Not very well.
Discovery and "The Orville" Comparisons
- Thread starter Jedi_Master
- Start date
Not very well.
Totally agree I love the episodic stories with occasional 2 parters, instant gratification, and you can move on quickly from a bad story (salamanders, or with a dog in sickbay, or etc....) I look forward to the Orville new missions, and I look forward to Disco on how are they going to fix this rewrite of star trek future history, and move on. Each episode just adds another layer of convulsion. (Space whales WTF they're just playing with us now right)
With Orville there is no future history to mess up. With Disco it seems that the star trek future is being rewritten so as to nullify everything that we thought we knew.
So far what I expected (enjoying star trek and tolerating Orville) is in a complete reversal mode. I'm so hopeful for the next episode to enable me to see the light at the end of the Disco dark tunnel.
Since I was referring to Discovery, I agree.
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@sweartrek on Twitter is having a fine time replacing every occurrence of the word "brain" in that show with "dick."
How did this take fifty years? It's...McFarlanesque.
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I hope you can take a drink every time,
I hope ORV goes more the way that ENT did during the 4th season: 1, 2 or 3-parter depending on what a story needed. I think this format is the most flexible and interesting for the viewer, because u never know if a story ends or is continued. And if you love a multiparter, you have a mini (85min) or maxi ( 130min) TV movie you can watch again.
It also helps featuring better sets, since the budget for the sets of a story is combined for two or three episodes; so instead of building cheap sets for 42 minutes of story, you can build expensive sets for 90 to 130 minutes of story.
It's hard to guess which show more folks in the U.S. are watching, but one thing's measurable...as the weeks pass, the show's continue to creep in opposite directions over at Rotten Tomatoes - Discovery is down to 57% on the "Liked It" score while The Orville has risen to 93%
Man, you just don't understand. All those people with an ax to grind are picking on Discovery!
Though I notice Discovery's critics score has slid down to 83% from 89% earlier in the season. Hater critics are coming out of the woodwork as well!
It's possible that in the U.S. more people watch The Orville than Discovery. By most reports CBS All Access is at or below four million subscribers right now, and at least a million and a half of those were reported back in February - IOW, not everyone who's signed up for the streaming service is likely a Star Trek fan.
On the other hand, certainly more people outside the U.S. are watching Discovery - it's carried by Netflix, whereas The Orville isn't slated to debut on broadcast in the U.K. until December.
There are, of course, fairly lively online discussions at places like Reddit indicating that some people outside the U.S. do see The Orville as well as Discovery - and BTW a quick perusal over there turned up this little gem of a topic:
On the other hand, certainly more people outside the U.S. are watching Discovery - it's carried by Netflix, whereas The Orville isn't slated to debut on broadcast in the U.K. until December.
There are, of course, fairly lively online discussions at places like Reddit indicating that some people outside the U.S. do see The Orville as well as Discovery - and BTW a quick perusal over there turned up this little gem of a topic:
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Where are these "reports"? Plus, Star Trek Discovery is one of the most pirated shows. The pilot became one of the most pirated television episodes on The Pirate Bay in only 24 hours. Also, Star Trek Discovery is listed 5th on Rotten Tomatoes' "Most Popular TV on RT". I will say this about ratings, the different Star Trek series are very divisive among Trekkies (many people separate whether it's a good show or not from it being Star Trekky enough). The Orville doesn't carry the same baggage because it's not Star Trek.
Up here in Canada, Star Trek Discovery broke ratings records. The same can't be said for The Orville.
Btw, I actually like Orville so I'm not coming in here as a hater. But audience ratings on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes aren't a good indication as to whether something is good or popular.
We don't discuss pirating on this BBS.
CBS reported All Access to be at about 1.5 million subscriptions in February of this year, as reported in Variety and other reliable industry sources.
You can Google these things, I'm not going to tee up links for you - it's all easy to find.
The same sources reported in August that CBS expected All Access to top 4 million subscribers by the end of this year, a target they had previously expected to reach in 2020.
And - again, same industry news sources, Google it - CBS claimed to have had a record sign-up day on the weekend of Discovery's premiere. Of course, they provided no figures to back that up.
So, I'm being generous in assuming that CBS All Access is now reaching 4 million subscribers. One could just as reasonably argue that there's no evidence from their own reporting that they've actually reached that high a number.
