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The World of The Orville
Four-time Emmy Award winner Seth MacFarlane creates a new sci-fi dramedy universe on the Fox Network with his new show, The Orville. MacFarlane plays Captain Ed Mercer, an officer in the Planetary Union in the 25th century who gathers a crew from the farthest reaches of the galaxy—his ex-wife included—to man the exploration vessel Orville and patrol the mysteries of deep space. Filled with alien species, exotic worlds, futuristic technology and awe-inspiring spaceships, this lavish companion to The Orville takes you behind the scenes through concept art, on-set photography and technical schematics to explore the show’s production design, costumes, makeup prosthetics and visual effects. This is the ultimate guide to this new space-faring epic adventure.
- GenresNonfiction
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 16, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 4, 2019
Originally published online at BORG.com.
Last year Fox’s science fiction series The Orville provided what many fans of sci-fi TV had been missing for the past decade: a rejection of a dystopian model of the future and a return to an optimistic outlook, a future where Earthlings succeed in their exploration of the universe. Hands-on creator Seth MacFarlane and sci-fi royalty Brannon Braga, Jonathan Frakes, Robert Duncan McNeill, and even Jon Favreau and many other genre veterans created a new world full of real people, believable aliens, exquisitely designed ships and sets, and a 75-piece orchestra with the best music you can find on television. In the old days of Hollywood, studios tried to give fans what they wanted to see. Distancing itself from the new trend of laying on viewers quirky visions and forced constructs, the show instead unapologetically serves up what is frequently disparagingly called “fan service.” In other words, MacFarlane is giving sci-fi fans what they want. Fans of The Orville can marvel at the details of the production in a newly-released chronicle of the series, The World of The Orville. Readers will walk away with a better understanding of why the series works: It’s a show by fans for fans, created by some of the best artists, artisans, writers, and actors around.
It’s pretty rare that any television series releases a companion book, let alone one that is published before the second season airs. The World of The Orville covers the series from idea through concept art design, casting, art direction, make-up, costumes, prop design, and sound, up through the end of the season this past December. The book is not just a compilation of concept art or film images, it’s a good mix of both, complete with explanatory text from across the several production departments. Insight is provided from execs Brannon Braga, David A. Goodman, and Jason Clark, production designer Stephen J. Lineweaver, supervising producer Andre Bormanis, master visual effects veteran Rob Legato, effects supervisors Luke McDonald and Natasha Francis, concept designer Brandon Fayette, prop master Bryan Rodgers, display designer David Watkinson, construction coordinator Tony Lattanzio, makeup artist Howard Berger, music composer Bruce Broughton, and creator and actor Seth MacFarlane. The book’s author Jeff Bond incorporates a good mix of behind the scenes photographs and text to provide a solid overview of the story path of season one.
Significant coverage is given of the ship The Orville itself, inside and out, including early concept art and alternative styles considered in arriving at the giant yacht that would make it to the screen. Readers will get a look at costume designer Joseph A. Porro’s rejected designs, and various makeup designs attempted for key alien characters. Ship designs, alien worlds, costumes and weapons, as well as a look at each key character and production set can be found here.
Every fan of the show will appreciate this behind-the scenes look at the latest big science fiction series. The World of The Orville is available now.
Last year Fox’s science fiction series The Orville provided what many fans of sci-fi TV had been missing for the past decade: a rejection of a dystopian model of the future and a return to an optimistic outlook, a future where Earthlings succeed in their exploration of the universe. Hands-on creator Seth MacFarlane and sci-fi royalty Brannon Braga, Jonathan Frakes, Robert Duncan McNeill, and even Jon Favreau and many other genre veterans created a new world full of real people, believable aliens, exquisitely designed ships and sets, and a 75-piece orchestra with the best music you can find on television. In the old days of Hollywood, studios tried to give fans what they wanted to see. Distancing itself from the new trend of laying on viewers quirky visions and forced constructs, the show instead unapologetically serves up what is frequently disparagingly called “fan service.” In other words, MacFarlane is giving sci-fi fans what they want. Fans of The Orville can marvel at the details of the production in a newly-released chronicle of the series, The World of The Orville. Readers will walk away with a better understanding of why the series works: It’s a show by fans for fans, created by some of the best artists, artisans, writers, and actors around.
It’s pretty rare that any television series releases a companion book, let alone one that is published before the second season airs. The World of The Orville covers the series from idea through concept art design, casting, art direction, make-up, costumes, prop design, and sound, up through the end of the season this past December. The book is not just a compilation of concept art or film images, it’s a good mix of both, complete with explanatory text from across the several production departments. Insight is provided from execs Brannon Braga, David A. Goodman, and Jason Clark, production designer Stephen J. Lineweaver, supervising producer Andre Bormanis, master visual effects veteran Rob Legato, effects supervisors Luke McDonald and Natasha Francis, concept designer Brandon Fayette, prop master Bryan Rodgers, display designer David Watkinson, construction coordinator Tony Lattanzio, makeup artist Howard Berger, music composer Bruce Broughton, and creator and actor Seth MacFarlane. The book’s author Jeff Bond incorporates a good mix of behind the scenes photographs and text to provide a solid overview of the story path of season one.
Significant coverage is given of the ship The Orville itself, inside and out, including early concept art and alternative styles considered in arriving at the giant yacht that would make it to the screen. Readers will get a look at costume designer Joseph A. Porro’s rejected designs, and various makeup designs attempted for key alien characters. Ship designs, alien worlds, costumes and weapons, as well as a look at each key character and production set can be found here.
Every fan of the show will appreciate this behind-the scenes look at the latest big science fiction series. The World of The Orville is available now.
May 1, 2019
The tragedy of The Orville is that a lot of the people who worked on it clearly cared about it a great deal. Costuming, make-up, set-builders, model-makers (models! in 2017! 3D-printed, but still), even some of the actors—a lot of these people went hard as hell, and it really shows in the final result. It's an incredible shame that all of this shit-giving was wasted in service of a fucking Seth MacFarlane project, and that he inevitably repaid it by phoning in every single part he was responsible for.
This book documents (unintentionally—it's just a run-of-the-mill making-of book like every sci-fi show is legally obligated to have) how the various teams who worked on season 1 of the show struggled (and often failed, but rarely as badly as they could have) to turn the blandest, most uninspired ``concepts'' and napkin doodles into something that felt as if it amounted to more than Star Trek: The Next Generation with the labels rubbed off. MacFarlane wasn't the only hack who worked on this show, but it's obvious he's by far the most influential one, and that if the rest of this crew couldn't save it, it's just not going to be saved.
This book documents (unintentionally—it's just a run-of-the-mill making-of book like every sci-fi show is legally obligated to have) how the various teams who worked on season 1 of the show struggled (and often failed, but rarely as badly as they could have) to turn the blandest, most uninspired ``concepts'' and napkin doodles into something that felt as if it amounted to more than Star Trek: The Next Generation with the labels rubbed off. MacFarlane wasn't the only hack who worked on this show, but it's obvious he's by far the most influential one, and that if the rest of this crew couldn't save it, it's just not going to be saved.
February 15, 2018
This is an official companion to the Fox series. Lavishly illustrated with preliminary sketches, production designs and behind the scenes photos, it charts the development of the ship, the characters who make up her crew and the universe she operates in. There are a lot of anecdotes around the production of the series, mainly from the production team and directors and a look into the level of detail that went into a lot of the episodes (Something Cosplayers will find useful). If there's anything disappointing about this book it would be that there are no hints about what may happen to the characters in season two but it's clear from the text that this book was written before the show was renewed, and there are no in depth interviews with the cast about their characters (You do get the actor's summaries of their characters though). A must for fans of the series although I suspect an updated edition will appear around the end of season two.
May 31, 2018
Very well done. The range of the development sketches was well done without the overkill I’ve seen in other similar books; it showed the first sketch of Seth’s and then a couple developments before a couple of the screenshots of aired moments. Also in writing there were moments of honesty and details not otherwise shared. There was a good balance of people interviewed - each actor of a main character had a quote describing their character. There is enough of Seth’s vision shared to demonstrate it’s his creation but the others interviewed demonstrate the allowance of teamwork. I liked the inclusion of the typography of the languages. That level of detail makes me excited to be a part of this (Orville) universe through my viewership; I feel this universe breathing a little more.
January 16, 2018
This is a very nice collection of images from the TV show. A lot of it you'd pick up just by watching the episodes, naturally, but there is a lot in here about the thought processes behind the designs, along with background information like ship classifications and alien languages. It is still primarily a photo book rather than something like an encyclopedia, but I really like it.
January 30, 2023
The Orville is set on the titular U.S.S. Orville (ECV-197), a mid-level exploratory space vessel in the Planetary Union, a 25th-century interstellar alliance of Earth and many other planets. An exploratory ship from Earth faces intergalactic challenges 400 years in the future. - this book explains all the how's and whys of how the program was made.
March 23, 2019
A behind-the-scenes guide to how the TV series "The Orville" was designed and constructed. Lively, fun and gorgeously illustrated, this is a book any fan of the show (or just SF in general) should thoroughly enjoy.
January 2, 2023
Full of little details on the art and design of the show. If you're a fan of the series I'd recommend it.
February 1, 2023
Utterly awesome!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews