Here’s why to vote for ‘The Orville’ in the Bingewatch Awards
The time has come! Our first annual Bingewatch Awards goes all this month and we’re shining a light on our nominees to show why they deserve your votes.
We’re delighted that the Seth MacFarlane-helmed (and glorified Star Trek fan fiction) sci-fi series The Orville is renewed and will be returning for S3 on Hulu.
The action of the show happens 400 years in the future on the USS Orville. The ship is a mid-level exploratory spaceship staffed by humans, machines, and ETs who balance the many complications of superluminal travel as well as relationships with their diverse team (sound familiar?).
The Orville averaged 3.16 million live viewers and we’re guessing millions more on catchup and VOD. The show stars MacFarlane, Adrianne Palicki, Penny Johnson Jerald, Scott Grimes, Peter Macon, J. Lee, Mark Jackson, Chad L. Coleman, and Jessica Szohr. It was created and written by MacFarlane, who also executive-produces alongside Brannon Braga, David A. Goodman, Jason Clark, and Jon Cassar.
What began as a Star Trek homage with some jokes became much more confident in S2. The Orville saw better storytelling, funnier jokes, and fandom support. Here’s why you’ll want to cast your vote in the Bingewatch Awards for The Orville.
Its opening credits are a thing of wonder
Seth MacFarlane’s vision to create a loving homage to Star Trek (especially The Next Generation) is clearly apparent in the opening credits. Impressive spaceship? Check. Lovingly composed orchestral score? Check. Beautiful starfield and planetary vistas? Check.
It’s beautifully scored
Seth MacFarlane has done a great job of creating a show that is a loving homage to the glory days of TV and film. Veteran film composer John Debney’s score is the perfect signifier of this level of attention to detail. Thank you, Seth MacFarlane, for keeping studio musicians and composers in work for a couple of years. It’s so refreshing to hear well-crafted music played by musicians, rather than by machines.
It isn’t a dark as f*** and gory as all get-out
It’s great to have a show on air that you can watch with the whole family. While The Orville’s jokes can veer into the tasteless at times, the scripts are certainly more youth-friendly and there’s minimal blood and gore to disturb viewers.
The Orville goes where “no one has gone before”
The Orville is on a quest to “boldly go where no one has gone before”. The show expertly quenches our thirst for space exploration through its story-of-the-week format, and we love it for that.
Teamwork makes the dream work
Some of the best sequences in all The Orville are when the bridge crew comes together to fight foes, come up with a plan, or just have a drink together.
The Orville has fleshed out its bridge crew with familiar types. Week in and week out, we see them working together to follow their missions, building camaraderie throughout. The crew treats their captain and senior officers with respect, and they trust each other with their lives.
The Orville doesn’t take itself too seriously
For a comedy writer like Seth MacFarlane, humor is the throughline keeping his shows together. The jokes in The Orville have gotten better as the seasons have progressed, relying less on the fratboy humor of Family Guy and moving closer to occasional comedy genius.
Because The Orville doesn’t take itself too seriously, it can parody itself (as well as many other shows). We viewers are put at ease to enjoy the show.
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