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We've seen that the ship has a version of subspace radio, as it can communicate instantaneously over great distances and while traveling faster than light. The ship is also capable of launching communication beacons designed to relay messages when the ship is no longer present at it's location.
For all Locations appearing in The Orville: The Orville Wiki. Explore. Main Page; Discuss; All Pages; ... Space stations; T Two-dimensional space;
Mar 7, 2019 · The USS Orville emerges out of quantum drive with Earth directly ahead and the entire fleet of deadly Kaylon death spheres in tow. Closer inspection reveals hundreds of Planetary Union ships...
- Overview
- The Universe of The Orville
- Characters and Cast
- Development
- Budget
- Filming
- Post-production
- Preparing to air
- Ownership
is an American television series produced by 20th Television and currently airing on the streaming service Hulu, having previously aired its first two seasons on FOX. It follows the adventures of Captain Ed Mercer and the crew of the USS Orville as they explore space, battle enemies, and deal with their personal lives.
While many, including The Orville's own cast, consider the show to be genre-less,[n 1] most consider the series to be allegorical science fiction with comedic elements, intended to be "a return to classical storytelling" where stories parody or criticize real-world events. The inability to fit neatly into a particular genre frustrated television critics, many of whom said the show did not know whether it wanted to be a comedy or science fiction.
Prior to launch, the show was billed as utopian science fiction and an homage to past science fiction television shows, particularly the series Star Trek and the Twilight Zone. Unlike the majority of those shows, The Orville often relies upon comedic elements to create a lighthearted, inviting atmosphere; and the show's main characters are less "paragons of virtue" as they are portrayals of normal individuals in a highly-advanced age of space exploration.
The show is also known for its passionate fans and a number of official and unofficial spinoff releases. The series has seen the creation of:
•A companion comic book series written by executive producer David A. Goodman.
•The World of the Orville, a story of the show's creation.
Four-hundred years in the future, humanity has evolved to the point of space exploration and has developed intricate relationships with other space-faring species. Along with other highly advanced civilizations, Earth creates a federated Planetary Union for the purposes of exploration, scientific development, colonization of new worlds, and defense. By the year 2419, the Union is a rapidly expanding power in the galaxy, and boasts a fleet of 3,000 ships and numerous colony planets.
In the early 25th century, the Union divides the Milky Way galaxy into quadrants, though the Union has colonized only one of them.[n 2] Union ships chart space as they explore, so the edge of explored space is known as the frontier.[n 3] Strange and dangerous uncontacted worlds can be found there, and the frontier is a mysterious territory left to Exploratory-class vessels and intrepid opportunists like miners from the Vega Mining Consortium. On the edge of the frontier are the star J-2837 and a bio-ship, an ancient colony transport from a faraway, empty pocket of space.
Humanity regards its recent past as a "dark time,"[n 4] one driven by greed, consumerism, and religion-inspired hatred for each other.[n 5] Member species of the Union gradually lost their religiosity as they progressed in technological development. The invention of matter synthesis changed the way people viewed wealth. Old media like reality television that glorified ignorance and vice are relics of that darker time.
As technology advances, the Union sometimes probes the nature of time itself. The crew of the Orville caught a glimpse of one possible version of the 29th century,[n 6] where humanity has invented teleportation and a new kind of tractor beam; spacecraft have reached the point that the Orville's own technology seems primitive; and navigation through a dark matter storm—once considered impossible—has become a simple matter of logistics. However, Ed orders his crew to destroy a wormhole to that century which fundamentally alters the course of history, and it is not known if that vision of the future still exists.
The universe of The Orville features individuals from a wide variety of races and species throughout the Planetary Union. The primary characters and cast of The Orville are as a follows:
•Captain Ed Mercer: Human captain of the USS Orville. Captain Ed Mercer was a bright and upcoming star within the ranks of the Planetary Union until he fell into depression after discovering his wife in bed with another man. His work ethic then became sloppy, leading him to be passed up, until his now ex-wife secretly recommended him for command. He is portrayed by American actor and The Orville creator Seth MacFarlane.
•Commander Kelly Grayson: Human First Officer of the Orville. She serves under Captain Mercer, but for a time he has no idea that she spoke on his behalf regarding promotion. Grayson dreamed of captaining a ship as a child. She is known for being both level-headed and creative. She is portrayed by American actress Adrianne Palicki.
•Doctor Claire Finn: Human Chief Medical Officer of the Orville. A family woman, she cares deeply for her two sons, Marcus and Ty, but is long divorced from her husband and former professor, Paul Christie. After divorcing Paul, she never found another man she considered suite to be her husband and conceived her children via artificial impregnation. Claire was a strong-willed and independent, but had a loving nature which made her a good doctor to her patients. She is considered in some ways to be the conscience of the Orville. She has an unusual romantic relationship with the robotic science officer Isaac, which eventually blossoms into something more. She is portrayed by American actress Penny Johnson Jerald.
