Opinions on The Orville

[flandry84]

Love it.
Great show,entertaining and funny but really good at the sci-fi stuff too.
The set design(apart from those weird spiral staircases),the uniforms and the location work all great too.I haven’t seen Discovery yet and frankly from what I read about it I am in no hurry to but I’m already looking forward to season 2 of The Orville.

 

[DimesDan]

At first I enjoyed it, as the episodes continued I found it more and more boring and stopped watching a few episodes before the end of the season.

 

[The Wormhole]

IMO, it's the true spiritual successor to Star Trek.

 

[Vger23]

It oscillates from being fun and charming to being derivative (in a bad way) and witless, and everything in between, in a remarkably spread-out and even fashion.

That doesn't mean I don't like/watch it, but I have absolutely zero passion for it. It's like having a baseball game that's 18-2 in the second inning between two teams you don't care about on the tv in the background.

Since I had grown woefully tired of the same exact episodic/thematic formula on Star Trek being played out time and time again...I worry that the novelty of "Orville" will wear thin for me very very quickly, since it's basically a thinner, less original format than VOY or ENT portrayed (further replicative fading, if you will).

 

[Owain Taggart]

My Dad and I both love it and find it scratches our Star Trek itch. I think the humour allows it to go in unexpected directions.

 

[Mudd]

IMO, it's the true spiritual successor to Star Trek.

It entertains me in the same way Star Trek did before Trek on TV went all Dukes of Hazard.

 

[flandry84]

Replicative fading??
What are we on now?Sixth Trek series?

 

[Captaindemotion]

Much to my surprise, I’m really enjoying it. I don’t find it especially funny (mild smiles at best) but it’s actually a pretty good effort at TNG-style Trek with a moral and philosophical bent. I think it was the episode with the sex change storyline where I first sat up and took notice. McFarland handled it in a sensitive and thought-provoking way that I would never have thought he was capable of.

The most recent I saw was the one where Kelly breaches their equivalent of the prime directive and ends up being worshipped by a planet. It was again handled cleverly and would’ve stood up well in a season of TNG or DS9.

 

[Qonundrum]

It's Voyager with dick jokes, retelling old Trek stories. It's comfort food for 90's fans.

I like it but it's nothing we haven't all seen before.

When was the last time Star Trek tackled an issue with a Plot-A or Plot-B like "member of society gets down votes if you do something someone else finds objectionable?"? I think "Sliders" tried something similar in the 1990s, or was a should that would be easy for them to do.

Even "Doctor Who" did it, sort of, with "Vengeance on Varos".

But I don't think Trek tried it, though as VOY, ENT, and STD I've skipped a number of episodes of, maybe one or more of them had?

 

[1001001]

I hate to admit it, but I like the Orville. If they got rid of the "dick" jokes, and tweeked the tone of some of the jokes, it could be an excellent show. I see a lot of potential. I like the robot, lol. I'd say they need more technobabble. It will be interesting to see how the show develops in he second season. What do other Trekkies think of The Orville?

Why would you hate to admit that?

I enjoyed the first season quite a bit.

 

[Relayer1]

It's Voyager with dick jokes, retelling old Trek stories. It's comfort food for 90's fans.

I like it but it's nothing we haven't all seen before.

Exactly. But TNG and DS9 took a while to find their feet and even Voyager grew somewhat.

Orville could become something more than it is at the moment - I'm glad it will get the chance.

I'd still like to see Mockingbird back in the MCU though...

 

[The Wormhole]

When was the last time Star Trek tackled an issue with a Plot-A or Plot-B like "member of society gets down votes if you do something someone else finds objectionable?"?

To be fair, social media wasn't really a thing when the majority of Star Trek was on the air, and Star Trek of the 90s was remarkable terrible at predicting technological developments. Yes, I am talking about the crateful of pads being lugged around on Voyager. So Trek not tackling this particular issue isn't really all that shocking. After all, it's only been in the past decade that something like that has really become a topical subject.

