The Orville is knocking it out of the Park...

[TlalocW]

2. I've noticed that the third season has gotten a bit more serious

I don't know if that was always the plan or it was part of moving it to Hulu. I'm actually rewatching the first two seasons and laughing my ass off.

"We no longer fear the banana."
"You paint some flames on the side, maybe, like, a rainbow unicorn, you got something."

Before traveling to Moclan, Bortus quotes a revered author from his planet and says it's customary to respond with another quote.
Grayson: I'm a survivor. I'm not gonna give up. Not gonna stop, gonna work harder.
Bortus: Those are words of great power. Who wrote them?
Mercer: I think it was actually about fifteen different people.
Bortus: They must be very wise, these fifteen people.

The fire suppression on the ship not working because it's the fire suppression panel that's on fire.
Humans still being humans instead of arguing morality like Picard might while being tortured, Grayson calling her torturers dicks and insulting their moms or dealing with awkward situations like apologizing to a family for stunning their father who was going to shoot them, jumping the gun when trying to communicate with a Krill ship because Mercer didn't give Alara enough time to open a channel.
An ensign reporting that he spilled soy sauce on his pants in his damage report.
Gordon reprogramming their version of the holodeck so that the holographic bad guy in the game challenges Mercer to a dance-off instead of an old west shoot-out and really getting into it.