Okay, I will admit I am late to the party. I just watched all three seasons of The Orville. I am pretty sure I watched the premiere episode back in 2017 and passed on it at the time. Truth is, I am not a huge fan of Seth MacFarlane stuff. I would rather listen to him sing than watch his shows or movies. He seems to go with what I call “lowest common denominator” humor… The kind of stuff you will find being said in the back of most junior high classrooms. Three Stooges without the charm. I hate Family Guy and its spin offs. (Just to establish some baseline values in the modern era of comedy animation I am pro-Regular Show, Invader Zim and the new Looney Tunes stuff but anti-Rick and Morty and think both The Simpsons and South Park have gone on too long!) I could not make it through Ted but thought A Million Ways To Die In The West was okay. When it started The Orville struck me as a juvenile Galaxy Quest. Truth is, the first couple episodes still struck me as such during my re-watch.
I stuck with The Orville this time, though, for two reasons. People kept telling me it was worth watching and I swore I would watch at least one full season for review purposes. I started to turn around on the series with the third episode (About A Girl). When the show sets aside some of the middle school humor it actually handles both sensitive and intellectual topics with a surprising amount of insight. In my personal opinion The Orville has handled hot button topics such as transgender rights with much more delicacy than recent Star Trek offerings, providing thought provoking story arcs without zealously preaching a viewpoint. Real world topics such as suicide, social media and relationships and science fiction favorites like time travel, first contact and artificial intelligence alike were presented in a thoughtful and entertaining manner.
The humor stayed in The Orville, although the show was often at its best when it set the jokes completely aside. As the seasons progressed the humor matured a bit with gags such as aliens discovering, becoming addicted to and trying to quit cigarettes and another group of aliens interpreting the Broadway musical Annie as moving and dark because the sun, which will come out tomorrow, is a powerful omen of death in their culture. It is crucial to note, though, whether making its most juvenile and obvious gags or its sharpest, brightest jokes The Orville never makes fun of its audience or demeans science fiction.
I ended up watching all three seasons The Orville and honestly am holding out hope Hulu renews it for a fourth. I have to admit I have become a fan. It also got me to thinking about the place comedy holds in science fiction. Comedy is a common element in more serious shows, such as Star Trek, but there is a fairly strong tradition of comedic science fiction, especially on television.
It seems to have all kicked off in 1962 with the Hanna-Barbera animated series The Jetsons (1962-1963). Building on the success of The Flintstones (1960-1966), Hanna-Barbera and ABC sought to duplicate the formula of a standard family sitcom in a different time by fast forwarding everyday problems to the far off future. Although both The Flintstones and The Jetsons are thought of as children’s shows today (after migrating to Saturday morning and after school timeslots) it is important to remember both were originally shown in prime time. The Roman Holidays, a 1972 attempt to again adapt The Flintstones formula using the Roman Empire as a setting was Saturday morning fare, though, and not nearly as successful.
The 1960s would soon see live action science fiction sitcoms, though. First, Ray Walston and Bill Bixby hit the small screen as an alien anthropologist and the human reporter who finds and “adopts” him in My Favorite Martian (CBS, 1963-1966). In addition to applying alien powers and tech to standard sitcom themes the show also featured some time travel episodes. It would eventually see a 1973 Saturday morning cartoon spin off (My Favorite Martians) and a rather unsuccessful 1999 feature film. The 1964 television season brought My Living Doll (1964-1965), from the same creator as My Favorite Martian, to CBS. The new show followed a psychiatrist attempting to “educate” a lifelike experimental robot named Rhoda (played by a pre-Catwoman Julie Newmar). Bewitched (ABC, 1964-1972) also premiered the same year. With a modern day witch, and wife to a normal human, taking the place of a robot or alien and magic instead of technology, it was fantasy as opposed to science fiction but essentially along the same lines as My Favorite Martian and My Living Doll. Get Smart (1965-1970) came to NBC the next year. The spy spoof was arguably as much science fiction as espionage TV, though, with the variety of wacky gadgets, evil world domination plots and the eventual introduction of Hymie the Robot. In 1966 Sherwood Schwartz, creator of Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, tried his hand at science fiction sitcoms. It’s About Time (CBS, 1966-1967) followed astronauts who first accidentally travel to prehistoric times and then, in the second half of its single season, return to the modern day with a family of cave people. The final science fiction sitcom of the 1960s, The Second Hundred Years (ABC, 1967-1968), could be argued to be more of a fantasy sitcom, such as Bewitched or I Dream of Jeanie (NBC, 1965-1970). It centered on a prospector accidentally frozen in 1900 who was thawed, revived and went to live with his now elderly son’s family.
