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’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.
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
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 kind of feel like that’s how Seth had to get it past Fox and onto TV to begin with. He’s not known for making sci-fi, he’s known for making comedies.