Star Trek and The Orville, which is better/worse?

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?

AdmiralShat ,

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.

startrekexplained OP ,

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

fosforus ,

TNG 2 with Family Guy humor.

maegul ,

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.

startrekexplained OP ,

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.

ProfezzorDarke ,

It’s not really family guy humour either. It’s Seth McFarlane though.

abbadon420 ,

Wait a sec… there’s 3 seasons?! Christmas came early this year!!

samus12345 ,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

Yup, on Hulu. I personally liked the 3rd season and am disappointed there might not be any more.

startrekexplained OP ,

The third season is the best one. Feels like a TNG season in a good way

NuPNuA ,

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.

T156 ,

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.

By 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.

startrekexplained OP ,

I agree with everything you just said

Taleya ,

That’s like asking trek movies vs galaxy quest

startrekexplained OP ,

The Orville isn’t anything like Galaxy Quest though

buckykat ,

The Orville overall is right up there with the top tier Trek shows.

ramble81 ,

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”.

startrekexplained OP ,

Ironically though because of its higher budget, The Orville ran into more alien “strange new worlds” and species than TNG did.

transwarp ,

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.

macabrett ,
@macabrett@hexbear.net avatar

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.

theKalash ,

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.

startrekexplained OP ,

Agreed. TNG and DS9 are still the better shows, but I’d rank The Orville even above TOS and VOY and ENT.

gravitas_deficiency ,

Not to mention, DIS. But that said, SNW and LD are great, and I’d still rank them above Orville.

ElderWendigo ,
@ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works avatar

Might as well be asking, “Which is better, Cheers or Frasier?”

startrekexplained OP ,

Well ive never seen either so whats the consensus?

ShranTheWaterPoloFan ,

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.

startrekexplained OP ,

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.

buckykat ,

Malloy is a stalker and a rapist in that timeline, it’s good that Mercer went back and prevented it.

NuPNuA ,

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.

AuroraBorealis ,
@AuroraBorealis@pawb.social avatar

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

NuPNuA ,

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.

angrystego ,

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.

NuPNuA ,

They’re both great and serve different purposes. The Orville is a more light hearted tribute to 90s TV sci-fi, albeit one that’s become more serious and built up it’s own universe and tone as it’s three series went on. Trek, as it exists today, is taking various Trek tropes and styles and trying to update them to modern times, be that via deconstruction in Lower Decks, nostalgic big-budget adventures in Picard, or introducing more modern character development and serialisation in Dis and SNW. Some times it succeeds, sometimes is doesn’t.

worfosaurus ,

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!

charonn0 ,
@charonn0@startrek.website avatar

I like the Orville.

But Star Trek speaks to me. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMqGlSjAbwA

End0fLine ,
@End0fLine@startrek.website avatar

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.

charonn0 ,
@charonn0@startrek.website avatar

Not Trek, but here’s another 90’s gem: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCRgnMt7MiM

PunchingBag , (edited )

Just giving my opinion, but I did not care for the Orville. I’m a big fan of wonderment and adventure in Star Trek, with a healthy dose of exploration and philosophical consideration. In my experience, Orville spent all of its time on trying to be Star Trek: The Snark Generation and trying to make Seth MacFarlane look like a cool space captain. I think around the third or fourth time MacFarlane had said something incredibly offensive to the person he was meant to be diplomatically engaging with, but since he said it in his quick Family Guy aside voice it was apparently okay, that I got pretty tired of the show. It was way too much of a badly written ego trip for MacFarlane and not nearly enough science fiction fun. I was left feeling like the Orville was what would happen if Brian from Family Guy tried to write Star Trek, that it was more of mockery of science fiction than a positive addition, and I never went back.

In my further opinion, Lower Decks, meanwhile, is knocking it out of the park. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Strange Worlds as well, though I haven’t had opportunity to check it out yet.

EDIT: Yeah, I figured this would happen. Hooray the internet.

startrekexplained OP ,

Lower Decks is a mockery of sci fi and Star Trek though, I don’t pretend LD is otherwise.

PunchingBag ,

How so?

EnsignRedshirt ,

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.

startrekexplained OP ,

Couldn’t have said it better myself. By the third season, I was like “yes this is honorary Star Trek”

IWantToFuckSpez ,

I like them both. Sure new Star Trek isn’t close to what TNG was and Orville feels more like a true sequel to TNG. But I can understand why Star Trek had to change directions. Just compare the production value between the two shows. A modern Star Trek show that looks like Orville would never pull the numbers that would satisfy Paramount, since casual viewers probably wouldn’t even try the show. And to justify the higher production value they had to write more action based stories and a shorter season.

startrekexplained OP ,

Good points, but I do think SNW taps a bit into the TNG vibe. It’s a very beautiful episodic show like The Orville is.

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