 

[Campe]

The characters are fine but the plot lines are many recycled storylines from Trek of the 1990s. That’s fine. That’s entertaining. I enjoy myself. But I wouldn’t miss it too much if it got canceled.

 

[JD]

That's one of things I like about The Orville, it has the opportunity to give us Trek style stories about things that weren't around yet when Enterprise was still on the air.

 

[-Brett-]

I like that they took what was good about Star Trek, namely the premise, and ditched the brand name and the garbage that goes with it. That's a step in the right direction.

Not enamored with the execution though. They seem to have embraced the space fantasy side of Star Trek. I'd like to see something that goes in the other direction. A slightly harder sci fi, where ships obey Newtons laws, where aliens are alien and with a minimum of space magic.

 

[Ridcully]

It is not canon...and the universe is a parallel one...it is recycled, they are all wooden, the ships are too big, don't like the new look of the aliens...the tech is wrong.....the crew is not likeable......the captain does not follow the rules like a good boyscout! It is too dark and steeped in war stuff.....it is not true Orville!......and so on!

 

[shivkala]

I guess I'm the lone dissenter, but I'm unimpressed. To be fair, I only watched the first three episodes, but I saw nothing in there to draw me back.

I was expecting McFarlane to apply his Family Guy skills to Star Trek, and I was ready to settle in and laugh uproariously. The jokes immediately struck me as not up to his ability; I'm not averse to the dick jokes, but he's shown he can do really intelligent humor as well, and I find it lacking here.

Worse, for me, are the tonal shifts. Going from humor, on whatever level, to attempted drama, on whatever level, just doesn't work very often, and in this I don't think it worked at all. I had the same reaction to the Buffy series. One moment she's trying to be cool and tossing off one-liners, and the next I'm supposed to feel sad for her because her mother's dead. I could never connect those two Buffies in any meaningful way.

You're not the lone dissenter. I made it through the first season, but I'm iffy on season 2. Honestly, I laughed harder at Star Trek Discovery's humor than The Orville's. I agree that it lacks intelligent humor and wants to go for the easy joke, but all too often, those jokes fall flat for me.

I don't mind the tonal shifts. Scrubs is one of my favorite series because it masterfully handled them. I would find myself laughing and then suddenly tearing up. The Orville hasn't done that for me, yet.

The upvote/downvote episode was, for me (and a lot of people it seems), the best of the bunch. If McFarlane can capture that more, I'm up for a second season. But, overall, I didn't care for or about the characters to the point that I don't remember most of their names now.

I get that the episodic format scratches an itch for some people, but I just have to accept that I'm not one of them. I prefer serialized storytelling that has a narrative goal. I actually think it serves the characters better because the writers can't let something happen and then let it be forgotten about. I see more character growth in serialized storytelling than episodic. It also helps me get invested because if I miss an episode, I miss a lot. I could have watched the pilot and the finale, with nothing in-between, and really not have missed much (except wondering why the Chief Engineer was different).

 

[Mudd]

I like that they took what was good about Star Trek, namely the premise, and ditched the brand name and the garbage that goes with it. That's a step in the right direction.

Exactly so.

 

[tomalak301]

I love The Orville and I don't know where people saw a season full of dick jokes. What I saw was a season full of regular people doing regular things and having fun at the same time. In that way it reminds me a little of Farscape with a bit of Star Trek tossed in. Considering I love both, it's a match made in heaven.

 

[Phoenix219]

I hate to admit it, but I like the Orville. If they got rid of the "dick" jokes, and tweeked the tone of some of the jokes, it could be an excellent show. I see a lot of potential. I like the robot, lol. I'd say they need more technobabble. It will be interesting to see how the show develops in he second season. What do other Trekkies think of The Orville?

Why in the world would you want it to have MORE technobabble? Is this some type of satire of sarcasm?