The Orville is Basically Star Trek and That’s Good As Far As I’m Concerned

When I first heard about a The Orville, I thought it was a joke. Seth MacFarlane? Making a space show? Seth MacFarlane? Family Guy and American Dad Seth MacFarlane? Really? Seth MacFarlane?

Eventually I came to realize it wasn’t a joke so then I thought, “well, maybe a funny Star Trek would be, you know, okay.” I wasn’t *thrilled* but I’m a committed sci-fi guy and just seeing reasonably good graphics of ships flying in space Good Stuff.

The pilot was a bit off putting but it wasn’t the laugh fest nightmare I worried about. This wasn’t Family Guy in Space. It included a story of a failed marriage, a troubled best friend and a bureaucratic space agency that needed a body to command a spaceship (the Orville). None of this was very funny :).

The third episode really hammered home for me that this is basically Star Trek. If you don’t want any spoilers, then skip this. The basic idea is that one of the races in the Orville’s universe’s “Federation” — the Moclan— mostly only have male members (like 99.999%). Against the odds, a female is born (via some kind of egg laying process) and this is considered a problem by that alien society. The solution — perform surgery and convert the infant to the “proper” male gender. This horrifies practically everyone else on the crew and sets off a lengthy chain of events that explores this from multiple angles.

It ends with a trial — classic Star Trek thing — that includes a huge surprise that overwhelming shows that the baby should remain a girl. And then, they go ahead and do the conversion surgery anyway! That’s a solid Star Trek conundrum right there with interesting parallels to modern day topics. It set up a problem that had no perfect answer and refused to give us an easy out.

I struggle with the Seth MacFarlane thing. In my mind, he’s so very tightly bound to FG, American Dad and an oversized share of low-brow humor. I keep expecting the dialog to devolve into pure silliness or for the crew to break into song or something. So far, that (mostly) has happened and when it does, it’s fine and once or twice, pretty darn funny.

If you’ve been holding back because you have the same “MacFarlane’s funny” baggage problem I have, try and set it aside and check out the show. You might like it.

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