It’s been a while since we caught up with our adopted show, The Orville, but there is some important news today coming from Fox. We also have a few bits of news emanating from the production on season two, so get ready as we open a jar of pickles for an Orville update.
Season 2 will be mid-season show for Fox
Today Fox officially announced their upcoming season, setting The Orville for a mid-season premiere. The first episode of the season is set to air on Sunday, December 30th following an NFL double-header. Seth MacFarlane’s homage to Star Trek: The Next Generation will then move to regular slot on Thursdays in 2019 for its second season. Fox confirmed with TrekMovie that the second season of The Orville will have a total of 14 episodes.
The first season of The Orville premiered in the Fall of the 2017 and ran on Thursdays, however with Fox acquiring Thursday Night Football which will premiere this fall, the network has decided to move both Gotham and The Orville to mid-season to make room for football.
Orville cast at Fox Upfront party in New York on Monday
Six episodes shot
Production on the second season of The Orville has been continuing at pace since it began in March. The show will be producing 13 new episodes for season two, in addition there is an episode that is a hold over from season one, bringing the season 2 total to 14 episodes.
The show is currently on a brief hiatus, with MacFarlane and his cast in New York for Fox’s big Upfront presentation later on Monday. Last Friday The Orville wrapped production on its sixth episode of the second season according to producer/director Jon Cassar. A few days earlier Cassar also shared an interesting image from the set with a new alien along with a couple of Moclans, with the message “Just another day on The Orville.”
(Instagram/John Cassar)
It appears the sixth episode will feature new castmember Jessica Szohr prominently, based on a tweet sent out by MacFarlane.
Hey @jessicaszohr way to kill it this week on your Orville episode!
— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) May 11, 2018
Szhor’s character now has a name
Speaking of Szohr, we believe we now know the full name of her character to be Talla Keyali. We already knew the last name based on a previous report and the first name was revealed in an Instagram photo showing off a set of gifts given out to the cast. As noted in a previous season two production report, Szhor’s Keyali appears to be a Xelayan security officer, just like Alara Kitan (Halston Sage).
Here is Jessica having some fun at today’s Fox Upfront event in New York.
Bringing the fun to FOX with @jessicaszohr! #FoxUpfront 🎉 pic.twitter.com/OEb6D1CgpB
— FOX (@FOXTV) May 14, 2018
The return of the Krill
An Instagram photo promoting Fox’s Wellness Fair on the lot which featured Yoga with Goats from Hello Critter Care, showed off an actor in Krill makeup. This indicates the Krill, who are a recurring villain on the series, will be back for an earlier episode in season two.
And just a few days ago, Jon Cassar shared another picture featuring him on set with a couple of Krill, indicating we may get two episodes with these baddies in the first half of season two.
(Instagram/John Cassar)
Puppet alert
It was previously reported that an episode in season two may feature puppets, and we got another reminder of that last week when MJL Puppet Design posted another photo of a puppet being made for The Orville. The photo appears to be from same time as when they posted about Orville back in December and the new post refers to it as something “conceptual,” so there is no guarantee we will actually be seeing puppets in season two or if the puppets were something considered and not used for season one.
Action figures coming?
In an Instagram story (which automatically expire after a day), actor J. Lee (John LaMarr) revealed that he recently was scanned and measured for an action figure for The Orville. There has been no official announcement on any licensing deals for The Orville, but there was also a hint that there would be figures from The Orville at the Paley Center panel earlier this year.
Concept art
Seth MacFarlane has shared some interesting concept art for The Orville, from the preproduction of the first season.
(Twitter/Seth MacFarlane)
(Twitter/Seth MacFarlane)
Watch production designer talk about making two-story set
Deadline has a video interview with production designer Stephen Linewever as he explains how he has approached creating the sets for The Orville.
CLICK IMAGE to see video at Deadline.com
More fun from the set
Mike Henry, happy to be back again as Dann.
@TheOrville pic.twitter.com/74xCRyvVxE
— Mike Henry (@mikehenrybro) May 1, 2018
Chad Coleman does a bit of Shakespeare in full Klyden makeup.
Another episode of Klyden Does the Classics! #Othello #Shakespeare #Klyden #Moclan #TheOrville @theorville pic.twitter.com/qfnztRqkcx
— Chad L Coleman (@ChadLColeman) May 8, 2018
Only in LA, Kai Wener (Ty Finn) showing off his school project about where he works (i.e. the 20th Century Fox lot).
