Brannon Braga Calls The Orville A Return To Star Trek’s Classic Episodic Storytelling

Brannon Braga has made quite a name for himself in the world of Star Trek, serving as a prominent creative voice on three of the franchise’s shows and subsequent films. And now, he will be lending his talents to the upcoming Trek spoof The Orville – for a good reason.

During a panel at Star Trek Las Vegas, Braga spoke about the upcoming Fox dramedy series, which he is an executive producer and writer on. As he has previously hinted at on Twitter, the series evokes the same sort of episodic storytelling that Trek fans know and love, while venturing into its own sort of territory.

“It’s kind of its own thing,” Braga explained, “it’s funny, at times very funny, but the stakes are real, its science-fiction ideas I think are really cool, it’s a good mix of comedy but also drama. It’s like M*A*S*H, you’ll be laughing one second and the next something very serious is going on. You have to be involved, you can’t do an hour long satire of the genre. It’s a loving tribute to this kind of [standalone] storytelling.”

According to Braga, that standalone storytelling was something his post-Trek projects had been greatly lacking.

“I missed the kind of storytelling that Star Trek did which are standalone parables, with beginning middle and end.” Braga revealed. “I worked on 24 and I did serialized storytelling for the most part, and I really really missed it.”

This notion of serialized storytelling is sure to excite Trek fans, especially with the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery venturing away from that tactic. With both series set to debut in September, Trekkies will have several kinds of storytelling at their fingertips in the very near future.

From Emmy Award-winning executive producer and creator Seth MacFarlane (FAMILY GUY, “Ted,” “Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey”), THE ORVILLE is a live-action, one-hour space adventure series set 400 years in the future that follows The Orville, a mid-level exploratory spaceship. Its crew, both human and alien, face the wonders and dangers of outer space, while also dealing with the familiar, often humorous problems of everyday life.

The Orville will premiere Sunday, Sept. 10 on Fox.