The Homemade Star Trek Episode That Launched Seth MacFarlane’s TV Career
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
Seth MacFarlane’s “The Orville” featured the archetypal characters found in any post- "Star Trek" sci-fi show, and he borrowed many of the iconic series' stories and notions.
"Star Trek: DS9" actor Penny Johnson Jerald was a regular, and many episodes were directed by "Trek" veterans Jonathan Frakes, Brannon Braga, and Robert Duncan McNeill.
MacFarlane's "Family Guy" and "American Dad!" have many "Trek" references, and he even appeared in a "Star Trek: Enterprise" episode. As it turns out, he's always been a Trekkie.
While on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," MacFarlane was playfully confronted by Fallon with a clip from a "Star Trek" fan film he had appeared in when he was 16 or 17.
The late 1980s film uses Gustav Holst's "Mars, Bringer of War" score. It features MacFarlane as Captain Kirk barking orders to an off-screen Scotty about needing more power.
Spock is played by John Parley, who did not go on to a career in television, and the actor who plays Uhura was only identified by MacFarlane as "Anouk."
The film follows the U.S.S. Enterprise through a space portal that deposits them "outside the space-time continuum.” It offers some rudimentary yet suave blue-screen compositing.
After watching the clip, MacFarlane congratulated Anouk and John for appearing on "The Tonight Show" and said his only thoughts concerned his wig and the fact that he was so young.
"First of all, I don't know how they constructed whatever was on my head. But, yeah, what comes to mind is, like, I wish I had had the future knowledge of aging," MacFarlane noted.