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.
I watched the first 2 seasons. The “sitcom in space” parts work quite OK, Kaylon’s concept was somewhat interesting, space battles are well animated, particularly in the 2nd season which clearly got more budget, but…
Whenever the scripts stray away from “personal drama of the week” and dumb jokes about starships it becomes uninspired and shallow. It’s clear to me that MacFarlane tries to “dunk on both sides”. Sadly, his attempts at political/social critique look like “enlightened centrist” reddit rants which don’t try to think about broader consequences and context of points being made. To the point of some stories being somewhat problematic when dissected.
I watched the first episode of the third season to see where does the series go. It took a highly sensitive topic, again reiterated high-school philosophy arguments and made this potentially hard and relatable for viewers subject into an awkward bedtime conversation. I decided the rest of the season is not worth my time.
Luckily Strange New Worlds premiered soon after and I never looked back. SNW beats Orville on all measures.
As someone who disliked the comedy part, I enjoyed the last season the most.
Strange New Worlds Season 1 was great. Haven’t yet had the time yet to watch Season 2 but it looks just as good so far. Still haven’t started the final season of Picard yet, but I’m assuming you liked that one too? I thought it was good for a limited run series.
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.
The one with the porn virus on their holodeck was fantastic. But yeah, you sum it up very nice.
You mean the scene were every hologram on the holo deck was a nude Bortos? I rolled on the floor laughing!
It was sooooo good
Excellent review
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
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.
It felt way more like Star Trek than the Star Trek being made at the time (primarily Discovery). Though I do like Strange New Worlds and think it’s more in the right direction, The Orville still feels way more like TNG-era Trek.
Now we just need a Galaxy Quest / Orville crossover to really confuse everyone.
Now we just need a Galaxy Quest / Orville crossover to really confuse everyone.
Sokath, his eyes uncovered!
The river in winter and temba his arms wide my money!
It was the best Trek we had in ages. Held me over until we got SNW and Lower Deck.
I really hope we get another season because they REALLY hit their stride last season.
It was the best Trek we had in ages. Held me over until we got SNW and Lower Deck.
Ditto. A real return to form, even if that form involved a lot of Space Wizards and other silly bullshit.
I honestly think the whole diplomatic triangle between the Planetary Union, the Krill/Moclan, and the Kaylon played out better than anything TNG managed. The Orville is easily on par with DS9 as one of the best sci-fi dramas produced to date.
Yeah, the Kaylon stuff with Isaac caught me off guard and blew me away.
I appreciate that they gave our characters more personal stakes in Teleya’s relationship with Ed and Isaac’s relationship with Claire.
Pundits say there won’t be another season because he’s focusing on the Ted series. It’s supposedly doing well so no time for Orville
Thanks for the info, but that’s incredibly disappointing. Ted is probably my least favorite thing Seth has ever done…
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.
And Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie since the Undiscovered Country.
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.
It’s the best Star Trek show since Next Generation.
Kidding. I actually liked DS9 and Voyager
It’s on par though.
Yeah. The Orville absolutely deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with a typical season of licensed Star Trek.
And that’s a pretty big deal, because aside from the show we won’t mention right now*, most Star Trek is pretty great.
*I’m just trying to start an argument between DS9, Enterprise and Discovery fans. Sorry.
This was basically the way I would describe the show.
I find Seth McFarlane super cringe and can’t sit through an entire episode. I wanted to like it but my Seth repulsion prevents me from enjoying it.
Try watching an episode in the second or third series. I’m not keen on Seth either but seems like the “Sethisms” toned down as the show progressed
I get the feeling that he was forced to include Family Guy style jokes in the first series and was allowed to ease up after it was clear that they weren’t working.
spoiler
With the exception of that early episode explaining humour to the android character and the engineer wakes up with his leg cut off. That was pretty funny.
Man I totally forgot about that, that was fucking amazing! Love that show
That episode is still one of the most funny things ever and I will die on this hill
And what happens when you’re not keen on Seth or being preached at by someone who doesn’t actually get the social arguments even if his heart seems to be in the right place?
He do be like that.
I don’t even mind Family Guy, I think it’s just his face.
Family Guy is just Seth McFarlane talking to himself.
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That take makes me think you haven’t watched much of the show
The Orville is the best science fiction show featuring complex moral questions of the last decade. And Seth McFarlane isn’t as prominent in the show as early episodes showed.
It’s much more focused on crew than other shows, specially Isaac, Bortus, Kelly and Claire. No surprise since they are better actors than Seth. I like Seth Krill episodes though.
The latest season of Orville has so much grey area and conflict in morals it makes TNG look pure black and white with no moral grey areas at all.
It’s really well done.
I had the exact same concern, before I watched The Orville.
After watching the first couple of seasons, I think The Orville actually does a pretty good job honoring Star Trek’s tradition of raising difficult questions and calling for more empathy in the world.
