THE JOY OF SETH
THE ORVILLE IS BACK FOR A SECOND VOYAGE. TARA BENNETT IS ON BOARD
When it was announced that seth MacFarlane would be creating, writing and starring in his own contemporary take on Star Trek called The Orville, the news was met with raised eyebrows worthy of a Vulcan. sure, MacFarlane was a self-confessed fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a massive space aficionado (he brought Cosmos back to tV in 2014), but was the dude who revelled in scatological humour really the one to bring episodic space exploration back to tV? as it turns out, yes, MacFarlane’s take was the exact one a lot of Trek fans were pining for. The Orville balanced its outlandish laughs with engaging and often earnest stories of exploration and adventure that were thoughtful and fun. season one earned healthy ratings, eventual critical respect and a second season pick-up of 14 episodes.
one of the executive producers helping MacFarlane chart the course of captain ed Mercer’s starship and crew is david a Goodman, who tells SFX that their follow-up season isn’t resting on its laurels. “we are sitting down, wracking our brains, trying to figure out, what are the things we want to talk about? how do we put it in a science fiction space? and what is it that we want to say? and then there’s the other aspect in the second season of exploring our characters, both the personal universe of the relationships between the characters that we’ve created, but then also the political and adventure universe that exists in the show as well.”
Goodman says that having Star Trek: Discovery and Black Mirror as competition has upped storytelling standards on The Orville. “You don’t want to repeat,” he says. “You want to do something new, so the constraint is finding original ideas that haven’t been done, and doing them well. the freedom is that nobody has been doing this kind of science fiction as metaphor in an actionadventure drama format for a long time.”
sTar Trekking
as for where the story will pick up, Goodman points to the season one finale, which had ed proposing a new romantic start to Kelly (adrianne Palicki), who took a hard pass on his offer. Goodman teases, “we pick up almost
from there in that relationship. and we take it, i think, in a really interesting direction. we get to see those two actors, adrianne and seth, who embody those characters, really do some interesting, fun, compelling work as actors.”
Goodman continues, “we see also dr claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has a great emotional arc this season. and with Bortus, we have a super-talented actor in Peter Macon who, with chad coleman who plays Klyden, are bringing an entire race and culture to life whenever you see them. i compare Peter, to some extent, to leonard nimoy, who, when he was on the original Star Trek, brought the entire Vulcan race to life. Peter’s doing the same thing, and he’s got chad’s help. and their relationship is unlike anything you’ve seen anywhere on television. it’s so unique. it’s not a gay couple, which you have seen on television. it’s these aliens, and you’re going to get to see a lot more of that culture in the season. it’s really interesting.” and what’s a space series without aliens and new species? Goodman says season two really advances their storytelling in terms of how they use VFX and practical effects. “we’ve spent this season doing deep dives into the species that you’ve already met. and then, you’re going to see some great new stuff in terms of aliens and races. we learn a little bit more about isaac (Mark Jackson). we’re seeing some more Moclans. the stories that we’ve come up with involving those species are really compelling and exciting. and then we meet some great new aliens that are both humanoid and non-humanoid.” there will also be a bevy of a-list guest stars that Goodman admits bowled him over. “i think the audience is going to be pretty happy, because there’s a lot of surprises casting wise this season. there are both live-action actors who are big names, and then there’s also a great voiceover guest star later in the season. it’s a fun season. i think it’s better than season one, because we built on it, and i hope the audience agrees with me.”
The Orville is on Fox in the US from 30 Dec and Fox in the UK from 10 January.