The Orville – Fan Film Factor

First STAR TREK, then THE EXPANSE, now THE ORVILLE…is this the beginning of the end for “free” TV sci-fi???

Before I begin, let me explain that the purpose of this unique blog is to bring folks up to speed about what the HECK is going on with all of these new streaming TV services that are suddenly appearing like clowns getting out of a Volkswagen. I’m going to focus mainly on how this is affecting the sci-fi genre of television shows…although the impact is pretty much across the board. Then I want to explain why it’s happening so fast, why it’s not going away anytime soon, and then speculate on where this is all heading in the future.

I began working on this blog a month ago when Seth MacFarlane announced the The Orville would be moving from the FOX broadcasting network to behind a paywall at Hulu. Since then, I’ve been researching like crazy! And each time I thought I’d gotten the blog finished, there’d be more “BIG” streaming announcements from folks like NBCUniversal and, just last week, Disney. Eventually, though, I just needed to pull the trigger…knowing that parts of this blog are gonna be old news almost as soon as I hit “Publish.”

I do want to apologize if this is a longer blog than usual, but there’s just SO much going on, and I want to help you folks process it all like I just managed to do…mostly. Also, I’m going to focus mainly on America only because, once you head internationally, the shows and services all shift around and this poor blog would be six times as long!

Remember when automated teller machines (ATMs) first started being installed at banks? I can’t remember if it was still the 1970s or the early 1980s; I only remember that hardly anybody used ’em. Why risk your hard-earned money on a “fallible” computer when you could deal with a competent human being you could talk to?

The same thing happened when e-commerce first appeared. The idea of entering your credit card information onto a website in order to buy something seemed…overwhelming! Was it safe? Would the thing I just ordered even arrive? How long would it take? Why not just go to the store like everyone else, buy something, pay for it, and take it home?

We were so naive back then, weren’t we? It just took us a decade or so to get used to the “new normal,” and now everything is so much easier, faster, and more convenient.

So is paywall streaming TV the “new normal”?

The first-ever ORVILLE fan film!

Yeah, I know I concentrate mainly on Star Trek fan films here, but seeing how this ORVILLE fan film was the work of VANCE MAJOR, I can make an exception.

As you’ll remember from previous blogs, Vance wrote, produced, appeared in, and in many cases directed nearly THREE DOZEN Trek fan films following the life and adventures of Starfleet officer Erick Minard. And although Vance is stepping away from Trek fan films after having completed the multi-episodic Minard saga, he still apparently had one more fan project left in him…this time in The Orville universe.

The challenge with doing an Orville fan film, of course, is that the Planetary Union uniforms are twice as expensive (about $100-150) as the cheaper Halloween costumes available for Star Trek TOS and TNG/DS9/VOY-era uniforms. And sets from the Orville are also very elaborate and not easily constructed.

Vance “solved” both of these problems. For the uniforms, he simply didn’t bother. He created a story in which the main character (Derek Minard…yeah, cute idea) is communicating from his quarters, apparently while off-duty and dressed in more leisurely wear. As for the sets, a little green screen compositing can go a long way to making something look like it’s taking place on a futuristic spacecraft. Throw in some original music by Vance’s close friend Dan T. Hawkins, and you’ve got yourself a short fan film.

The total run time is under nine minutes, even though Fox has no guidelines limiting the length of a fan film the way CBS does. Vance simply needed nine minutes to tell the story he wanted to.

And so the first Orville fan film “flag” is planted, and Vance Major now gets to be a footnote in Orville history. Will other Orville fan films follow? I hope so—although good luck on that Bortus make-up! And will Fox decide to issue guidelines of their own? Considering that Disney just acquired Fox, and the only fan film guidelines issued for Star Wars (which Disney also now owns) are simply for eligibility in their annual fan film awards competition, one would highly doubt it. Also, Orville creator Seth MacFarlane is not exactly a stranger to fan films himself!

Anyway, enjoy the first-ever Orville fan film: THE MARIANA’S TRENCH, compliments of the now-legendary Vance Major…

SETH MacFARLANE’S many STAR TREK fan films!

It’s no secret that the creator of The Orville, SETH MacFARLANE, is a major Trekkie. He’s said as much in interviews. But few fans realized that Seth’s preoccupation with our favorite sci-fi franchise went BEYOND simply watching it or collecting stuff or even doing Captain Kirk impressions. Yep, Seth MacFarlane actually made his own Star Trek fan film!

And no, I’m not talking about The Orville (although many have argued that he’s made a kind of Star Trek “fan film” in creating that show). I’m talking about an honest-to-goodness amateur Star Trek fan film…where a teenaged Seth sits in the center seat on a home-made bridge set, wearing a do-it-yourself command tunic, barking orders at a friend wearing pointed ears while an AMT model of the refit USS Enterprise—complete with a drooping left nacelle—speeds across a blue screen chroma-keyed with a cheesy black hole space effect.

