Seth MacFarlane is a very well-known name in the television industry. If you don't know him from American Dad or The Cleveland Show, then you definitely know him from Family Guy. With those three titles alone under his belt, MacFarlane is undoubtedly very successful. However, when you add in MacFarlane's filmography, it's hard to argue with his success.

So why would a very successful MacFarlane try out a whole new space with the sci-fi parody genre in The Orville when he's already doing so well in his little corner of the industry? "I have been a big sci-fi fan since I was a kid," Seth MacFarlane told Deadline. "I think secretly that was the show I wanted to do, but I figured there's no way in hell anyone would swallow that from me." Once MacFarlane had proven himself in the industry, he decided to try something new and make his dream show, what ostensibly seemed to be a sci-fi parody of Star Trek but actually turned out to be surprisingly dramatic and gripping at times. With the third season of The Orville, termed New Horizons, leaning even more serious as it airs on Hulu, let's take a look at the show and how it's so delightfully incongruous with MacFarlane's career.

What is The Orville?

The Orville with Seth MacFarlane
Disney Media Distribution

The Orville began as a sci-fi parody comedy that follows the crew of a spaceship, the USS Orville. The ship is an exploratory vessel in the Planetary Union, a 25th century planetary alliance. At its basic point, that may not sound interesting to everyone and also may not sound like something actually made by Seth MacFarlane. In order to find that connection, we would have to look at the aforementioned element of parody.

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Parody has been a large part of MacFarlane's brand since his first production, and The Orville is no exception. The Orville as an entire entity is a parody of the Star Trek franchise and everything within the franchise. The show also has jokes and elements that parody other parts of pop culture as a whole. This use of parody comedy is a trademark of MarFarlane, but it is also what differentiates The Orville from other sci-fi shows as a whole. The Orville has tapped into a very under-used genre, the sci-fi space comedy, which is actually growing more popular since its success.

What Else Has Seth MacFarlane Created?

The Orville New Horizons
Disney Media Distribution

Before The Orville, MacFarlane stuck to one very specific genre for a long time, raunchy adult animation comedies. Yes, MacFarlane was a creator of Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show. All of MacFarlane's work prior to The Orville was in this space of very adult comedy, be it his TV shows or the movies Ted and the Western parody A Million Ways to Die in the West, all of which are quite gaudy and frankly the opposite of politically correct. That is not a negative by any means; MacFarlane has had a very successful career and his shows have a dedicated audience.

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While his projects parody different genres, their scatological humor, scathing pop culture jokes, occasionally dark cynicism, and vicious satire are all very different from The Orville.

How Does The Orville Differ From MacFarlane's Other Work?

The Orville New Horizons
Hulu

MacFarlane is quite talented at what he does and is considered the king of adult animated comedy show, so it came as a shock to many when he wrote The Orville. For many fans, it seemed like a large jump for MacFarlane to go from adult animation to a sci-fi comedy-drama. However, if fans were to look a little deeper into MacFarlane's full body of work, this jump would make a lot more sense. There is an actual tenderness and dramatic arcs in his work, from the main relationship in Ted to Brian and Stewie's relationship in Family Guy. Some humor in MacFarlane's shows is also very serious, a kind of angry sociopolitical commentary that, though funny, are deadly serious. Beneath all the dirty jokes and provocation, there has been an authenticity and seriousness to his work.

The Orville might not seem like it, but the series fits perfectly with MacFarlane's body of work, especially as a part of his continual evolution as an artist. With his filmmaking, newfound emphasis on acting, and even his music career, MacFarlane has been getting more serious while retaining his sense of humor. The parody style of comedy that MacFarlane employs is exactly in the same vein of that in The Orville, but instead of making a pure comedy show, MacFarlane took his comedic sensibilities and applied them to an actually dramatic sci-fi show. So while this new endeavor for MacFarlane may have surprised many people, it makes sense with his personal style and the way he's been growing as an artist.