58 | Seth MacFarlane on Using Science Fiction to Explore Humanity

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

Sean Carroll | Wondery

Society & Culture, Physics, Philosophy, Science, Ideas, Society

4.8 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2019

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fiction shines a light on the human condition by putting people into imaginary situations and envisioning what might happen. Science fiction expands this technique by considering situations in the future, with advanced technology, or with utterly different social contexts. Seth MacFarlane’s show The Orville is good old-fashioned space opera, but it’s also a laboratory for exploring the intricacies of human behavior. There are interpersonal conflicts, sexual politics, alien perspectives, and grappling with the implications of technology. I talk with Seth about all these issues, and maybe a little bit about whether it’s a good idea to block people on Twitter.

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Seth MacFarlane is a screenwriter, director, actor, producer, and singer. He is the creator of the animated TV shows Family Guy, American Dad!, and The Cleveland Show. He wrote, directed, and starred in the films Ted, Ted 2, and A Million Ways to Die in the West. He created and stars in the live-action episodic TV show The Orville (which will be moving from Fox to Hulu for its third season). He has recorded several albums as a jazz singer, and was the host of the Academy Awards in 2013. He is an executive producer for the reboot of Cosmos. His honors include several Primetime Emmy Awards, an Annie Award, a Webby Award, a Saturn Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone and welcome to the Mindscape Podcast.
0:02.9	I'm your host, Sean Carroll.
0:05.0	And people who like science, it's very natural, often also enjoy science fiction.
0:09.3	We like to think that science fiction is the literature of ideas, right?
0:14.0	That science fiction takes us places, puts human beings in situations where ordinary
0:19.3	fiction, which is constrained by reality, might not let us go.
0:23.5	So there's opportunities within science fiction to ask questions and to examine existing
0:28.2	questions in ways that would otherwise not be possible.
0:31.8	So today we have an interesting angle in the science fiction universe.
0:35.4	We're talking to Seth McFarlane, the actor, director, writer who is famous for, of course,
0:41.1	things like family guy, the animated show, movies like Ted and once upon a time in the
0:46.1	West.
0:47.1	And Seth also has albums.
0:48.1	He's a singer and a ranger of music.
0:51.5	But the project that he's working on that I'm most interested for this conversation is
0:54.8	the Orville.
0:56.3	As you might know, science fiction TV show that appears on Fox had just completed its
1:00.4	second season, third season will be upcoming.
1:03.2	And it's basically Star Trek with some comedic touches.
1:06.6	I think in the early days people were a little confused about what the Orville was supposed
1:10.5	to be.
1:11.5	It had dramatic elements and comedic elements and it took about half a season, I would say,
	...

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