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?
“Aping” is kind of a pejorative way to describe what The Orville does. If they were “aping” TNG, they’d be imitating it in a very derivative manner. It’s more of an homage to TNG, but in a comedy format with original ideas and character dynamics.
The Orville’s first season is no worse than TNGs. There were some truly awful first season episodes of TNG. Code of Honor is a good example of an awful episode.
I don’t think better or worse comparisons are very meaningful. They’re both good shows. TNG has many of my favorite Trek stories and characters. I think it says a lot that it inspired so much of what The Orville does.
I mostly agree but the show did occasionally directly steal from TNG and other Treks. Then again it also did story ideas from TNG better as well, such as the episode Deflectors.
They’re both great and serve different purposes. The Orville is a more light hearted tribute to 90s TV sci-fi, albeit one that’s become more serious and built up it’s own universe and tone as it’s three series went on. Trek, as it exists today, is taking various Trek tropes and styles and trying to update them to modern times, be that via deconstruction in Lower Decks, nostalgic big-budget adventures in Picard, or introducing more modern character development and serialisation in Dis and SNW. Some times it succeeds, sometimes is doesn’t.
I think that they both good in their own ways.
The Orville has nicer ships, for example. Besides the middle segment of the quantum drive giving me a twitch for being misaligned compared to the other engines, it’s cool and sleek in a way Federation ships aren’t.
In terms of progressiveness, I’d say The Orville does better. Personally, I blame the Star Trek brand being as big as it is for that.
It’s big enough that the networks would never allow any new show to push boundaries the same way that the original series did. The Orville isn’t established enough as a brand for them to have that problem just yet.
But in terms of tonal consistency, I prefer Trek for that. The Orville has a habit of suddenly having a joke in there that gives you a bit of a weird tonal whiplash. Trek also does that, but it’s much fewer and far between. They could be having a serious plot, which will be briefly derailed by the Captain/XO bringing up that they’re divorced, and arguing/joking about that for a time.
In terms of character design, though, The Orville does a bit better with variety, and feels a bit more diverse than Trek’s mostly-human Starfleet crews. Although most of theirs could pass for humanoid, it’s still a nice touch that makes the world feel more expansive. It was an inspired choice to make the head of one of the main crew a weapon.
But other than that, the world building does feel a little weaker than it is in Trek. Unfortunately, not surprising, since The Orville, whilst inspired by Trek, lacks the corresponding history, and I don’t think Seth McFarlane is the best world builder. A few of the details and various aliens seem to only pop up when they are plot-relevant, for example, and are mostly absent otherwise.
I agree with everything you just said
Imo, TNG is in a league of it’s own considering when it was released, what it achieved in terms of production value, writing, the themes it explored etc.
The Orville is really really good, and I love it, but it has a ways to go before it can stack up against TNG and its long list of accomplishments. That said, give me either anytime and I’ll happily watch them.
Yeah in the end I agree TNG is better. It was more original, had better writing and better acting. But I do think if the Orville gets a few more seasons, it can possibly be as good.
Agreed. I really really hope they don’t get cancelled or something. Last I heard that Disney picked it up, so hoping it survives the Iger shake up.
I sure hope so
I enjoy the Orville quite a bit, but think they focus too much in Isaac. Bordus was featured heavily as well, but to a lesser extend. I would like to see them shift their focus.
I watched TNG pretty recently for the first time and enjoyed, but didn’t love it. It aged pretty well, but still aged.
I admittedly worship TNG, but yes it def. has issues that haven’t aged as well. Like representation issues.
I watched TNG with my daughter. Every time there was a trans episode we felt a little cringe. Expecting a show from the early 90s to have horrible takes, but every time, they did well. Our cringe was misplaced
I only remember one episode dealing directly with trans issues in TNG, which was The Outcast. Which isn’t that great of an episode for a variety nof reasons.
The TNG episode with the androgynous aliens was supposed to be a homosexuality allegory by the writer. They actually wanted to cast guys as the aliens, but the producers were afraid to have Ryker kiss a guy. It wasn’t supposed to be about transsexuality, and yet the author, without being in the LGBT scene or knowing what they did, probably wrote some of the best trans TV media of that time I’m still positively surprised by TNG every time I rewatch it, knowing it’s from the end of the 70ies to the 90ies. Heck was it progressive.
