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The Next Next Generation
Mar. 11th, 2019 08:25 pmAs a hardcore Trekkie, there's obviously one show that I'm looking forward to every week. That show, of course, is The Orville. And Discovery. Yeah. That too.
I really do enjoy both shows. Star Trek: Discovery is great. TV drama has changed since people have video recorders, and on demand catch-up services. People don't miss an episode. And they tend to watch the show from the start. This means that ongoing plotlines are expected. We expect dynamic changes in the series. Trek has always been a little too episodic. Discovery fixes this. And we have a plot that actually feel like it has scope.
For some reason this doesn't quite satisfy me as much as I feel it should. I feel it's missing something that makes it lose its Trekness. Maybe it's the focus on a single character. Maybe the individual episodes aren't that strong.Maybe it's just too dimly lit. I enjoy it. I'm not in love.
The Orville hits a spot that later incarnations of Star Trek don't quite reach. It doesn't have the serialised plot, but that doesn't seem to matter. It does have a lot of what made me love Star Trek, and it's obvious that this is exactly what Seth MacFarlane is going for. Star Trek was always optimistic. People did the right thing no matter what. These were heroic adventurers exploring strange new worlds. The Orville captures that.
Despite being billed as a comedy drama, it's not actually that funny. There are only a handful of jokes per episode. You'd generally get as much comedy from Data or Worf in a typical Star Trek TNG episode. The focus is mainly on the drama and the message. It can actually be pretty damn unsubtle with its moral of the week, but so was "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield".
I really had no idea what to expect when The Orville was announced. Nobody did. It was billed as a comedy. It was from the creator of Family Guy, so people were expecting fart jokes. We get a few. But it's really a tribute to Star Trek.
I really do enjoy both shows. Star Trek: Discovery is great. TV drama has changed since people have video recorders, and on demand catch-up services. People don't miss an episode. And they tend to watch the show from the start. This means that ongoing plotlines are expected. We expect dynamic changes in the series. Trek has always been a little too episodic. Discovery fixes this. And we have a plot that actually feel like it has scope.
For some reason this doesn't quite satisfy me as much as I feel it should. I feel it's missing something that makes it lose its Trekness. Maybe it's the focus on a single character. Maybe the individual episodes aren't that strong.Maybe it's just too dimly lit. I enjoy it. I'm not in love.
The Orville hits a spot that later incarnations of Star Trek don't quite reach. It doesn't have the serialised plot, but that doesn't seem to matter. It does have a lot of what made me love Star Trek, and it's obvious that this is exactly what Seth MacFarlane is going for. Star Trek was always optimistic. People did the right thing no matter what. These were heroic adventurers exploring strange new worlds. The Orville captures that.
Despite being billed as a comedy drama, it's not actually that funny. There are only a handful of jokes per episode. You'd generally get as much comedy from Data or Worf in a typical Star Trek TNG episode. The focus is mainly on the drama and the message. It can actually be pretty damn unsubtle with its moral of the week, but so was "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield".
I really had no idea what to expect when The Orville was announced. Nobody did. It was billed as a comedy. It was from the creator of Family Guy, so people were expecting fart jokes. We get a few. But it's really a tribute to Star Trek.
