The Orville Uses 80s Sitcom Legend In The Perfect Way
Over the course of three seasons, The Orville made expert use of Star Trek veterans in front of the camera, like Ricard Picardo and Marina Sirtis, and behind the camera with Jonathan Frakes and Robert Duncan McNeill both directing episodes. In a moment that originally looked like stunt casting, Ted Danson, the legendary Cheers star turned into one of Hollywood’s elder statesman, appeared during Season 2 as Admiral Perry, one of the top commanders in the Planetary Union. Danson’s effortlessly warm and affable nature played well as the Admiral until Season 3 when he decided to betray humanity.
The Orville Put Ted Danson In Charge
In his first appearance during The Orville Season 2 episode “All the World is Birthday Cake,” Admiral Perry is called in to supervise first contact with a new alien race, and here, Ted Danson is the voice of authority and reason (even if the crew, and the audience, disagree). He convinces Captain Ed (Seth Macfarlane) not to go in guns blazing against the Regorians by saying, “We’re not the Krill,” which was quietly a bit of foreshadowing. Danson fits perfectly in the offbeat sci-fi world Macfarlane developed with his strange brand of late-career quirkiness, a perfect match for the layered, fast-paced dialogue and purposely bizarre technobabble.
Over the course of Season 2, Perry remains a steadfast and capable leader, if not a little odd, but it’s during Season 3 that he makes the fateful decision to betray everything he stands for. The Orville: New Horizons takes a dark turn and starts emulating Babylon 5 as the war between, in various alliances, the Planetary Union, Krill, Moclans, and Kaylons heats up and consumes the galaxy. The crew of The Orville developed an anti-Kaylon weapon, and in a surprising use of Ted Danson, Perry handed it over to the Moclans, providing them with a weapon of mass destruction to end the war.
From Sci-Fi Comedy To A Debate On The Ethics Of War
This is a far cry from the stunt casting of most sci-fi shows, which tend to throw George Takei or Mark Hamill into a throwaway role or get Brent Spiner to show up to play a crazy scientist. The Orville asked Ted Danson to break bad and do so in a way that still stayed true to his character; after all, Admiral Perry was going to turn himself in after handing over the weapon before he was betrayed by Teleya (Michaela McManus). In “Domino,” Perry makes it clear that he’ll embrace the weapon to try and prevent greater loss of life, the same ethical dilemma that Truman faced when he decided to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.
It’s a testament to how The Orville evolved that Ted Danson could make a meal out of Admiral Perry’s ethical dilemma when the first episode included an extended discussion on how aliens pee. From the beginning, Seth MacFarlane wanted to pay homage to Star Trek, but by the time Perry kicks off the largest battle of the war through his actions, the series had become a sci-fi classic in its own right. From Cheers to CSI, Becker to Damages, Fargo to The Good Place, Danson can do it all, and every series would be lucky to have him.