The 1970s saw a decline in science fiction comedy on American television, at least until Star Wars (1977) caused an explosion of all things science fiction. Before Star Wars all the 1970s live action science fiction comedies to premiere on US television were produced by Sid and Marty Krofft (the brothers behind HR Pufnstuf, Lidsville, Land of the Lost) and aimed at children. Far Out Space Nuts (CBS, 1975-1976) starred Bob Denver and Chuck McCann as NASA maintenance workers accidentally launched into deep space (to have wacky adventures, not to watch B movies… but more on that in a minute). The Lost Saucer (ABC, 1975) featured Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi as time traveling androids who bring a modern boy and his babysitter on a series of adventures with social commentary undertones. Star Maidens (featuring a pre-Blake’s 7 Gareth Thomas) was a British/German co-production in 1976 which did see some US airplay. A reverse battle of the sexes in space, it has a camp reputation today but apparently was not intended to be humorous at the time.
After Star Wars US television saw two new prime time network science fiction sitcoms. The first, Quark (NBC, 1977-1978) was from Get Smart co-creator Buck Henry. Space trash collector Adam Quark and his strange crew, including lovestruck clones and a “transmute” with both male and female personalities. The much more successful Mork and Mindy (ABC, 1978-1982) was technically a spin off of Happy Days (ABC, 1974-1984). Mork originally appeared in a 1978 episode of Happy Days which pitted his alien powers against Fonzie. The entire episode was a dream when first aired, although after the character was given his own series a new ending was created showing Mork simply making Fonzie think it was a dream for re-runs. In the spin off series Mork, an alien scout from Orkan, lives among modern humans with the help of a young woman in Colorado. The series launched the career of star Robin Williams and also saw a 1982-1983 Saturday morning cartoon spin-off.
The 1980s were a good time for science fiction on television. The decade started with Battlestar Galactica (ABC, 1978-1980 as Galactica 1980) and Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (NBC, 1979-1981) both in prime time and later saw Star Trek return to television with The Next Generation (syndicated, 1987-1994) Science fiction shows such as Automan (ABC, 1983-1984), Knight Rider (NBC, 1982-1986), Airwolf (CBS, 1984-1986), V (NBC, 1983 original mini-series, 1984 The Final Battle mini-series, 1984-1985 V: The Series and eventually rebooted in a second series 2009-2011) and Alien Nation (Fox, 1989-1990) kept the genre in prime time throughout the decade.
Science fiction TV comedy flourished as well, starting with radio series turned television show (and eventually film) The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (BBC 1981) which aired the in the US on many PBS stations. Hapless human Arthur Dent is saved from the end of the world by his friend, who happens not to be human but a researcher for the universe’s greatest travel guide. 1981 also saw the premiere of the science fiction superhero show The Greatest American Hero (ABC, 1981-1983). When aliens give a mild mannered teacher a suit capable of amazing powers he promptly loses the instructions and gets drafted by the government to act as a covert superhero. Although not quite a sitcom, the hour long episodes mixed drama with the slapstick efforts to control the alien superpowers. Small Wonder (syndicated, 1985-1989) was in many ways a revisiting of My Living Doll’s premise except sexy robot Rhoda was replaced with Vicki, an android who looked like a ten year old girl. An alien again tried to live with the typical American family in ALF (NBC, 1986-1990). Unlike Mork or Uncle Martin in My Favorite Martian, this time the alien was not human-like (and instead portrayed mainly by a puppet). ALF would launch two spin-off cartoons, a TV movie and eventually the character would return to TV in 2004 with a short lived talk show on TV Land. The next year Out Of This World (syndicated 1987-1991) would fine tune the alien in the typical American family formula with Evie, a girl raised on Earth who finds out she is actually half-alien when her powers begin to emerge.
In 1987 Max Headroom (ABC 1987-1988) made the jump to US broadcast television. Originally a British TV movie about a reporter whose brain functions are used to form an artificial intelligence who appeared on monitors and TV screens as a computer animated talking head. Then the character was used to host a music video show, which was shown on Cinemax in the US. Max Headroom (who played by Matt Frewer in all these incarnations and not actually computer animated) was also the spokesman for New Coke… insert your own joke about that! The ABC series, which was an hour long dark humor dramedy, returned to the ideas of the original television film. Another British series popped up the next year and would reach the US through PBS instead of cable and Coke commercials.
Red Dwarf (BBC, later Dave, 1988-2020) is arguably the most successful science fiction comedy to date. With twelve seasons and a TV film spread over 32 years it is not nearly as prolific as the typical series, but it is highly influential and simply keeps coming back. Dave Lister, the lowest ranked crew member on the massive mining ship Red Dwarf, is placed in suspended animation without pay after smuggling a pregnant cat aboard. He awakes to find a radiation leak killed the crew and the ship has been drifting for 3 million years while radiation levels returned to normal. The ship’s super computer, a hologram of his obnoxious roommate, a humanoid evolved from his cat and, eventually, an android are his companions as he navigates through uncharted space. Although this could be a very dark premise or at least a very dark comedy, Red Dwarf is a fairly light, and often good naturedly obnoxious, comedy propelled by a great cast.
