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.

Norgur,

I didn't think the Star Trek formula would work with silly jokes instead of everyone taking themselves super seriously.
I was wrong.
Love it, way better than Spores-are-actually-the-Force-now-all-of-a-sudden-Space-Jesus

newthrowaway20,

Seth McFarland fixing his lonliness in space. Or Seth McFarland and the girl of the week.

I liked it at first, but felt the constant story lines about Seth and his love life to be a bit much. Tone down on that, give me more space exploration and less broken heart lonely man stories, and I might enjoy it more.

TheObserver,

I loved it. Reminded me of my beloved farscape

TheLadyAugust,

I haven’t seen a single muppet in The Orville. 3/10^ /s

TitanLaGrange,

Oh man, The Orville would be a perfect series to do some kind of Farscape spoof episode. They need to visit a planet with a bunch of muppets where everybody speaks with an Austrailian accent, except for one guy played by Ben Browder.

CaptPretentious,

For me after DS9, The Orville is (to me) the next canonical Start Trek series. Everything after is, from what I’ve seen is trash that exploits the name for an established fan base. Now I haven’t seen everything, but like, how many times do you need to be kicked in the nuts to know that you don’t like getting kicked in the nuts and you just stop!

I loved, FUCKING LOVED, TNG. Honestly, that show shaped a lot of who I am, especially since I didn’t have a good father figure growing up.

The Orville isn’t perfect. Seth for better or for worse tries some jokes and some of them really don’t land. But to his credit he tries. And it felt like as the show went on it got more refined in what it wanted to be.

The people who are in charge of modern Star Trek can shove it up their ass. You can’t tell me a single one of them ever sat down and ever actually watched Star Trek. TOS, TNG, VOY, and DS9 I’m here for it all. Everything after, Jesus Christ, just awful. I’d rather watch Dr Crusher get it on with a ghost repeatedly than sit and watch modern Star Trek.

But the Oroville like a breath of fresh air.

Akip,

did you try stange new worlds?

CaptPretentious,

No. Isn’t that a spin off of Discovery? I survived the ride that was Enterprise, but Discovery said as the first time I noped the fuck out.

I did a quick look via Google, the uniforms look very TOS to me, is it good? Or is it just that much more of terrible writing and 0 acknowledgement of any established stories and lore or just generally Gene’s vision for what Start Trek as a concept was.

Akip,

I think season2 of Strange new worlds might be my favorite star trek season. Its focusing more on inter crew relationships again instead of useless power creep like discovery did. The crew feels like a family again like it did in TNG and Voyager, while also leaving you with a new concept each episode something for your brain to digest, something you hadn’t seen yet. I think they succeeded in the balancing act something new while infused with the original essence of star trek.

Rootiest,
@Rootiest@lemmy.world avatar

It filled a hole when there was no good classic star trek being made.

Now we have Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks so there a bit more variety/competition in the arena

NuPNuA,

When Orville started and all we had was Discovery I’d agree, but Trek has pulled itself together of late with Pic S3, Strange New Worlds and Prodigy. The last few episodes of SNW have been amazing.

CaptPretentious,

I might check out Strange New World, seems to get mentioned a few times.

But you ain’t getting me to watch Picard, lol. A show that very clearly should have been a direct continuation of TNG… Unless season 3 is Picard waking up in his quarters and everything that happened before (in Star Trek: Picard) was just a terribly written nightmare… From perhaps drinking to much… Uh… Well it was green.

Nacktmull,

The people who are in charge of modern Star Trek can shove it up their ass

I support that initiative!

TWeaK,

Modern Trek does have a few gems. Lower Decks is fun, Prodigy was nice (and will hopefully still get its next season soon) and Strange New Worlds has been pretty close to proper old Trek.

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.

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.

Lucidlethargy,

I really disliked it. I thought it was a really poorly constructed clone of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, and not a subtle one at that. The cut scenes, the sounds… It was all so incredibly “old” feeling.

The relationship between the robot and the doctor was excruciatingly cringy. It was so insanely contrived, and I can’t conceive of why anyone tolerated it, let alone enjoyed it.

This said, it’s not all bad. I enjoyed one or two episodes, I liked the comedy aspect, and I also enjoyed many of the CGI special effects.

NotMyOldRedditName,

Whatever you think of the show, it gave us one of, if not the most, epic CGI space battle. It was so damn long and intricate.

Lucidlethargy,

Which one? I either don’t recall, or I need to check that out! I’ve seen something like 80% of the entire series, if I recall correctly. I did admittedly skip a few of the episodes, though.

NotMyOldRedditName,

The main battle against the robots at earth, but one of the other ones as well was really good.

The earth one was exceptionally long for a space cgi battle.

rufus, (edited )

Wow, i don’t know many people who dislike it. I think the TNG-clone feeling is deliberate. I think like science fiction holds up a mirror to our world… they chose to hold up another mirror and simultaneously copy The Next Generation. There is the doctor, a robot/android… you quickly catch many similarities… but further along things start to get skewed, sometimes your expectations get fulfilled or ruined and they play with the stereotypes. I think it’s kind of genius and often times gives it one or two additional layers of depth. Especially when they simultaneously discuss philosophical stuff and simultaneously play with TNG storytelling tropes. Like when they introduced people on the orville are vegan. and star trek still struggles with that today and people far in the future are super advanced, but randomly kill cows to eat them.

I also think the relationship between the android and the doctor has a certain cringy-ness to it. We currently see AI slowly becoming reality. It is very up to date to discuss people having relationships with machines. But they somehow do it in a weird and strange way. And too dramatic. But remember, there’s also Wesley Crusher. And Captain Proton and some weird robots on Voyager’s holodeck.

