2017-2018 science fiction comedy, 12 episodes. Captain Ed Mercer of
the Planetary Union hit a rough career patch after his divorce, but
now has command of an exploratory ship. But his ex-wife will be his
new first officer.
This show was very obviously sold to Fox as a sitcom with science
fiction elements, and the start of the first episode certainly makes
it look like that. But, presumably after the executives had got bored
and stopped watching, Seth MacFarlane (creator and star) quietly
turned it into something rather more interesting: a production that's
very like Star Trek: The Next Generation with the serial numbers
lightly filed down, but the way it might be if a ship's crew were
proper human beings, with human failings, rather than little plastic
wargaming pieces who only get things wrong when it matters to the
plot.
All right, they probably overdo it with the whole "ship of misfits"
thing at first, but that too gets toned down after the first episode,
and what we end up with is mostly an SF drama series, with some strong
humorous elements. The characters get to be real characters, not just
to do whatever is needed to win a quick laugh. One ends up caring
about them.
Given that Brannon Braga, notorious as one of the men who took Star
Trek down from its peak to a laughing-stock during the long slump
from Next Generation through Voyager into Enterprise, is a
co-executive producer and directed four episodes, I'm amazed that this
takes as many chances as it does. In the end, it's a better Star Trek
TV series than Star Trek has managed to put out this century, which
Serious Fans obviously found unforgivable; reviews by critics have
generally been very poor, but audience approval ratings have been
high.
This is a throwback of a show: it's made in a consciously
old-fashioned style (with little continuity between episodes, and
music that leads one into the advertisement breaks), but more
importantly it portrays a bright, optimistic world, where good stuff
can happen and usually will.
Unlike the other recent series set in a Star-Trek-like world… (to be
continued, insert ominous music here).
(The Orville has been renewed for a second season.)
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