Cast of the Orville (John Lamarr/Dr Claire Finn), I will admit though they could've been played by anyone and due to the writing were good anyway.
@Hannibalistique - To expand on this, the entire cast of The Orville is pretty well written, I think the only one which falls mildly flat is the lesbian they pull out at a certain point but I think this is entirely intentional. I will say I'll be making comparisons with Star Trek characters because.. Yeah Seth literally wrote the Orville as a Star Trek clone so the inspirations are glaringly obvious, the difference really is that they're inspired by, rather than carbon copy race swaps or w/e.
The characters I immediately mentioned are both black, John is the pilot who's a womanizer and quite stereotypically "Black" with his way of talking and mannerisms, if I had to make a comparison he's like a black Tom Paris with a mix of Geordie La Forge (Star Trek both) with more "slow burn" character writing. Dr Claire is a single mom of two boys who has the obvious struggles that entails, she's decently smart but not anymore than any other "Doctor in a sci-fi show" I've ever seen, she's very typical of characters like Polanski or Beverly Crusher, the thing I found interesting was them exploring a story line later on where she does so much projecting that she kind of fucks her kids up and herself in the process, it works out for her
eventually but it really humanised her and seemed to be highlighting the whole "AI girlfriend" bit that we see now without being super direct and obvious.
But the show has a real mix of diverse, even "DEI" type characters, the main Moclan storyline (Tl;Dr - Big bulky gay aliens with only men on planet) has so many potential opportunities to get retarded but they make a point of keeping it close to how Star Trek was with such things. The main antagonist aliens for a long time are super zealot, almost cult-like xenophobes but the show is good about not making it a "HUR, RELIGION BAD" moment, the main driving force behind a lot of the interactions are very personal and don't involve the religious overtones the aliens have as much as you'd imagine it might in modern writing.
It's why I malded so hard after watching the show because I was pissed that Seth McFarlene, a guy who's writing prowess was shitty cutaway gags and dated humor, put out a show which was not only funny, but actually a great Star Trek show, I know it's
adjacent but fuck man. I'd take 1 season of the Orville being Star Trek over every fucking NuTrek that has been put out.