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Discovery and "The Orville" Comparisons

The audacity of people trying to accurately define something instead of just accepting some folks "IT'S JUST FAMILY GUY IN SPACE!!!"
I don't remember anyone saying Orville is Family Guy in space recently, but I do remember you saying "Discovery makes Deep Space Nine look like The Orville" a couple days ago, and now we're talking about Firefly. Maybe we should all stop trying to define shows according to other shows and just accept each show for what it is. The Orville is not Family Guy, or Star Trek, or Firefly. It is clearly a product of a love for Star Trek, but also clearly a product of Seth Macfarlane. Isn't that accurate enough?
 
that "thimble" is kind of a defining aesthetic of that show.

Maybe in the advertising, but inside of the show itself, by Seth's own admission the show leans hard into dramedy territory, and is not by any stretch a straight up comedy.

I'm definitely not saying Orville needs to be more or less of anything. I'm saying the comedy aspects are greatly exaggerated here. For the first few episodes I was shocked it wasn't much more packed with gags and jokes and outright camp. The show is earnest in it's love of classic Trek and it should be given kudos for that.

I mean, look, I've seen the glory hole thing brought up at least three times in the last two pages, and it's what... ten seconds out of one episode? I'm sorry, i'm just not seeing how it defines the whole show. Maybe it is an agree-to-disagree situation, but i'm just not seeing it... And it has nothing to do with being unreasonable for this or that or whatever. I used to be that way, back in the days of Enterprise.

I can absolutely see why Orville doesn't appeal to people. Same for Discovery. I have reservations about both. I will say, though, that Discovery has actually hit me deep in the wells a couple times(i'm actually worried for Lorca and Stamets. I'm invested in where they are going.), and Orville has given me a nice warm-fuzzy nostalgic feeling.
 
I realized recently that one reason I love The Orville so much is that fans will never be able to take it seriously in the way that trekkies do Star Trek without missing the point.
 
Maybe in the advertising, but inside of the show itself, by Seth's own admission the show leans hard into dramedy territory, and is not by any stretch a straight up comedy.

I'm definitely not saying Orville needs to be more or less of anything. I'm saying the comedy aspects are greatly exaggerated here. For the first few episodes I was shocked it wasn't much more packed with gags and jokes and outright camp. The show is earnest in it's love of classic Trek and it should be given kudos for that.

I mean, look, I've seen the glory hole thing brought up at least three times in the last two pages, and it's what... ten seconds out of one episode? I'm sorry, i'm just not seeing how it defines the whole show. Maybe it is an agree-to-disagree situation, but i'm just not seeing it... And it has nothing to do with being unreasonable for this or that or whatever. I used to be that way, back in the days of Enterprise.

I can absolutely see why Orville doesn't appeal to people. Same for Discovery. I have reservations about both. I will say, though, that Discovery has actually hit me deep in the wells a couple times(i'm actually worried for Lorca and Stamets. I'm invested in where they are going.), and Orville has given me a nice warm-fuzzy nostalgic feeling.
I wouldn't say that the gags like glory hole define the show, rather that they're a part of the show. However big or small, those jokes are a part of a piece and to try to exagerrate or hand wave it is a misunderstanding. Seth obviously loves Trek as it shows, but he didn't make The Orville because he anticipated that there would be disenchanted Trekkies over Discovery. The whole point is that he's doing his own riff on Trek with his brand of humor laced in with the dramatic elements.
 
I realized recently that one reason I love The Orville so much is that fans will never be able to take it seriously in the way that trekkies do Star Trek without missing the point.
Nope. I take them at the same measure, as their own thing. They both have serious moments, and silly moments.
 
So I have just caught up on The Orville.

I Enjoy it, it's good entertainment but for people saying "This IS STAR TREK".. No... No it isn't.

It does a good job as being sort of a "semi serious spoof" of TNG, Seth's "love letter" if you will, but in it's more serious aspects it falls far short of the mark of what TNG delivered. The episode about Transgender rights was decent right, but you compare the courtroom scene to something like Picard's speech in "measure of a man" and it's so different level it's not even close. Add in the toilet humor and yeah this is not Star Trek, this is not a show that has the quality to deliver an episode like "the inner light" "far beyond the star" "BOBW", "in the pale moonlight", no, no, this is a good entertaining show that is very watchable and does a cute nod to TNG.

Discovery, it has more than it's fair share of problems and i'll save that for another post but I think some people took the different direction of Discovery a bit too personally and went overboard with the Orville being "real star trek"

Truthfully, in my opinion, we don't have a "real star trek" on TV right now, and we haven't since DS9 ended, with maybe Season 3-4 of enterprise as an exception but that's a push.

So my advice is watch the orville, watch discovery, support what we do have and hope they make more series and different series and maybe we will get a "real star trek" on tv again someday.
 
Someone upthread brought this up and I wholeheartedly agree. There is a severe lack of starship porn in Discovery. How come a Star Trek parody understands nerds' love for awesome starships flying gracefully past the "camera"? There's never any proper exterior shots that lost more than three seconds. Come on, people.
Um, there was plenty of Starship porn in the first two episodes - for both Feds and Klingons.
 
I don't need or expect a "real Star Trek" -Trek had its day and is gone. Trying to resurrect it is like begging Disney to make a sequel to Pinocchio.

No, but they're more than happy to sequelize whatever made them a shitload of money last year.

I stopped watching Discovery because it's a TV series that isn't interesting enough to trade an hour for.
 
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I don't need or expect a "real Star Trek" -Trek had its day and is gone. Trying to resurrect it is like begging Disney to make a sequel to Pinocchio.

No, but they're more than happy to sequelize whatever made them a shitload of money last year.

I stopped watching Discovery because it's a TV series that isn't interesting enough to trade an hour for.
Apparently it is interesting enough though to keep coming back in a forum and complain about it..... ;)
 
Maybe in the advertising, but inside of the show itself, by Seth's own admission the show leans hard into dramedy territory, and is not by any stretch a straight up comedy.

I'm definitely not saying Orville needs to be more or less of anything. I'm saying the comedy aspects are greatly exaggerated here. For the first few episodes I was shocked it wasn't much more packed with gags and jokes and outright camp. The show is earnest in it's love of classic Trek and it should be given kudos for that.

I mean, look, I've seen the glory hole thing brought up at least three times in the last two pages, and it's what... ten seconds out of one episode? I'm sorry, i'm just not seeing how it defines the whole show. Maybe it is an agree-to-disagree situation, but i'm just not seeing it... And it has nothing to do with being unreasonable for this or that or whatever. I used to be that way, back in the days of Enterprise.

I can absolutely see why Orville doesn't appeal to people. Same for Discovery. I have reservations about both. I will say, though, that Discovery has actually hit me deep in the wells a couple times(i'm actually worried for Lorca and Stamets. I'm invested in where they are going.), and Orville has given me a nice warm-fuzzy nostalgic feeling.

seth can admit and say whatever he wants, the execution simply doesnt bear that out. it isnt about jokes per minute. whenever you have this much of this childish humor in your show it greatly colors and effects the drama. no matter what you say youre trying to do.
 
I stopped watching Discovery because it's a TV series that isn't interesting enough to trade an hour for.

My better-half keeps asking when we are going to watch the next Battlestar. :lol:

I just haven't had the desire to watch episode eight yet, even though I thought episode seven had been the best of the lot so far. Just finding the Klingons and the war with them so dull.
 
seth can admit and say whatever he wants, the execution simply doesnt bear that out. it isnt about jokes per minute. whenever you have this much of this childish humor in your show it greatly colors and effects the drama. no matter what you say youre trying to do.
It doesn't for me.
 
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