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First reviews for Seth McFarlane's scifi drama The Orville

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What was that other show he did recently, the one set in the border town or whatever. That was awful too. And family guy has descended into punching down, offensive for the sake of it humour for years now.
 

vypek

Member
What was that other show he did recently, the one set in the border town or whatever. That was awful too. And family guy has descended into punching down, offensive for the sake of it humour for years now.

That may have been a Family Guy alum that did that. Not sure.

BorderTown is the name if I recall correctly and it was indeed utter trash.
 

Chmpocalypse

Blizzard
I mean, you can see McFarlane is creatively bankrupt from his animated work already. Then you give him a Western, which turns out to be hot mysoginistic garbage.

This should not come as a surprise.
 
Yeah, I knew this was gonna be a vanity project.

But a drama? This is an incredibly odd choice for a sea change show.

BorderTown is the name if I recall correctly and it was indeed utter trash.

I mean, you can see McFarlane is creatively bankrupt from his animated work already. Then you give him a Western, which turns out to be hot mysoginistic garbage.

This should not come as a surprise.

McFarlane subscribes to the fallacy that if it's taboo, it's funny regardless of content or context.
 

Quick

Banned
Didn't expect this to be a drama, or mostly a drama. Seems like the marketing is all wrong then, but I guess they really wanted to push the Family Guy jokes to the forefront to try and really sell it.
 
Well shit. The whole reason I was interested in this was because I thought it was a comedy. I'll check out the pilot at the very least.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
I dunno man, whatever-the-heck-hillary-swank-was-doing gives him some tough competition.

Nah, mcfarlane was worse. Which is really saying something.
WHAaaaaaaaat. Swank had a small amount of time to do a *lot* and it was so damn memorable and specific. Loved it.
 

Neff

Member
American Dad says different (though he left all but his speaking roles behind on that show a while ago, he was still in creative control when it got good after season 2).

The only thing McFarlane's ever been associated with that I've been even remotely impressed with or entertained by was American Dad. And as it transpires, he's not really associated with it too much.

The 'record scratch moment/stuttering/incredulity during an embarrassing situation/ridiculing of a clichéd scenario' formula of comedy feels fucking ancient and the entire trailer for this show made me cringe painfully.

So this isn't a major shock.
 
WHAaaaaaaaat. Swank had a small amount of time to do a *lot* and it was so damn memorable and specific. Loved it.

It bothered me because of her pitch, I'm not sure if she was meant to serious or funny, or a mix of both, considering her character was a special agent, I was confused anyway.

The other issue with her character is that she is introduced way too late though, so they don't give her enough time to do too much.
 

Hesh

Member
The Orville feels like a vanity project, plain and simple, and while it might be fun for MacFarlane to run around shooting phasers and playing Captain Kirk, it’s not much fun to watch

This is exactly what I expected. More power to him, but I have no interest in watching Seth MacFarlane masturbate on network TV just because he can.
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
The Orville is mostly a straightforward drama… and not a very good one

Not surprised, Mcfarlane isn't a very good writer and doesn't really have the grace to tackle serous topic in a comedic fashion.
 
If only he wasn't actually IN IT, then there might be a chance he could step away and let people more experienced with the genre handle it.

But no, I'm sure the series will be killed before his character has a chance to Ned Stark.
 

Trouble

Banned
Bad luck for Seth that there was already another Star Trek parody due to start this month on CBS.

hJp5eA5.gif


pls let Discovery be good
 

Effect

Member
It looks expensive and Jon Favreau directed the pilot. It kills me that Fox seems willing to put so many more resources behind this than CBS will probably give to Star Trek, but hopefully I'm wrong.

Star Trek Discovery is estimated to be $6 million per episode

Higher I believe. I think the latest Variety articles say it's around 8 million an episode. This is also likely up front cost for things. I imagine a second season would cost less since the investment is already done for a lot of things. However yeah they're putting serious money behind Discovery.

CBS aren't cheaping out on Discovery and clearly have confidence. Here's hoping that is well placed. Please let it be well placed! It's why they likely don't appear to care openly about The Orville. One, it's Seth McFarlane. Two, it has people working on it that they likely feel lead to Star Trek fatigue, etc. Something they don't want to repeat as they easily could have tried to remake late 80s/90s Trek and decided against it. Three, they're that confident in their own production.

A red flag sent up to me was his need to take shots at what CBS was doing with Discovery on more then one occasion. That was never a good look for me. I get him wanting to push his own show but that felt to me a lack of confidence in his own product that he needed to attack something else to make his work look good. If you have a good product or what you really believe is a good product you shouldn't have to do that.
 

L Thammy

Member
If only he wasn't actually IN IT, then there might be a chance he could step away and let people more experienced with the genre handle it.

But no, I'm sure the series will be killed before his character has a chance to Ned Stark.

Maybe he's actually cosplaying as Christopher Pike.
 

Tobor

Member
He's a huge Star Trek fan. HUGE. He's said in interviews over the years all he really wants to do is a Star Trek show. I think he even went to paramount and tried to pitch a Trek show.

So this is his Star Trek show. Lol.
 

Slayven

Member
He's a huge Star Trek fan. HUGE. He's said in interviews over the years all he really wants to do is a Star Trek show. I think he even went to paramount and tried to pitch a Trek show.

So this is his Star Trek show. Lol.
You can tell what he is a fan off just by his jokes
 
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