The Orville set design and lighting is perfectly suitable for sitcoms today, but it would not be accepted in dramatic television. If Discovery had those sets they would have likely been mocked as looking cheap and outdated. The Orville is intentionally evoking the 80s aesthetics of TNG but doing it under the guise of a comedy, so it can easily get away with that old school look under that pretense.
Yeah, that latest episode where the doctor was kidnapped and then had to stab and shoot her captor in order to escape back across a plague-ridden landscape to her dying son was a laugh riot!...
Seriously, you're not wrong that
The Orville's visuals definitely evoke the '80s/'90s, particularly with the flat lighting and the hotel-like ship interiors á la TNG. But the show itself seems to work better the more it gets
away from the broad comedy elements, so I don't think the visuals actually depend on that aspect. Whether they work overall (and whether they work better or worse than
Discovery's design aesthetic, which is not quite the same question) is in the eye of the beholder.
Why would sports be such a mystery?
The team is in your city or region.
You go to games with your parent(s) growing up.
You idolize a certain player from the team as a kid.
You meet a member or members of the team.
You use a team or a player as inspiration for your own athletic dreams or goals.
You enjoy watching the games with your parents or grandparents or friends.
etc.
You misunderstand me. I understand those on an intellectual level, but I can't personally understand identifying with a team on an emotional level. Sports bores the hell out of me, and I feel like I'm observing an alien species whenever I see people getting so wrapped up in it.
I'm with Eschaton here — I just don't get the sports thing. Never have, doubt I ever will.
That's not to say that I dispute Locutus's logic; it seems reasonable. But I look at that list of elements, and I realize that literally none of them apply to me. (Apart from the first one, having local sports teams that exist, which is true for literally everyone in the developed world.) I hardly ever went to sporting events with my parents; hardly ever watched games on TV with anyone, and never enjoyed it when I did; never met, idolized, or even knew the names of players (why would I be inspired by a bunch of jocks?). Basically what you're saying here, Locutus, is that a person has to be socialized into sports fandom like they're socialized into a religion or a cult. Which makes sense to me, observationally speaking, but it's not something I want to emulate.
By way of contrast, the forms of entertainment I
am a fan of — science fiction, comics, various TV shows, and so on — were things I discovered on my own. No socialization required. The fact that there were actual fan communities built around these things was a later discovery, a surprise bonus.
(Okay, I'll admit to just a couple of occasions over the years when I did feel the vibe of a sports "moment." Back in the '90s, when the Bulls were winning NBA championships, those games were fun, because (A) the sheer superhuman talent of Michael Jordan was amazing to watch, and (B) I was living in Chicago then and the excitement there was palpable. And last year, when the Cubs won the World Series, I definitely watched, and cheered with friends and strangers at the end, because for god's sake, how can you not root for a 108-year underdog? But seriously, those are the only examples that come to mind.)
I've realized why I keep coming back to The Orville and why I'm in no rush to watch new episodes of Discovery—it's the characters, stupid.
There's not one character on The Orville that I hate or find annoying. I like this crew, I like their chemistry. ... Contrast that with Discovery. Tilly is annoying, Michael is insufferable, Ash is boring, Klingons are all lame, and I don't know what to make of Saru or Stamets. Lorca does intrigue me, but I find Mudd to be the most interesting character and he's not even a regular.
Well, this is an irreducibly subjective thing, I suspect. I like
The Orville, but I don't care for all the characters. Gordon in particular is annoying, and exemplifies the broad juvenile sense of humor that is IMHO the show's worst weakness; he's the sort of person I'd do my best to stay away from in real life. Bortus isn't likable at all in my book, and his "focus" episodes about the baby did nothing to win me over. Cmdr. Grayson is mostly just boring, and IMHO has no chemistry with Mercer, but then I've never much liked Adrianne Palicki in any show I've seen her in, so maybe that's just me.
Meanwhile, on
Discovery, I liked Tilly from her very first scene, and Stamets is growing on me fast. Burnham is burdened by having to carry a lot of plot on her shoulders, and by inconsistent handling of emotion, but I think those are meant to be features rather than bugs, and IMHO so far SMG is doing a good job in the role. Lorca is fascinating and charismatic, and Saru is at least interesting, if not really likable. I'd say the weak point is Tyler, who seems thoroughly unremarkable so far.
You're totally right about the Klingons being lame, though. They are the show's weakest point, by far. (And the fact that we see them interacting almost exclusively among themselves, rather than with our main characters, doesn't help either.)
When I think back to TOS, what made the show have such a lasting impact on me is the starring trio of Spock, Bones, and Kirk. They had great chemistry and a strong presence. And when I think back to Enterprise and what I disliked most about it, I think of the characters. Hoshi and Travis were absolute zeroes and the rest of the cast didn't excite me either. Good characters who are LIKEABLE are crucial to good Trek and this series falls flat. So while Discovery has to make some drastic personnel changes to get me interested, The Orville already has the perfect set-up to become a great show if they improve their storylines.
That Kirk/Spock/Bones triad was absolute magic, yes!... but that's the kind of thing it's incredibly hard for any show to replicate. With different actors it wouldn't have worked. With Pike (from the original pilot) or Dr. Piper (from the second) it wouldn't have worked. It was lightning in a bottle. You can't plan for it; you either have it or you don't.
I'd say more Trek series haven't, than had. ENT didn't, obviously; I agree there. I'd say VGR didn't, either.
Honestly, FWIW, I always thought a weak ensemble of characters was part of the problem for TNG, as well. Beyond Picard and Data — who were compelling thanks to fantastic acting more often than to the writing, IMHO — I always thought most of the rest of the characters were frankly disposable. Both Worf and Troi were insufferable half the time, and I actively disliked Riker. DS9 had a much better ensemble — better writing, better acting, better chemistry.
Considering all of these examples, I don't think the key element is for characters to be
likable, necessary. It's just that there needs to be some sort of emotional hook to make them
relatable. Good characters might not be people you'd necessarily want to
be, or to be
around, but they're the kind of people you want to know more about, and in a good ensemble you want to see them
interact, because the combination is more than the sum of the parts.
(IMHO some of the best ensembles in television history have actually been on sitcoms. Think
M*A*S*H. Think
WKRP. Think
Friends. Think
Community.)
