Discovery and "The Orville" Comparisons

[Roald]

There is no distress or frustration, at least from me. It is a TV show, and fun to talk about. It seems the folks who are the most vexed are the Discovery fans because some folks have the audacity to criticize their show.

You like to believe the latter, I know... I don't think anyone here is surprised by critism, it is a forum after all. Even I am critical! Of course no series is going to meet your expectations 100%, there is always critique. But there is a very big difference between being critical and saying things like: 'the writing sucks so bad, these people should never work in Hollywood ever again', etc. That -in my book- has nothing to do with genuine critism. Of course Bill will call me a Trump lover over this, but this is just my opinion.

 

[BillJ]

...'the writing sucks so bad, these people should never work in Hollywood ever again'...

Care to point out where I've said this? I do think the writing is mostly bad to this point. I think it relies on too many crutches from past Trek to get the job done and is sorely lacking in originality and dramatic weight. I've been more than honest about my thoughts on the writing, but also realize for every person like me, there is a person who thoroughly enjoys it. It is a personal evaluation, but one that doesn't seem welcomed here at all.

But, I don't have any issue with folks working in Hollywood again. Many are longtime writers who have done other things I have enjoyed.

At the end of the day, I still subscribe. Because I want to see the brand be successful, even if I'm not enjoying it as much as other iterations of Trek and other science fiction shows.

 

[fireproof78]

Care to point out where I've said this? I do think the writing is mostly bad to this point. I think it relies on too many crutches from past Trek to get the job done and is sorely lacking in originality and dramatic weight. I've been more than honest about my thoughts on the writing, but also realize for every person like me, there is a person who thoroughly enjoys it. It is a personal evaluation, but one that doesn't seem welcomed here at all.

But, I don't have any issue with folks working in Hollywood again. Many are longtime writers who have done other things I have enjoyed.

At the end of the day, I still subscribe. Because I want to see the brand be successful, even if I'm not enjoying it as much as other iterations of Trek and other science fiction shows.

That evaluation makes more sense to me than "If only DISCO did X then I would like it."

Not saying that you're doing that, but it provided an example of what comes across as a more "fair" (if there is such a thing) evaluation of the show, rather than more simplified statements of DISCO=not real Trek type bromides.

I at least respect you're honesty in stating that you don't enjoy it. I just will agree to disagree that if I didn't like something I wouldn't watch it.

 

[Cake]

The IMDb ratings of individual episodes of The Orville are also interesting. A nice clear upwards trend.

http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt5691552

 

[Roald]

Care to point out where I've said this? I do think the writing is mostly bad to this point. I think it relies on too many crutches from past Trek to get the job done and is sorely lacking in originality and dramatic weight. I've been more than honest about my thoughts on the writing, but also realize for every person like me, there is a person who thoroughly enjoys it. It is a personal evaluation, but one that doesn't seem welcomed here at all.

But, I don't have any issue with folks working in Hollywood again. Many are longtime writers who have done other things I have enjoyed.

At the end of the day, I still subscribe. Because I want to see the brand be successful, even if I'm not enjoying it as much as other iterations of Trek and other science fiction shows.

Wasn't aiming at you with that quote; ironically the person who used to say something like that seems to enjoy DSC these days! What I meant was, and I hope you agree, that there's a difference between constructive, thought out criticism (finally spelled correctly ), and downright bashing.

 

[Blamo]

Because the stories were good enough that you didn't have to resort to character A dislikes character B because of XYZ.

A story is never too good to have well written characters.

STD is largely rooted in these filler character nuances and very weak stories.

No it really isn't. The only Character A dislikes Character B conflict was between Michael and Saru, which was both unforced and was comfortably resolved in a very mature way. That conflict perhaps took up to 5 minutes of onscreen time. It wasn't even much of a conflict

Compare that to Paris vs Voyager crew in the Caretaker, Belanna with everyone or even Shelby vs Riker in Best of Both Worlds. Hell, TOS has more conflict between Bones and Kirk or Spock (Balance of Terror had a crewmember thinking Spock was a traitor). Then there's the conflict between Picard and his Brother in Family.

Come to think of it, a lot of Star Trek's better stories feature a lot of interpersonal conflict.

 

[Tesophius]

A story is never too good to have well written characters.

.

Rendezvous with Rama, best modern sci fi story, has incredibly weak characters.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Decided to throw in ENT there for comparison purposes. The scale is 1-10.

 

[fireproof78]

Rendezvous with Rama, best modern sci fi story, has incredibly weak characters.

Interesting. Had to Google it, but it could be a fun read, after I'm done with "The Martian."

Though, more interesting to me was the fact that it spawned a series that focused more on characterization, indicating that a series could not carry forward with such a story style. This is consistent with my experience as well, because characters drive the story and the majority of individuals I have encountered have demonstrated more preference towards someone they can identify with, rather than the setting of the story.

This is why "The Lion King" works very well for kids, while adults might prefer a presentation of "Hamlet." The story beats are the same, but the setting and characters are changed enough for their audience to be satisfactory.

 

[Blamo]

Rendezvous with Rama, best modern sci fi story, has incredibly weak characters.

Yes and it would have been even better with great characters.

 

[Xerxus]

It's interesting that Discovery seems to have struck a raw nerve with a lot of people. Although IMDB says they use a weighted average, Discovery didn't actually benefit from it as it uses its average (arithmetic mean) which doesn't negate the hate-spam.
The weighted average actually lowered The Orville from 8.0 down to 7.8
Most of the other Trek series has approximately 2% votes being the lowest.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Anyone that rates an episode 1 can't be taken seriously. Any Star Trek episode that deserves it are so few and far between.

 

[Xerxus]

Anyone that rates an episode 1 can't be taken seriously. Any Star Trek episode that deserves it are so few and far between.

A "1" rating is a sign of an emotional negative response. I don't think people like that should be discounted because their feelings and hate are very real. It's just that it might not be a good indication of the "objective" quality of a show.
The same goes for some "10" votes which is because they really enjoy it despite flaws. Their feelings aren't really discounted in the same way.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Totally illogical.

 

[Tesophius]

Not interested.

 

[Tesophius]

I agree that STD hasn't had any 1's yet, the visuals alone bump it up to a 2

 

[Commishsleer]

I agree that STD hasn't had any 1's yet, the visuals alone bump it up to a 2

Yes a zero's ridiculous unless you hate it because its not 24/25th century Trek or not TOS or too dark for GRs vision or some such.
So too are the perfect scores. Only TOS is perfect

 

[fireproof78]

Totally illogical.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

Moral of the story is online ratings are a horrible horrible benchmark to judge how good something is or how popular something is.

People are already fickle, online clicks even more so.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

If the internet we have today was in 1987, just imagine how savaged it would have been by the vocal minority on those sites.