Your thoughts on The Orville?

When I first started this show I found it to be a really awkward mix of comedy and seriousness. It had some jokes thrown it at the most inopportune times as some kind of comic relief from a really serious situation. Perhaps the first half of the first season was actually a bit rough or maybe the show just grew on me, but by season 2 I found myself loving this show.

To me it seems as every bit as comfy, intellectually interesting and even funny as some classic Star Treks while still clearly being its own thing. I wish more comfy space shows like this would get made.

What are your thoughts on The Orville? Also I miss Alara.

Apollo_Katelo,

It was the best trek on TV since Star Trek Enterprise.

But I now also love Star Trek Strange New Worlds.

angrystego,

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really loved the first season. To me it felt like the good old optimistic utopia Trek but with real people. I tought the episodes had nice and creative topics, including the zoo critique, multigenerational space travel, upvote/downvote society, time-irregularity planet - it was mostly decent sci-fi with some well thought out and fun relationships (Cupid’s danger) some outstanding social commentary (About a girl) and a rather weak time-travel episode, which is always a bummer, but never mind.

Then, by season 2, the characters started to transform into plastic figurines with soap opera dialogue and arches (which is a symptom many Trek shows suffer from, to be fair). For example the whole “Oh, captain and first commander cannot date, because the captain couldn’t be objective then” (never mind him having feelings anyway). It felt to me like some of them’d been shoven a ruler up their asses. We get some average and some cringe ill-thought out episodes (like the porn-addiction one - the topic could have been a treasure trove if treated properly). It’s old-school Trek with all the bad things along the good ones.

Season 3 involves much more action and shooting and it doesn’t add any value to the stories. The good arch involves Topa and the Moclan society. The Kaylons (including Isaac) are overall a disappointment. They are supposed to be extremely intelligent but they are not written to really seem that way. They appeared to me to be very stupid and slow-learning. The main characters lost all appeal to me, because they often act in a cold and hostile fashion (like being jerks to time-traveling Gordon instead just leaving him with his familly and picking him up earlier without making the whole ugly drama).

I miss Alara too.

SeahorseTreble,

This show is very profound to me. It explores important issues, timeless and topical moral questions, and social/political dilemmas with such depth and thoughtful consideration. I really hope it gets a fourth season

august_senpai,

Hated the pilot because of the cheating + having to work with the person who cheated. Dropped it there.

chronicledmonocle,

Excellent show. It took a little bit to get it’s tone, but half way through the first season it really hit its stride.

The third season of the show is some of the best sci-fi ever made with political and social commentary that rivals things like ST:TNG’s “Measure of a Man” and ST:DS9’s “Siege of AR-558”, but with a good mix of humor similar to ST:LD.

If you haven’t watched Orville, you’re missing out on some absolutely fantastic Sci-Fi. I’m only sad it’s unlikely to get a fourth season, because it deserves it.

cloudy1999, (edited )

As a long time Star Trek fan, I love this show. It really is better than a lot of modern Trek. Reading all these comments makes me want to engage in the watching event.

Edit: spelling

flumph,
@flumph@programming.dev avatar

If you haven’t checked it out yet, Strange New Worlds is definitely the best of modern Trek. This season especially has really reminded me of TNG.

cloudy1999,

Yeah, SNW is very good. I’ve not started the current season, but plan to soon :-)

ANALHACKER_3000,

It’s better Trek than most Trek, IMO. Had some cool adventures and raised some interesting on sometimes difficult questions about morality and how it’s shaped by our societies.

ComputerSagtNein,
@ComputerSagtNein@lemm.ee avatar

I hate the design of the ship, the shuttles in season 3 at least look cool. Other than that, it was great show until season 3 when I felt they took too much time for EEEEEEEVERYTHING. This is literally the first show ever where I started skipping through episodes.

What is it these days that series and movies maker seem to think quantity equals quality?

chronicledmonocle,

Can’t agree with you there. Season 3 was when Orville was at its best IMHO.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
@Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social avatar

I imagine they had to use that design as Star Trek probably wouldn't let them use nacelles in any configuration.

I rather like the design because it looks a lot like magnetic field lines, and if it's generating some kind of field it would probably have a similar geometry

ComputerSagtNein,
@ComputerSagtNein@lemm.ee avatar

Knowing Seth McFarlanes history, I always suspect a dirty joke behind everything he does, so I always feel like the ship design is also a dirty joke that I just haven’t figured out jetzt.

Jimmycakes,

It’s good

leftabitcharlie,

I like it, enjoy it for the most part and am glad it exists. But the politics comes off a bit weak and tips sometimes too far towards the self-congratulatory ethno-centrism of bad early 20th century anthropology.

RealPuyo,

Who’s Orvile?

nnjethro,

One of the Write brothers

M4775,
@M4775@lemmy.world avatar

The Orville is my favorite Star Trek franchise. It’s canon - you can’t deny it. The Orville revived the Star Trek Franchise and gave it a pulse. It’s like blockchain. You can say it doesn’t belong, but it will always be there and nothing can change that. It has great attention to detail and decent story writing with that original “there’s a moral in this episode” that endeared ST in our hearts, something the newer ST franchises lack.

grahamja,

And Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie since the Undiscovered Country.

M4775,
@M4775@lemmy.world avatar

I’m not sure how to answer without getting roasted, but including GQ in canon does complete the Star Trek good-then-bad movie pattern.

KIM_JONG_JUICEBOX,
@KIM_JONG_JUICEBOX@lemmy.ml avatar

I wished I could have gotten past the awkward comedy you mention. Couldn’t get into it because of that.

funchords,
@funchords@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Later seasons of it are better. Less humor for comedy’s sake, but still with some native humor and warmth. Much better than the first episodes.

Macros,

I fully understand that, I was at times to much for me too. But some episodes of season one showed its potential and the awkward comedy declined episodes by episode. So I kept watching. Season 2 was great and humor was handled better and did not overstay it welcome. Season 3 is just great Sci-fy. (So far, I am just in the middle of it).

rob_t_firefly,
@rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world avatar

It always felt so forced and artificial to me, like they were looking at a stopwatch with a bunch of entertainment lawyers going “okay, better do a dick joke now so we can still claim ‘Trek parody’ instead of getting sued for blatantly doing bootleg Trek.”

I like a lot of fanfic but Seth MacFarlane’s just failed to grab me, and given how much I adore “Lower Decks” I’m glad the official comedy Trek job was given to those folks and not the “Family Guy” contingent.

mayo,
@mayo@lemmy.world avatar

I might give the first few episodes a try and then go ahead and skip season 1 if I’m not liking it. I’ve done that before and then by the time I finish the series I “want more” so I go back and rewatch the seasons I didn’t like as much and end up being grateful they exist.

Comfortably_Wet,
@Comfortably_Wet@lemmy.world avatar

I expected the Orville to be a funny homage to Star Trek. For a short time it was just that. Actually a randy one with too much toilet humor. But then suddenly they became serious SciFi. Which I consider a bold move and mostly but not utterly a successful one. And in hindsight, it would have been hard to deliver good SciFi-Humor for more than one Season except if they went the Futurama-Path.

The part of the funny homage to Star Trek nowadays has been taken by Lower Decks. Humorwise it beats everything Orville had ever offered.

Orville is good. Not great but worth watching. They had some AMAZING episodes with depth and ideas among the best ST-Episodes. But they also had a lot of mediocre episodes. Still Better than ST-Discovery for sure. Even surpassing ST-Picard. Which is something Seth can be proud of.

Orville started when there was no Startrek and no serious Soap-SiFi at all (The Expanse is something different).

For me it is “Startrek when Startrek wasn’t” and basically revived the Franchise it wanted to make fun of.

I like it.

Jagermo,

The one with the porn virus on their holodeck was fantastic. But yeah, you sum it up very nice.

Comfortably_Wet,
@Comfortably_Wet@lemmy.world avatar

You mean the scene were every hologram on the holo deck was a nude Bortos? I rolled on the floor laughing!

Jagermo,

It was sooooo good

bastion,

Excellent review

AA5B,

That actually sounds appealing when you describe it like that. I tried to watch it when it came out but it never delivered on the “funny”. It was just Star Trek but a little off.

Maybe I’ll try again or at least get past the first few episodes

solstice,

I literally shed tears while watching the first episode because I didn’t realize how badly I needed new star trek that doesn’t suck. I just hit me right where I needed it to scratch that itch, and I was so overwhelmed. Also it made me hate even more what “real” trek has become. Huge fan, I didn’t realize season 3 is already on, gotta check it out.

randon31415,

I liked that they weren’t the most important ship… and then they became the most important ship. Near the end the fate of every species in the galaxy hinged on the love life of three couples on a minor starship.

It also felt like they had 2 or 3 seasons of stories and hulu said “you get one”, so they rushed it.

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