The Orville
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
Seth MacFarlane’s clear love of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a deceptively faithful homage disguised as a comedy. The USS Orville, a mid tier exploratory vessel in the 25th century, is crewed by MacFarlane’s Captain Mercer, his former wife as first officer (Adrianne Palicki, superb), and a writing staff that clearly pines for episodic, issue driven sci-fi. The jokes are front loaded in season 1 and fade as the show realizes what it actually wants to be: a genuine Trek style morality play engine.
By season 2 the show is doing straight faced episodes about gender reassignment in a single sex species, social media democracy, and addiction. Season 3 (New Horizons) goes full prestige, the time travel episode Twice in a Lifetime and the Bortus/Klyden marriage material are as good as modern Trek gets. The effects are feature quality, the cast (Penny Johnson Jerald! Scott Grimes!) is game, and the earnestness critics mocked in season 1 became its greatest strength.
Verdict: Watch it. The Trek show that out-Trek’d actual Trek for three years.
