The Orville vs Star Trek: Discovery

[T'Prina]

I'm honestly just watching Discovery. I really can't bring myself to support MacFarlane.

[Ian Galloway]

Never thought I could, and while I still detest The Family Guy, but The Orville has earned my respect.

[Octavia Phae]

And here we have the quintessential difference between younger fans and older fans 'shiny ships, uniforms, and special effects' versus plot. Ms Phae's opinions are certainly as valid as anyone's and I respect and celebrate her for having them in the finest traditions of IDIC. However, her opinion sums up the differences between the generations better than I could ever hope to express.

On The Orville, especially as it is a creation of Seth McFarland whose work I have never liked, we have plots of such poignancy that I frankly have a difficult time reconciling that they are from the same man that created The Family Guy. Compared to The Orville's thought provoking storylines, we have a lot of 'oooh shiny, blink blink' effects built around the preposterous notion of the "Spore Drive;" a technology we know has to be doomed to failure because Kirk and Picard do not have such technology.

I have watched every episode of both series and I am stunned to find myself looking forward to each new chance to see The Orville. Whereas with Discovery, I find myself setting the bar to 'maybe it won't suck as much as the last one' and they have failed to even reach that pathetic standard. Ultimately, I come back to Jada's comment time and time again, Discovery is a decent science fiction series, it's just not a Trek series. The Orville, on the other hand, captures the essence of Star Trek in a way that I think even Gene Roddenberry would respect.

I know I'm young (18) but I'm also a giant trek nerd I've watched the orginal, animated, TNG, DS9, Voyager, all the movies and most of the documentaries I even read the books David Mack and Peter David are my favorite trek writers. But I understand what you mean by the plot issue. But I don't have an issue with season ones plot being focused on war, that's what makes it feel more like a movie too me and for my generation I feel like that's what was needed to make their launch successful. The Klingons SFX makeup matching the newest movies was a good move to help assimilate my generation into the trek culture. Now I'm not a big fan of the Klingon uniforms they are a little too shinny for my taste but they are what they are.

My biggest issue with Discovery is this. For this crew to have been together six years before the pilot was very hard to believe they had no chemistry at all or it didn't come across at all to me in anyway. At least in the movie remakes they were able to recapture the feel William Shattner and crew had in the movies. But then again I've been at my current job and still haven't made any friends and I've been in collage for 6 months and only had one say "hi" to me so yeah who knows.

but I do think Discovery is where it needs to be for my generation and even the generation before mine to gain new and I agree with Sonequa Martin-Green that they had to focus on the visual SFX and make them real big because CBS sucks and put it on their stupid pay channel.

I've also caught up to episode six of Orville it's okay but also kind of lame but I suppose that's the point of the show.

[Solluk]

Got a screen grab of the D7.

We now know it was one of the 'Binary Star' ships from the initial pilot.

Obviously this is a complete visual re-imagining of everything, and we should not expect anything to look like the previously established aesthetic.  Which is disappointing, because I quite liked a lot of it.  The original hullform is below.  They didn't merely update the texture to make it more modern.  They changed pretty much everything about it.

[Klizh]

But I don't have an issue with season ones plot being focused on war, that's what makes it feel more like a movie too me and for my generation I feel like that's what was needed to make their launch successful.

See, that's where I disagree with you about the series' launch. I can understand the executives not having confidence in old-school Trek (so why they expect people to cough up extra money to watch it is completely illogical), and meddling with it to "update" it for the current generation. But I would call the series launch anything but "successful."

I understand that every Trek series has taken a while to really get good, none of them have hit the ground running... but none of them required you to pay to watch them, either. If they really wanted to get people to pay to watch the show, they needed to wow us with that first episode. But that abysmal pilot they had the nerve to put out saw nothing happen and ended on a cliffhanger, not even giving audiences a complete story to judge the show with. In terms of incentivizing audiences to pay to see the rest of the series, in my eyes it was a colossal failure. That's just poor salesmanship right there.

[Jules Bash]

To be honest, I've always appreciated Sci-Fi that pushed into political, social, religious, philosophical issues. It's what should help the world progress in ways of thinking "What if". Do it enough, and maybe the 2-3 generations that are built from it will become better as people.

Discovery, from what I have heard since I have not seen, does little for that. What little I have heard about it reminds me of SGU, which I also add to the "Eh" list. The Orville though, has taken on transgender, chemically induced love, proving past your youth, overcoming basic fears, working with those you have a history with, racism, and prime directive. And yeah, I enjoy comedy. Not all of it is in any way decent. In fact, the Majority Rules episode kinda blew because of the sucky humor that the entire episode ended up based on, but it was an interesting episode in regards to social media.

Also, a lot of people are just mad at a spore drive. And I understand why.

[Angel Romero]

I've genuinely enjoyed every episode of The Orville I've watched. I found it thoughtful, funny, and incredibly well put together. I liked the humor, it wasn't too over the top, like some of McFarlane's stuff can be, and just made me laugh.

When it comes to Discovery, I actually signed up for the service through CBS just to be able to see it. I had seen the previews, and had so much hope. Then, it all just fell apart. It relied so heavily on special effects, and was so far advanced, even in comparison to NuTrek, that I found myself wishing it was not Star Trek. If it wasn't Star Trek I think I'd love it. But when it is based in an established universe, and just seems to totally disregard that universe, and how it looked at the time it is supposed to be set in, I just can't get behind it. Not to mention how very disappointed I was at the tossing aside of the pacifistic core of the Vulcan philosophy in regards to their interactions with the Klingons. I ended up cancelling my subscription before it ever even charged me and have not looked back since.

[Kirok]

Yeah, I think a lot of people got upset that Michael was supposed to be Spock's adopted sister.
An adopted sister that we never knew about before.
An adopted sister who is human but acts like a Vulcan.

I would have been much happier if they would have not done that.

On the plus side, I loved Orville.
Season 2 starts on 9/3!

[Malik Grippen]

I've genuinely enjoyed every episode of The Orville I've watched. I found it thoughtful, funny, and incredibly well put together. I liked the humor, it wasn't too over the top, like some of McFarlane's stuff can be, and just made me laugh.

I felt the same way, just started watching it and I'm enjoying it very much. I love the way it mixes MacFarlane comedy with serious issues at just the right mix.

Enjoying The Orville far more than I did Discovery, which was honestly a struggle to watch through at times.

[Kirok]

I am irked too that we wont get to see Season 2 of the Discovery till next year.
Seems they will look viewers due to the dalay.

[Ian Galloway]

I am absolutely looking forward to the next season of the Orville, I could give a tinker's damn about Discovery.

[Kirok]

I am absolutely looking forward to the next season of the Orville, I could give a tinker's damn about Discovery.

Here is the Orville season 2 trailer:

https://theawesomer.com/the-orville-season-2-trailer/486533/

[Inzjana]

Here we go!

So, I've watched the first two episodes of 'The Orville.'

For a comedy, it is so so.

But I'm finding myself comparing it to Star Trek: Discovery.

The Orville has a much cooler ship, more aliens, and better uniforms.  Also the special effects are pretty great.

What do the rest of you think?

The Orville is Star Trek the way it should be, getting back to the roots of exploration and a hopeful future. Don't get me wrong, I liked Discovery, I am determined to not let the completely ludicrous 'Spore' Drive ruin my hope for Star Trek. But if you want REAL Star Trek, look no further than THE ORVILLE. The only Seth McFarlane creation worth actually watching and completely enjoying. But then, Seth is a Trekkie and not out simply to such the flesh from the marrow of the skeleton that is Star Trek at present. Here's hoping that Paramount take a leaf out of Seth's book.

[Kirok]

I saw another commercial for The Orville today.
The release date for Season 2 is Dec 30.

[Inzjana]

I saw another commercial for The Orville today.
The release date for Season 2 is Dec 30.

Awesome! Cannot wait.

I am going to buy the DVD of Season One when it comes out too, which is November 21. Two days before my birthday, what an awesome present! 

Set course for the planet Vulcan...engage Quantum Drive (Such a nerd).

The design of the Starships and Shuttles in THE ORVILLE look great too, I would love to command the USS Orville, or at least pilot it.