It's as much Star Trek as the unofficial Trek movie Galaxy Quest. Doesn't matter if the characters and universe are different, it's got the same vibe to fit in.
I can understand why. The motivations and message are a bit deeper than WoK. But UC wouldn't have happened (in the same way) without WoK first, since I don't think Kirk had the same hatred towards Klingons before. Distrust sure, but not revenge level hate.
UC also has that connection with one of the best TNG episodes, Yesterday's Enterprise.
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Good point, at worst it ranks about equally with Galaxy Quest for me ... Sigourney Weaver weights my ranking a lot though
It's literally just camp TNG with juvenile humor, mildly annoying characters, and low stakes.
Honestly I kind of wanted them to keep more of the humorous tone. I know a lot of people hated it and thought it was distracting, but I thought it was a pretty unique take on the genre. I wish they'd toned it down without going full space opera.
It took me a while to get passed the early episodes, they were a little too “family guy” for me.
But the show did get pretty good in season 2, and the humour got better (in my opinion).
I think the humour in the first few episodes was Mcfarlens way of sneaking the show past the network suits - he sold it as family guy meets star trek, then switched on them once it was established.
Literally the case, the first couple eps were written for fartjock executives. Ep 4 onwards were written for the show. It's why there's a sudden stratospheric upswing
When that second episode of the first season dropped I said the same thing to a friend that's a die hard Star Trek fan. They weren't enjoying the new Trek, yet, but wanted the thought provoking episodes now, action later/sprinkled in
Lower Decks is amazing. It's up there with Futurama. It's just damn good, even if you're not a trek fan.
Lower Decks is the entire reason I've even begun my Star Trek adventure. I'd watch Trek occasionally whenever it was on TV, but now I've watched all of LD, DISC, SNW, TOS, the first 6 movies, 6 seasons of TNG, and 1 Season of ENT in like the past 2 months or so.
I'm actually doing the same thing, all because of LD. Wanting to know more about the lore.
People keep saying this, so as someone who has only watched half of the first season, when does it get to this point?
I mean it's amusing enough, but it's just a pastiche of cliches and obvious gags. People keep saying that it distills Trek down to its essence or something like that, but to me it seems like "watered down" would be more accurate.
Having a bad first season is as Star Trek as you can get. All kidding aside, it gets better and more serious with time.
Just like TNG it starts picking up in the 2nd season and really hits its stride on the 3rd season. If you were to rewatch TNGs first season without the nostalgia goggles you’d consider it pretty campy too.
After the first season it begins to feel a bit less campy and the crude humor is toned down a bit and even more so I feel by the third season. The overall plot starts to show itself in season 2 and just gets better from there.
I saw a different season 3 I guess. The humor was gone but the kind and progressive approach to problems that I like about Trek was kinda gone too.
It's an alternate universe's Star Trek. They just need some handwavium device to cross universe and they could make a crossover episode.
I'm actually surprised there isn't, as far as I know, a modern high-budget miniseries about the Wright brothers. It seems like such an obvious biography subject.
I know. They could easily do it now, and potentially very well. It seems like a slam dunk.
Can you imagine how cool it would be to see reproductions of those early planes flying? They wouldn't have to stop at the first flight. They could do something like go up through WWI.
The Orville literally made me give Star Trek an actual try. I think of it as my first series of Trek.
Orville was such an aimless show in the beginning. Obviously it started out going for campy comedy parody but it honestly wasn't hitting the mark on the comedy often enough. I'm stalled out somewhere in early Season 3--not because I wasn't enjoying it, I think it's actually gotten pretty good by that point, but just time and other commitments.
I prefer the first seasons that they didn't take the show too seriously. The last ones (or last one?) Was way too dense, with episodes way too long that got be bored at half episode every time.
I agree as well. And I've had my best laugh while watching season one and being high.
Because it was probably written while being high...
I had the opposite experience lol! I really liked the first season, season 2 started off pretty well, but I lost interest before I got to season 3. It felt like the later episodes were either too preachy, or too focused on trying to make the characters "cool" instead of funny. I just wasn't enjoying it any more
I felt the exact same way. I was okay with Discovery and Picard not being for me because I had The Orville.
I love Trek but I don't really care for McFarlane's sense of humor, is the Orville worth checking out anyway?
My theory for the behind the scenes:
McFarland: I would like to make a star trek parody!
Fox: oh sounds awesome, lots of funny jokes and stuff. Should be funny.
M: yes haha, funny.
F: yes... Anyway here's the money
Making episode one
M: I gotta make sure there's loads of jokes so I can show this to execs and they see the haha bits
Making episode 3
M: okay I think they're gone... Time to just literally make normal star trek episodes
making the last episode of s1
F: hey I see you're almost done with the first season so I'm just checking in that the show is still funny
M: quickly adding in as many jokes as the last second as possible haha yes humor! Jokes! Plenty of them! Haha yes
The drama bits and plotlines are every bit as good as TNG/Voyager/DS9, but if you don't like McFarlane's humor, I doubt you would like the other 75% of the show's content.
Thing is it's not the humour, it's the humanity. Showing all the crew are just as dorky as your average human today, not all stick-wedged paragons like TNG. Think of the top time funniest moments - getting Bortus to eat a cactus, 500 cigarettes, karaoke, the moustache, the dancing bandito, isaac's joke fail... the humour is there, but it's the humanity that makes them. that's where s3 kinda fell down a bit, i don't know if it was covid rush or what, but we missed a lot of the warmer moments. Season finale delivered though.
I'm not sure the mods are going to care honestly. I think most are in agreement that the Orville is basically star trek adjacent, and close enough that.... Honestly as long as it doesn't take over, nobody will bat an eye at the occasional Orville meme.
