The Orville Creator Seth Macfarlane Was Thrilled Fans Figured Out A Detail Right Away

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"The Orville" is one of the honorary members of the extended "Star Trek" family, an honor it shares with the movie "Galaxy Quest," and a scant few others. In both superficial details and in its general attitude of optimism, "The Orville" is a very close cousin of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." It was a series that show creator Seth MacFarlane clearly wanted to make for a long time, seeing as he used to star in "Star Trek" fan films as a teenager. This was in addition to making an appearance on "Star Trek: Enterprise." 

"The Orville," of course, is a comedy series first. The characters are all largely broad, and the bright, even lighting on the show evokes sitcoms more than it does futuristic sci-fi. But underneath all the naughty jokes and slapstick is an epic space opera about an optimistic future, a scientifically curious space navy, and faster-than-light starships that can whisk off to alien worlds on missions of exploration. The special effects on "The Orville" are as impressive as any modern sci-fi series, and the titular ship doesn't have a wacky or comedic design; it could easily have appeared on "Star Trek," perhaps belonging to an alien species.

Another detail that makes "The Orville" feel particularly epic is its use of music. Seth MacFarlane has always created shows that boast impressive musical scores (his animated comedy "Family Guy" has frequent, high-end musical numbers), and "The Orville" is no exception. Bruce Broughton composed the theme song. Fans, of course, noticed the music which made MacFarlane positively chuffed. Back in 2017, he spoke with Forbes Magazine, and took a moment to (rightly) brag about the music on "The Orville," and how happy he was that people reacted the way they did.

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"The Orville," Seth MacFarlane said, employs an entire 75-piece orchestra to perform its score. He wanted to make sure that his series felt like a feature film, at least audibly, in every episode, saying: 

"We score it like a movie. [...] I was thrilled with how many people caught that in the pilot on Twitter, so we get a lot of comments about the score, which is always very gratifying. We really put as much into that as we do into the effects."

As for those effects, MacFarlane was well aware how most sci-fi shows presented themselves. Particularly, he noticed that many high-end sci-fi shows would spend a lot of money on SFX for their pilot episodes, showing off a lot of starships or shape-shifting aliens, only to scale that back throughout the rest of the season. "Star Trek" is certainly guilty of this, falling back onto single-set "bottle episodes" regularly. Bottle episodes are important to "Star Trek," of course, but MacFarlane wanted to make sure that fans of "The Orville" were getting their money's worth: 

"This is a situation where even the special effects in the pilot aren't just something you're going to see in the pilot. [...] I think often times you see a big splashy expensive looking pilot and then 12 episodes of interiors. You can tell where they spent their money, and here, one thing I can promise people is that isn't the case here. You're going to see that scope and that degree of passion from all departments throughout."

And by all departments he meant the makeup, the CGI, the set designs, and even the props. And he's right. It shows. "The Orville" is a slick piece of work.