Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We were very pleasantly surprised with "The Orville". Given the trend of Seth MacFarlane to make his comedy shows like "Family Guy" into celebrations of gross-violence-gore-humor, we had concerns that what looked fairly promising in the trailers might be yet another one of these kinds of creations. THANKFULLY, it was not! "The Orville" is a fun mix of what feels like classic 90s & early 2000s sci-fi, with the help of modern visual effects. "Galaxy Quest" meets "SeaQuest", with the visual and musical honorable trimmings of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", tongue-in-cheek/camp essences of "Stargate SG-1", and a hint of "Spaceballs" (for the occasional adult humor). Funny enough, even the Orville ship looks sort of like the "Galaxy Quest" NSEA Protector. Straight up, for a concept that could have been an outright disaster, "The Orville" has a good pilot episode, and all the characters are immediately watchable. Also, we finally get to see Seth MacFarlane have the opportunity to extend his acting talents beyond just "Family Guy"-style comedy characters, given that his character has the option to handle more serious and dramatic scenes. Given how rough pilots (and first seasons, for that matter) have been for many now-iconic sci-fi shows like "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Babylon 5", and "Farscape", if they can keep their trademark "Family Guy" vomit gags to a minimum, I think this show has every chance to grow into itself and discover where it can go. We'll be watching! Good luck! (Update 10/20/2017: 6 episodes in, the series continues to exceed expectations! Strangely, it feels way more like Star Trek than the new Star Trek series does!)