Star Trek and fake Star Trek.

Only a couple of years ago, I was bemoaning the shortage of space opera on TV. Most frustrating of all is that there was no new Star Trek.

Now, all of a sudden, we have two to choose from!

Not Star Trek, but so clearly trying to be; we have The Orville. This is more like classic Star Trek than any series since TNG. I'm enjoying it but feeling a little guilty about doing so.

The Orville is very much a love letter to Star Trek. The uniforms are clearly inspired by TNG. The design of the ship is similar to newer Star Trek series. The opening credits are reminiscent of Voyager. The music - especially the incidental music is very Star Trek. The crew includes a humourless alien reminiscent of Worf, and an android with poor social skills.

The critic side of my brain says this isn't really that good. The jokes are few and far between, and often not great. Seth McFarlane is not a great actor. And it's pretty hokey. We had a setup of the captain and first officer previously being married.

The metaphors are pretty damn anvilicious. One episode, for example had a 21st century society where social media style voting was the rule of law, and they didn't do it as well as Community. Is such obvious metaphor that terrible a thing? The TOS episode "Let That be Your Last Battlefield" (The one where a black and white alien was chasing a white and black alien) had the same lack of subtlety. The morality can be pretty complex.

I like the characters, for the most part. The captain is a little bland but has the idealism needed from a Star Trek captain. Bortus is hilariously serious, and the deadpan humour for his character always comes off brilliantly. Alara is the security chief. Fast tracked to her position. She's one of the more competent people on the ship but her inexperience frequently leaves her panicking. Isaac - the android - believes himself superior and is not shy of saying so.

Essentially, the show has enough charm that being too critical just seems mean.

The other Star Trek show is Star Trek: Discovery.

This is set before Star Trek original series; which I think is a bad idea. If we must have something set amongst the Klingon wars, we could put it somewhere around the Movie era. And the setup was a little clunky. Michael Burnham is Star Fleet's only ever mutineer. Her motivations for mutiny were an absolute belief that her captain was wrong. She gets recruited by the captain for similarly tenuous reasons.

This scores over previous Star Trek series in that there's a decent amount of conflict amongst the main characters. The first officer served with Burnham previously so doesn't trust her. The science guy doesn't really trust the captain that much. The captain is a bit of a manipulative bastard, and morally ambiguous. This lacks the idealism of TOS, but then this is a prequel. And it's not like basic morality takes a back seat. It has been made clear that the Federation is pretty solid on human rights.

I thought it was a little shaky at the start, but it's pretty tense in some episodes. And it really avoids the plot reset button.

The series pushes Star Trek on. If it did the same as The Orville, people would be disappointed. Star Trek has already done the exploring new life and new civilisations. There's really not a lot of new things that can be done.

So which one do I like? Both of them! Orville gets by on its charm! Discovery has action and excitement.