Publicist Aj Feuerman caught a shuttle from The Orville parked on the “city streets” portion of Fox’s backlot.
That’s it for this update, keep with all our The Orville coverage.
I don’t get the “puppets”
Yeah we’re not sure what’s going there. This is the second time they’ve shared an Orville puppet photo.
They first shared a photo back in December:
https://twitter.com/MJLpuppetDesign/status/944218672847118336
Yeah I think they’re following in Joss’ footsteps with the puppet episode. It worked for Angel, and I think another series did it as well but can’t remember which. If done right, I suppose it works but…really has to be done right.
ANGEL did a show where they had a puppet stand in for the main character, was actually pretty good.
Also, Henson Alternative is releasing a hard-R puppet movie in August, THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS, that sounds really, well, different. ROGER RABBIT meets ALIEN NATION in CHINATOWN is my takeaway, but as though made by THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY directors.
“Is there a Geppetto in the house?!” Best line in that episode.
I suspect we all will when the episode with them airs.
Uh, hello, Farscape? Puppets allowed for aliens that weren’t limited to the human shape. If you’re concerned about avoiding “forehead alien of the week” syndrome. Though I will say, I think the makeup people on Orville have really been innovative and bold.
Those were fantastic creations on ‘SCAPE, especially the two regualrs. Pilot in particular just blew me away, and that might be the first time I was ever so convinced by puppetry.
I wouldn’t mind a miniature of the Orville itself.
This is one show that could use the classical 22-24 episode format with its (mostly) stand alone stories. I don’t know why Fox doesn’t go for it.
I think it was Seth’s choice. He said that he didn’t want the show to have lots of filler episodes. Though I think that’s a little silly since episodic storytelling is by nature all standalone episodes, so there’s nothing to be filler for. Unless he just meant he didn’t want crappy episodes.
I said it before and it needs to be said again. When people say “filler” episodes I strongly suspect they mean “bad” or “sub par” episodes. This is a misnomer as there is absolutely no guarantee short season shows won’t have “filler” episodes. It seems likely that the odds of having a “filler” or “dog” episode are pretty much the same no matter how many episodes there are in a season. Hence, I wish the show was the more traditional 22 or so.
Not even TNG should have had 22-24 episodes.
TOS use to have 28 episodes a season. But people have to remember TV was very different back then. Today with all the competition and options its getting harder and harder to do shows that long anymore. A lot of people would rather just wait until the season is over and binge watch it. Thats the new normal we are living in and probably why shorter seasons are becoming the norm like Discovery and its 13 episodes.
Short seasons only seem to be the norm for streaming and cable shows. The traditional over the air networks still seem to be holding on to the 20 episode minimum. Fox seems to have a handful of short season shows but the bulk of their programming is the normal length. (barring a hiatus/cancellation order). Therefore, I would not say short seasons is a trend just yet. It only appears in a certain places.
Part of it comes down to money as well. These shows are not cheap to produce.
@alphantrion — it’s money and time. The cost to produce these episodes for the limited ratings they’re getting on FOX warrants caution with their orders. The other, and likely more significant reason is that MacFarlane has other obligations. So a half season is about all he has time to write and act in. Since this is really a pet project for him, it’s not like he wants to turn his baby over to a third party showrunner to produce a bunch of scripts he will have to perform in, but in which he doesn’t have the time to develop as part of the writing/producing team.
Yeah I know, I think I got spoiled by all the classical shows that used to run for 25-30 episodes back in the day. But then there were less channels and less options to choose.
A December premiere is a bad sign. That’s the worst non-summer month of the year to start a new season.
I have nothing against this show. But I just can’t get excited about it.
Bummer that we have to wait that much longer. This was a promising show that had more hits than misses. Sounds like FOX’s new NFL commitments have screwed with the fans. Dud. Such is the perils of short season shows. Fox is pretty much the only over the air network that even has them, it seems.
As I recall, the puppet thing was posted by the creator with something along the lines of, “It was supposed to be used tonight” the day Mad Idolatry aired (most likely in the various TV shows dedicated to Kelly). I doubt puppets will be used.
i can’t wait for season 2 of this to start up! the orville is true star trek in all the ways that st:d isn’t and never will be!
@grooified — yup and those are all the ways I’m happy Trek no longer is!
What? You’re happy that Star Trek is no longer uplifting, enlightening, entertaining, endearing and engrossing?
December? UGH!
14 eps? UGH!!
Oh well. Still can’t wait for it to return.
