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.
Microwave reheated Star Trek. I feel like it started out being too humorous, hit the perfect balance, and then veered into trying too hard to be Star Trek. If your Star Trek parody isn’t a parody anymore I’ll just…watch actual Star Trek. Lower Decks filled the Star Trek comedy hole much better.
When Orville was brand new, Star Trek Discovery was the only other option. And Orville was amazing by comparison.
The Orville is absolutely more Trek than Discovery ever was
A-freaking-men. Orville held down the camp while Discovery was busy doing whatever it was trying to do, spitting out endless melodrama, crises, and crying. I definitely enjoyed some Orville episodes but the show as a whole just felt like a pale imitation of Star Trek. No doubt MacFarlane can write/produce a good Trek-style episode but I'm not convinced he can run a whole Star Trek show.
I love SNW and Lower Decks. Between those shows and Prodigy (which goes weirdly dark at times for a show aimed at kids), I won't miss Orville if the third season was its final one.
I loved the jar of pickles joke. It somehow got me every time. Then they seemed to just drop it out of nowhere. Well I guess once she left, but still.
Bingo. It was kinda cute at first when it was still trying to be funny, but as the parody pretense slowly fell away it just got boring.
The strangest part about it is how each episode is a remix of a Trek episode and yet the remix makes it very clear that the writers just don’t get it. For example, season 2’s “Blood of Patriots” is a rearrangement of “The Wounded,” but the subplot about Mercer and Malloy being best friends forever trivializes what TNG successfully depicted as a nuanced dilemma.
There’s no accounting for taste, but it genuinely surprises me that there seems to be so many Star Trek fans who think it’s any good. On the other hand, it seems pretty safe to say that season 3 was the last, so clearly the actual numbers were unremarkable.