I asked this question sometime ago on The Orville's subreddit, and surprisingly got mixed responses. I assume most here however, are going to prefer Star Trek, specifically TNG that its aping from. For the record I do prefer TNG as well, but rewatching The Orville, after you get past its kinda sucky first season, I really enjoyed the show and feel it's a very good successor to TNG just with added humor and levity which I think is a good thing. And there are elements I find better in The Orville. And now that Lower Decks is back (a show I'm now a fan of after dismissing it for so long), I felt the need to return to The Orville and see if I still liked it. I'm really hoping it at least gets a fourth season. Anyway, what do you guys think?
The Orville overall is right up there with the top tier Trek shows.
The Orville is a deeply sincere homage made by someone who clearly both loves and understands Star Trek. It is, in many ways, more true to form than some of the recent Trek shows and movies, and it deserves to be considered an honorary part of the franchise. I hope we see more of it.
Couldn't have said it better myself. By the third season, I was like "yes this is honorary Star Trek"
I like the Orville more than any current running Star Trek show (and that's not me saying I hate all modern Trek, I definitely like some of it), but I'd take 90s Trek over Orville, so it's a bit of a toss up.
I would love another season of Orville.
Yeah I like The Orville a lot more than even SNW, as much as that's heretical to say
The other way I look at it: TNG was following the premiere ship in the galaxy, with plenty of places to explore, so it was always encountering "new frontiers".
The Orville on the other hand was more a premise of "what happens when space travel is commoditized and you have more than enough ships and now need competent bodies to staff it?" For that it feels more "real" that you're getting people who do it as a job, not a calling, which explains the random humor and diversions and a look at new discoveries through fresh eyes rather than "wow, more new as this is normal for us".
Ironically though because of its higher budget, The Orville ran into more alien "strange new worlds" and species than TNG did.
I'd say TNG mostly stopped exploring new frontiers halfway through season 1. Farpoint promised exploration, but soon the ship is ferrying diplomats and scientists and answering Federation distress calls. The worlds are new to the audience, but not the characters.
The Orville's first season was a bit of a mess. It tried to be a comedy, but it also had some very serious moments. The second season was much better, as it focused more on the serious stories. However, the show still needs to improve its dialogue. Which I really like in Star Trek.
The first season being a bit of a mess is classic Trek behavior to be fair. I think the comedy angle was mostly a way to trick Fox into running it.
For sure it was just to get it greenlit. After the Identity two parter proved it did well with drama, they shifted
As early as episode 3 they were trying to do serious storylines, and as early as episode 4 they were succeeding. I think it was always intended to be real Trek with the serial numbers filed off but sold to Fox and consequently advertised as a parody.
I think they really found the right balance by the Identity two parter
One thing I really like about the depiction of the Kaylon is that, as far as I remember, nobody ever suggests that they were wrong to kill their builders, only to generalize their hatred of those builders to all organics.
They said it would disqualify them from Union membership in Identity part 1
I debated with myself if I preferred the Star Trek humans vs The Orville humans, and in the end I do prefer the more serious dialogue of Star Trek
I like the Orville.
But Star Trek speaks to me. https://youtu.be/mMqGlSjAbwA?t=52
Wow. I swear I've seen every episode of TNG but this one I do not remember. I feel like I'm just repeating you, but it speaks to me as well. I wish I would have seen it earlier in life. It says how I feel better than I ever could.
Not Trek, but here's another 90's gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCRgnMt7MiM
I fell away from watching Star Trek many MANY years ago, and am overwhelmed by all the Star Treks to the point that after watching the series with Scott Baccula I checked out.
The Orville, having way less ... history... was much easier for me to get in to. Also, I was expecting it to be hot garbage and wound up really REALLY liking it.
Everybody deserves a papa Bortus.
Really enjoyed it after the first season and also hope it finds a way to a fourth season.
IMO, it "counts" as Trek, so strong is its respect and homage to the essence of Trek. As Trek-Sci-Fi it also did some things well and made its own contributions to the "Trek forum of ideas". It tackled the "prime directive", progressive issues around gender, went all the way with robot-organic romance, did a very Trek style take on AI war and I rather liked its take on a hyper technologically advanced species (the one that runs through time faster than our universe).
Somewhat more uncomfortably, it stood as an affirmation of what those of us who have struggled with Kurtzman era Trek were actually looking for and remembering as the Trek we loved, and a reminder that that style of TV can still work well.
EDIT: grammar
IMO, it “counts” as Trek, so strong is its respect and homage to the essence of Trek. As Trek Sci-Fi it also did some things well and made its own contributions to the “Trek forum of ideas”. It tackled the “prime directive”, progressive issues around gender, went all the way with robot-organic romance, did a very Trek style take on AI war and I rather liked its take on a hyper technologically advanced species (the one that runs through time faster than our universe).
Very well said. There are elements of the Trek universe that The Orville IMO does better. The Prime Directive is one of them. And the show is much more bold on gender and queer rights issues, which Trek often ignored or at best just said "heres a LGBTQ character!" It almost feels like a distilled version of Star Trek.
