Orville is like Star Trek if the Star Trek characters had personal lives, senses of humour, and pop-culture interests, as most normal people do.
This is exactly what I’ve said. It’s Star Trek but with real people.
I loved that whole bit with the alien and the muzak. You could tell that Mercer and Grayson were becoming increasingly irritated by him. Mercer tolerating it and Grayson finally blowing up fit their personalities perfectly.
Satire, pastiche, homage, rip-off. Call it what you will, it’s fun. This isn’t “The Rutles”, this is “Deface the Music”.
Now that you mention it, I’d like to see an episode where they meet up with the PU’s flagship, and the crew are insufferably uptight and professional.
This would actually be pretty awesome.
Even more so if Patrick Stewart guest-starred as pastiche-Picard. Given his longstanding association with MacFarlane, I expect he’ll appear sooner or later.
Patrick Stewart showing up on the show seems like it would be a near certainty. Heck, one episode of Family Guy had almost the entire TNG cast as guest stars, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see all of them show up if the show lasts long enough.
Or else cliche “gritty scifi” tropes turned up to 11. It would be funny to watch deadpan Bortus interact with a raving ‘warrior race’ alien, etc.
Yep, those guys are tasteless idiots who watch too much TV to get any joy out of anything this good.
It is very much in the spirit of Galaxy Quest.
No, when he makes his guest appearance, I want him to be as anti-Picard as possible. More like Deputy Director Bullock from American Dad. I want him to show up on the ship and later ask Mercer “Do you have any gatorade? I’m afraid I left all my electrolytes with your Security Chief.”
I haven’t read this entire thread but one thing I don’t think has been mentioned is the lack of transporters. They make for too easy a easy solution to so many problems.
How many times on Star Trek have they had to have the transporters broken or blocked somehow in order to make the story work? It’s like the no signal cellphone trope. Not having the technology at all makes things more interesting.
Heck, how many times has some transporter issue been the cause of the episode’s conflict or problem? Off the top of my head:
TOS:
The Enemy Within
TNG:
Realm of Fear (sort-of)
Rascals
Second Chances
VOY:
Tuvix
… and I’m sure there are others.
IIRC transporters came about in TOS for reasons of expedience (both time and money.) they didn’t have the budget to shoot a lot of landing or shuttle scenes.
And it really wouldn’t even be necessary to show take offs and landings. Show them getting in the shuttle, or even just walking to the shuttle bay, then show them on the planet.
Men Into Space used film from the overhead chase plane showing a lifting body vehicle landing. Every single time.
Patrick Stewart should show up wearing a Shatneresque toupee.
Didn’t he originally audition in one?
I think he should be the gardener at Star Fleet-er, Union Academy.
So John finally gets a formal reprimand, and it turns out he was just playing dumb!
Actually I did make this point earlier in the thread 
It’s the ultimate deus ex machina. The hero can be thrown into a volcano or whatever and poof suddenly they’re 100% safe.
“Captain, I can’t get a lock!”
- planet explodes *
“Ensign! Tell me you got him!”
“Yep. In the last second I got a lock. What are the chances?! He’s sipping brandies now in the ship’s lounge”