Seth Macfarlane is bringing his 'Family Guy' humour to a brand new 'Star Trek' style parody called 'The Orville', set three centuries in the future. The show comes to our screens this year and follows the adventures of the ragtag crew of the titular spaceship.

Seth MacFarlane at the Cinema Audio Society AwardsSeth MacFarlane at the Cinema Audio Society Awards

The idea might not be original; a similar parody was done in 1999 in the form of the movie 'Galaxy Quest'; but this is the first live action spacecraft parody series we've seen and it's coming to Fox later this year. Fans will know that Seth MacFarlane is a huge fan of 'Star Trek', and now he gets to Captain his own alien crew.

Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) has been assigned the task of taking on the role of captain on a new spaceship called the USS Orville. It's safe to say his employers have their reservations about him, but they're desperate. On board his new ship are a number of different species. They include humans Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes), Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) and John LaMarr (J. Lee); an alien from an all-male species called Bortus (Peter Macon); a weird shape-shifting blob named Yaphit (Norm MacDonald); an android named Isaac (Mark Jackson); and a lifeform called Alara Kitan (Halston Sage) who thrives on high-gravity.

They must work together to tackle an intergalactic menace. And we're not just talking about the arrival of his ex-wife Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) as his First Officer. They have the simple task of delivering supplies to a neighbouring planet, but they discover they are in real trouble when some bad guys get hold of a destructive new weapon that could destroy them all.

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Jon Favreau has been named as director on the first episode of the upcoming 13-episode series, the rest of which began shooting in March 2017.