With Seth MacFarlane’sThe Orvillefinally back after a 3-year hiatus, it feels like an old friend has returned. But as with all things, there have been some changes over time. One of the main differences with the series is its new home at Hulu after debuting on theFoxnetwork, and it seems as though that original placement was the source of some vexation for the mind behind the show.
MacFarlane, the creator ofsci-fi homage seriesThe Orvillealong with long-running animated hitsFamily GuyandAmerican Dad, recently spoke about his time withFoxover the years, and he didn’t mince words. While the beloved television personality has enjoyed a long-time partnership with the network, it appears that he holds some pretty candid opinions concerning how it does things. As an unambiguously left-leaning person, MacFarlane understandably tends to clash with Fox ideologically from time to time, so there would obviously be some difficult ideas to reconcile with.
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At the 13th annual Produced By conference,MacFarlane offered some candid viewson his working relationship with Fox, which he still partners with outside of his work onThe Orville. “It’s an incredibly complicated relationship that I have with that company,” he explained. “There are people there with whom I have great personal relationships. There are people that I like a lot. But it is a different company than it was when I started. It’s very difficult for me to reconcile exactly what my relationship is with that company right now. I, like many people, have a lot of issues and a lot of objections to their practices. Certainly, the news division and the entertainment division operate relatively independently of each other, and that’s something that allowed a lot of us to sleep a little better.”
The latter comments refer to how the unapologetically and even disturbinglyright-wing bias of Fox Newsis kept separate from the rest of Fox’s holdings. While that separation can make the network’s entertainment sections more palatable, it can be understandably difficult for many to enjoy content from a company that still passively allows that often hateful rhetoric to spread into the world. MacFarlane continued, “my overall reaction – and I know I’m not alone – to what the company does and how they communicate what they choose to communicate and what they think is acceptable is, I have a lot of objections.”
MacFarlane’s more liberal and open-minded views are onfull display inThe Orville, which has tackled many difficult subjects to varying degrees of success just like its progressive inspiration,Star Trek. But even if he’d stayed on Fox, odds are that aspect of the show wouldn’t have stopped. He did offer one concession about how Fox handles opposing viewpoints, despite his repeated criticisms of the network over the years. “I dump on Fox a lot,” he said, “but I will say the whole time I was there, no one ever tried to censor the show politically. There’s a very laissez-faire attitude that worked great for us…I was never censored and I was never pressured to project a different political outlook.”
MacFarlane’s frustration with the network is understandable. Considering how political differences these days go far beyond simple disagreements over policy, it can be difficult to trust a network that tries to play all sides in the current climate. But some might argue that it’s preferable to having a clear bias. Then again, not all biases are created equal.
