I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ve never really cared for Star Trek. I appreciate what the TV series were going for and I actually do like the rebooted movies, but the franchise as a whole has always been beyond my capacity to care about.
While the reality of Star Trek has always bored me, I’ve always found the concept fascinating. Science Fiction has always been a favorite of mine, large casts offer a lot of dramatic possibility and episodic TV suites the nature of an exploratory vessel perfectly.
I’ve actually always found that the Star Trek formula worked best for comedies. While the “serious drama” of space travel often comes off has heavy-handed, the comedy inherent to barely comprehensible alien species and distant planets never seems to hit a sour note. I’ve always been fond of Galaxy Quest, Futurama has been my favorite TV sitcom since the day it aired and Men in Black has kept a spot on my movie shelf since the 90’s.
The latest in this line of comedic riffs on Star Trek is The Orville, a Seth MacFarlane comedy on Fox set to debut later this year. It follows Ed Mercer, a down-on-his-luck divorcee who is promoted to the captain of an inter-species exploratory vessel not because he is the most qualified man for the job, but because the Planetary Union has to staff thousands of identical ships and they’re strapped for warm bodies to put into them. His misfit crew includes his best friend, his ex-wife and a whole litany of bizarre alien species.
Promising to play out as a cross between a traditional workplace comedy like The Office and MacFarlane’s off-the-wall animated sitcoms, our first look into the series is promising, to say the least. While the situations the crew has to deal with are zanier than your typical Earth-bound comedy, the focus seems more focused on character interactions than simple gags.
Although his voicework takes obvious precedence, MacFarlane has proven himself to be a capable flesh-and-blood comedian in recent years. His humor has always worked best when couched in the kind of off-kilter, genre riffing that The Orville is positively dripping with, and the steadier hand of Jon Favreau — the director responsible for Iron Man and The Jungle Book — should keep some of his wilder tendencies in check.
Call me a sci-fi hypocrite, but I’m excited for this. The creative talent behind it are proven commodities, the concept is grounded in traditional genre staples and the trailer for it makes it look really good. I can’t wait to see if it lives up to its promise.
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