•Lieutenant Commander Bortus: Moclan Second Officer of the Orville. Bortus is mated to Klyden and together the two raise their son Topa aboard the Orville. Bortus has an extended period of service aboard the Orville stretching back before Mercer's captaincy. His relationship with Klyden has become strained due to Topa having been born female, something forbidden within the Moclan society, which prides itself on being all male. Although Bortus was convinced by his crewmates not to go through with an operation to change Topa's gender, Klyden was adamant that Topa undergo the procedure. Bortus is then shocked to learn that Klyden was born female. He is portrayed by American actor Peter Macon.
•Isaac: Kaylon Science Officer of the Orville. Isaac is the only member of his species, a species of synthetic life-forms, to serve within the Planetary Union. His role aboard the Orville is ostensibly to observe members of the Union in action to determine if the Kaylons should themselves become members of the Union. Although he is valued by the crew, he sometimes rubs them the wrong way by claiming that his people are superior over organic life. After he saves the lives Dr. Finn's children, the two of them begin an unusual relationship. He is portrayed by English actor Mark Jackson.
Prior to development, Seth MacFarlane became interested in an episodic science fiction television series much like Star Trek of the 1960s through early 2000s. The interest was a long-dormant passion of MacFarlane's - and director Jonathan Frakes later said that MacFarlane had dreamed of creating a space odyssey from the time he was nine years old. "When I was kid, the 90s were sort of a hey-day for thoughtful sci-fi," he later recalled at the 2017 Fox Upfront presentation of the show. "Everything that we were fed was utopian and aspirational, and now all we're getting is The Hunger Games." After matriculation from the Rhode Island School of Design, MacFarlane moved to Hollywood with the goal of one day resurrecting aspirational science fiction.
At least as early as 2011, MacFarlane expressed interest in creating a new Star Trek series: "I'd love to see that franchise revived for television in the way that it was in the 1990s: very thoughtful, smartly written stories that transcend the science fiction audience. I don't know who would give me the keys to that car." After finishing Ted 2 in 2015, he approached CBS to restart Star Trek as a television series. "Hey, you know," he recalled pitching. "If nobody’s doing anything with the Star Trek franchise for TV, I’d love to take a crack at it." The studio passed.
Though MacFarlane's desire never came into being, his interest in science fiction television matured. For several years, MacFarlane had spoken off-and-on with Brannon Braga, a producer on the Star Trek shows The Next Generation and Voyager, and David A. Goodman, a veteran of Enterprise, about creating a new show that reproduced the "Trek" style of storytelling and progressive philosophy; a show that "celebrates human advancement and achievement, and intellectual evolution." As modern Trek films moved in a darker, dystopian direction, it allowed a new show to produce lighthearted, prospective science fiction.[n 10]
Even at this very nascent period, years before production, MacFarlane had thought of several distinct concepts that became The Orville:
•Two divorcees named Ed and Kelly who are forced to work together,
•An all-male Moclan species,
With a production crew of roughly 300 union workers, hand-made sets and costumes, and resplendent alien worlds, the show was expensive relative to other Fox productions and the set alone cost $5 million to erect.
The California Film Commission's stated that Season 2 cost $69,168,711 million - or about $5.7 million per episode. (Note that the Commission's figures are obscure: $69 million per 13 or 14 episodes is not $5.7 million.) Regardless, Season 2's final costs were far below third-party estimates of roughly $80 million.
To keep production costs low, the show's producers originally considered filming in New Mexico and Colorado until the Californian government approved The Orville for tax credits through the state's Film and Television Tax Credit Program. It is unknown how much money was approved by the state of California for the show's first season. California granted $14.5 to film Season 2. On December 10, 2018, California granted another $15.8 million to The Orville for a third season.
Under the program, The Orville receives tax credit for filming outside of southern California's 30 Mile Zone, filming outside of greater Los Angeles, and doing visual effects inside the state. That meant that the show filmed in uncommon counties like Kern and Ventura and, for snow scenes, in Mammoth.
Production
According to director Jon Cassar, as directors for the show were hired, MacFarlane and others sought only directors with backgrounds in drama, not comedy.
Filming for the first season began in January 2017 and ended on August 23. According to Penny Johnson Jerald (Claire Finn), the entire cast fell silent when they stepped onto the massive set of the Orville for the first time. Filming for the second season began in late January 2018.
Each episode shoots about 30–40 hours of footage on two or three cameras, with some as much as 60–100 hours.
To film with motionless CGI characters, crew use a tennis ball or an eyeline tool to indicate to the actors where the character will sit. For moving CGI characters, crew use a laser pointer or nothing at all.
