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>I wasn't excited to watch it, because I don't find McFarlane funny (as a writer/showrunner and especially not as an actor), and because I think I've only ever enjoyed maybe one sci-fi parody ever. (2 if you count MST3K as "sci-fi"..?)

Yeah, his comedy's a bit much for me most of the time. He's got some funny stuff, but it's usually in between a whole lot of meh stuff.

I was honestly expecting family guy in space or something. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised and happy to be wrong.

>I would fully support McFarlane (or whomever is responsible for that "essence" in Orville) doing a dramatic space opera, hands down, no question. That would be one hell of a show.

I ended up looking up more about the show and to be fair, the show does actually have some long time star trek people involved. Johnathan Frakes(Riker), Robert Duncan Macneil(Tom Paris) and Brannon Braga(worked on Voyager and enterprise) directed a bunch of episodes. There were also a ton of cameos by star trek actors throughout the show. So there was definitely a bunch of people working on the show who had been involved in star trek.

Oddly enough, back to the video game world there's also a few examples of tribute games playing off nostalgia made by members of the original staff that don't hold up to the originals they're emulating, which also shows just having original staff members isn't all it takes to capture that old greatness.

> I've only ever enjoyed maybe one sci-fi parody ever.

It was Galaxyquest, wasn't it?

You guessed it!

That's because it wasn't really a parody, it was a comedic love letter to Star Trek fandom.

Wow, this has the biggest reviewer/audience score difference I've ever seen on Rotten Tomatoes. 30% vs. 94%.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/orville/s01

I used to purposefully look for movies with low critics score and high audience score and I found some pretty good ones. My personal favorite is "Old Fashioned" (2014, ratio 18/84) [1].

[1] https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/old_fashioned

I'm not sure I'd class it as a parody but in case you haven't seen it Red Dwarf is a brilliant sci-fi comedy from the BBC in the mid-90s. It declines a little as seasons go on but the first few seasons are well worth a watch for a sci-fi fan.