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.

Orionza,
@Orionza@lemmy.world avatar

I have yet to see this show. Is it on Paramount+? I may have to sub for this and Picard.

JackHandy,

This is on Hulu, totally worth checking out.

NuPNuA,

It’s on Disney + as it was part of the Fox slate.

grasshopper_mouse,
@grasshopper_mouse@lemmy.world avatar

Absolutely love this show. The bf and I still yell “PREPARE FOR THE SEXUAL EVENT” at each other when the moment calls for it.

desmosthenes,
@desmosthenes@lemmy.world avatar

what modern star trek should be

NuPNuA,

Pretty much what it is now Strange New Worlds has become the flagship show.

desmosthenes,
@desmosthenes@lemmy.world avatar

ive yet to get on that bandwagon; i’ll def give it a go

TWeaK,

You should throw in a little Lower Decks, just saying.

BradleyUffner,

The pure silliness is just too much for me. I know they are trying to hide something good under there, I can see glimpses of it, but I just can’t get past the constant childish humor.

wjrii,
@wjrii@kbin.social avatar

Put me in the "like it don't love it" camp. It is very clearly Seth MacFarlane's love letter to 90s trek, pulled some good ideas from that era's writers, and has more heart than it seems in the first couple of episodes. Some of the character work is actually quite touching, and it seems like they're having fun with the show, so it's rarely a slog. Overall though, it is way too uneven to be great or even really good.

Seth is not a great actor, and several members of the cast are MUCH worse than him, like "low-end dinner theater" bad. The set design, costume, and prosthetics are pretty weak, and Seth's sense of humor just doesn't work for me, so in a context where he's trying to find the right balance with a Star Trek show, it hits even more awkwardly. It's also very specifically SETH MACFARLANE'S love letter to Star Trek, so there's way too much emphasis on 1980-2000 American pop culture, and I say that as someone who's only a few years younger than him. It's distracting how narrow the set of references are in a show that traffics in them so liberally.

There's also something just a bit off about the messaging of many of the more serious episodes, like Seth feels a need to come down on a definitive answer to the moral questions that come up. I dunno, I am having trouble recollecting specific scenes, but it's a lingering feeling I have. I almost imagine 20-something Seth in a dorm room at RISD screaming at Picard that he should have just shot that Romulan!

HandwovenConsensus,

I definitely agree about the messaging. The Orville’s idea of social commentary is: here’s some aliens that built their society around a thing we don’t like for no reason, they’re total dicks for no reason, therefore the thing is bad.

The Moclan gender issue has been praised as an allegory for trans and intersex issues. But my problem with it is it ONLY works as an allegory. Their society makes no sense at all taken at face value, and has been portrayed inconsistently depending on what point the writers want to make. Why would a naturally hermaphroditic species adopt the human concepts of “male” and “female” in the first place?

I do like the show. It’s entertaining, and a sincere attempt to recreate what worked about Star Trek in a way that Disc and Picard weren’t. But the social commentary is just not well done. The Orville writers aren’t visionaries or philosophers on the same level as the classic Trek writers.

dmrzl,

Always thought the whole parody aspect was just a means to get funding to just make a regular star trek series in disguise. If someone would just give the man money for exactly that we would have an awesome star trek series.

Lem453,

Orville season 3 has a few episodes that are easily up to par in the top 10-20 star trek episodes of all times.

BadLackey,

I’m sure this has been said in other comments but I would love to see Seth McFarlane given the Star Trek IP and free reign. I would actually pay Paramount Plus or whatever streaming service like $20 a month while this theoretical show was active. As an aside I think Garak is the best character in all of Star Trek.

batmaniam,

So I respectfully disagree with this. I love the show, and it pre-dates the startrek revival, but its very much it’s own thing. There’s clearly a lot of love there, but it’s not the same. Closest you get is lower decks, which ate a lot of Orvilles lunch but still toned down a ton of riff and grosser comedy.

It’s weird, it’s wonderful, it kept the flame burning when there wasn’t much else there yet and probably played a role in showing there was a market for a lot of the newer trek we have now.

MacFarlene loves trek. I hope he’s proud of the show, keeps some of the more serious and weird genuine sci-fi elements, but he shouldn’t do trek. Trek is fine now. Seth can do his own damn thing. He’s got the chops for it. He needs to work on making the gear shift from “real sci-fi” to “family guy in space” a little less abrupt and a bit more blended, but it’s great to have out there and I’ll never miss an episode.