According to Palicki during filming in Season 1, the cast followed a schedule of Monday through Friday, and then enjoys dinner together on Saturdays. By Season 2, the show adopted an eight-day schedule with five-to-six days on set and two-to-three days on location.
Editing of the episodes began as soon as filming of the pilot finished in January and continued at least through November 20, when Goodman and MacFarlane admitted that they were still editing the final episode, Mad Idolatry.
Season 1 was edited by three lead department heads, Tom Costantino, Scott Powell, and Shonnard Hedges, on seven computers with Avid editing software and an iMac used for dailies transfers. Hedges left in Season 2.
True to his close management style, MacFarlane was personally involved in the editing process. "Seth will come in to look at an early cut of a show, and go through it, discussing what he intended," visual effects editor Rob Kraut recalled. "He is a collaborative person and wants the best ideas on the screen. He’ll decide what the best idea is, but he will take suggestions from us." According to CineMontage,
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The first season featured roughly 4,000 visual effects shots for editing with up to 600 shots in a single episode, while the second increased to 7-8,000 shots.
After an episode's post-production was completed, the material underwent what the team called a 'Seth pass' wherein MacFarlane would make final comments. According to Costantino, Fox executives make very few comments or suggestions, and largely grant MacFarlane free reign over the project.
The May trailer and disagreement
As late as early 2017, most of the crew remained tight-lipped about the show, but Fox began to promote it as primarily a comedy. Fox aired a promotional video in May, which clashed with the show's producers' vision of a drama laced with comedic elements. To their chagrin, The Orville's crew found themselves portrayed by their own company as a lighthearted, screwball comedy. Their disagreement came to a head at the first public unveiling of The Orville at the Fox Upfront presentation on May 16. In Seth MacFarlane's first public comment he stated only that The Orville "is not Family Guy in space, it's kind of its own show." Minutes later adding that "the show is being promoted leaning on the comedy, and we like the promo a lot. I think that people will be surprised that we're digging a little deeper."[100] While the show cannot be defined by a particular genre, he continued, the writers aimed first for thoughtful science fiction, and Fox inaccurately cast the show as comedy-driven. After the Fox Upfront presentation, MacFarlane and others returned to production of the show until July. Once Fox renewed The Orville for a second season, the cast grew more vocal about their early disappointment. Braga complained that Fox "made it look like it was a satire and wall-to-wall comedy, and it's not."[n 14] MacFarlane said that the May trailer "was my only bump with the initial campaign ... it was pretty to look at, but it didn't represent the tone of what we were doing."[101] "The show was a little misrepresented in Season 1," MacFarlane reflected a year later. [102] Editor and associate producer Tom Costantino reported that after the May trailer, all promotional materials were forwarded to the producers for approval before release.
Summer 2017
Building up to the show's premiere, Fox, the cast, and the crew worked to generate enthusiasm, but on July 11, Deadline broke the news that famed actress Charlize Theron would guest star.[103] Theron's appearance was supposed to be kept tightly under wraps, but the crew decided to confirm the rumor the day before San Diego Comic Con.[104] (Fascinatingly, it was Seth MacFarlane who first revealed on May 10 that Theron would appear on the show, two months before Deadline's story.[105]) Fox scheduled the show's premiere to air after Sunday night football, a tremendous lead-in that Palicki called "the best night in television."[106] Hopes were high that the show would be a strong ratings success and potentially last for years.[107]
Lead-up to premiere
By mid-August, cast and crew interviewed more frequently. Fox released promotional videos, and sponsored vloggers and YouTube personalities to visit the show behind the scenes and watch the pilot.[118] As the series premiere date of September 10 neared, understandably nervousness for the success of the show increased as well. "I don't know [if Fox will give The Orville a chance]," MacFarlane answered a reporter's question. [119] On September 9, he voiced his anxiety that what he wrote may be too lighthearted for modern audiences. "Does optimism still have meaning for people? It could feel outdated, like a nineteen-thirties musical that’s devoid of cynicism and is looking at the world through rose-colored glasses and is oblivious to what’s going on."
The Orville was originally the intellectual property of 20th Century Fox television and film studios, a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, for Season 1 and most of Season 2. On March 20, 2019, The Walt Disney Company purchased 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion, acquiring assets such as The Orville.[122]
If you go the longer way around avoiding black holes and nasty radiation at the center of the galaxy, it would take almost two years. The Orville is definitely faster than Voyager.
A two-dimensional space was discovered by the USS Orville in late 2419. [10] Soon after, the Orville discovered a planet which uniquely existed in a multiphasic orbit .
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Looking for The Orville? Welcome to the universe of "The Orville," a science fiction comedy-drama series created by Seth MacFarlane. Set 400 years in the future, the series follows the crew of the starship USS Orville as they navigate thrilling interstellar adventures.