I don’t know why you associate that “old” feeling with something negative. It reminds me of good times, watching star trek series as a kid. And to this date i like those sounds more than the atmospheric sounds of recent Star Trek. And I also like the light and bright spaceships more than the recent tv shows that all happen at night and have dark and dimly lit sets. like Picard.

ashok36,

Like when they introduced people on the orville are vegan.

Malloy’s line delivery in Season 3 when he confesses to killing and eating animals really goes a long way to show how far the ethical mores of future society have moved. He basically felt like a murderer because, to him at least, that’s exactly what he felt like. Contrast that against his prior characterization as the goofy, prankster guy and you get so much more depth of character from him.

It’s like Marty McFly admitting to Doc Brown that he killed and ate Biff because the Doc left the two on a desert island and timey wimey weirdness meant he showed back up two months later than he expected. Heavy stuff.

NightOwl,

I haven’t caught up with the most recent season, but I really liked all adventures the crew went on. One thing I did remember wishing was for the show to drop the Ed and Kelly relationship subplot, since I liked the more friends and professional dynamic. And I miss Alara too, and wish she’d be part of the crew again.

Weylandyuta,

Alara comes back, but just not as a crew member.

Custoslibera,

Pretty sure Seth and the actress that played Alara (Halston Sage) dated IRL and broke up which is why I suspect she left the role.

WhiteTiger,
@WhiteTiger@sh.itjust.works avatar

I believe she left for a movie career… that started with X-Men Dark Phoenix, which lost over $100 million at the box office.

RoyalEngineering,

I think that’s my least favorite part about the show is that awkward relationship.

They should have written some other role for them.

Xariphon,

It's the best Star Trek series since DS9.

I miss Alara, too. Lieutenant Replacement Goldfish isn't nearly as good.

It's BS that Yaphit got a medal for that business with the Kaylons but Ty Finn didn't. He was the actual hero there!

Dolly Parton cameo had me friggin' dying.

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

I bet Dolly was just tickled pink that her song is a revolutionary anthem

yeather,

I think she got a kick out of it, she was smiling like a school girl the entire cameo.

WhiteTiger,
@WhiteTiger@sh.itjust.works avatar

I stopped watching shortly after Alara left. I mostly couldn’t stand the Captain and his ex, or any of their humor stuck in the year 2005, and the only other characters I really liked weren’t part of the ‘main team’.

acow,

I wanted to like it, but didn’t get through S1. I found the humor so uneven that it made the whole thing almost uncomfortable. Is it an irreverent parody, sci-fi, slightly crude comedy, or is it Star Trek? It’s all of those things, and I’m happy folks enjoyed it. I’ll try to revisit at some point, but for now I’m so happy that Strange New Worlds is as surprisingly excellent as it is. For me, it nails the mixture of lightheartedness, sci-fi adventure, and earnestness that I like in Star Trek.

KiofKi,
@KiofKi@feddit.de avatar

It’s a love letter to star trek. I strongly recommend you give it another try to get through the first season, because by season 2 they found their stride and it got way better.

TwigletSparkle,

probably quicker amd easier to just pick an early episode of S2 and see if you enjoy it more. Orville does a pretty good job of being fairly episodic, which is a highlight.

AA5B,

Huh, I also struggled to like SNW but really enjoyed Discovery. Maybe I’ll try that again too

degrix,
@degrix@lemmy.hqueue.dev avatar

Up until Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, it was hands down the best modern Star Trek (like) show. It’s definitely a little clumsy early on, but after a few episodes it’s very clear that Seth is finally fulfilling his childhood dream of doing Star Trek even if it’s his own version of it. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope season 4 happens.

rufus, (edited )

Best show ever. I almost peed myself when Ed Mercer tried to eat those stones in the admiral’s office in the first episode. Took me like 5minutes of the first episode to love it. And it has so many good episodes, etical dilemmas and thought provoking stories. And I like the Moclans. And i like the storytelling. Especially that most stories take one episode.

neomis,

One of my favorite moments was when they were trying to teach Isaac about pranks and he removed Malloy’s leg.

RoyalEngineering,

When Alara throws the leg over her shoulder 🤣

Eldritch,

The humor, humanizes it. TOS was great. But often a bit sterile and preachy. Still fascinating and a good watch. But nowhere near are relatable.

A lot of people were concerned that it was gonna be family guy in space. With all the toilet humor that involves. But honesty it was all tasteful, generally witty. And mostly seemed to genuinely add to the episodes.

WhiteTiger,
@WhiteTiger@sh.itjust.works avatar

But honesty it was all tasteful, generally witty. And mostly seemed to genuinely add to the episodes.

Ehh, having one of the main characters quote a Destiny’s Child song in a scene set in the the year 2400, that aired in the year 2017 was pretty cringe.

Jimmycakes,

It’s good

aram,
@aram@aoir.social avatar

@Izzy true fact: Seth McFarlane developed the show after his friend and collaborator Ahmed Best (of Star Wars) pitched him the idea of a comedic Star Trek clone. It was called "The Nebula." I know because I was personally pitching the sizzle reel for the pilot to branded entertainment clients in 2009.

masterairmagic,

We owe the Orville to JarJar Binks?

aram,
@aram@aoir.social avatar

@masterairmagic in a word, yes.

grue,

“Jar Jar is the key to all this.”

Apeman42,
@Apeman42@lemmy.world avatar

It counts as Star Trek in my personal canon. Really hope season 4 happens.

Nacktmull,

Agreed, The Orville is more Star Trek than DIS and PIC combined.

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