Huh i didnt know that. I should rewatch the episode tonight
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’d say Star Trek is generally better but mostly due to the old shows. When it comes to the newer shows, The Orville is much better Star Trek then most of the shows that are legally allowed to use the name.
Agreed. TNG and DS9 are still the better shows, but I’d rank The Orville even above TOS and VOY and ENT.
Not to mention, DIS. But that said, SNW and LD are great, and I’d still rank them above Orville.
Id rank Orville above all those too I admit
I like the Orville.
But Star Trek speaks to me. https://youtu.be/mMqGlSjAbwA?t=52
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Not Trek, but here’s another 90’s gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCRgnMt7MiM
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.
That time travel episode was great, it explored the concept of the “temporal prime directive” and how hard it must be to adhere to it better than any Trek show ever has.
I don’t think they said the Moclans are 50/50 did they? Just that more women are born than the government would like to admit. Which is still a fairly good trans analogy when you consider how many trans people in the past probably never lived their truth as either the science to transition Wasn’t there, or they didn’t think society would accept it.
My wife got pissed at Mercer’s decision in the time travel episode, too. I just thought that he simply should have told him he’s glad he’s happy in that time and left, then changed the timeline like he did. Super dick move to tell him he was going to wipe their timeline and leave them in fear like that. I was also very surprised that he not only told Grimes afterward, but that Grimes was okay with it.
When Gordon first arrived in the past, he admitted he tried to adhere to the “temporal prime directive” for a time but found it impossible. The Gordon back in the future still believes in the reasons for this directive as he’s never spent years trying to live as a hermit and realising the directive isn’t compatible with human nature. Of course he accepted it as from his eyes the Gordon in the past betrayed his belief in the systems he signed up to protect.
Malloy is a stalker and a rapist in that timeline, it’s good that Mercer went back and prevented it.
Rapist is a bit far, but I agree the morals would be different if he had met a random woman rather than one he lucked into knowing everything about in the future.
At the same time, I think they tried to pick a plot point that was relevant today, while at the same time conveniently setting up a new bad guy since the Kaylon were “removed” as a threat. I also don’t see it as the most implausible situation, since both Orville (and star trek) can basically change your gender at will, it’s not the most absurd situation that a culture is so macho that they have been genetically altering all children at birth to make it 100% male
I feel the same about the last season. It seems to me they don’t make enough effort to think their ideas properly through anymore and just preach without applying logic, which is not satisfying to me. For those reasons I now prefer the Lower Decks. LD episodes seem much more creative to me and I like the diversity of character interactions and relationships.
They’re both great!
I personally like Star Trek better because it’s the OG and has better world building.
I must be a weirdo because I actually preferred the Orville more in the first season when the focus was a bit more on the comedy, as that brought something new and hilarious to the table. In the later seasons, they shifted to what feels extremely similar to TNG, which made it less interesting for me, although I do still enjoy the story. The similarity isn’t just in the style or themes of the show, either… I remember seeing multiple episodes of the Orville with plot lines that directly correlated to specific TNG episodes.
The most important thing, though, is that we get more Sci-Fi on TV. The more the merrier!
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 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.
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 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.
Just giving my opinion, but I did not care for the Orville. I’m a big fan of wonderment and adventure in Star Trek, with a healthy dose of exploration and philosophical consideration. In my experience, Orville spent all of its time on trying to be Star Trek: The Snark Generation and trying to make Seth MacFarlane look like a cool space captain. I think around the third or fourth time MacFarlane had said something incredibly offensive to the person he was meant to be diplomatically engaging with, but since he said it in his quick Family Guy aside voice it was apparently okay, that I got pretty tired of the show. It was way too much of a badly written ego trip for MacFarlane and not nearly enough science fiction fun. I was left feeling like the Orville was what would happen if Brian from Family Guy tried to write Star Trek, that it was more of mockery of science fiction than a positive addition, and I never went back.
In my further opinion, Lower Decks, meanwhile, is knocking it out of the park. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Strange Worlds as well, though I haven’t had opportunity to check it out yet.
EDIT: Yeah, I figured this would happen. Hooray the internet.
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The Orville overall is right up there with the top tier Trek shows.
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.
