The Orville: The Complete First Season - DVD Review

[Michael Scott]

The Orville: The Complete First Season

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
If you had told me last year that Seth MacFarlane was going to make a sci-fi show spoofing Star Trek, have it laced with his own personal brand of Family Guy humor, AND that it would get good ratings, AND be a good sci-fi show at the same time and I would have laughed in your face. Seth MacFarlane is a god among animated fans, but his live action stuff has been disappointingly lackluster outside of Ted. Not to mention the fact that Star Trek is kind of hallowed ground for sci-fi fans, so anything that shows disrespect to our lord and savior Gene Roddenberry is usually met with anger or just mild chuckles. Well, look who’s laughing now, as Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville blasted off the charts with a show that is intelligent with it’s sci-fi, scathing with it’s social commentary, yet laced with Seth MacFarlane humor in a delicate balance that makes the show a literal homage to classic Trek, while throwing in tons of typical Family Guy style humor, without making it seem like an unbalanced mess. In fact, the show is actually really good, and this comes from a complete Star Trek nerd who can dish out Trek facts with the rest of the comicon crowd.

Ben Mercer (Seth MacFarlane) has had a bit of a rough year. He’s working his way up the Union ladder (his version of the Federation), only to come home one night to find out that his wife Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) is in bed with another man (well, alien male). This sends him on a downward spiral that pretty much has him at the bottom of any Union hiring charts, so it’s a bit of a surprise when Admiral Halsey (Victor Garber) calls him into his office offering him the captain’s chair for a mid size exploratory vessel. Jumping at the chance to command a ship, Mercer dives in with both feet and sets off on his very first mission.

With a motley crew of misfits and stick in the mud military types, Mercer has to find a way to command his crew. Some of them are crazy pilots who likes to pull practical jokes, another is a racist artificial life form, another is a male only species who give birth by eggs, and of course his first officer is Kelly, his ex-wife who cheated on him, so you can be sure that poor Captain Mercer has his work cut out for him.

I was actually shocked when I watched the first season of The Orville. I dismissed it on broadcast TV because the first trailer made it look like a complete spoor of Star Trek, and I didn’t figure that a spoof show would hold up past a few episodes. However, I was intrigued in the first episode, and by episode 4 I was starting to realize that this isn’t really a spoof. Sure, it lampoons certain elements of Star Trek, and MacFarlane’s style of low brow humor is VERY distinctive, but the series manages to stand on it’s own two feet as a sci-fi show as well. MacFarlane tackles some very hard questions in his show, infusing just the right amount of humor into the show to keep it loose and flowing, but still manages to put the greater majority of the production into dramatic story telling. The 7th episode in particular is much more dry in its sense of humor, as it tackles the question of a PURE democracy (mob rule), with the downsides of social media and a culture that thrives off of unverified facts. There’s also an episode dealing with sex changes (not as a joke, but as a serious subject), and while I don’t always agree with MacFarlane and his political bents, I was impressed to find him asking the questions and allowing the audience to make up their own minds, instead of just preaching.

While I could say that these dramatic elements are what make the show, it’s really the characters. Seth MacFarlane hasn’t had a whole lot of “in person” acting roles (A Million Ways to Die in the West was the first one that I can think of), as he has mostly stayed in voice acting and producing, but he plays a very likable Captain Mercer who actually grows and thinks as he matures in the series. Adrianne Palicki is given a near thankless role, and she infuses a sense of empathy and compassion into a character that really should be reviled (and is at the beginning) based upon her original actions. Penny Johnson Herald is fantastic as the doctor, and we have a whole host of other additions who make the crew unique (including comedian Norm McDonald as a gelatinous blob alien).

While I could make continuous comparisons of characters, actions and scenarios to Star Trek (Seth MacFarlane is a HUGE Trek nerd), the show really is unique in it’s own way. There’s a ton of respectful homages to classic Trek, but there are also quite a few different episodes that feel and act completely different. In many ways it’s more Star Trek than Star Trek Discovery was, but it’s still tried and true Seth MacFarlane.




Rating:

Rated TV-14




Video:

The Orville’s 1.78:1 Mpeg 2 encoded DVD set is quite the pretty picture to look at. While I naturally would have loved to have seen a show like this in HD, the 480p discs more than do the job properly. The series is bright and colorful, blending in bright blues, deep reds, and various other primary colors with great saturation and pop. The series is almost more colorful than Star Trek: The Original Series, and has such a wide variety of locations and costumes that you never know what to expect next (although there are some definite disadvantages to the lower budget costumes and effects). CGI is usually pretty impressive, but the budget dictates that it’s not going to look as good as modern Sci-fi shows. Luckily that comes across as nostalgic, and actually blends into the show pretty nicely after a bit of adjustment. Blacks are always deep and inky, but there is some banding that comes in pretty frequently (the “up up and away” maneuver on the Krill ship in episode 6 is pretty blatant) and some soft shots here and there to keep it from being perfect, but otherwise this is a good looking 4 disc set (3 episodes per disc).






Audio:

While the video is good, the audio is just plain great. Sure, this is not a lossless audio mix, but the 5.1 Dolby Digital track (in 448 kbps) is impressive to say the least. Dialog is always clean and clear, and the surrounds get a goodly amount of activity from the space battles and ambiance on the Orville itself. LFE is POWERFUL, giving tons of weight to phaser battles and the rumbling of the Orville jumping to hyperspace (or warp, or whatever) gives that heavy thump to your chest that puts a smile on the face. There are definitely some moments where the show gets very front heavy, but the action and adventure is intertwined so often that the front heavy moments get interrupted quite frequently with more dynamic scenes.






Extras:

• “The Orville” at PaleyFest 2018
• Inside Look
• Directed By
• The First Six Missions
• Designing the Future
• The Orville” Takes Flight
• The Science of “The Orville:” Quantum Drive
• The Science of “The Orville:” Alien Life
• Crafting Aliens
• A Better Tomorrow

Final Score: ​

The Orville was panned by critics over the first season, but got insane viewer ratings, and I can see why. MacFarlane has actually managed to pull off a comedic show that is not entirely a parody spoof. It has humorous “MacFarlane” moments (including obligatory jokes and making fun of his ex-wife), but it is counterbalanced by a solid narrative structure that allows it to be serious engaging at the same time. I honestly didn’t expect to enjoy this show nearly as much as I did, and now it has me eagerly awaiting for season 2 to start up this month. While I would have loved to see a Blu-ray release of the series, the DVD is quite good in the specs department, with good video, great audio and a decent array of extras. Recommended as a fun watch on all levels.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Adrianne Palicki, Penny Johnson Jerald, Scott Grimes, Peter Macon, Halston Sage, J. Lee, Mark Jackson, Jessica Szohr
Created by: Seth MacFarlane
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 MPEG 2
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Rated: TV-14
Runtime: 526 Minutes
DVD Release Date: December 11th, 2017

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Fun Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I never heard of this series. I am very much interested. Will check it out.