The command crew of the Planetary Union’s mid-level exploratory space vessel U.S.S. Orville took to the stage of Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom on Saturday, as part of New York Comic Con 2017. Series stars Seth MacFarlane (via Skype), Adrianne Palicki, Penny Johnson Jerald and Scott Grimes were on-hand, along with Executive Producers Brannon Braga and David A. Goodman, to talk The Orville’s first season and finding the right balance between comedy and drama.
The team behind The Orville seemed eager to move away from the Star Trek comparisons that have clung so closely to the fledgling series since its debut, eager to remind fans of it’s real-deal sci-fi chops. “It’s really hard to screw up a great script,” said Braga, who’s worked on TNG, Voyager and Enterprise. “I got lucky with a great script that Seth wrote, about a Moclan baby and gender reassignment [in reference to episode 3, ‘About A Girl].”
MacFarlane also declined to indulge comparisons between his character, Ed Mercer, and William Shatner’s iconic Captain Kirk. “There’s a consistency to the starship captain model, they’re... paragons of virtue. They’re these models of nobility. That was what I was trying to steer away from. I haven’t yet seen the starship captain who’s just not quite up to that level, who’s kind of the mediocre, mid-level accounting kind of guy.”
While fans have embraced The Orville, critical reviews have varied widely, with The Washington Post calling the show “the first real stinker of the fall season, a deep-space dud, recommended only for those who like to study cases of creative bankruptcy.” Others see it as the rightful inheritor to the Star Trek legacy of humanist optimism in an otherwise dispiriting Abramsverse of contemporary sci-fi, with Forbes noting, “By not having a budget (or requirements) for wall-to-wall spectacle, the hour-long Fox show is forced to focus on character, chemistry, sci-fi plotting and moral debates that have partially defined Gene Roddenberry’s property for generations.” The show’s lopsided Rotten Tomatoes score shows a marked disparity between the opinions of fans (90 percent like) and critics (20 percent Fresh). Still, those unfavorable reviews were clearly on the minds of the panelists at NYCC.
Both the actors and producers discussed the ongoing process of refining the show’s tone, admitting it's still a work in progress. “We try to keep up with a lot of what the fans are saying, and we hear both sides. We hear people say, ‘I could use some more jokes in the show.’ Then we hear people say, ‘I’m kinda digging the stories, and I’m invested in the characters, and there are times when the jokes kinda take me out of it.’ So we’re still trying to figure out what that Goldilocks zone is,” said McFarlane.
Johnson Jerald (Dr. Claire Finn) thanked the fans for their devotion to the show, adding, “we’re a dramedy, and what we need to do is teach the audience how to watch us, and invite them to have a dialogue with us. The moment we lit up that social media scene, we knew the fans would show up, and we thank you.”
The Orville airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Fox. Episodes are also available to stream on Hulu.
Have you been tuning into The Orville so far? Do you think the critics or the fans got it right? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
