The Orville comes from Seth MacFarlane, of Family Guy and American Dad fame. He's a lifelong Star Trek fan himself (he even pulled strings to land a cameo in an episode of Enterprise), and his solution to "no Star Trek show on the air" was to make one of his own. It's the adventures of a low-level ship with a less-than-top-shelf crew, exploring the galaxy.
Some people were expecting Galaxy Quest: The TV Series here, but The Orville definitely isn't that. This show isn't a parody or satire of Star Trek -- the closest it comes to that is actually putting seat belts in their space vehicles. The jokes don't come a mile a minute; they're actually rather sparse for a Seth MacFarlane production. Instead, The Orville is pretty straightforward Star Trek (and in particular, Star Trek: The Next Generation), in which the characters aren't the ultra-enlightened future citizens of Gene Roddenberry's imagination. They basically talk like regular 21st-century people, have normal reactions to outrageous things, and are "just like you and me."
There's been a fair amount of negative critical response to the show, much along the lines of "it's not funny" and/or "the normal people angle isn't enough of a twist to provide fuel for an entire series." Depending on your expectations, those are fair criticisms. But when I watched the first episode, I watched it for what I think Seth MacFarlane intended: to have his own Star Trek series. By those standards, The Orville does a bit better.
The production values of the show are sky high. Ridiculous, really... as in, "they can't possibly afford to make the show look this good and have this many special effects every week, can they?" good. It has a bombastic and entertaining orchestral musical score. It has its share of fun Trek-ish sci-fi gimmicks -- the first episode, for example, features technology that can accelerate time within a bubble universe (and pays off with a rather clever way of using said technology).
There are some good cast members in the mix. Beside MacFarlane (who of course must star in his own dream project), there's actual Star Trek veteran Penny Johnson Jerald (who should be on TV whenever she wants to be; she's great) and Adrianne Palicki (who was great on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before they chose to spin her off onto a series that didn't actually happen).
But there's a lot about the pilot episode that isn't "there" yet. The exposition is super-clunky, particularly in a scene which serves as rapid-fire introductions to the main characters, and becomes the only intel we get about some of them. (One character is set up as a "racist" cyborg, but no further evidence of that elitism is shown in the episode. Another character is said to come from a single-gendered species, but this too is treated like a comedic set-up for which a punchline never comes.)
All that said, it's important when thinking of this as a kinda-sorta Star Trek series to remember that most of the Star Trek series weren't great out of the gate either. The Next Generation in particular, which this most resembles, was far from great in its first episode -- or hell, for pretty much its entire first season. No, I'm not ready to declare undying love and allegiance for The Orville, but I do feel like there is some potential here.
Certainly, I want the show to get better, and fast. This is not 1987, so the quality bar is higher, and shows don't get entire 26 episode seasons and easy renewal guarantees in which to find themselves. The Orville will need to get better within two or three installments, or it's likely to get lost in the crush when more fall TV premieres. But I'd give the first episode a B- or so, just enough on the right side of the line for me to give it another shot.
In a few weeks, we'll see if actual Star Trek can start off on a stronger foot.
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