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Seth MacFarlane says Hollywood is focusing too much on making "cautionary tales" and "pessimistic" stories instead of offering audiences some much-needed hope.
During a recent conversation with Cheers icon Ted Danson on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, the Family Guy creator talked about his desire to send optimistic messages through his work. "That's why I did The Orville," he explained.
"When I was a kid, Hollywood was providing that voice in various forms. There was a lot of hope, and some of the blame lies right here in this town. The dishes that we are serving up are so dystopian and so pessimistic. And yeah, there's a lot to be pessimistic about, but it's so one-sided. There's nothing we're doing that’s providing anyone an image of hope," he continued.
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MacFarlane said he loves shows like The Handmaid's Tale and The Sopranos, but he thinks "there's a lot more of that than there is what we used to get from Captain Picard." Star Trek was one of the main influences on MacFarlane in creating his Trek-inspired Fox/Hulu show, which released a season 3 back in 2022.
"They're certainly giving us a lot of cautionary tales, but where are the blueprints that they once gave us for how to do things correctly? It can't all be just, 'Here's what's going to happen to you if you f*** up.' You do need, 'Here's what you can achieve if you change your ways and do things right,'" he added.
Using Tony Soprano as an example, MacFarlane said there is a certain obsession with the "antihero", which is "all about the complicated, fucked-up, drug-addled person". He also said The White Lotus is "brilliant", but out of the main characters, "no one is someone you'd wanna be."
"That's the only thing really that Hollywood can do that's worthwhile because as we all learned from this election, nobody gives a f*** what celebrities think. We can tweet, we can talk. Like, people don't care. They don't care. What we do do well is tell stories. And we're not doing the best job right now of telling those stories in a way that gives people hope," he argued.
MacFarlane also revealed there are plans for a season 4 of The Orville, but nothing is official yet.
In the meantime, check out our guide on the best new shows this year, and all upcoming movies in 2025 and beyond.
Mireia is a UK-based culture journalist and critic. She previously worked as Deputy Movies Editor at Digital Spy, and her work as a freelance writer has appeared in WeLoveCinema and Spanish magazines Fotogramas, Esquire, and Elle. She is also a published author, having written a book about Studio Ghibli's 'Kiki's Delivery Service' in 2023. Talking about anime and musicals is the best way to grab her attention.
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