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Discovery and "The Orville" Comparisons

Goodman's comment here touches on some of the ways in which the aims of The Orville resemble the original Star Trek TV series and why it may be appealing to folks who are disinterested in current Star Trek:

[Goodman] added, “I think the difference for us, is that Seth was very much aware…he’s making a show for everybody. That’s what gets lost in the discussion of Star Trek fans liking and not liking a show. The original Star Trek was a show that millions of people watched, all over the world. A subset of them — like me — are super passionate Star Trek fans. I’ve written three Star Trek books. I’m a big fan, but we represent a very small, tiny part of the audience that watch that show.”

Goodman concluded, “Seth wanted to do a show that was for everybody. And I think that may be closer to the reason that people are making that connection. That, this is a show, that people don’t need to know the backstory of that universe to get into it.”
 
A negative experience is more firmly recorded in the brain than a positive one. I certainly understand the bias, and the appeal of one show over another.

That doesn't mean there are not biases for and against each show.

If there's a good example it's Dr. Pulaski. Her introduction wasn't very good but she panned out to be a much more fun character than Dr. Crusher. Despite that, most fans only remember the negative first impression with her teasing Data, forgetting that she got over that phase very quickly and became good friends with him after getting to know him.
 
A negative experience is more firmly recorded in the brain than a positive one. I certainly understand the bias, and the appeal of one show over another.

That doesn't mean there are not biases for and against each show.
Have you watched The Orville, fireproof? I'm following this thread because it's interesting to see how it is being 'embraced' because of its spirit. Haven't seen it mainly because we just spent money on a crazy expensive TV and Netfix exclusively to watch Discovery (The Netflix part). My Internet usage is capped so one episode a week of Discovery is costing me and running me close to using up what I've got. You know it does make me feel I have a right to not necessarily get my money's worth but to express an opinion. However The Orville isn't on bloody Netflix! So to watch that I'm going to have to negotiate more juggling of finances..

Negatives to me register a pretty immediate emotion but a positive can lead to loyalty and that surely is what producers want.
 
Great that The Orville got renewed! :)
It got steady ratings and gained viewers compared to its lead-in Gotham. The last episode even improved ratings wise quite a bit and was the best on Thursday so far. Maybe a result of good mouth to mouth promotion? The Orville does have a 93 % audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes after all.
 
As noted elsewhere, any new Trek project is going to have to thread the needle between "Hey, this isn't like the old stuff" and "Hey, this is just the same old stuff." You're never going to find a sweet spot between those two poles that will satisfy everyone.

Which is why the season-anthology approach was the right one and I hope they return to it. It's not like Discovery is cheap anyway so the cost shouldn't be a factor.
 
The past is always romanticized in some fashion. Just look at how popular GONE WITH THE WIND is. A morally reprehensible film filtering the past with technicolor and happy darkies working the fields.
 
Hate-watching is a thing, thanks to the complementary pass-time of complaining about each episode online afterwards.
Wow, and here I thought this was a place that you could discuss good and bad episodes of star trek disco.
I WAS WRONG!
Apparently if you don't like it, and say so, you get psycho analized by the "I love star trek no matter how bad a story is crowd".
Hey I watch discovery because I have loved all of the star trek prior to this and I am hoping to do so with discovery. Unfortunately with this never ending episode of fricking star trek fantasy mushroom drive, and everything else that's so different from what it was to what it is, that I just cant get into it yet. I am waiting as with many others im sure to see how this evolves.
That's why I'm still watching Disco for now.
As far as Orville goes, I not only enjoy it as is, I look forward to seeing it every week. Both shows are suppose to be complete science fiction shows, it's just that discovery is more of a space fantasy soap opera, and I am starting to loose my patience with it.
I really want it to succeed.
 
It may have been that way but that doesn't mean it is viewed that way, many romanticize that era.

Exactly. Certainly each era has their own character, but there always seems to be a tendency to romanticize the past as a simpler, more innocent time, while assuming that today, with all its challenges and complexities and compromises, is somehow cheaper and dirtier . . ..

Another example. Nowadays we tend to idealize the 1950s and early 1960s as a more innocent time, but the original Twilight Zone was fond of episodes of where disillusioned contemporary sorts, beset by the trials and tribulations of "modern" life, longed to escape the rat race by retreating to the simpler, more idyllic time of . . . when? The 1940s, the 1930s?

Which, of course, would have been when that showgirl in 1932 was lamenting that everything was cheap and commercial these days . . . . :)
 
The reverse is also true: people who do not remember earlier times often insist that the present is the worst that thus-and-such has ever been, and the most perilous time in history for fill-in-the-blank.

Which is natural considering our anxiety over not knowing what will come next.

I'm pretty sure that nothing going on now is as bad or scary as stuff in the 1960s. Except, of course, that we know how things like the "Cold War" and the Cuban Missile Crisis worked out - didn't know that when we were practicing duck-and-cover in the school hallway, though.

The 80s were no bowl of cherries either.
 
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