FOX & MacFarlane's The Orville

[RealSNR]

I agree with the reviews. It doesn't know what it wants to be. Probably about 5 times in the first 20 minutes, I was expecting "here comes a MacFarlane joke!" followed by... nothing. Not even good plot-advancing dialogue. Just conversation. It was weird.

Also it's just... it's Seth trying to be cast in Star Trek. He loves it, and that's cool, but it seems to me like he's just living his fantasy by creating his own Star Trek. You've got the Remans from ST: Nemesis cast as the Klingon baddies. You've got Cassidy Yates from DS9. You've got Bashir's dad from DS9. I'm pretty sure the guy who played the stern one-gender con officer alien also once played a Jem Hadar from DS9. This show basically IS Star Trek with MacFarlane jokes, and sadly, not enough of them to make the premise sing the way he wants it to.

Sci-fi comedy isn't a popular genre for a reason. At least Red Dwarf never takes itself too seriously. This show teeters on being a legit drama half the time and nothing but Family Guy jokes the next.