The Orville, tribute to Star Trek or parody?

The Orville is a TV series transmitted from the 2017 on Fox, created by Seth MacFarlane, the “Griffin” creator, that for the first time realized a not animated series. MacFarlane jumps in the science-fiction, creating the one that should be a tribute to Star Trek but that according to many it seems to be more a parody.

The Orville

We are in the year 2419, the Planetary Union’s official Ed Mercer is facing with a hard period after discovered the wife’s treason with an alien. After the divorce Ed has in front of him a new beginning, as commander of the spaceship for the spacial exploration USS Orville. Aboard though, besides his best friend, there is even his ex-wife, Kelly Grayson, as the first official. With them on board there are even a doctor, an alien of the Moclan species, which race is composed only by male exemplars, the safety’s official, an alien too, but from a different race, the navigator and a form of artificial intelligence, against the biological life’s form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur2JIh_kWtM

A TV series with two faces

Seth MacFarlane since the beginning leaks his desire to create a tv series with two faces, the serious one of the intergalactic adventures and of the spacial exploration and the comic one. For this reason the choose of the pilot’s filmmaker fall down on Jon Favreau, which demonstrated to be brilliantly able to move himself between sci-fi action’s scenes and irony, in the first two chapter of Iron Man. The thing that seems to arise from The Orville, though, is that sometimes they curb for don’t let stand out neither, often falling down in a too much flat story. The bases for an improvement and to allow The Orville to become a success, on the legacy of his inspiring Star Trek, there are and they are without any doubt important. For the moment, even if curb by a kind of fear of don’t  want to overdo, the serie make us laugh and between the characters there is the right connection and the right elements to create a story ironical and interesting. The telefilm shows us clearly the two faces of MacFarlane, from a side the fan that enriches his creation with quotes and tributes, arriving even to keep on loan two veterans of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, Penny Johnson and Brian George and to obtain as filmmakers Jonathan Frakes and Brannon Braga. From the other side there is the comic part of MacFarlane, that all know in his animated masterpieces “The Griffin” and “American Dad”, that often come out, stuffing the series with jokes about the sex and the conjugal crisis of the protagonist. Meanwhile the spacial exploration is realizing without any doubt the MacFarlane’s dream, bring him where no man has gone before.

The Star Trek’s heritage

The Orville isn’t the only TV series that is trying to take the Star Trek’s heritage, whit it, infact, are dealing between spacial trips and irony, not one, but two TV series, both released in the autumn of the last years on the american television landscape. The first one is obviously Star Trek: Discovery, which is the real legacy of the colossus created by Gene Roddenberry. The second one to compete for the space’s race, with The Orville, is “Black Mirror”. The TV series tells about the world where we live today between technologies and social networks in episodes every time different between them, with new stories, characters and environments. In the first episode of the fourth season, even Black Mirror uses on his behalf the heritage of Star Trek, creating USS Callister, a kind of parody episode of the first Star Trek, transmitted between the 1966 and the 1969. In this scenario even MacFarlane, declared fan of the Star Trek phenomenon, especially of the series “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, launched himself to the space’s race, creating his special tribute for the most famous TV series of intergalactic trips of the humans’ history.

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