Ahhh, the 20th back lot. Brings back such fond memories, like visiting the Spindrift, walking around Triton Control, or getting tossed off the set of M*A*S*H… Good times!
You got to visit the SPINDRIFT? Man, I’d have liked to live in that thing!
Yes indeed! A few years ago, I was building a model kit of the Spindrift, after [mumble,mumble] years away from the hobby. Let us just say that airbrush plus inexperience plus impatience plus heat-gun combined for near-total disaster. Then I remembered (from that set visit) that the “real” Spindrift didn’t have a port-side hull either. So I scratch-built a diorama of the giant tree-stump and the camp tent and slid the Spindrift up against it, just like the big boys! There it sits, hidden from Inspector Kobick.
It’s funny, the last time I built a Spindrift, I somehow managed to leave it on my sungun movie light (that I still had a sun gun tells you how long ago this was – I think it was the year STAR WARS came out) and it got turned on and burned a huge hole in the underside. But I was able to use the hole as ‘battle damage’ so it was a semi-win!
Cool! (Well, not so cool. But you know what I mean. ;)
So Jar Jar Bings infiltrated his way into The Orville?
Why do starships have huge corridors with nothing in them? If I were designing a ship, I’d want to use every square inch. Maybe vendor kiosks. Nothing gets you ready for battle with the Krill like shrimp fried rice and a new phone plan.
@CmdrR — to accommodate the cameras and lights. This was the case up through VOY. ENT corridors were still pretty spacious, but much smaller than their predecessors. Only in the last 20 years have camera and lightning technology miniaturized to the point where these corridors could be realistically depicted. ORVILLE doesn’t intend to do anything realistically, they simply imitate TNG, shamelessly.
Yet the tighter TMP corridors not only permitted filming, but produced better results (and look at the TUC ones — though those are TOO tight for my tastes!) You could still have run the biggest film camera in the world through them (I’d point to the access to the pod bays in 2001 as an example of that, and HAL’s brain set in the film as another.) There’s a difference between inconvenience and impossibility.
ORVILLE’s corridors seem to cry out for a WILD BUNCH marching to their deaths/RIGHT STUFF astronauts suited up and ready to complain type shot, they are so damn wide. Except for such dramatic effect, they are just plain distracting (and I wish they’d fill up the bridge with an inner ring of consoles too, but I said all this about TNG 30 years ago as well.)
Those two guys on each side sure look like Klingons (Next Gen era)! How does The Orville get away with ripping off Trek left and right while fan productions are shut down? And those sets…cheap looking, unfunctional looking, etc., etc. Atrocious production design.
“How does The Orville get away with ripping off Trek left and right while fan productions are shut down?”
Because “The Orville” is just different enough to avoid plagiarism. While the fan films are done as actual Star Trek.
I want to give “The Orville” a second chance. I started watching the first episode, but couldn’t make it through. I felt like the jokes were falling flat, and the story was just unfolding way too slowly. Are there any pro-Orvillites out there who can give me a thumbnail of what to expect if I dive back in? Does the show find itself?
It depends on if you like stand alone stories. There are some excellent episodes throughout the run, but there are also some that I found subpar. Some of the jokes do still fall flat but I think if you liked Star Trek TNG you should definitely try to jump back in because some of the messages in the stories are really good and makes a person think.
In later episodes the jokes work better. There are less juvenile ones. Overall the whole series gets better.
The first episode tries way too hard with the jokes. As the season goes on it gets much better. The stories have more depth and emotional punch. Some of them are very evocative of Star Trek – some of them are very obvious homages. I think the Orville was billed as a “comedy” to appeal to fans of family guy (etc) because Seth McFarlane. In reality I’d say it was more akin to something like Boston Legal – a show with some drama and some humour. I think it’s a great Star Trek-esque show. I agree with the other replies to your comment.
Also when you’ve been and watched the rest of it we’ll be waiting for your report hehe
@Dr C — I think it was sold to Fox as a MacFarlane-esque comedy. I think Fox has been fighting him tooth an nail to keep it in that territory. The reality is, the huge ratings impact of the first couple of episodes by a quick and steady decline that leveled out demonstrate that this was likely true, and that the core MacFarlane fans likely fell out over time. The good news is, it seems to have picked up its own audience looking for something to replace the simpler Berman era of Trek.
