Fox, inept as ever when it comes to SF, has been pushing The Orville as some kind of boffo-laughs sci-fi comedy. It isn't.
It is, however, pretty good for what it is: a kind of cousin to the original Star Trek with a thin "fourth wall:" The Orville is self-aware SF adventure with some humor. The writers, director and actors know when they're wading through familiar tropes, and they know you know -- and they're not averse to throwing the audience a quick wink over it.
Despite that, the world-building holds up far better than you might expect, helped along by slightly rumpled uniforms and a future universe that isn't quite as slick as it aspires to be. If the writers can continue to walk the tightrope -- especially in dialog -- between stereotype and satire, between too real and too cute, it's going to be great fun. And if they fall short, it will still be fun.
Rolling-on-the-floor, bigtime laugh riot? Nope. This show is too fond of its source material to go for the easy laugh, at least in the pilot. Instead, it delivered a fun drama -- verging on melodrama -- with a couple of narrative threads and clever solutions to familiar problems.
Watch it while you can. There are 13 episodes ready to roll and from there.... I have no faith in Fox not meddling with or cancelling the series and that's too bad; it deserves a good run.
I've watched it several times and I enjoyed it. I'm just wondering where they intend to go from here. The world building needs to deepen and hopefully they have some sort of arc plot instead of just going purely episodic.
ReplyDeleteThe pilot sets up a deeper arc.
ReplyDeleteAnyone taking bets that Fox will air eleven and shelve two?
ReplyDeleteI liked it. Trek deserves a bit of a spoof, it's never been as good as the cultists say it is. I would have liked a series based on Galaxy Quest, but this will do.
ReplyDeleteBut homebru beat me to it. Here's hoping we don't get Fireflied.
Got a few chuckles from me. Will probably watch a few more episodes at least (wife is DVRing the series, so I can watch it when the mood hits).
ReplyDeleteNot great, but entertaining.
I liked it. But then I am known for liking weird stuff.
ReplyDeleteI watched part of an episode. It was decent.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid to watch it, because I might like it and then have to see it get cancelled.
ReplyDeletePersonally I couldn't get through the pilot. I'm pretty hard on comedy in general - and didn't really find much of the obvious attempts funny... and then they got to the Ex Wife arguement and I just quit. Not for me I guess. At least I've got 3 episodes of pulpy Kill Joys waiting for me this weekend.
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