Seth MacFarlane’s new show basically looks like the Galaxy Quest series we never got

If you've never seen Galaxy Quest, you are truly missing out.

Basically one of the most under-appreciated cult comedies of all time, the 1999 gem featured Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Sam Rockwell and the late, great Alan Rickman has actors of a Star Trek-esque TV show, who get mistaken by aliens as real space-travelling heroes and get caught up in an intergalactic plot to save the universe. Without putting fine a point on it, it is hilarious and you need to watch it immediately. Clip via LongShot There had been talk for a few years about a sequel, or even a TV series spin-off, but following the death of Alan Rickman, everyone agreed it didn't feel quite right to return to it without him. On the plus side, it looks like we might be getting the next best thing.

First image from The Orville! pic.twitter.com/lo4gYPUUl9

— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) May 15, 2017

Seth MacFarlane has a bit of a hit (Family Guy, American Dad, Ted) and miss (A Million Ways To Die In The West, Ted 2, every time he tries to bring big band music back) reputation, but if he can pull this off, he could be on to something truly special. The synopsis of The Orville (we're guessing that's the name of the ship?) is simple enough, "Following the crew of the not-so-functional exploratory ship in the Earth's interstellar fleet, 300 years in the future", and while his co-stars are far from household names, he does have the likes of Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Jungle Book) and Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation!) in the captain's director's chair for some of the episodes. There is no set release date The Orville yet, beyond it being screened on Fox in the U.S. "this Fall". We'll be keeping a close eye on this one!