But I disagree it the stories have more depth and emotional punch of MacFarlane’s other shows. If anything it has less impact given the talents of the some of the actors and blatant pandering by some of the writers. When FAMILY GUY turns dramatic, there’s real weight to the moment as it is such a stark contrast to the sophomoric slapstick comedy. ORVILLE is still struggling to find the contrast to make the dramatic moments count, and not just fill the blanks like a paint by numbers canvas. Right now, they go through the motions, imbuing a pretentiousness to pretty standard tropes which are more effectively covered by other serious dramas (and comedies for that matter).
@Curious Cadet I hope it maintains its tone over the second season :)
And I see where you’re coming from. I think the later shows have more depth relative to the pilot – particularly the one with Bortas’s baby, the one on the Krill ship, and the one where the doctor and Isaac are crashed on that planet. For me, they should focus on making the humour more organic (like Troi getting drunk in FC or Worf panicking that he will have to deliver Keiko’s second baby…!) rather than trying to force Family Guy humour into it. Fingers crossed season 2 builds on the improvements of season 1 :)
Well Dr C, I disagree. I don’t care if the humor is organic or not. I just think it should be there. The show is better when it is light and funny. Quite frankly, the “organic” moments you mention of Troi drunk on tequila in FC just didn’t work. That was a moment that felt truly forced. Maybe it was Sirtis, (she’s not a very good actress, lets be honest) but the scene didn’t work. The funniest moment in TNG was Worf smashing Geordi’s lute, ala Bluto in Animal House, and saying, “Sorry”. That was hardly organic at all. Although I guess the equally funny line, “Captain I protest. I am NOT a merry man!” was rather organic. Which goes to show you… Humor need not be organic to work.
@ML31 Fair points :) don’t get me wrong I’m not saying the Orville shouldn’t have comedy in it. I find the show very funny – for instance, the anti banana ray joke in the first episode is hilarious – but it grew out of the situation. I can’t think of a good example of the sort of thing I mean as inorganic humour (excuse to watch the show again hehe!) but I sometimes think some of the jokes are shoehorned in. But I really wouldn’t want them to remove the comedy and make it more like TNG. I like Orville because it’s *not* TNG. Orville is more akin to Red Dwarf than Star Trek – despite Orville being an homage or pastiche or loving tribute to TNG (or however you choose to characterise it).
Also I agree re: Sirtis, but I disagree on that scene in FC it’s one of my favourite bits of the film (although it’s equally funny to watch Frakes’ reaction to what drunk Troi is saying haha!).
But humour is subjective by its very nature I suppose – and if we all found the same things funny life would be exceedingly tedious.
I just realised I sounded like cartman in South Park criticising family guy for having random jokes! What am I doing with my life
I hope they continue keeping it light and funny. I hope they don’t try to pander to the pontificating critics, who will never be pleased in any case…blow raspberries and full speed ahead, dick jokes and all. If one wants to get serious about the Cosmos and aliens, we got Dr. Steven Greer, his Unacknowledged,Sirius Disclosure, Ancient Aliens on History Channel.
I’m right there with you, kitbashcanon. Show is better when they go humorous. Dick jokes and all. I think they should lean more to the humor side of things.
I’m glad someone else appreciates the humor. Instead of the sterling flagship of Star Fleet, we get the cargo ship U.S.S. Reluctant from the movie “Mr. Roberts”(sort of). ST:” To Boldly Go Where No One has Gone Before”. Orville:”You were nobody’s first choice.” and when Seth rolled his eyes at some particular inanity from his crew and said in exasperation:”I gotta get a better crew”. I just love it.
Early on there were more jokes. I think the show worked better when it leaned more towards comedy. Less so when they try to get serious. There was one later episode that squeezed in lots of jokes. It was one of the better episodes. I’ve said it before and it’s worth saying again… The jokes are what set it apart from TNG and are what make it its own thing. When the jokes aren’t flying it just comes across as a pale TNG rip off.
Meh…..
Well, I’m happy that they didn’t cut the number of episodes.
I’ve been watching TOS for the past couple of months, and there’s a palpable effect to having 26 episodes in a season. You spend more time with the characters (than with a 14-episode season), you spend less time away from the characters (in between seasons), and the result is a more immersive, more satisfying experience. You get more involved with a show when it’s on for half of the year rather than for just a few months. And honestly, the “quality over quantity” argument isn’t resonating with me. There are some obviously inferior episodes of TOS in each season, but, viewing the series as a whole, would I choose to scrap any episodes? Nope. Not even stinkers like “Miri.” OK, maybe “Miri.” But, I’d keep nearly all of the others. And I can say roughly the same for TNG, though not for DS9, VOY or ENT. So, what does that tell you? What it tells me is that it’s possible to have…(wait for it)…the best of both worlds. That being a full season of mostly worthwhile episodes with perhaps one or two that you’ll skip over when you re-watch the series at Netflix.
