No, you didn't travel back in time. If anything, I think I did. Star Trek Mania has been taking over the airwaves again recently, mostly on the strength of the Paramount+ exclusive shows. For some reason, this reminded me, "Hey, I never did watch The Orville," a show that I had always heard was basically an homage to Star Trek: The Next Generation. So I got back on board and... yeah, that's pretty much accurate.
The first thing I was told about The Orville was to dispose of any preconceived notions I might have had of it based on it coming from Seth MacFarlane. There's very little "Family Guy" in this show at all, save for... well... the main character, who's played by MacFarlane himself. In fact, MacFarlane's Ed is probably the weakest character on the show, which is a bit of an irony. Captain Ed comes across as someone who just doesn't work with this space exploration atmosphere. He comes across as a square peg for this round hole of a show.
What I love about The Orville is the rest of the cast. In fact, the Star Trek comparisons are very much on the nose. MacFarlane went out of his way to find a Worf, a Data (actor Mark Jackson doing an uncanny Brent Spiner impression), and a B'Elanna Torres (she's technically Voyager and not Next Generation, but the comparison fits) just to name a few. The chemistry of the rest of the cast with pretty much anyone not named Seth MacFarlane is a lot of fun. The show would probably be better off if they just bit the bullet and made Adrianne Palicki's Commander Kelly Grayson the lead character.
I want to keep this brief, so I'll just say that if you haven't watched The Orville, it's a great time to catch up. In case you haven't noticed in the embed above, it's a few days away from coming back, exclusively on Hulu. Hulu is also where you can find the show's first two seasons, so go ahead and binge them. You'll be glad you did.