Here, take a look…

But believe it or not, Seth MacFarlane would go on to have many MORE opportunities to publicly geek out as a Trekkie…from playing James T. Kirk on real TV to hiring Patrick Stewart and even appearing on two actual Star Trek episodes!

Continue reading “SETH MacFARLANE’S many STAR TREK fan films!”

Why I miss THE ORVILLE and I don’t miss STAR TREK: DISCOVERY (editorial)

I already miss The Orville. I know it’s only been gone for a week, but I just faced a Thursday night without that curious combination of sci-fi, quirkiness, high production values, and low-brow humor. It’ll be nine long months until I see Bortus and Yaphit again…three-quarters of a year before I find out what new practical jokes Gordon and John play on Isaac, whether Alara has to open another “jar of pickles,” and what else Ed and Kelly can find to argue about. I feel totally invested in these characters, and I can’t wait to watch more of their adventures together.

And then there’s Star Trek: Discovery.

It’s been on hiatus for nearly a month, and as I lament my now-Orvilless Thursday nights, I realize that I haven’t really thought much about Discovery in the past five weeks. I honestly don’t miss it.

It’s not that Discovery is a bad show. As I’ve said many times, I enjoy the series and appreciate the work and attention to detail that has gone into it. I’ll still be watching the final six episodes of season one when the series returns on January 7, but it’s mainly because I want to learn if I’m right about Lorca being from the Mirror Universe and whether Ash Tyler is really a genetically-altered Voq the Klingon. And frankly, I don’t much care who wins the Federation/Klingon war because—I’m sorry to say—I just don’t feel invested in the whole storyline or the characters.

Why is that?

I mean, I’m a Trekkie! Why wouldn’t I care about who wins a war with the Klingons that could destroy the United Federation of Planets??? Sure, you can say it’s because they don’t look like “real” Klingons or those don’t really look like Starfleet vessels or 23rd century uniforms. But it’s still a war. If there were a war in the Orville universe, you’d better believe I’d be rooting for the Planetary Union over the Krill. And I’ve only known this Orville universe for three and a half months, nearly as long as I’ve known the Disco-verse (whether or not I consider it canon).

So why do I just not care about what happens on Discovery? Why am I not invested in the characters and their fates the way I am for The Orville?

Continue reading “Why I miss THE ORVILLE and I don’t miss STAR TREK: DISCOVERY (editorial)”

THE ORVILLE – not bad for a STAR TREK FAN FILM! (editorial/review)

At first, I was thinking, “Yeesh! This is as bad as the critics were saying!” I thought of all the things I could say to try to sugarcoat my disappointment in this new series that I’d been looking forward to all summer. “Hey, the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation wasn’t much to write home about either.” (And it wasn’t!) “Come to think of it, the pilots for DS9 and especially Voyager kinda sucked, too.”

But hey, if you’re gonna try to prop up the pilot of a new series by saying that other pilots sucked, too, then you’re pretty much admitting that the pilot for The Orville sucked, right? And even if TNG, DS9, and Voyager eventually did get better, there was no guarantee that The Orville would follow suit.

But then a strange thing happened: it did get better!

In fact, by the time the episode came back from the midway 30-minute commercial break, the pilot was actually quite a lot of fun to watch. It was exciting, engaging, well-paced, and intelligent. Even the stupid jokes weren’t falling quite as flat as they had in the first two acts.

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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY vs. THE ORVILLE – Should CBS be worried? (Part 2)

Last time, I discussed the recent release by two of the major networks of official trailers for their new sci-fi shows debuting for the upcoming 2017 season. CBS, of course, unveiled STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, while FOX surprised (many) genre fans with a new Star Trek-ish series from Seth MacFarlane titled THE ORVILLE. Both trailers were viewed millions of times with thousands of comments. But what was very intriguing came from the thumbs-up/thumbs-down ratios.

The trailer for Star Trek: Discovery has about two and a half times more thumbs-down reactions than the trailer for The Orville. Some misunderstood my previous blog and thought I was calling this a competition—as though fans were going to choose EITHER Discovery OR Orville. Not quite. Many fans (like me) might choose to watch both series.

But what makes this interesting is that we have a pretty close comparison of trailers and their reactions from viewers. The two shows are coveting essentially the same audience (Trekkies and sci-fi fans), so the trailers and series themselves are unmistakably in the same “marketing category.” The two trailers have almost the same run-length (2.5 minutes) and were released at nearly the same time using the same platform (Youtube). But beyond that, the two networks are going in very different directions.

CBS is making Discovery available only through paid subscription streaming services (after a free preview of the pilot on CBS). FOX is putting Orville on their regular network. CBS went for a very unfamiliar (to Trekkers) production design with dark sets and mostly monochromatic uniforms. FOX is using a very familiar-looking Star Trek visual approach of brightly-lit sets and and colorful uniforms.

So these two series are coveting the same kinds of fans with very different approaches. One is very derivative of Star Trek but based within a different universe, and the other is very different but based within the Star Trek universe. So the word “versus” in the title of this blog entry doesn’t imply that fans must make a choice but rather simply refers to putting the two series side-by-side for comparison, analyzing the very noticeable differences in fan reaction.