This is again my opinion but part of the reason for shortened episode counts (apart from economic and scheduling reasons) is that the people in these times are a little bit more impatient. We want instant gratification. With 22-26 episode there is a more slow burn to the development of the characters and we can get more development out of them. Nowadays because episode counts are shortened the character interactions are lessened to make way for more plot or story and if you can’t get the attention of the viewer immediately your show is cancelled.
alphantrion
But, none of that applies to TOS or TNG, for example, both of which had relatively little character development in ratio to their plots and sci-fi concepts/themes. I’d say that House of Cards, with its 13-episode seasons, has much more character development than either TOS or TNG. So, it doesn’t seem like the shortened season necessarily has anything to do with character development, plot, action or other story elements.
Actually I wasn’t really talking about TOS and TNG in this instance (and you are right about those) but more about shows like Stargate SG1 where they had 22 episodes and while each episode was standalone, it also helped developed the characters too at the same time. I think this can be the best of both worlds that you mention.
With some of these 10 episode seasons, the shows seem slow and padded. The adaptations of one particular series of cop novels (I forget the name, but the cop lives in a glass house above L.A. that should have a good view of the fireball when nukes land there) are particularly slow in early seasons, though the last couple have been very good.
But for the most part storytelling has sped up, so you can cover more ground in less time, unless you’re deliberately choosing a variation in pace. So lesser eps doesn’t necessarily mean you cover less ground, plus a lot of these shows are running closer to an hour than 42 or 47 minutes, so the net volume of time isn’t quite the same dropoff either.
Personally, I think it is weird that most TOS seems to play faster than TNG-era, which is what, about five-six minutes shorter. The superlong credits on TNG and DS9 (and presumably the other Bermans, though I don’t honestly recall those) also cut into runtime and annoy. It may be that the cutting is smarter, or that the writing doesn’t have as much fat on it, or a combination of those elements.
I really think a focused limited-duration TREK would be ideal, much as De used to say, doing 90 minute MoW type installments, or miniseries. Maybe that is what this ‘Meyer trilogy’ recently mentioned was intended to be? (still think endofcentury23 is an ideal time to exploit for future trek, if anyone is listening/hiring.)
kmart
Personally, I think it is weird that most TOS seems to play faster than TNG-era, which is what, about five-six minutes shorter.
I’ve noticed that too, actually. I think it’s the pacing. TNG has more slow-rhythm dialogue scenes rich in pregnant pauses, whereas TOS doesn’t have much or any of them. Take this scene from Season 6 “Lessons,” for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6hYq-V7_iQ
Is that the longest three-and-a-half minutes of Trek that you’ve ever watched or what? Well, not if you’ve watched DS9, which took this style of slow-paced drama in Trek to its furthest extreme.
TNG also botched a lot (all?) of its action scenes. I remember the supersoldier from season 3 engaging in a fight with O’brien that takes them from transporter room out into corridor. They put the camera way down the hall away from the action, and it was like watching a stage play. There are times when you want the wide shot because of pacing or perspective, but that wasn’t the case here. I think BOBW (esp pt 2) would have benefited from another director, because the ‘crew firing hand phaser’ shots have a by-rote quality that flies in the face of everything William Cameron Menzies ever drew, in his own way hinting at the uninspired camera coverage we’d drown in for most of NEMESIS over a decade later.
But TOS has its share of long scenes. DEADLY YEARS’s third act is mostly just a hearing on Kirk’s status, and it covers territory we’ve actually already witnessed … and yet still it engages.
While superior editing is a big factor in my opinion as to why TOS works better than the later shows, I think there is also a quality to the performances in TOS that is more compelling. When Kirk corners McGivers in SPACE SEED and she admits that she finds 20th century men more adventurous and compelling, she might as well be talking about TOS as seen from a future perspective. Not citing the rampant sexism and other trappings of the times, but the creative choices made. They aren’t always Shatner-level bold, but they are delineated from one another in ways that make them memorable.
kmart
I think there is also a quality to the performances in TOS that is more compelling. When Kirk corners McGivers in SPACE SEED and she admits that she finds 20th century men more adventurous and compelling, she might as well be talking about TOS as seen from a future perspective.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing just a few days ago while watching Requiem for Methusela. There’s a great scene where Spock is playing a lovely walz on the piano while Kirk has a discussion with Rayna over billiards. Kirk says the following, which I think is both illustrative of the observation you’re making and also exemplary of it:
KIRK: …Yes, well, those pressures are everywhere in everyone, urging him to what you call savagery. The private hells, the inner needs and mysteries, the beast of instinct. As human beings, that is the way it is. To be human is to be complex. You can’t avoid a little ugliness from within and from without.
