The Orville Trivia | 30 facts about the series

«The Orville» is an American science fiction comedy-drama television series created by and starring Seth MacFarlane.

Let’s find out more about the series!

1. The Orville is an American science fiction comedy-drama TV series.
2. It was created by and starring Seth MacFarlane as series protagonist Ed Mercer.
3. Ed Mercer is an officer in the Planetary Union’s line of exploratory space vessels in the 25th century.
4. The show is inspired primarily by the original Star Trek and its Next Generation successor, both of which it heavily parodies and pays homage to.
5. It follows the crew of the starship USS Orville on their episodic adventures.
6. Produced by Fuzzy Door Productions and 20th Television, The Orville premiered on September 10, 2017, and ran for two seasons on Fox (although still aired on Hulu the day after each episode released).
7. A third season began on Hulu on June 2, 2022, subtitled The Orville: New Horizons.
8. Season one received generally negative reviews from critics, while season two was better received.
9. The show had relatively successful ratings on Fox, becoming the broadcaster’s highest-rated Thursday show as well as Fox’s “most-viewed debut drama” since 2015.
10. Unlike the first two seasons, the whole third season was written in advance, and scenes from different episodes were shot in a row, based on the location and actors’ availability.
11. Jon Cassar and Seth MacFarlane split the direction duties for the 10 episodes so they could work like that.
12. The majority of season 1 was directed by various Star Trek series alumni: James L. Conway (director: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise), Brannon Braga (writer/producer: TNG, Voyager, Generations, First Contact; creator: Enterprise), Robert Duncan McNeill (director/actor: “Lt. Tom Paris” Voyager, Enterprise), Jonathan Frakes (director/actor: “Cmdr. William T. Riker” TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, First Contact, Insurrection, Discovery), Jon Favreau (Actor/director: directs the pilot).
13. Norm McDonald’s character Yaphit is named after the actor Yaphet Kotto, who played the character Parker in the movie Alien (1979).
14. The voice of the ship’s computer is Rachel MacFarlane, Seth MacFarlane’s sister.
15. In an unusual move for a show made in the late 2010s, a detailed, five-foot model of the Orville was constructed and filmed for exterior shots of the ship. the use of large scale models was standard in television and film production up until the 1990s but fell out of favor in the late 90s as CG technology became better, faster, and more affordable.
16. CG was used to supplement the physical Orville model in action sequences, as well as to represent other ships.
17. All the Admirals names featured in The Orville are names of real life United States Navy Admirals or in one case of an Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Admirals names in featured in the show are Halsey, Perry, Tucker and Christie.
18. There is also an Admiral named Ozawa, played by Kelly Hu, which is named after Vice-Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa from the Imperial Japanese Navy.
19. Seth MacFarlane admitted in an Instagram Live Q&A that Talla’s name came from seeing the word printed on some of his t-shirts and he did not know what the word meant (talla is “size” in Spanish).
20. Penny Johnson Jerald is the only member of the main cast with extensive sci-fi acting experience.
21. Seth MacFarlane appeared as junior engineer Ensign Rivers in Enterprise: The Forgotten (2004) and Enterprise: Affliction (2005).
22. Scott Grimes had his scenes from Star Trek: Next Generation: Evolution (1989) deleted.
23. Unusually, while all Union ships are referred to with the prefix “USS” in their name (the main ship is referred to in dialogue as the USS Orville numerous times, for example), no Union vessel actually bears this prefix on its hull markings (the Orville has its registry number, ECV-197, and the name ORVILLE, emblazoned on its hull, but no USS).
24. Lt. Cmdr. Bortus resembles a Klingon. Bortas was the name of the ship that transported K’mpec in Star Trek: TNG and was commanded by Duras.
25. The Mercer name is taken from relatives of Seth and Rachel MacFarlane. The name is often used in other productions by Fuzzy Door, MacFarlane’s company.
26. During the visual redesign prior to season 3, the crew quarters underwent minimal alterations when compared to the rest of the ship sets. As such, they are the only sets that retain the striated wall pattern that had previously been prevalent throughout the ship.
27. A small model of the Wright Flyer is on Captain Mercer’s desk. The ship is named after Orville Wright, one of the Wright brothers.
28. Eleven episodes were written for season three, subtitled “New Horizons”, but one had to be scrapped due to COVID-19 shutdowns – “Sympathy for the Devil”, written by Seth MacFarlane, who described it as a “conceptually experimental story”. It was intended to be the ninth episode of the season, occurring just after The Orville: Midnight Blue (2022), and is about the crew dealing with a man influnenced by a simulation of Nazi Germany where he grew up. It was released as a novella on July 12, 2022.
29. Admiral Halsey (Victor Garber) is also the name of an American fleet admiral in the United States Navy. At the start of the American involvement World War 2 in the Pacific in 1943, he was made commander of the Third Fleet (a post he held through the rest of the war). Halsey’s flagship early in the war was the U.S.S. Enterprise which became the inspiration for the starship in “Star Trek”.
30. The exterior markings for the Orville is, ECV-197 ORVILLE.