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First reviews for Seth McFarlane's scifi drama The Orville

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It sounded good enough when i was reading about it but when the first trailer released it immediately looked like shit. all the jokes were either cliche or just bad
 

knkng

Member
He must be the greatest pitch room man. So much shit gets greenlit. It's beyond riding the coattails of Family Guy at this point.
I think they actually made a joke about that in Movie 43, where he is pitching garbage but the other people are still interested and he mixes up Family Guy and American Dad or something like that. I might be remembering wrong, since that movie almost gave me an aneurysm it's so fucking bad.

As for The Orville, after watching the trailer I don't understand how it's not a comedy. There's a scene near the beginning where he mistakenly eats a marble thinking it's a mint. It's not funny, but it's clearly written to be overtly humorous. It's not like The Sopranos where the comedy is baked into the characterization, he eats a fucking marble! It's a goddamn pratfall.

So the show is going to be a drama, but then it will just randomly stop in its tracks to have some "hyuk hyuk" moment?

Also Seth McFarlane should never be in front of a camera. Black hole of charisma.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I think they actually made a joke about that in Movie 43, where he is pitching garbage but the other people are still interested and he mixes up Family Guy and American Dad or something like that. I might be remembering wrong, since that movie almost gave me an aneurysm it's so fucking bad.

As for The Orville, after watching the trailer I don't understand how it's not a comedy. There's a scene near the beginning where he mistakenly eats a marble thinking it's a mint. It's not funny, but it's clearly written to be overtly humorous. It's not like The Sopranos where the comedy is baked into the characterization, he eats a fucking marble! It's a goddamn pratfall.

So the show is going to be a drama, but then it will just randomly stop in its tracks to have some "hyuk hyuk" moment?

Also Seth McFarlane should never be in front of a camera. Black hole of charisma.

Seeing that Braga is on this show as well leads me to believe that the show was conceived when they worked together on Cosmos or one of those TNG special features years ago.

Braga gets a chance to do a scifi show again and McFarlane gets to live out a fanboy fantasy. Mutually beneficial relationship.
 
That CBS isn't cheaping out or that their confidence is well placed?

Even more lol is that he seems to have learned nothing from when he failed to deal with gender identity in Family Guy and now "freed" from the shackles of comedy will fail to do it again.

That CBS isn't cheeping out on Discovery (I also think it looks more expensive than Orville, but, they're clearly going for different things).

I still think this will be better than Discovery.

That seems like it'd be pretty hard at this point!
 

Nydius

Member
So the show is going to be a drama, but then it will just randomly stop in its tracks to have some "hyuk hyuk" moment?

That's almost a paraphrasing of how MacFarlane himself described the show back in August:

Seth MacFarlane said:
”If this were a half hour, it would be kind of cut and dry what this is," MacFarlane said. ”Because we're an hour long show, the story has to come first. It can't just be gag gag gag gag gag. There has to be some reality to where the comedy comes from. If you break down where the jokes come and how they lay out, you'll notice there really isn't anything that exists in the Spaceballs/Family Guy realm. It all comes out of who the characters are that adhere to the reality of a science fiction world. Nothing ever goes into that Mel Brooks realm and that's by design. We really do see it as a sci-fi comedic drama. We allow ourselves room for levity in ways that a traditional hour long sci-fi doesn't. We're trying to break some new ground here. Whether or not we've succeeded is up to the viewers."

Source

These trailer scenes with "that's a marble" and "besides killing your dad we mean your family no harm" are prime examples of how they're going to shove humor into the non-serialized sci-fi "drama".
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
I didn't realize Chad L. Coleman was stuck on this show. He deserves better.
 
Patrice O'Neal said it best - "I got a critique about Seth ... it's too much ... Seth. It's almost like he's jealous of his own creation, where he wants to prove 'I'm better than the cartoons', but he's not better than the cartoons."

That's pretty much how I see it. It's like, you can tell he's trying to breakaway from the stigma of only being associated with Family Guy, but it's also rather telling that the most successful thing he's done outside of his cartoons was Ted, and that just aped stuff from Family Guy.
 

Slayven

Member
Fair play to Seth for living his dream.

Show may suck, but dude is being paid to live out his childhood. I have no issue with that whatsoever, and would do the same thing in a heartbeat.
No one would watch you in a show about Jericho from teen titans
 
I mean, if it's basically a Star Trek show in all but name, then it has to go though at least 2 shitty seasons at the start just like every post-TOS Trek show does.

Crew
Executive producers, Seth MacFarlane, Brannon Braga, David A. Goodman, Jason Clark, Liz Heldens.
Lol.

OK, this is the most damning thing posted in this thread.
 

knkng

Member
That's almost a paraphrasing of how MacFarlane himself described the show back in August:



These trailer scenes with "that's a marble" and "besides killing your dad we mean your family no harm" are prime examples of how they're going to shove humor into the non-serialized sci-fi "drama".

