Star Trek Discovery And The Orville

Invisible Crane

Adventurer
The first Star Trek show in over a decade and Seth McFarlane's "Star Trek but done with comedy in it" have been airing for about 2 months now and the general concensous is that Star Trek Discovery is the worst Star Trek has ever been while The Orville is well liked by everyone who's seen it. Personally while I do get why STD (yeah unfortanate acronym I know) is not liked by the Trekkies, I don't hate the show, in fact I've stuck with it since it started and I like The Orville as well.

Anyone here seen both shows (also The Orville is coming to the UK in December IIRC)
 
I don't care about the 'consensus' but I really like ST: Discovery. It started off weak and improved steadily, to the point where I now look forward to it each week. It doesn't make any sense to call it STD when Voyager was VOY and Enterprise was ENT, but ok.

Zero interest in "Star Trek but done with comedy in it". Sounds annoying. Not watched it as I'm not interested in piracy.

R
 
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But other than that Discovery's kinda intriguing. I didn't realise it was on UK Netflix until I saw this thread and Googled it, so I just watched the first two episodes and I will be continuing. Though I have to say it seems more overtly American in tone than any ST show since probably TOS, though the US entertainment industry does seem obsessed with their own interpretations of their current socio-political climate, in a way that I at least (as an outsider who really doesn't see a lot of difference between the America of 2017 and say, the America of 2002) am kinda turned off by. Will have further thoughts when I've watched more, if Rui says it improves then I'm hopeful.

Can't say I think much of the trailers for The Orville - I find McFarlane's stuff very hit-and-miss, and this seems on the less appealing side to me.
 
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I feel like a gave the wrong impression of The Orville. The impression people have of it seems to be Family Guy In Space, it's not. It's a Star Trek homage with some comedy sprinkled throughout. In fact the show can get serious at times and when it does the comedy takes a back seat. I really feel like Seth McFarlane really means well with the series and given he's a big ST fan I really do see it in the show. Oh and it's even got some ST alumi involved with it (Johnathon Frakes, Robert Duncan McNeil, Brannon Braga, Penny Johnson, etc)
 
I just forced myself to watch the trailer for The Orville and hated every second of the experience. The humour is not to my taste, to put it politely, and it just seems like a cheap clone with none of the interesting stuff that isn't comedy in between the gags. Maybe the reason it's going down well is that humourless Trek fans such as myself are avoiding it in the first place ^^;

My partner is now trolling me by putting annoying Discovery/Orville comparison videos up while I'm making dinner to make fun of the situation :(

I'd rather watch After Trek than this show.

R
 
Up to episode 5 of Discovery and I'm really torn. In some ways, this does not feel like Star Trek. Which in itself is okay, because nothing stays the same forever and they had to move on from Roddenberry at some point, I'm just not sure if this was the best way to do it. It feels like a "dark Star Trek for dark times" which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing - The Nolan Batman movies and new Battlestar Galactica dealt with things like terrorism, surveillance and people (not) stooping to the levels of extremists when fighting extremists. Those were all very topical in the post 9/11, "War on Terror" world, and as mentioned above ST always deals with real world issues too but... from the Klingons' portrayal and a few lines that have been dropped I feel like I know what the impetus was for writing this show the way they did, and it just seems to me like a massive overreaction which has not really connected with the Zeitgeist. I feel in times when maybe people aren't getting along and dialogue has stalled, it's the kind of hopefulness of a better future that will connect and speak to people rather than a darker mirror of our own present.

But then there is some of that ST feel making it through. The Klingons have actually improved over the course of the last three episodes and become more complex than their obvious nationalist allegory in the first two, which I happily nodded my head to, since if Discovery wasn't even going to acknowledge the two sides of the story then that would be a pretty major betrayal of the franchise's guiding philosophy and have soured me on it pretty quick. The whole plot with the Tardigrade was classic Trek, but then it's a little jarring to see the crew members have such empathy for a space creature while apparently having little-to-none for the Klingons or sometimes even their fellow humans or crewmembers.

And the characters are good and the actors are doing a great job, the whole atmosphere's just feeling a bit... nasty - And it will probably surprise people who know my tastes that that's something which would bother me, and ordinarily it wouldn't. But is it what I want from Star Trek, one of the few generally hopeful and positive shows I watch? Time will tell, I guess.
 
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That's a fair summary. Where I switched from considering it a "great setup, shame about the script" experience and starting actively liking it was somewhere between episodes 5 and 7, with the latter being a particular highlight since Michael 'Choose Me! I'm The Star!' Burnham wasn't the focal point for once and the character who was gave a thoroughly excellent performance. I like Michael but the scriptwriters are way too proud of her and it's grating. I want to get to know other characters; seeing the awkward relationship between Michael and Saru gradually getting a bit more time bit by bit has made me feel that spark.

I love Trek because (good) Trek shows have ensemble casts with very different backgrounds, rather than just being hero shows about how one main character is incredible, or coming through a complex period of growth and learning not to be annoying. I don't care about that stuff. Every other show is already about that stuff. I skipped the second and third 'New Trek' movies because they didn't seem to 'get it' at all, and I was concerned Discovery was making the same mistake for the first few episodes.

If they can get through this main scenario and then start chilling out a bit and letting some of the minor characters give us different angles on the situation, I feel this could be truly great. They have a good cast beyond Michael so they need to have confidence in that and show them off more. And yeah, a bit more positivity about the future and the crew's teamwork would definitely go down well. That's another thing that I felt has gradually been improving, so I'm hopeful.

R
 
It isnt star trek and it is to me I do still enjoy it mostly cos the acting really is top notch. Nice to see a Star Trek that isnt produced on a shoestring too
 
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