Source material: Season 1 response

In this post, the reactions of the cast and crew to Season 1 ratings and reviews go here. A number of reaction quotes can be found already incorporated into the pages The Orville and Old Wounds. Those quotes will not be added here. Instead, the purpose of this post is posterity, to be a resource for future editors.

2017

October

After Pria

At the New York Comic Con, WithAnAccentTV asked Brannon Braga and David A. Goodman, "What's the feedback been?"

• Goodman: I mean, the feedback's been great. I think the audience is really responding. Ratings have been great. Fox really did a great job promoting the show so people could find it, which obviously helps. In an environment of 450 television shows, to have Fox behind you is very helpful; but the audience stayed and they're coming back, and that's really gratifying.

During a different interview, at the same place, WithAnAccentTV interviewed Scott Grimes and Adrianne Palicki:

• Grimes and Palicki build off an answer to an unrelated question:
  • Grimes: It's been tough reading some of the critiques of the show because we knew that were doing something different.
  • Palicki: And special.
  • Grimes: When the first reviews came out, it's like, I really wish everyone had seen 10 episodes first, then tell us what you did or didn't like. But you had to see what was happening. The line between comedy and drama, that I've never seen before like this, like to have a battle and somebody turn and say something kind of weird and goofy - what's the show then? Well, that's the show. It's real people in real situations. It's being real. There's dumb people in the future as well. (Points to himself.)
• A reporter notes that the fans love the show, and their reactions are different from those of professional critics, and ratings are high.
  • Grimes: It has been great. That's the thing that's kept us...
  • Palicki: I think that the fans are loving it...
  • Grimes: ...Yeah. And I've seen reviews go, 'You know what? I was wrong. You know, now that I've-' And that's good to watch too.
  • Palicki: 'Now that I get what it is or I'm seeing it evolve.' You know. Ultimately the fans were right as they usually are.

After Krill

David A. Goodman in an interview with the Planetary Union Network:

• Building off of an answer to what his favorite part of the New York Comic Con was:
  • Goodman: Just seeing that already people are dedicated fans of the show is extremely satisfying. To be working on this thing and have people already loving it. You know, we were very scared. The critical response before the show came out was really negative, and the critics really went after us. That was before we aired, and you start to think, 'Oh, are people going to watch? Are people going to like it?
• Follow up question if Goodman has any theories as to why critics responded like that.
  • Goodman: You know, I think Seth - I don't know why, I can't explain it - but Seth is unfairly treated by the critics. I mean it's just not fair; they're just not fair to him at all. They judge his work; they judge his, you know. I remember reading reviews of his Western [A Million Ways to Die in the West] and the opening paragraphs on more than one was talking about him hosting the Oscars. Okay, you don't like the movie, fine, but why are you talking about the Oscars? And I loved him hosting the Oscars, so it's such a weird thing, and I don't know, I don't relate. Obviously I owe a lot to Seth just for many reasons, but, but I also am a fan. I think that he's super talented; I think he does great work; so I don't even get that. I don't even know why people didn't like him doing the Oscars. I thought he was hilarious. So I don't know. I don't understand it. There are just ways in that I don't understand it. The guy cracks me up and I love his work, but critics, I don't think critics are fair to him at all. It's bad and they end up looking bad because the audience likes the show.
• The interviewers point out the disparity between the critics' opinions of the show and general audiences'.
  • Goodman: It's crazy. You look at critics and say, 'Okay, you need to do any sort of self-reflection and say, 'Why does the audience love this show and I didn't?' [sic]' Do you just look down on the audience and say they're stupid? Or do you say you're not connecting to what an audience likes and what's good about the show.
• An interviewer says he'd like to read some of those reviews.
  • Goodman: I'm a big fan of the website io9 ... and whoever they have reviewing the show, she just hates it. I'm like, alright, you're free to hate it, but also I'm like, I want - something's popular doesn't mean it's good, I understand that - I want people... I want fairness. Let's be fair. Instead of a review that says, 'I thought this was terrible,' how about a review that says, 'This is why I think people are liking the show.' It's interesting because, again, we get no love on any of the sci-fi websites. We don't get any love at io9; [unclear website name] just hates us. That's upsetting to me becausse - and again, they're free to hate it - but also it's like, a lot of people like it.

December

After Mad Idolatry

Interviewer from Build Series NYC asks Seth MacFarlane

• If he has noticed a changing critical consensus toward The Orville.
  • MacFarlane: Yeah. There's a weird ax to grind that critics kind of have with me, but what was nice about television is that if the audience shows up week after week, you can't ignore that. They're there. So there has been a little bit of a shift in which there has been an acknowledgement that people are getting something out of this. I'm always grateful to the audience when that happens.
• Follow-up from interviewer that he had read a review that sounded like the reviewer was reviewing the episode trailer and not the episode.
  • MacFarlane: That's a common problem. I'll read articles about Family Guy that were written by people who have clearly never seen an episode and who are looking it up on Wikipedia or reading other press and forming an opinion. It's this trend that it's less important to be right than to be first.

Penny Johnson Jerald: I've always known, because I fancy myself psychic when I touch on a project that I know is ingenious and innovative. I've always known it was inevitable. However, hearing it for the first time, for real, is so exciting, I cannot tell you. I'm pretty much hearing it with you, officially. But in my heart and in my spirit, I really believe in this project so much that if you told me we weren't doing a Season 2, I'd get out of the business.

2018

March

After The Orville was nominated for several Saturn awards, editor Tom Costantino told the Planetary Union Network: I'm suprised. Me and Jason Clark were talking, just to be recognized like that, that's sort of crazy. I feel like we're the scrappy non-Star Trek show in some ways. I know they got five and we got three. Just to be in that race with such good company, and I know they're a streaming one but just to be recognized after the initial critical drubbing feels really good.