Star Trek Social Club

I personally don't understand the need to hold it as "vs" perspective. You can have both. The Orville definitely wanted to be TNG 2, and if that's what you're looking for, then by all means.

I think that they both good in their own ways.

The Orville has nicer ships, for example. Besides the middle segment of the quantum drive giving me a twitch for being misaligned compared to the other engines, it's cool and sleek in a way Federation ships aren't.

In terms of progressiveness, I'd say The Orville does better. Personally, I blame the Star Trek brand being as big as it is for that.

It's big enough that the networks would never allow any new show to push boundaries the same way that the original series did. The Orville isn't established enough as a brand for them to have that problem just yet.

But in terms of tonal consistency, I prefer Trek for that. The Orville has a habit of suddenly having a joke in there that gives you a bit of a weird tonal whiplash. Trek also does that, but it's much fewer and far between. They could be having a serious plot, which will be briefly derailed by the Captain/XO bringing up that they're divorced, and arguing/joking about that for a time.

In terms of character design, though, The Orville does a bit better with variety, and feels a bit more diverse than Trek's mostly-human Starfleet crews. Although most of theirs could pass for humanoid, it's still a nice touch that makes the world feel more expansive. It was an inspired choice to make the head of one of the main crew a weapon.

But other than that, the world building does feel a little weaker than it is in Trek. Unfortunately, not surprising, since The Orville, whilst inspired by Trek, lacks the corresponding history, and I don't think Seth McFarlane is the best world builder. A few of the details and various aliens seem to only pop up when they are plot-relevant, for example, and are mostly absent otherwise.

That's like asking trek movies vs galaxy quest

The other way I look at it: TNG was following the premiere ship in the galaxy, with plenty of places to explore, so it was always encountering "new frontiers".

The Orville on the other hand was more a premise of "what happens when space travel is commoditized and you have more than enough ships and now need competent bodies to staff it?" For that it feels more "real" that you're getting people who do it as a job, not a calling, which explains the random humor and diversions and a look at new discoveries through fresh eyes rather than "wow, more new as this is normal for us".

The Orville is a deeply sincere homage made by someone who clearly both loves and understands Star Trek. It is, in many ways, more true to form than some of the recent Trek shows and movies, and it deserves to be considered an honorary part of the franchise. I hope we see more of it.

The Orville overall is right up there with the top tier Trek shows.

Why does one have to be better than the other? Both are good fun.

I'd say Star Trek is generally better but mostly due to the old shows. When it comes to the newer shows, The Orville is much better Star Trek then most of the shows that are legally allowed to use the name.

I like the Orville more than any current running Star Trek show (and that's not me saying I hate all modern Trek, I definitely like some of it), but I'd take 90s Trek over Orville, so it's a bit of a toss up.

I would love another season of Orville.

Might as well be asking, "Which is better, Cheers or Frasier?"

“Aping” is kind of a pejorative way to describe what The Orville does. If they were “aping” TNG, they’d be imitating it in a very derivative manner. It’s more of an homage to TNG, but in a comedy format with original ideas and character dynamics.

The Orville’s first season is no worse than TNGs. There were some truly awful first season episodes of TNG. Code of Honor is a good example of an awful episode.

I don’t think better or worse comparisons are very meaningful. They’re both good shows. TNG has many of my favorite Trek stories and characters. I think it says a lot that it inspired so much of what The Orville does.

I was really disappointed with the most recent series of Orville. I feel they moved from social commentary to being preachy and smug.

The biggest example of this is the time travel episode in season 3. You have someone who has established a life and has kids and real character growth, who wants to be able to live the life they established after being abandoned for 20 years. On the other hand you have Seth McFarland saying that it's bad. There isn't any real discussion of what right is, it's just McFarland saying that he's right and then circumventing any resistance. It ends with McFarland being smug he did the right thing and having no self reflection on the damage he did.

To be clear, I'm all about social commentary in my sci-fi but I feel like anything interesting is diluted to make it a closer parallel to earth. The Moclans went from a unique all male species, to having a rare minority that allowed for discussion of trans rights, to in season 3 being 50-50 split and a tired gender war trope.

I think the Orville has gotten lazy and moved further and further away from having interesting plots to talk about big ideas and moved more towards character driven drama and lazy hamfisted commentary.

I like them both. Sure new Star Trek isn’t close to what TNG was and Orville feels more like a true sequel to TNG. But I can understand why Star Trek had to change directions. Just compare the production value between the two shows. A modern Star Trek show that looks like Orville would never pull the numbers that would satisfy Paramount, since casual viewers probably wouldn’t even try the show. And to justify the higher production value they had to write more action based stories and a shorter season.

They're both great!

I personally like Star Trek better because it's the OG and has better world building.

I must be a weirdo because I actually preferred the Orville more in the first season when the focus was a bit more on the comedy, as that brought something new and hilarious to the table. In the later seasons, they shifted to what feels extremely similar to TNG, which made it less interesting for me, although I do still enjoy the story. The similarity isn't just in the style or themes of the show, either... I remember seeing multiple episodes of the Orville with plot lines that directly correlated to specific TNG episodes.

The most important thing, though, is that we get more Sci-Fi on TV. The more the merrier!

I like the Orville.

But Star Trek speaks to me. https://youtu.be/mMqGlSjAbwA?t=52

The Orville's first season was a bit of a mess. It tried to be a comedy, but it also had some very serious moments. The second season was much better, as it focused more on the serious stories. However, the show still needs to improve its dialogue. Which I really like in Star Trek.

They're both great and serve different purposes. The Orville is a more light hearted tribute to 90s TV sci-fi, albeit one that's become more serious and built up it's own universe and tone as it's three series went on. Trek, as it exists today, is taking various Trek tropes and styles and trying to update them to modern times, be that via deconstruction in Lower Decks, nostalgic big-budget adventures in Picard, or introducing more modern character development and serialisation in Dis and SNW. Some times it succeeds, sometimes is doesn't.

I enjoy the Orville quite a bit, but think they focus too much in Isaac. Bordus was featured heavily as well, but to a lesser extend. I would like to see them shift their focus.

I watched TNG pretty recently for the first time and enjoyed, but didn't love it. It aged pretty well, but still aged.

Really enjoyed it after the first season and also hope it finds a way to a fourth season.

IMO, it "counts" as Trek, so strong is its respect and homage to the essence of Trek. As Trek-Sci-Fi it also did some things well and made its own contributions to the "Trek forum of ideas". It tackled the "prime directive", progressive issues around gender, went all the way with robot-organic romance, did a very Trek style take on AI war and I rather liked its take on a hyper technologically advanced species (the one that runs through time faster than our universe).

Somewhat more uncomfortably, it stood as an affirmation of what those of us who have struggled with Kurtzman era Trek were actually looking for and remembering as the Trek we loved, and a reminder that that style of TV can still work well.

EDIT: grammar

I really enjoy The Orville, I like Star Trek.

I dunno if its the levity in The Orville but it just feels wholesome. The right balance between science, space and entertainment.

Both are my ideas of utopia. I think thats what draws me into each series separately

I like them both :)