Discuss The Orville
Discuss → TV Shows → The Orville → General
It's a Remix
posted by Siobhan17STAFFMOD on September 30, 2017 at 3:18 PM
Orville is moderately entertaining. Good fare for young children, family entertainment, and those that mostly like PG fare. The writing is not great, the jokes are flat and it's still better than most anything FOX has on the air. That being said, I do take issue that Seth MacFarlane either knows his audience is ignorant or is just banking on that. We are 4 episodes into the Orville and he has used major plots (virtually exact plots) from episodes of Star Trek, TNG, AND old radio shows like the Whistler and Suspense. He isn't even really trying to be original, so I wish he'd stop saying that the Orville is something that hasn't been done before. What is it that hasn't been done before? I don't think he's able to. He's the Puff Daddy of TV. He makes a decent dance club remix but some other creative author has to have done the majority of the work else he doesn't have anything. That has been the basis of his career and what he's most successful at doing. This is why so many of his peers have little to no respect for him. MacFarlane's in ability to create original fare is why the show has some really flat parts and subpar dialogue. This is when he trying to work around his borrowed story lines. Fortunately for him, his audience seems to be in the dark and/or doesn't know every episode of old sci-fi tv and radio shows. I recommend he stop writing the majority of the episodes (think he wrote 8 or 9 of the 13 episodes) come season 2 and employ better writers.
Reply by ScorpionQ2
on October 31, 2017 at 12:23 PM
@bratface said:
Wow, thanks Brat
I did not know this- but it is mostly CBS?NBC?drama's? The only show I watch on that list is Modern Family and I am surprised 
at 22 episodes, maybe because I only watch On Demand so it doesn't seem like that many a season.
Reply by bratface
on October 31, 2017 at 1:22 PM
Scorpion, I only watch a couple of those shows. But it is mostly 'cable/online' shows that go with reduced numbers (and the shows that are close to being cancelled). The British also do the same thing. Some of their most 'popular' shows only have 3 or 4 shows a series (season).
Reply by Knixon
on October 31, 2017 at 9:33 PM
Yes, the British do that a lot, they also might have a couple years or even more between what they call "series" of 4 or 6 episodes. Then you get people talking about how British shows run so much longer, etc. But it doesn't match up, because their show might "run" 30 years but there might have been only 6 "series" of 4 episodes each over that time. The same total number you might get in ONE "season" of a US show.
Reply by CharlesTheBold
on November 1, 2017 at 6:51 AM
I think one reason for the difference is that British actors hate to commit to a show for a long period. The short seasons leave them free to take up other projects during the rest of the year. The one famous show that does have long seasons -- Dr. Who -- changes its actors every few years so they don't feel "stuck".
Reply by Knixon
on November 1, 2017 at 7:55 AM
Dr Who had long seasons up through 1984, but since then it's been 12-14 episodes per.
And there was that big honkin' gap between December 1989 and March of 2005...
Reply by lantzn
on November 2, 2017 at 2:50 AM
Ah...the 7 basic plots, interesting read. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots