After two (going on three) seasons of cultivating a loyal and dedicated fanbase, The Orville's finally getting some love from award shows. The 2019 Emmy nominations showed Seth MacFarlane's sci-fi dramedy scored its first nomination, and it's officially in the running to take home the award for Outstanding Visual Effects.
It's up against some impressive competition, which includes a show from a franchise The Orville was inspired by: Star Trek: Discovery. Seth MacFarlane didn't have much to say with regard to that, but did note that there's something particularly impressive about the fact his series even got nominated for this category to begin with.
According to Seth MacFarlane, The Orville wasn't working with the big budgets that Star Trek: Discovery or other nominees like Netflix's popular original The Umbrella Academy, The Man in High Castle, and Game of Thrones were given. Granted, that may be apparent when watching the Fox series after any of these shows, but that's not at all meant as a knock against the series. The Orville has done some solid work with its limited budget, and has created some impressive visuals.
It's not on the same level as creating life-like dragons (although not technically dragons) or humanoid apes, but that's part of the charm. The impressive but restrained visual quality of The Orville certainly helps the comparisons it's often gotten to classic Star Trek shows like The Next Generation, or Deep Space Nine. It doesn't have to be the most cutting-edge show, but it seems to have done enough for the television Academy to take notice.
With that said, it's unknown if voters will take into account what all The Orville did with its budget, or they will simply vote for the show that has the most impressive visuals regardless of budget. Game of Thrones is certainly the show to beat in Oustanding Visual Effects, and has won 6 of the 7 times its been nominated. The one loss came in its first season, so its odds of winning again are looking pretty solid.
Even if that's true, it's often said it's an honor just to be nominated. That's absolutely true for The Orville, which is the David amongst Goliaths looking to get lucky with a slingshot. It may not pull the upset, but man, what a shock it would be and special moment if The Orville ended up capturing the award. Game of Thrones has plenty of nominations, so it can lose this one and still have plenty to fall back on!
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Will The Orville end up winning the Emmy, or will it fall short to any one of the other nominees? CinemaBlend will stay on top of the Emmy news leading up to and after the award show, so be sure to stick with us in the meantime for all the latest in television and movie news.