BadLackey,

I don’t think Trek is fine now. I don’t think there has been a Star Trek revival. I love the Orville. I 100% believe the show is a success on its own. Unfortunately I don’t think we are going to see more Orville and I would rather see McFarlane in charge of Trek than anything SNW will put out. SNW is fine. Lower Decks is fine. Compared to Discovery and Picard they are friggin masterpieces. But judged on their own they are just fine. In my opinion. Some people love them and I don’t understand but whatever. I just want more cerebral sci-fi in any form I can get it.

Cleverdawny,

Yeah. Discovery is shit. Lower Decks is good, though.

batmaniam,

I hear you. The new trek is definitely not all amazing. There’s decent things to find in all of them but SNW is that one that gives me faith they’re back on track.

I just really hope the Orville gets to keep doing it’s thing.

Adalast,

Love the coincidence, I am actually watching “Twice in a Lifetime” right now. I love the show so much. In many ways I see it as a more realistic Star Trek. The characters are flawed, they bicker and squabble and make bad decisions so often that they can’t feel guilty for them or else it would crush them. I adore Star Trek, but the writing and characterizations in Orville are so relatable for me. The people are projections of my friends and family, for better or worse.

Also, at least the actress who played Alara got to date Seth Macfarlane.

yeather,

Great show in my opinion, liked season one and season two, while not so into season three until Charlie died. Definitely the highlight of that season.

cspiegel,

When The Orville came out, I hadn’t watched much Star Trek. Growing up, TNG was the one television show that my parents would break the “no TV at the dinner table” rule for, though it happened rarely enough that I really have no memory of it.

About 20 years ago I watched several episodes of TOS and liked it well enough.

I always wanted to like Star Trek, so ~10 years ago I tried season 1 of TNG, which I now realize is rather universally considered an error; and as a result, I didn’t much care for TNG. But I still wanted to like it, and Star Trek in general! So when I saw The Orville, I decided to give it a shot. And while I agree that the early mix of comedy with more serious material was a bit off-putting, I thoroughly enjoyed the show. This was what TNG was trying to be (I mean, that’s not really fair, but it was my initial sense).

Which then led me to season 3 of TNG, which I started watching last year. And I absolutely love it, and find it overall better than The Orville (which I still really like); but The Orville was basically my gateway to actually enjoying Star Trek.

So maybe I’m coming inside-out from most viewers, but I really like The Orville, and as a bonus, it got me “back” into Star Trek proper.

bitsplease,

Like others said, the humor started out really awkward and forced, but I feel like they hit their stride by season 2

I don’t think it’ll ever go down in the annals of the greatest scifi shows I history. But as you say, it’s a really excellent “comfy” show

phx,

The Orville is what would happen if the offspring of Star Trek and Galaxy Quest married Lexx and had a baby.

It actually has a lot of the same style social commentary that really Trek ToS and TNG had, combined with the absurdity and humor of GQ and periods of no-punches-pulled raunchy. I mean, go Yaphit and we all know kinky shit happened in holedecks too but it’s something else to see on screen.

I am very much looking forward to the next season. It’s actually one of the very few sci-fi movies I’ve gotten my wife to watch with me that she enjoyed

SpaceNoodle,

holedecks

Freudian slip, eh?

phx,

LoL. Yup, but still accurate

Riker_Maneuver,
@Riker_Maneuver@startrek.website avatar

While I don’t regret watching it—and I’d probably even throw on a new season if it gets one—I felt like it was missing any true classic episodes. I also kept having this strange sense of familiarity with episodes, as if it was just repurposing or rehashing older Star Trek plots.

I kept thinking, “Wasn’t there a TNG/DS9/Whatever episode that explored this same general concept/idea, but better?”. It felt like it was maybe borrowing just a bit too much from it’s inspiration.

yeather,

The spider episode with Alara is a classic imo.

Arn_Thor,

After the first season, which was an obligatory “Star Trek Type Show Finds Its Feet” season, it really hit its stride to become the best Star Trek since DS9. Not in name, but certainly in spirit. So earnest, with a great message throughout. Sure it had some mediocre jokes here and there but so did TNG, let’s not forget. I was sitting around just the other day thinking how I missed watching The Orville

RoyalEngineering,

I feel the same way. Hope it comes back for another season.

SupraMario,

Pretty sure it’s renewed. The writers strike is probably going to slow down the release though

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