So, Discovery may have been responsible for somewhere in the range of two, two-and-a-half million All Access subscriptions. But what the hell, maybe some fans were naive enough to run out and sign up for the service six months or a year ahead of Discovery's premiere because they were afraid the CBS store would sell out of subscriptions or something. So, err in favor of Discovery and we'll make it three million subscriptions added for the sake of watching the show.
BTW, a significant percentage of those late sign-ups were freebies - first for a week, then for a month. Those are expiring. Again, I'm being generous to Discovery in assuming a near 100 percent conversion rate from free to paid - not beyond the bounds of likelihood, since it's an opt-out sign-up.
So, go check out the facts and get back to me. Just don't cut and paste that "Netflix Average Impressions" graphic that doesn't mean what folks think it does.
CBS reported All Access to be at about 1.5 million subscriptions in February of this year, as reported in Variety and other reliable industry sources.
You can Google these things, I'm not going to tee up links for you - it's all easy to find.
The same sources reported in August that CBS expected All Access to top 4 million subscribers by the end of this year, a target they had previously expected to reach in 2020.
And - again, same industry news sources, Google it - CBS claimed to have had a record sign-up day on the weekend of Discovery's premiere. Of course, they provided no figures to back that up.
So, I'm being generous in assuming that CBS All Access is now reaching 4 million subscribers. One could just as reasonably argue that there's no evidence from their own reporting that they've actually reached that high a number.
So, Discovery may have been responsible for somewhere in the range of two, two-and-a-half million All Access subscriptions. But what the hell, maybe some fans were naive enough to run out and sign up for the service six months or a year ahead of Discovery's premiere because they were afraid the CBS store would sell out of subscriptions or something. So, err in favor of Discovery and we'll make it three million subscriptions added for the sake of watching the show.
BTW, a significant percentage of those late sign-ups were freebies - first for a week, then for a month. Those are expiring. Again, I'm being generous to Discovery in assuming a near 100 percent conversion rate from free to paid - not beyond the bounds of likelihood, since it's an opt-out sign-up.
So, go check out the facts and get back to me. Just don't cut and paste that "Netflix Average Impressions" graphic that doesn't mean what folks think it does.
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The way I read the piracy rule is not to promote it, but nothing about not discussing it in general. I didn't see anything else in the rules to add any more context but it doesn't seem to me from reading them, that listing a statistic on how much it's being pirated is against the rules.
While I'm sure Discovery has genuine fans, I think this explains why Discovery would have high ratings metrics.
Hate-watching is a thing, thanks to the complementary pass-time of complaining about each episode online afterwards.
Once Discovery started with spore-drives and tardigrades there are those who want to watch it just to see how much more of a cluster-f*ck it's gonna turn out to be.
That's the thing with the owners of IP. It's win win in the sense that people are already heavily attached to the property. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. Either way, love or hate, if people stay "engaged" then CBS makes money.
This is why I try not to discuss these numbers cause, I mean I don't even find it reasonable to trust what's reported in the first place. I'm assuming those would come from CBS themselves and no way I'd trust them to be completely straight about it.
Why? If they felt ST: D wasn't working (IE bringing in or retaining subs) I seriously doubt they'd green light another season considering what the show cost. Plus is the numbers are accurate it's more than helped them get to where they wanted to be - at around 4 million. I say that because earlier, even with ST: D CBSAA hoped to be at 4 million by 2020 (they were at 2 million whn that statement was made.)
I still don'tr get this need some people have to say "one is objectively better than the other" because like anything - liking certain entertainment over another is always subjective - both for champions and detractors of ether show.
The fact is - CBS is pleased enough with ST: D performance in gettiing/retaining subs to greenlight another season.
I really do hope FOX sees a big enough ratings performance from The Orville so it gets renewed for a second season (or hell gets a backend Season 1 order if possible.)
Manipulation of viewers and shareholders is a way to increase viewership or even keep current viewers on board.
Everyone else is doing it, so you should too is a strategy that has worked so well to keep so many worthless things alive, and expensive. like smoking... and diamonds.
Also, companies do manipulate numbers to keep shareholders on board. At some point someone pitched this idea, and at some point a group of people agreed to it, likely with a lot of but this and but that.
I'm probably being overly cynical, but I wouldn't trust much of what CBS says about their own show, it's also partly why I don't trust after trek. The whole "look at me in my controlled environment" circus is kind of eye rolling. I trust it and respect it much more when the actors and writers go to already established shows.
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