So with fans appearing to show a measurable preference for Orville over Discovery—admittedly using only online reaction through thumbs-up/down plus a general trend in posted comments—should CBS be worried?

Continue reading “STAR TREK: DISCOVERY vs. THE ORVILLE – Should CBS be worried? (Part 2)”

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY vs. THE ORVILLE – Should CBS be worried? (Part 1)

Before I begin, please note that the title of this blog is the question “Should CBS be worried?” and not the statement “CBS should be worried.” I’m pondering, not preaching.

Also, I want to mention up front that I personally enjoyed the new trailer for Star: Trek Discovery and am looking forward to at least checking out the new series. People seem to think I’m just another Discovery hater/detractor. Not so! I am very much keeping an open mind. But I’m not blind to the reality of the situation either, and that’s what this blog is about.

(And yes, I know that this is a site about fan films. But it’s also a site about Star Trek…and it’s my blog, so I can editorialize whatever I want to.)

Last week, all of the major networks unveiled trailers for shows that will premiere during their upcoming 2017 season. Naturally, Star Trek fans were eagerly expecting to see their first extended glimpse of the new STAR TREK: DISCOVERY series…coming to the subscription-based CBS All Access.

What fans weren’t expecting, however, was a new Star Trek-ish series from FOX starring and produced by Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, Ted) and directed by Iron Man‘s John Favreau. Titled THE ORVILLE, this new hour-long series looked more like the Star Trek of yore: bright sets, colorful uniforms, chest emblems with division insignia, sleek and over-lit starships (some filmed from actual physical models!), and a token alien species or two with big bumpy foreheads. The Orville is obviously meant to be a campy tongue-in-cheek comedy, but the production values, sets, costuming, make-up, and visual FX looked like…well…WOW!

For two days, fans were aflutter with comments about this surprise new sci-fi series. And the comments were nearly all positive, with many Trekkers suggesting that THIS was the Star Trek we’d wanted all along (minus the implied parody, of course), and wondering why CBS just didn’t get it.

Then, last Wednesday, CBS had their turn to say, “Hey, we DO get it…and here’s what OUR new Star Trek will look like.” But did they really get it?

Continue reading “STAR TREK: DISCOVERY vs. THE ORVILLE – Should CBS be worried? (Part 1)”

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY trailer is finally shown in New York City!

Earlier today, Entertainment Weekly posted the image to the left on their website, and Trek fans saw their first official photo from the new STAR TREK: DISCOVERY television series. But that was only the beginning!

A few hours later, CBS showed off a series of trailers for its upcoming fall line-up—including Discovery—trying to excite advertisers to purchase commercial space for these fresh new shows. It’s called the Upfronts, and the event takes place each year in New York City (the main hub of the advertising industry).

All of the major networks show off their fall line-ups, and each has a time-slot reserved for their presentation at a different location. For anyone curious, here is a schedule for this year’s Upfront presentations in New York City:

Monday, May. 15

NBCUniversal Upfront Presentation — Radio City Music Hall, 10:30 a.m.
Fox Upfront Presentation — The Beacon Theatre, 4 p.m.

Tuesday, May. 16

ESPN Upfront — Minskoff Theatre, 9:15 a.m.
Univision Upfront Presentation — The Lyric Theatre, 11.a.m.
ABC Upfront Presentation — Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, 4 p.m.

Wednesday, May. 17

Turner Upfront Presentation — The Theater at Madison Square Garden, 10:15 a.m.
National CineMedia Upfront Event — AMC Lowes Lincoln Square Theater, noon
CBS Upfront Presentation — Carnegie Hall, 4 p.m.

Thursday, May. 18

The CW Upfront — New York City Center, 11 a.m.

Some fans were suspicious that the timing of CBS’s reveal of the new trailer for Star Trek: Discovery was somehow tied to the enthusiastic fan reception for another new sci-fi show debuting on Fox, The Orville, produced by and starring SETH MacFARLANE (Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, Ted, and a bunch of other funny stuff) and directed by John Favreau (Iron Man, The Jungle Book). An obvious spoof of Star Trek, the production values, costumes, sets, make-up, lightning, and VFX all looked top-notch…and fans were talking about this new series almost non-stop on social media Monday and Tuesday. The Orville trailer has already been viewed on Youtube more than 1.3 million times in less than 48 hours!

Many were thinking that Orville looked better than Discovery, and some fans were musing that the strongly positive reaction to Orville scared CBS into rushing out a trailer for Discovery. But as you can see from the schedule I included above, there was no such panic involved. FOX went first on Monday, and CBS was simply waiting its turn today.

And now that turn has come. Int addition to the trailer, CBS announced an extension of the first season of Discovery from 13 to 15 hour-long episodes and the addition of a weekly “Talking Trek” discussion show following the general concept of similar shows like “Talking Dead” on AMC.

Watch the trailer for Discovery here (or view a lower resolution version below if you can’t see it on the CBS site) and tell me what you think in the comments section…