I am a fan, and of American Dad as well. Initially, it was what drew me to the show. By the second episode, I was hooked on it completely. Except for MacFarlane as Ed Mercer, that took a while longer but he definitely grew on me.
I suspect if season 1 had had more planet visits, this argument, well, it would still be ongoing, because its a forum and you can only discuss whether Saru is adding sugar or salt to his tea so many times, but maybe not as ardently. I think most everyone would agree Discovery needs to go out and discover things, now.
So, getting back to my original question, what are those essential elements of Trek. What is it that "real" Trek is and this show is not?
Well, I gave my answer back on page 1, but, at least for me, the key elements are (1) exploration of the universe leading to discovery of the self, and (2) believable characters -- not necessarily interesting characters (Sulu, Malcolm, most of the cast of TNG), but people who act like believable, relatable humans within a fantastical setting. YMMV, though, and I've been really enjoying reading others' ideas about what is the essence of Star Trek.
As I've long said, The Orville set low expectations for itself - just basically be a moderately amusing Trek clone. It succeeded in meeting these expectations, perhaps even exceeding them. In contrast, Discovery set incredibly high expectations for itself, and for the most part, whiffed it (even if it was sometimes entertaining along the way).
A lot of this basically comes down to a fundamental divide in Trek fandom about what Trek is. Is Trek more like the Twilight Zone or Lord of the Rings? Is Trekness defined by the setup and themes, which can be used to tell any story at all, or is it defined by the decades of canon stretched over hundreds of episodes? If Trek is about the themes and the setting, than you're likely the sort of person who thinks The Orville is a Trek show, since it's Trek without the canon. Or think Galaxy Quest is a Star Trek movie. But if you're a canon purist, you think that in order to be Trek it must be linked with the existing continuity in some fashion.
new mathematical law: the longer a conversation on star trek continues, the risk of the discussion being hijacked by mentions of non-trek show Orville continues exponentially inverse to the rate of the word "continuity". All trek threads will eventually be hijacked by the virus that is Orville.
The preference for Orville really shows that many Trek fans are terrified of change and haven't paid much attention to any show that isn't Trek produced after the 1990s. Orville is just TNG with awkwardly inserted jokes. I like it, it's strangely comforting because I also love TNG. But it's a dramedy set in space that appears to use rejected Trek and Sliders scripts as inspiration. Discovery is trying to take Trek in a new direction by focusing more on the characters and developing them, showing them grow. You don't get that from the Orville, it just tells you who these characters are and they don't change much. That's fine, but I like a little meat to my shows and Discovery gives me that. Burnham goes from a mutineer who rejected Starfleet principals in a misguided attempt to protect her captain and ship, losing both in the process to someone willing to mutiny again to defend those same principals from admirals in a desperate attempt to save the Federation. She learned from her mistakes and stopped the war she accidentally started. Tilly went from a cadet with some degree of social anxiety to a trusted and confident member of the crew, even shifting focus to training for command. They aren't static, which is a major improvement for Trek.
I think fandom had incredibly high expectations. Based on the show we got, they spent a lot of money, but didn't really do anything that hadn't been done before.
I dislike this. It could easily be said that people who have a preference for Discovery will simply watch anything with arrowhead badges and warp nacelles. Which I don't think is the case for most folks. If someone likes one, and dislikes the other, it simply comes down to whichever one hit on something that people like, that people connected to.
I like Orville, but it's just TNG with jokes. It's not new, it's not clever, it's the Kraft mac and cheese dinner of shows. There's nothing wrong with it, but I like seeing new things sometimes. The vast majority of the complaints about Discovery is that it's different than old Trek. Way too much of it focusing on not looking the same and the rest on the structure. But when they prefer a show that is structured exactly like TNG to the point where some appear to be rejected TNG scripts with jokes inserted and intentionally apes the design of TNG, I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to think. I don't mean it as an insult in any way, but it's seems to be true.
I'm sure there's a Transformers forum where there are bitter angry fans discussing the Go-Bots. But it's still a cheap knock-off of the original. I just am tired of the amount of discussion of a show that isn't a trek series, no matter how much the showrunner would like it to be without paying licensing, gets on a forum that isn't about that series. No matter how much one loves the Go-bots.
I think you underrate it. I think it was far more topical and on the mark than pretty much anything Discovery has produced so far. My complaint is that Discovery isn't different enough. It may stretch them out over a season, but it has the same trite morals of TNG. Complete with terrible speechifying. It is the worst elements of TNG with a shiny coat of paint. And its not character growth to move a character back to the point they were before they did something wrong, that is just a reset button. I wanted them to tear Trek down to the studs and begin anew, the same thing I wanted with the Abrams films. I was disappointed on both counts, but at least the Abrams films were fun and engaging.
Is it an improvement? For some it might be. Others might not see it as such, and there’s a strong argument that much of the change is change for changes sake, and that the things that have been changed are the wrong things (much of DSC is very similar to things we have seen before...) even you assertation that TNG/Orville style stuff is somehow lacking ‘meat’ I would consider debatable. Orville did some seriously good social commentary in its first year, and DSC is very much behind in that regard (again, in my opinion) Playing it as a binary ‘style a good/style b bad’ somewhat misses it’s mark. I disagree with your opinion that DSC style is an improvement on that nineties template at all. Again in my opinion, which is of course, not a fact.
I think the biggest disappointment (among many) for me, was the Klingons. And I'm not talking about the look. During "Errand of Mercy" Kirk and Kor both said they had grievances against the other. Mara in "The Day of the Dove" say the Klingons are poor and have to expand to feed their people. Yet, none of that comes to light during Discovery. We just get butthurt Klingons who come across as being as dumb as a box of rocks, who want to go to war because the Federation said they "come in peace".
Like the episode with the upvote/downvote planet? Which had been done with Black Mirror and Community before it. It was fun, but felt like an episode of Sliders. The problem with TNG was that any development was erased by the next episode. Data may learn that he has some degree of emotions, but by the next Data episode he's still wanting to be more human. Geordi never grows, Riker never grows. Picard goes through a horrific experience and it's dealt with by the next episode and disappears until FIrst Contact when he suddenly has a revenge fantasy. It would have been interesting to actually see that develop and be a constant thread. Picard is the only character in TNG who got anything close to an arc and it's really him mellowing out over 7 years. They'll occasionally dug out the flute from The Inner Light too, but it was treated as a hobby. That's not what I got from the show. Pilot Burnham is a different character from finale Burnham. She's embraced her emotions, learned that there is more than logic to rely on and gone from someone who tries to take on everything by herself to working as a team. It would be better to trash all of the canon, but people freak out about that. I understand why they tried to shove this into the canon given the overreaction to the Kelvinverse not being the Prime universe, the whole notion of the Prime universe is one of the worst things to happen to Star Trek.