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?
I personally don’t understand the need to hold it as “vs” perspective. You can have both. The Orville definitely wanted to be TNG 2, and if that’s what you’re looking for, then by all means, have both.
TNG 2 with Family Guy humor.
I feel like the Family Guy humour vibe tapered off pretty strongly after season 1 and by season 3 the show had definitely found itself in pretty squarely Star Trek like territory, which is par for the course for Star Trek really.
Yeah the humor in season 1 turned me off and I wasn’t sure if I liked the show at first, it tapers off in season 2 and mostly evaporates in season 3, so those seasons were far better.
It’s not really family guy humour either. It’s Seth McFarlane though.
Wait a sec… there’s 3 seasons?! Christmas came early this year!!
Yup, on Hulu. I personally liked the 3rd season and am disappointed there might not be any more.
The third season is the best one. Feels like a TNG season in a good way
It was never as mean spirited as Family Guy. That type of edge-lord humour doesn’t play anymore. Even Rick and Morty has to temper it with some emotional moments.
No need to be vs I agree, but people pit them against each other anyway so thought I’d ask. I like both to the extent I just include The Orville in my Star Trek lineup
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
That’s like asking trek movies vs galaxy quest
The Orville isn’t anything like Galaxy Quest though
True. But similar to Galaxy Quest, The Orville is so lovingly done that it ascends past parody into being a worthy chapter in the overall cohort of shows/movies.
Edit: Interestingly, I would say “Lower Decks” does the same. It’s hilarious, but theres also just some great Trek moments in it.
I like Strange New Worlds, but Lower Decks is the best Star Trek show currently running in my opinion.
Agreed!
Tendi is the best new Trek character
Same here, but I think that’s because I have more nostalgia for the TNG era as I grew up with it.
LD and The Orville are both awesome
The other way I look at it: TNG was following the premiere ship in the galaxy, with plenty of places to explore, so it was always encountering “new frontiers”.
The Orville on the other hand was more a premise of “what happens when space travel is commoditized and you have more than enough ships and now need competent bodies to staff it?” For that it feels more “real” that you’re getting people who do it as a job, not a calling, which explains the random humor and diversions and a look at new discoveries through fresh eyes rather than “wow, more new as this is normal for us”.
Ironically though because of its higher budget, The Orville ran into more alien “strange new worlds” and species than TNG did.
Lol. I too have noticed that fewer planets in The Orville are “basically earth but in 19xx”, than in TOS.
There have been a few, off the top of my head I remember “what if current earth, but justice system is social media”, “what if current earth but horoscopes are state Religon”. Not that these are bad ideas.
And they all look like southern California
I’d say TNG mostly stopped exploring new frontiers halfway through season 1. Farpoint promised exploration, but soon the ship is ferrying diplomats and scientists and answering Federation distress calls. The worlds are new to the audience, but not the characters.
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”
The Orville overall is right up there with the top tier Trek shows.
Why does one have to be better than the other? Both are good fun.
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 more than any current running Star Trek show (and that’s not me saying I hate all modern Trek, I definitely like some of it), but I’d take 90s Trek over Orville, so it’s a bit of a toss up.
I would love another season of Orville.
Yeah I like The Orville a lot more than even SNW, as much as that’s heretical to say
“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.
Might as well be asking, “Which is better, Cheers or Frasier?”
Well ive never seen either so whats the consensus?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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!
I like the Orville.
But Star Trek speaks to me. https://youtu.be/mMqGlSjAbwA?t=52
Wow. I swear I’ve seen every episode of TNG but this one I do not remember. I feel like I’m just repeating you, but it speaks to me as well. I wish I would have seen it earlier in life. It says how I feel better than I ever could.
Not Trek, but here’s another 90’s gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCRgnMt7MiM
