Move over 'Star Trek': there's a new show at the final frontier

Los Angeles : As the world clamors for the first "Star Trek" series in a more than decade, a streamlined usurper with no interest in Klingons is entering the space race.

Sci-fi parody "The Orville," from Emmy award-winning Seth MacFarlane, debuts two weeks before "Star Trek Discovery" and critics have been remarking on the striking similarities.

Squint and you might think "The Orville," which debuts on Fox on September 10, was a re-run of "The Next Generation," save for the blue uniforms.

When it was presented at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, journalists wondered aloud if Fox was worried about being sued. 

"Seth's intention is to do something that clearly pays homage to 'Star Trek,' that clearly was inspired a lot by Star Trek," Fox Television Group chairman and CEO Dana Walden said.

"He (also) talks about 'The Twilight Zone,' a show that examines the human condition in the future... through little morality plays."

Walden said no one associated with "Star Trek" would think of the similarities between the two shows as "anything other than a compliment."

Set 400 years in the future, MacFarlane's series follows the exploits of the U.S.S. Orville, an exploratory ship with a crew facing the wonders and dangers of space, as well as more mundane problems.

Down on his luck after a bitter divorce, Planetary Union officer Ed Mercer, played by MacFarlane, finally gets the chance to command his own ship.