REVIEW: "The Orville" Trailer

Fans of Seth McFarlane have been graced with the trailer for his newest project, a Star Trek-inspired space comedy titled “The Orville”. Macfarlance is best known as the creative genius behind hit animated adult comedy series Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, and American Dad!, but also as the voice of several characters in all three of his television shows and Ted in the Ted movies; animator and writer at Hanna-Barbera for series such as Johnny Bravo, Dexter’s Laboratory, and Cow and Chicken.

Set in the 25th century, MacFarlane portrays Captain Ed Mercer, a lackluster, underachiever of a Planetary Union officer who has been placed in control of the U.S.S. Orville, charged with deep space exploration. His equally out-of-place crew consists of executive officer Kelly Grayson, Ed’s ex-wife portrayed by Adrienne Palicki; helmsman Gordon Malloy, portrayed by Scott Grimes; Dr. Claire Finn, portrayed by Penny Johnson Jerald; LT. Commander Bortus, portrayed by Peter Macon; and other talented actors.

Produced by MacFarlane and Jon Favreau, the series is set to be produced by 20th Century Fox and will air on Thursdays at 9:00 pm sometime this year. The trailer, giving a comedic preview of what is to be expected of the series, was released last week on May 15th on YouTube.

The trailer itself I found very amusing; it is very clearly drawing elements from Star Trek but also seems to draw inspiration from another sci-fi comedy and my childhood favourite film, Galaxy Quest. I found myself both laughing but also captivated, I genuinely wanted to see more from the trailer, leading me to want to see the premiere episode when it airs on television. The amusing frictional relationship between Ed and Kelly is a bit cliché in today’s television market, but seems to me that it may provide an added level of conflict humour to the sarcasm and adult themes that are more than likely to be present in the show’s content. I hope that the show will not be too heavily reliant on gross-out humour and the dichotomy of men and women however, as those subject have long since been overused.

Overall, I’m optimistic for this upcoming television show and hope that it becomes as successful as MacFarlane’s other works and is both the comedic and scientific mashup many fans of both genres can like. No official release date has been announced as of yet but it is slated for release sometime this year.