THE ORVILLE
Imagine you have the wherewithal to create
your own TV space adventure series. You’ve always been a fan of Star Trek, so you model your universe on
the one presented in that classic show: your crew is diverse, your captain is both
decisive and flawed, your ship is beautiful and your conflicts reflect those of
today’s society. But imagine, too, that you’re Seth McFarlane, creator of the
irreverent animated comedy Family Guy
and the Ted movies. That means your
space adventure/homage to Trek must be funny, too.
The result, of course, is The Orville, McFarlane’s new SF show, now
running Thursday nights on Fox. Instead of the bleak dystopias dominating television
these days (Walking Dead, Colony, The
100, The Expanse), The Orville
offers a vision of a bright future full of shiny starships, abundant energy and
peaceful cooperation between species.
Early-Trek
optimism infuses McFarlane’s work, from the sleek ship exteriors to the clean, colorful
interiors lit to banish all shadows. Plot lines may bring some conflict among
the crew that includes not only humans of color, but also beings of several
alien species. (After all, Captain Ed Mercer’s ex-wife Commander Kelly Grayson
is his Executive Officer.) But The
Orville is no Rosinante; no one
is getting killed in a disagreement with another crew member here.
Largely because of McFarlane’s true love of Trek and his dedication to the
underlying principles of that show, The Orville
has some strong points right out of the gate. The characters are likable, the
universe is a place you want to spend time in. Watching the first episode, I
felt like I was exploring an old neighborhood. It was familiar, but just
different enough to intrigue me. I even enjoyed watching McFarlane ham it up as
the Captain. There was love behind every Kirkian pause and posture. And, after
a while, I stopped thinking of Mercer as a Kirk wannabe, seeing him as a new, slightly
wacky, but touching, character.
The second episode is even better, as the
captain and crew of The Orville deal
with an ethical dilemma drawn from our own times. A mated pair in the crew from
a planet of all males reproduce and deliver a female baby. (Don’t ask. I have
no idea how this works.) This happens only rarely on their planet, and almost
always the baby is given a sex-change operation immediately. But the Chief
Medical Officer on the Orville
refuses on ethical grounds. Which is the set-up for one of Trek’s cultural sovereignty vs. universal ethics debates. You can
probably guess that the universal right of a being to choose its own path wins
out. The only thing missing is an impassioned plea from Jim Kirk.
Fox just moved the fledgling show from Sunday
nights (where it would have been subject to interruption throughout the
football season) to Thursday nights. It already has a solid audience, debuting
in the Top Ten in its first couple of weeks, according to TV Guide magazine. The move should help, not hurt. McFarlane has
his own huge following who will go with him, but The Orville has a wider appeal to the vast Trek audience that is currently being dissed by CBS. (More about
that later.)
The
Orville’s biggest drawback is that it seems McFarlane’s
not sure just what he’s doing with the show. Is it a comedy? The jokes fly fast
and furious, and several characters seem included just for laughs, but some
topics seem more serious. Is it a spoof? The plots are generally not broad
enough for parody, so I’d have to say no. Should we watch the show as a
straight-up space adventure? Umm . . .
No matter what the thing is, I’ll continue
to watch. It’s too much fun to miss, and I confess my DVR is already full of
dark and depressing.
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY
For the first time since 1966, I haven’t
bothered to watch the pilot episode of a new Star Trek series. This latest iteration seems promising enough, set
ten years before the original series five-year mission, at a time when the
Federation is at war with the Klingon Empire. The stories are told not from a
captain’s POV, but from that of a junior officer, a woman of color at that.
There’s even a gay couple on board the ship. So, what’s not to like?
CBS All Access, that’s what. The network and
the producers of the show propose to air only the pilot on broadcast
television. (That happened this week.) If you want to watch the rest of the
series you’ll have to pay for CBS’s new All Access streaming service. Um, no.
Unlike the producers, who obviously live in
New York or Los Angeles, I live in rural North Carolina. Maybe some of you out
there can relate—maybe you live in a small town, or out on the prairie or in an
underserved suburb. Here in the hinterland, streaming is slow and expensive. I’ve
got enough Internet connection for social media and work. But downloading a
show? Takes hours. I only do it (through my free On Demand service) if I
absolutely have to, and then I download, record and watch later. The idea of paying
for a streaming service—Netflix, Hulu or CBS All Access—doesn’t make much
sense.
I can’t help but think that Star Trek’s creator, Gene Roddenberry,
is rolling in his grave right now. He would have hated to think his creation
would increasingly be available only to an elite few. The future he envisioned
was more open and democratic by far.
Cheers, Donna
