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?
Very well said. There are elements of the Trek universe that The Orville IMO does better. The Prime Directive is one of them. And the show is much more bold on gender and queer rights issues, which Trek often ignored or at best just said “heres a LGBTQ character!” It almost feels like a distilled version of Star Trek.
Yeah I didn’t like Discovery at all and was disappointed in Picard, so The Orville filled that hole. Now that SNW and Lower Decks are out and are much better shows than DSC and PIC IMO, less so but I do still prefer The Orville even to them.
Yea, in a way, that’s The Orville’s ultimate legacy … while Trek is being rebooted and prequeled and sequeled in the new-Trek era, The Orville is sitting there saying, hey, there’s still plenty of work to do in Trek’s original and essential “utopic adventure sci-fi morality play” space … it’s not as though we live in a utopia already, so how about we just keep on going with the original mission and not worry too much about milking the past and nostalgia for as much money as we can, TNG sure as hell didn’t do that.
And in the end, as I think about it now, The Orville is right, and probably stands as the best critique of new-Trek that we ever could have hoped for and which we most certainly do not deserve … just optimistic and progressive Trek … no critique necessary.
Damn, very well said. The rejection of a utopian setting in NuTrek, even in shows like SNW which pays lip service to it, is a major turn off for me because Trek was always good as utopian sci fi. And yeah DS9 challenged it, but it didn’t outright reject it either. The new shows totally dismiss it, whereas here’s The Orville dialing it up to 11.
I always thought DS9 simply asked what happens at the fringes. Is Kira the terrorist justified? What else are you supposed to do with Cardassians and shapeshifters? Can one “live with it”?
Well it also tested the Federation by putting it on the breaking point with a galactic war. Which I approve of and think was very interesting, but it wasn’t saying things like replicators are made from recycled shit or that poverty still exists on Earth like NuTrek did.
It’s nice that “new” Trek wants to portray things like equality for LGBT people as a given; hopefully we can reach that one day. And I think it’s good that LGBT people can “see themselves” on the screen without having their queerness be the focus of the drama. People just want to live their lives, and they want to see other queer people just living their lives.
On the other hand, showing the struggle and making it the focus of the drama, as Orville does, is the thing that helps people understand and confront the issues themselves. The whole story around Topa is very strong. Societal misogyny. Klyden’s entire journey (his own sex reassignment, hiding it from Bortus, their separation, his rejection of Topa when she transitioned back, the family’s eventual reunion). Bortus’ struggle to make the right choice as a loving husband and father. Bortus having the choice taken away from him. Topa lacking female role models.
These kinds of things are still very real issues that a lot of people don’t think about unless presented to them on this way. These kinds of stories help people imagine how they might need to support their own children, families, and friends.
It’s not really possible to compare Star Trek vs Orville because Trek is an entire franchise (even now there are 4.5 shows) and Orville is just one. But if I had to say of the current shows, which one does society need the most for social progress, I’d actually say Orville.
Yep, exactly! And this is why I think it’s rather justified to be hard on new-Trek. At some point, it isn’t doing the “true” legacy and potential of the franchise justice.
Like, is young Kirk and Scotty really “good Trek”, and so on.