Somewhat more uncomfortably, it stood as an affirmation of what those of us who have struggled with Kurtzman era Trek what we were actually looking for and remembering as the Trek we loved, and a reminder that style of TV can still work well.
Yeah I didn't like Discovery at all and was disappointed in Picard, so The Orville filled that hole. Now that SNW and Lower Decks are out and are much better shows than DSC and PIC IMO, less so but I do still prefer The Orville even to them.
Yeah I didn’t like Discovery at all and was disappointed in Picard, so The Orville filled that hole. Now that SNW and Lower Decks are out and are much better shows than DSC and PIC IMO, less so but I do still prefer The Orville even to them.
Yea, in a way, that's The Orville's ultimate legacy ... while Trek is being rebooted and prequeled and sequeled in the new-Trek era, The Orville is sitting there saying, hey, there's still plenty of work to do in Trek's original and essential "utopic adventure sci-fi morality play" space ... it's not as though we live in a utopia already, so how about we just keep on going with the original mission and not worry too much about milking the past and nostalgia for as much money as we can, TNG sure as hell didn't do that.
And in the end, as I think about it now, The Orville is right, and probably stands as the best critique of new-Trek that we ever could have hoped for and which we most certainly do not deserve ... just optimistic and progressive Trek ... no critique necessary.
Damn, very well said. The rejection of a utopian setting in NuTrek, even in shows like SNW which pays lip service to it, is a major turn off for me because Trek was always good as utopian sci fi. And yeah DS9 challenged it, but it didn't outright reject it either. The new shows totally dismiss it, whereas here's The Orville dialing it up to 11.
And yeah DS9 challenged it
I always thought DS9 simply asked what happens at the fringes. Is Kira the terrorist justified? What else are you supposed to do with Cardassians and shapeshifters? Can one “live with it”?
Well it also tested the Federation by putting it on the breaking point with a galactic war. Which I approve of and think was very interesting, but it wasn't saying things like replicators are made from recycled shit or that poverty still exists on Earth like NuTrek did.
It's nice that "new" Trek wants to portray things like equality for LGBT people as a given; hopefully we can reach that one day. And I think it's good that LGBT people can "see themselves" on the screen without having their queerness be the focus of the drama. People just want to live their lives, and they want to see other queer people just living their lives.
On the other hand, showing the struggle and making it the focus of the drama, as Orville does, is the thing that helps people understand and confront the issues themselves. The whole story around Topa is very strong. Societal misogyny. Klyden's entire journey (his own sex reassignment, hiding it from Bortus, their separation, his rejection of Topa when she transitioned back, the family's eventual reunion). Bortus' struggle to make the right choice as a loving husband and father. Bortus having the choice taken away from him. Topa lacking female role models.
These kinds of things are still very real issues that a lot of people don't think about unless presented to them on this way. These kinds of stories help people imagine how they might need to support their own children, families, and friends.
It's not really possible to compare Star Trek vs Orville because Trek is an entire franchise (even now there are 4.5 shows) and Orville is just one. But if I had to say of the current shows, which one does society need the most for social progress, I'd actually say Orville.
which one does society need the most for social progress, I’d actually say Orville.
Yep, exactly! And this is why I think it's rather justified to be hard on new-Trek. At some point, it isn't doing the "true" legacy and potential of the franchise justice.
Like, is young Kirk and Scotty really "good Trek", and so on.
I really enjoy The Orville, I like Star Trek.
I dunno if its the levity in The Orville but it just feels wholesome. The right balance between science, space and entertainment.
Both are my ideas of utopia. I think thats what draws me into each series separately
The Orville does the utopia a bit better. For example no prisons in the future and the post scarcity, socialist no money utopia is ironically taken more seriously in The Orville than in Star Trek where it almost seemed embarrassed by it at times.
I was really disappointed with the most recent series of Orville. I feel they moved from social commentary to being preachy and smug.
The biggest example of this is the time travel episode in season 3. You have someone who has established a life and has kids and real character growth, who wants to be able to live the life they established after being abandoned for 20 years. On the other hand you have Seth McFarland saying that it's bad. There isn't any real discussion of what right is, it's just McFarland saying that he's right and then circumventing any resistance. It ends with McFarland being smug he did the right thing and having no self reflection on the damage he did.
To be clear, I'm all about social commentary in my sci-fi but I feel like anything interesting is diluted to make it a closer parallel to earth. The Moclans went from a unique all male species, to having a rare minority that allowed for discussion of trans rights, to in season 3 being 50-50 split and a tired gender war trope.
I think the Orville has gotten lazy and moved further and further away from having interesting plots to talk about big ideas and moved more towards character driven drama and lazy hamfisted commentary.
I liked that time travel episode and its moral dilemma, even if basically aborting the children seems morally dubious. Why didn't they offer to just take his family with him into the future? Other than that, I felt it was brilliant. Also I like "preachyness" if what's being preached is the right message, and they mostly preached the right message IMO in The Orville.
I agree with their politics, I just feel that plot took a hit to allow them to soapbox more. Aliens lost what made them alien and became humans with make up.
My issue isn't the message, to me it felt like the lecturing of DISCO with fart jokes.
Malloy is a stalker and a rapist in that timeline, it's good that Mercer went back and prevented it.
