The other night we started watching the new series The Orville. I am a huge fan of the movie Galaxy Quest, and this show seemed to be another lampooning of the whole Star Trek-style genre. It stars Seth McFarlane of Family Guy fame, so I went into this assuming a lot of laughs.

I’m not going to go into a lot of depth in this review, because I don’t want to spoil the show for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. The one thing I will say though is that it’s actually a slightly more serious show than I was expecting. There’s a lot of comedy to be sure, but it actually has some drama. This actually keeps in line with Star Trek which often dug into deep complex issues. The issues in The Orville aren’t quite as profound, but they’re not just dismissed with a joke.

The special effects are actually really good for a comedy show, and overall the writing has been witty and well paced. I’ve really enjoyed how human the crew feels, and not some idealized notion of what an “officer” should be like. Despite how much I love Star Trek, sometimes people are a bit too white-bread. In The Orville, there’s a lot of down-to-earth characters.

Oh, and the bridge has cup-holders.

Check out The Orville. It’s on Hulu right now, but you’ll need to catch up quick because the old episodes will start dropping off in a week or so.