The Orville has incorporated many elements from the Star Trek franchise, but there’s one facet of the iconic sci-fi universe that Seth MacFarlane’s space opera has avoided. Although The Orville isn’t set at any point in the Star Trek timeline, the intentional similarities between the two have inevitably caused them to become intertwined in popular culture. All the ideas The Orville borrowed from Star Trek helped the former become much more accessible from the beginning. However, there’s still one big thing missing from The Orville that would complete its Star Trek tribute.
The tech and alien races in the Star Trek universe are some of the most recognizable in sci-fi. The Orville has made a conscious effort to ensure it has a counterpart for many of Star Trek’s famous elements. Despite evolving into an impressively dramatic saga in its own right, The Orville did begin as a loving parody of Star Trek, and it’s easy to spot in almost every frame of the Seth MacFarlane show. Interestingly, there is a very good reason why The Orville has stayed away from a legendary piece of canon from the franchise that inspired it.
The Orville Has Never Parodied Star Trek’s Transporters
Captain Ed Mercer doesn’t have the highly useful tech at his disposal
While The Orville has introduced versions of Star Trek’s weaponry and other advanced tech, the show’s titular vessel doesn’t have the ability to beam its crew up and down from the surface of alien worlds or between ships. Instead, Captain Ed Mercer and the other members of the USS Orville’s crew make the trip the “old-fashioned” way – by taking a shuttle. Given that Star Trek’s transporters are incredibly well-ingrained in the general zeitgeist, it’s surprising that The Orville would sidestep parodying the tech when everything else has been replicated in such impressive detail.
Whenever Star Trek wants to sideline the Transporter for plot reasons, the show has often had to come up with a variety of reasons for why they’re not working.
Iconic as Star Trek’s transporters are, they haven’t been immune to criticism through the decades. The technology to instantly move people and objects from one place to another is incredibly convenient, and sometimes even to the detriment of the story being told. Transporters can be something of a cure-all for an obstacle that would otherwise be incredibly difficult to overcome. Whenever Star Trek wants to sideline the Transporter for plot reasons, the show has often had to come up with a variety of reasons for why they’re not working. So, it’s possible The Orville wanted to avoid this downfall.
Star Trek: The Original Series Introduced Transporters For Budgetary Reasons
Star Trek once couldn’t afford to shoot shuttle landing sequences
Transporters may seem like an idea introduced to aid Star Trek’s worldbuilding, but they were actually first used for financial reasons. When The Original Series was being shot, it was much easier, quicker, and cheaper to film a Transporter sequence than it was to show one of the USS Enterprise’s shuttles flying down to the surface of a planet. Exploring alien worlds was and continues to be a huge part of Star Trek lore, so with the frequency it was happening, the invention of Transporters made it a possibility.
MacFarlane’s show opted not to lean on the Transporter trope, possibly to avoid the narrative issues the tech has caused in some corners of the Star Trek franchise.
By the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the spinoff’s budget had been increased. This is proven by The Next Generation’s numerous shuttle landings. However, Transporters remained a big part of the formula due to their popularity in The Original Series. Interestingly, The Orville clearly had the option to follow in The Next Generation’s footsteps and use shuttles as well as Transporters. Alas, MacFarlane’s show opted not to lean on the Transporter trope, possibly to avoid the narrative issues the tech has caused in some corners of the Star Trek franchise.
Transporters Do Exist In The Orville Universe
Groups other than the Planetary Union can Transport people and objects
While The Orville’s Planetary Union doesn’t have access to Transporter technology, it does exist within the show’s canon. Transporters are considered incredibly advanced in The Orville, and only a select few species have developed the technology that mirrors its counterpart in Star Trek. Members of the USS Orville’s crew have even fallen victim to being Transported against their will. While this has happened in Star Trek too, the development has much more weight in The Orville due to the main characters not being able to reclaim their friends using the same methods.
While The Orville wouldn’t exist without Star Trek, the former mostly avoiding the use of Transporters is almost like a preview of what The Next Generation could have been if The Original Series had the budget to accommodate endless shuttle landings. The crew of the USS Orville often have to come up with much more complex rescue missions than their TNG counterparts because they can’t just resort to a fly-by beam out. While Star Trek’s Transporters captured the minds of many when they were introduced, The Orville’s limited use of the same tech works much more consistently.