You clearly haven’t watched it at all lol.
I thought it was a parody at first, and it certainly treated itself as such in the beginning, but in the later seasons, it took itself more seriously, and I found it a more “realistic” take than star trek.
Star trek is awesome, don’t get me wrong. But the captains were kind of “perfect”, basically. Captain Mercer and his crew are all flawed people, in their own way. They make poor decisions sometimes, out of selfishness, pride, or whatever, and it’s fun to see them deal with the consequences.
Interesting. I always thought “perfect” characters like Jean Luc Picard where supposed to symbolize the advanced social evolution of humanity in the Star Trek universe. The inherent believe in evolutionary humanism is one of the main reasons I fell in love with Star Trek.
It’s why I love snw’s current pilot, I think starfleet is very racist, she might be the only actual human being accepted into starfleet, well, her and pike of course, and maybe the current immortal engineer.
I love it, the gags and semi-coherent plot in the first season pulled me in and I was hooked after that. I understand Seth’s humour can put some people off, that’s fine too but I think the show is strong enough and has matured enough to stand side by side with modern Trek and hold its own.
I still remember the bit where they had given a small piece of the blobby alien to that other one with the iron stomach. Gold.
I’d describe it as a more irreverent version of a Star Trek universe with more realistic interactions among peers on the ship. A place where instead of it being an idealistic utopian society where everyone is a driven, passionate genius in their field, they’re just people with jobs, have normal messy social interactions, and also sometimes deal with really big important political and military situations. They’re capable members of the crew, but they still fuck around with their buddies like real people do. I find it refreshing, compelling and endearing. I love the Orville 90% of the time.
I generally dislike the typial Mc Farlane type of comedy and I don´t think it fit´s particularly well in a Star Trek like show. Beside that, The Orville is a really good show, way better than Nu Trek (with the exception of SNW). When watching The Orville I feel like I can tell that the people who made it actually like and even respect classic Star Trek - which is the opposite of how I felt when trying to watch DIS and PIC.
I seriously feel SNW was Star Trek seeing how much people loved what the Orville did and doing it themselves.
I seriously feel SNW was Star Trek seeing how much people loved what
the Orvilleclassic Star Trek did and doing it themselves.FTFY
I loved it. So much sci if these days focuses more on world building than character development. Orville felt like it struck the right balance between the two and gave us characters that are easier to empathize with.
A good point. I feel like everything I watch now I just cannot stand any of the main characters. They’re either abrasive angry awful people that I want nothing to do with, or boring dull wooden textbook characters that are so cliche you already know what the plot will be before it happens. These days if I don’t like the characters within a few episodes, and care about what happens to them, I’m out.
It is the best Star trek show on right now even though it is not Star trek. Loved it. It reminds me of Firefly
Strange new worlds is better
on right now
It’s kind of in (potentially permanent) limbo now though. Which is also like Firefly.
i dunno man, firefly was kinda deliberately and clearly murdered >_> they released a movie that killed people off and shit
Well, the show was murdered, too. Fox refused to air episode in order and kept moving the time slot.
That was tragic 😭
It was a breath of fresh air after the disappointment of Discovery and proof that there are people who still believe in Star Trek’s optimistic vision of the future. I think for that reason I and many other fans gave it a pass for a lot of it’s flaws.
My biggest problem is that I feel the social commentary is rather poorly done. I’ve gotten into some nasty fights on reddit for saying so.
I’ll start by saying what I think it does well. It’s good at humanizing people who live in an oppressive society and portraying their point of view.
But the ideas it discusses aren’t especially original or insightful. The world building doesn’t exist to support them. The Moclans might be a fine allegory for trans and intersex issues, but they only work as an allegory and make no sense at face value. And they’re portrayed inconsistently to allow whatever kind of episodes the writers want.
I feel like one issue is that McFarlane does not share the ideals of Star Trek. I don’t get the impression that he sees the value of non-interference, for example. But nevertheless, the Union believes in it because the Federation does. Politically, he’s a more conventional thinker than the classic Star Trek writers.
I really agree with you. The story line are often way too literal and and not novel.
I feel like one issue is that McFarlane does not share the ideals of Star Trek. I don’t get the impression that he sees the value of non-interference, for example. But nevertheless, the Union believes in it because the Federation does.
Don’t watch stargate then! Star Trek is all like no we can’t interfere, the prime directive, oh no, we can’t share our technology! Then Stargate rolls in, tells the primitive locals their gods are fake, by the way check out these automatic machine guns, want one? lol
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It was the Star Trek we needed before SNW and Lower Decks. Seth and the Orville are not universally appreciated but I doubt the Orville escaped the notice of the writers and producers at Paramount. The Orville charted a sometimes difficult and uneven course to the golden age of Start Trek we are currently enjoying and along the way made some excellent episodes and introduced some good lore and characters.
