Why Did Many Critics Hate Season One of The Orville?

The science fiction series The Orville has an overall 77% fresh score from critics and 88% from audience ratings (at the time of writing). However, that gap was significantly larger for season one. The audience score for the first season is a whopping 94% while the critic’s score is a measly and rotten 31%. Season 2 and season 3 (called New Horizons) have 100% critical scores. So, why did critics feel so differently in season one?

 

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Decider’s Stream It or Skip It recommends that viewers skip The Orville. However, that suggestion is based solely on the pilot, rather than the full first season.

The Daily Beast devotes just one paragraph to The Orville. The reviewer expected a: 

“Galaxy Quest-like irreverent spoof. Instead, MacFarlane made a straightfaced, Star Trek-like sci-fi series.”

The Salt Lake Tribune thinks The Orville isn’t awful but: 

“This is a “Star Trek” rip-off. It’s not a parody. It’s not even a comedy, although there are some attempts at humor. It’s a Seth MacFarlane vanity project.”

The E Online reviewer also expected something more along the lines of Galaxy Quest and was disappointed when that isn’t what he got.

Roger Catlin complains that the show is: 

“promoted as a comedy, it is instead a straight, almost poker-faced recreation of the vintage space fantasy.”

The Washington Post reviewer said that: 

“If The Orville is meant mainly as homage to the idealized future of Gene Roddenberry, then someone forgot to tell the audience.” 

Actually, someone must have remembered to tell the audience, since the audience score is an impressive 94%. The reviewer's main complaint is that the show: 

“sticks to such a gentle and polite tone.” 

Like some other reviewers, he wanted more humor or as he put it, a: 

“combination of blunt humor and genre appreciation.” 

He didn’t want a show that resembled Star Trek. Based on the audience score, many viewers actually wanted a show resembling Star Trek.

The AV Club reviewer complains that the show’s: 

“mild amicability doesn’t include much of an identity, or even much humor.” 

Like several other reviews, this negative evaluation is based solely on the pilot.

The Screenrant reviewer also expected Galaxy Quest.

“A combination of bawdy humor and Star Trek can work; Galaxy Quest proved as much by being a competent and funny spoof on the franchise (and its stars), while still making for a fairly thrilling Trek-like voyage…That's not the case here, as The Orville makes a sincere attempt at aspirational science fiction one minute, and then swerves wildly into a prolonged joke about alien bodily functions the next. The resulting discordant note is struck again and again.”

My main takeaway from these reviews is that critics had no idea what to make of The Orville early on. Seth MacFarlane wanted to make Star Trek with humor. The critics expected Galaxy Quest. 

Most reviews were not based on the full season. They were based either on the pilot or the first three episodes which were sent to some critics before the show aired.

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