Season 1 is supposed to come out on DVD Dec 11, and Season 2 begins airing Dec 30. Easily the best new Trek out there.

I have bought my episodes via iTunes and am yet to complete the season by nine episodes for $14.01.

I've been wondering if that's any good... and what it's about. Also curious about The Expanse.

Sadly, no network TV access here. I dunno where else to find them.

It's really supposed to be a parody of star trek. The really cool part of the series is that the producer Brannon Braga, is a longtime star trek veteran who has started from the Next Generation and voyager era to working on the star trek movies like First Contact unlike JJ Abrams.

I'd describe Orville as Star Trek TOS if it was made today. Some call it a parody but it's more like a homage. They also have a fair amount of Star Trek Alumni working on it, giving it a classic feel, but not having the weight of decades of backstory weighing it down.

I think at some point later fans may come up with their own theory on the prelude to the Oriville and when did they create the quantum Drive.

I think the Quantum drive is supposed to be a variation of the albecurrie drive. If you look at an image of how one would warp space it looks almost identical to the quantum drive rings of the Orville, which suggests to me that it's a refined version of it. As for the history of the Orville-verse, I think they're keeping it vague, just in case it's around a long time, to avoid the issue Star Trek has with passing through it's own fictional history, such as the Eugenics Wars and sleeper ships of the late 90's that have yet to show up.

Seems fair, though sooner or later a group of fans may form and people will come up with their own idea how it started but that's all too soon anyway. :-P