Oh, Jesus Christ. What a mess.

I especially love this line:
It all comes out of who the characters are that adhere to the reality of a science fiction world.

Yeah, like that great scene where he kicks the slime creature and they have some inane banter about how it's no big deal. Very subtextual humor there. Nothing at all like Family Guy.
 

Preezy

Member
Can't say I'm a fan of McFarlane, only thing of his I've enjoyed were the Family Guy Star Wars specials.

Family Guy - crap
American Dad - crapper
Cleveland Show - crappola
Ted - crappy
Ted 2 - crapistan
A Million Ways to Die in the West - crappy do too
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Nobody should be giving Seth McFarlane work after A Million ways to Die in the West

AKA

The worst fucking movie ever made

My dad bought that movie on blu-ray because he thought it's a western and he loves westerns. My dad is still angry that he saw, and paid money for, that movie. He saw it 3 months ago.
If you knew my dad, you would know how remarkeble it is that he still talks about a movie 3 months later.

My dad is the type of guy who watches Batman and calls him Spiderman a week later when you ask him about the movie.
 

orava

Member
Seth McFarlane

SndDVEs.gif
 

Slayven

Member
Can't say I'm a fan of McFarlane, only thing of his I've enjoyed were the Family Guy Star Wars specials.

Family Guy - crap
American Dad - crapper
Cleveland Show - crappola
Ted - crappy
Ted 2 - crapistan
A Million Ways to Die in the West - crappy do too

The ted movies literally take jokes word for word from Family guy
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
Can't say I'm a fan of McFarlane, only thing of his I've enjoyed were the Family Guy Star Wars specials.

Family Guy - crap
American Dad - crapper
Cleveland Show - crappola
Ted - crappy
Ted 2 - crapistan
A Million Ways to Die in the West - crappy do too

I mean, if you think American Dad was "crapper" than Family Guy, I think the problem might be you.
 

Herne

Member
I won't be disappointed until I see the show for myself. Surprised to hear about it being not a comedy because the trailer certainly made it seem to be, even if some of the bits were weak. And like someone else asked, how can they legally get away with this if it's too close to actual Star Trek? CBS are reportedly worried enough about Discovery so I'm sure they're not looking for any competitors.

I'm sure higher ups at Fox were like we trust him and then they saw the first few cuts and went "fuck, I thought this was going to be a parody Seth, we already put together the ads."

This makes no sense. Let's sit down to watch the first cuts that just came in and that we have already used to put together a trailer full of material we have yet to see...?
 

DBT85

Member
I mean, I was suspect from the trailer and the toilet seat joke.

A shame to see clear money being spent on more SciFi (especially after Dark Matter just got canned) and it look so crap.

Probably not helped that I'm not a fan of his work.
 
But yeah, watch this manage to limp it's way to a syndication-worthy episode count while Discovery doesn't make it past the initial 15.
 
Can't say I'm a fan of McFarlane, only thing of his I've enjoyed were the Family Guy Star Wars specials.

Family Guy - crap
American Dad - crapper
Cleveland Show - crappola
Ted - crappy
Ted 2 - crapistan
A Million Ways to Die in the West - crappy do too

Old Family Guy was good though... The new stuff yea its crap. But the first few seasons of Family Guy were good.
 
Can't say I'm a fan of McFarlane, only thing of his I've enjoyed were the Family Guy Star Wars specials.

Family Guy - crap
American Dad - crapper
Cleveland Show - crappola
Ted - crappy
Ted 2 - crapistan
A Million Ways to Die in the West - crappy do too

You kept watching his stuff is why he is worth 200 million dollars.
 

JWiLL

Banned
Seth Macfarlane always comes off as a legitimately funny and likable guy in any interview he's in, and clearly has a ton of talent, but damn if this isn't a weird choice.

I had assumed it was a full blown comedy based off of the trailers. I think had they gone that route this could have been a hit, or at least a solid addition to their comedy line up.

I guess when you've generated that much money and clout with a network, you get a free pass to do a vanity project like this.
 

DarkKyo

Member
I mean Family Guy was good...

What else has he done that was quality?

While the other co-creators(Barker, Weitzman) had a much larger role in what American Dad became, I suppose you could chalk that up to being a McFarlane creation. It's the best thing he's had his hands in, in my opinion anyways.
 

L Thammy

Member
You do see the difference between a cheap cartoon and expensive sci fi show, right?


The Orville will be cancelled before season 1 is finished. Book it.

It cost two million dollars to make an episode of Family Guy. What the Cleveland Show any cheaper?
 

DarkKyo

Member
It cost two million dollars to make an episode of Family Guy. What the Cleveland Show any cheaper?

I imagine it was just cheaper due to the show's financial profile and the talent involved like lesser known and probably lesser paid voice actors.
 
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