Meanwhile, America was creating its own, very different, classic science fiction comedy series in 1988. Mystery Science Theater 3000, aka MST3K (various, 1988-now), is not a sitcom nor is it an hour long comedic drama. It uses a premise very much like Far Out Space Nuts as an excuse for the main character, along with some robot puppets, to heckle films, usually low budget (and often public domain) science fiction and horror movies shown to him as an experiment run by the scientists who engineered his launch into space. Like Red Dwarf it has spread 13 seasons over 32 years. It has also launched a few imitators/spin offs, live shows and even a feature film.
While the 1990s saw both Red Dwarf and MST3k continuing to flourish the decade also brought new science fiction comedies to the small screen. The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (Fox, 1993-1994) featured cult favorite Bruce Campbell as a lawyer turned bounty hunter in the Old West trying to capture the gang who murdered his US Marshal father while using steampunk gadgetry and dealing with a mystic, possibly alien, device known as The Orb. Upstart network UPN, which later brought Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise to air, tried their own take on steampunk western sci-fi with Legend (1995), starring Richard Dean Anderson as a writer of western adventure dime novels forced to assume the role of his famous character Nicodemus Legend. The next season they tried a more traditional sitcom with Homeboys in Outer Space (1996-1997) about a pair of usually broke hustlers (in space) and their ship, the Space Hoopty.
The bigger networks jumped into science fiction sitcoms in 1996 as well, with mixed success. NBC’s 3rd Rock From The Sun (1996-2001) brought viewers a squad of aliens observing our planet by posing as a typical American family led by John Lithgow. ABC’s Aliens In The Family, about a human trying to live a normal life after marrying an alien woman, was much less successful and only lasted a single season. Meanwhile, Disney took their film Honey, I Shrunk The Kids to the small screen by adding The Series to the title (syndicated, 1997-2000). Fox ended the 1990s, which was a decade full of dramatic science fiction on the network ranging from The X-Files (1993-2002) and Millenium (1996-1999) to Space: Above and Beyond (1995-1995), with Futurama (various, 1999-now) an animated series created by The Simpsons creator Matt Groening following a shiftless delivery guy cryogenically frozen and revived in 2999. Although originally cancelled after four seasons, like its main character the show was revived first as direct to video specials then by Comedy Central and again by Hulu.
The 21st century did not bring us the robots or flying cars many earlier science fiction properties had predicted, but it did continue to bring science fiction comedy to television starting with (the infamous) action comedy Cleopatra 2525 (syndicated, 2000-2001). A play on the Buck Rogers formula (also used in The Second Hundred Years and Futurama) the show followed a bubbly stripper cryogenically frozen after a botched cosmetic surgery revived after 500 years into a world where machines have taken over and resistance fighters live underground. Although technically a kids’ show on a kids’ network, Invader Zim (Nickelodeon, 2001-2006) collected many adult viewers as a diminutive and incompetent alien tried to conquer the Earth while masquerading as a child. The Sci-Fi Channel’s Eureka (2006-2012) was an hour long dramedy centered on a straight laced cop who becomes the new sheriff in Eureka, a town filled with eccentric super geniuses and their experiments. Chuck (NBC, 2007-2012), also an hour long action comedy, told the story of a lovable, under-achieving nerd who is forced to become a super-spy when a powerful government computer system is downloaded into his brain. It was reminiscent of earlier, more serious UPN series Jake 2.0 (2003) which saw an NSA computer expert accidentally injected with nanobots which essentially granted him superpowers.
The 2010s continued the trend of hour long science fiction comedy dramas, first with No Ordinary Family (ABC, 2010-2011). The show centered on a family who acquired super powers after a plane crash. The Neighbors (ABC, 2012-2014), about a family who discovers all the other residents of their gated community are actually aliens, returned to a classic thirty minute sitcom format. Also following the classic sitcom format was the Yahoo! Screen streaming series Other Space (2015) which boasted MST3k cast members Trace Beaulieu and Joel Hodgson among the crew of a space ship trapped in another universe. BrainDead (CBS, 2016) was another hour long series, this one with political satire overtones, about a congressional staffer who discovers aliens are taking over members of the US government. Hulu’s FutureMan (2017-2020) more or less stuck to the sitcom format, although it could stretch its episodes a few minutes thanks to the streaming format. It told the story of an underachieving janitor recruited to fight a war in the future after being recruited through a video game. The same year Fox premiered The Orville (2017-now), which eventually moved to Hulu for its third season. The hour long comedy drama centers on a new starship captain forced to take his ex-wife as his first officer.
The 2020s started with science fiction comedy stalwart Red Dwarf still putting out new material and would eventually see both Futurama and MST3k returning to production. HBO offered Hugh Laurie as a luxury starship captain in sitcom formatted Avenue 5 (2020-2022) and Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+, 2020-now) became the franchises’ second animated series and first comedy focused series (and as far as I am concerned the best of the current Star Trek shows).
What does the future hold for science fiction comedies? Definitely more animation with Hulu announcing Futurama has been renewed through 2025 and a fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks in production. The Orville’s future is up in the air, with creator Seth MacFarlane recently saying the show was not cancelled but its future was unsure. However, with over six decades of history and more content providers than ever, it seems a good bet science fiction comedy will continue to be seen on American television screens… at least until we get those flying cars and robots.