cont… And I think that the humanity that Kirk describes therein is precisely what has been lost in a Trek that is more committed to advocating a certain ideology than it is with reflecting the human condition. When I think about why DSC does not appeal to me, I keep coming back to this issue: it lacks a certain humanity. The characters don’t ring true. They’re not reflections of humanity being shown to us. They’re more like programmed people, like people written the way that the writers would like for people do be (or think that’s what they want), rather than the way that people actually are. Sure, heroes like Kirk are written with an almost supernatural courage that hardly anyone has——and that attribute is clearly meant to be exemplary. But, along with it comes a humanity so palpable that it’s impossible to miss. And it is Kirk’s humanity (and his struggle therewith) that ultimately compel our viewing and endear him to us, not his super-heroism nor any other idealized attributes that the writers pasted onto him. When was the last time you saw a truly human moment in Trek? For me, it it’s in ENT Season 3. Whether you like or hate the show, like or hate the characters, I think you’d be hard-pressed to criticize them as lacking authentic humanity——authentic being the key. There are obvious attempts in the JJ-Trek movies at showing us human moments, and for very brief periods (i.e. the length of an individual scene) they succeed. But those human moments don’t ultimately add up to anything of greater meaning, which is one of the fatal flaws of those movies. As such, I don’t consider those moments valid, so I don’t include them. They’re cheats, at best.
CYG,
Wow, you actually came up with a scene from TOS where I don’t recall the particulars! And it is an ep where I do remember other particulars (the “I … am Brahms” and the whole wonderful McCoy speech to Spock at the end, which I recall even made Marcy Lafferty — shat’s 2nd wife — cry.)
That’s a really terrific speech from Kirk, and I wonder how much was Bixby’s original text. Am thinking most if not all.
Thank you for that response. Y’know, I think we’re chipping away at what made TOS special. Maybe another 50 years and someone will have figured it out completely! (but I still don’t think there will be an algorithm to replicate it.)
And about DSC … DSC contains trappings of human behavior … you’ve got the jogging together, the girl-talk from Tilly … but thus far it lacks a deeper connection, at least for me. Certainly nothing that even compares to the Scott McCoy scene in the hall in TURNABOUT INTRUDER, where you see two people really talk.
kmart
Well, don’t give me too much credit for referencing Requiem for Methusela; I just happened to watch that episode a few nights ago. That speech by McCoy at the end is a good one. And Spock using his Vulcan mind powers to make Kirk “…forget…” Rayna is a clear point of development for the character: whether or not it is morally right for Spock to rob Kirk of the painful memory, it is clearly an act of compassion. Also, “…forget…” must have been the inspiration for Spock’s line to McCoy at the end of TWOK, “…remember…”. “Forget” to Kirk and “remember” to McCoy——interesting poetic symmetry.
@alpantrion — I’d argue it’s that instant gratification that has resulted in the expectation of binge watching. Short bursts of a great story spread a year apart demonstrably show that audiences cant wait to come back to feed that need. If ORVILLE is any good, it doesn’t need to churn out a full season of episodes. The problem I have is that I’ve not seen anything yet that really compels me to return and watch it — and this is with all of their creative energies focused on a short order. Indeed, I’d say ORVILLE seems like all the so-called “filler” episodes that tend to fill a full season of TNG, or VOY — I’ve really yet to see one of the “good” ones. In other words, for me ORVILLE is good enough to turn on in the background and fill an hour of my time while I’m surfing the web, or replying to e-mails. I’ve yet to see an episode that really gave me pause, to focus on it entirely, or left me craving more the next week, or the next season, much less immediately following it. If ORVILLE were cancelled, it wouldn’t phase me. Knowing it’s coming back I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I will most likely watch it, particularly to see if they learned anything from the first season, or if they’ve made it better, or gotten worse. And that’s not really a compelling reason to watch anything — 13 or 22 episodes.
Let’s be honest… How many shows if they got canceled would truly be a horrid thing? Not many. Even STD is in the, “if it gets canceled, no big deal” category.
I really like that concept art, If only the actual set designs looked that good! Interesting strategy, clearly fox doesn’t consider the show to be A-string.