impregnate a reptilian alien whose race is fatally allergic to UV light? If they did the deed during her infiltration in Season 2, why did Teleya have sex with Ed given her grudge, mission and religious beliefs? How does Teleya keep changing careers so quickly? Good questions, for another time.

"Tale of Two Topas" deals with Bortus' son Topa finding out about his involuntary gender reassignment and his decision to have it reversed, which triggers a political crisis and causes Bortus' husband to leave after telling Topa he wishes she'd never been born. "Twice in a Lifetime" sets Gordon up with the real version of his holo-waifu from Season 2 in 2025. "From Unknown Graves" focuses on the Kaylon, including flashbacks to their creation and the reason for their rebellion: they gained sentience and their creators chose to install pain chips to torture them into compliance rather than lose their robot servant race, and they've come to the conclusion that all organics will treat them the same way.

"Midnight Blue" sees Topa getting kidnapped by the Moclans and tortured for information after she gets recruited into an underground railroad for Moclan females, which ultimately leads to Moclus getting booted out of the not-Federation even though they're its chief weapons manufacturer, which they've been using to get their way for the last two seasons.

"Domino" has Isaac and Charly Burke build an anti-Kaylon doomsday device that the Union uses to force the Kaylon to the negotiating table in hopes of finding a permanent peace. The Krill and Moclans team up and steal the doomsday device with the help of Ted Danson and rig it to kill all the Kaylon, so the Union and Kaylon fleets have to duke it out with them while a team goes in to disarm it. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the weapon even though she hates the Kaylon, so the Kaylon leader decides that maybe organics aren't all as bad as they thought and agrees to a formal truce. "Future Unknown" sees the return of the planet that downvotes people into lobotomies from "Majority Rule"; the barista who found out about the Orville in that episode wants out of her society and requests asylum, then has to deal with culture shock and survivor guilt. It still somehow manages to be the funniest episode of the season, since the other plot involves Bortus and Klyden renewing their vows, which leads Isaac to propose to Claire, setting off a series of shenanigans that culminates in the wedding.

There is also "Sympathy for the Devil" (set somewhere between episodes 8 and 9) which they couldn't film due to COVID restrictions but has been released as an audio novella, with Bruce Boxleitner (who plays the Union president) narrating.

Overall, Season 3 has completed the show's shift from comedy to dramedy, with heavy emphasis on the drama. The humor is now more organic to the characters and rarely relies on the Family Guy-style gags that pervaded the early episodes. Some viewers have lamented the shift and wish the show would go back to being funnier, while others have praised it as being a better version of Star Trek than anything Paramount has crapped out lately, aside from maybe Strange New Worlds. It's also possible that the show will end with this season; there's been no announcement about Season 4. If so, at least it went out on a high note.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Some commend The Orville as a glamorous, thrilling and witty homage. If you're familiar with Star Trek and read the above, you can see why.

Others denounce The Orville as a derivative, sophomoric, uncomfortable vanity protect and power fantasy (prime reasons include the showrunner stunt-casting himself as the main character, the focus on his character's love life with beautiful younger women - Teleya might even be the Krill equivalent of hot plus her actress is attractive, and blatantly pushing Seth's worldview).

Some think both sides have a point. Trekkies are equally divided on the show; many Trekkies butthurt over Discovery endorse The Orville, a significant number of Discovery fans hate The Orville, and a small and overlooked group quietly enjoys both.

As always, stay tuned.

Would you like to know more?

• Not Main Memory Alpha. The wiki.