The Orville on Hulu

Bodo Fenrirsson

On Vacation
Original poster
Jul 21, 2009
14,068
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Grovetown,GA
I watched the premiere last night & I actually liked it. It is a spoof on Star Trek. The good thing so far is that they haven't made it into a social commentary on life, like apparently Star Trek Discovery is supposed to be(see my comments in the Pit if you want to know what I'm talking about). I was surprised that this was an hour show instead of 30 minutes. Unless the next episodes go dramatically downhill, I think that this show is a winner(the critics hate it).
 
I watched it.

If you go on youtube you will find several groups, some quite good with a reasonable budget to spend, some just awful, that do Star Trek fan fiction (Paramount allows this as long as it is non-profit). This reminded me more than anything of that.

I'm going to give it a shot, but they need to decide if they are doing comedy or drama really soon.
 
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I watched it.

If you go on youtube you will find several groups, some quite good with a reasonable budget to spend, some just awful, that do Star Trek fan fiction (Paramount allows this as long as it is non-profit). This reminded me more than anything of that.

I'm going to give it a shot, but they need to decide if they are doing comedy or drama really soon.
It's "Dramedy."
 
Who wants comic sci-fi? We want action/adventure sci-fi.

There was plenty of action in Episode 1, though that I believe was part of a spoof of Star Wars and not Star Trek. The Orville crew members got into a laser blaster battle with a sizeable number of Krill (the bad guys), and none of the crew got killed. It's clear that the Krill can't hit the broad side of a barn, whereas the Orville crew are practically inerrant in their aim while running. :D
 
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There was plenty of action in Episode 1, though that I believe was part of a spoof of Star Wars and not Star Trek. The good guys got into a laser blaster battle with a sizeable number of Krill (the bad guys), and none of the good guys got killed. It's clear that the Krill can't hit the broad side of a barn!
The Krill looked like the Jem'hadar (the Dominion) from DS9.
Jem%27Hadar.jpg
 
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I thought it was pretty good. Nice change of pace. I couldn't figure out why my 8:00 p.m. timer said rerun. First airing was right after our afternoon game. Guess except for the West Coast didn't apply. I think they're trying to build some viewership before moving to its Thursday slot in a couple weeks.

S~
 
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There's a good reason this feels like Star Trek. One of the Executive Producers is Brannon Braga from "Star Trek: Enterprise" as well as "Voyager" and "The Next Generation".

I was also thinking of "Galaxy Quest", too, but that was a movie and doesn't really parallel much here, except for the comedy. But yeah, the whole "new captain gets the shuttle trip to see his new command arising over the space station orbiting Earth while soaring music plays in the background" was a pretty blatant steal from "ST: The Motion Picture", as was the "Holodeck", "United Union of Planets", etc.

What really screwed it up for me was the feeling that the "Axinar" fan fiction movie was a better produced show than the pilot for "The Orville". The whole scene in the white lab where on person with a "phaser" holds five people at bay seemed rather contrived. Comedy is either "Real" or "Farcical" and this just felt bad because the show didn't feel like it knew which way to go. Sort of like "Family Guy", without the animation and only the one flashback at the beginning.

I'll give it a chance to grow on me, but I'm not real confident at this point. Anyone remember "Quark" from the late 1970s? It was funny SciFi and it lasted 8 shows. So, fingers crossed the they figure out their mission in time...
 
As a sci-fi and Star Trek fan, I love it. :D

Now here's this for a laugh. When you search "The Orville" on Google, it says "91% of Google users like this TV show".

Conversely, about 90% of the critics hate the show, with places like metacritic, avclub, i09, rotten tomatoes, etc. complaining about how the actors' performances are terrible, how it's failing to "boldly go where no one has gone before", how it's much worse than the spoof FOX originally advertised it as... well, you get the idea.

Why is it that when the critics hate a show, I usually end up liking it? I want to say that ever since Stargate Atlantis was cancelled in 2009, every space-based sci-fi TV show since then has been dark, depressing and like a dramatic soap opera, similar to the 2004 reboot of Battlestar Galactica. You look at even current space sci-fi shows and they still aren't as lighthearted as sci-fi used to be. Heck, shows like Killjoys, Dark Matter (recently cancelled), The Expanse -- even though they do have their funny moments at times, they're still way too serious, the use of heavy profanity makes them unsuitable for younger audiences... even the upcoming Star Trek Discovery is rated TV-MA... and who knows how R-rated Lost In Space will be in 2018.

Like Seth argued, not everything has to be "Hunger Games in Space". The Orville reminds me of the 1990s, when space sci-fi flourished. Big, brightly-lit sets. Colorful uniforms. Funny dialogue, but at the same time with serious dramatic elements as well. Even from the very beginning of The Orville's first episode, just showing the episode title on the screen itself... I mean, no one does that anymore, and I can never figure out why, especially when even non-sci-fi shows like The A-Team and Magnum PI used to do that all the time.

From displaying the episode titles on screen, to the smooth camera movements of the ships themselves (unlike the frantic "Rush Hour" camera panning that's used in the post-2009 Star Trek movies), to the way everything is designed, to the dialogue and the storylines... and even actually having aliens again with actors in real prosthetics (seriously, why does everyone in Killjoys and Dark Matter look like a regular human?)... add to the fact most "aliens" these days are rendered in CGI, which just isn't the same...

Everything Seth has done here is perfect. His passion and the amount of time and effort he's put into this series clearly shows. It's no wonder why veteran Trek producers like Brannon Braga are working on it... why previous Trek actors like Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker) and Robert Duncan McNeill (Lt. Tom Paris) are directing episodes... why other Trek actors like Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi) and Garrett Wang (Ensign Harry Kim) say that they would prefer to guest-star on The Orville rather than on Star Trek Discovery.

I mean, when Star Trek actors would rather make appearances on The Orville instead of on an actual new Star Trek series... doesn't that say something in and of itself?

In fact, I think I read a rumor that the pilot of The Orville cost around $17 million to produce. Regardless of whether or not this is true, I personally hope the ratings are high and that FOX gives it a renewal. Especially considering how Star Trek Discovery does have a much darker tone in nature, and the fact that only the first episode will be on television (except in Canada, where all Discovery episodes will air on TV every Sunday night on the SPACE Channel).

My prediction is that Discovery's first episode will be high in the viewership and 18-49 demos, and then it will tank from episodes 2-onward, because the only ratings that really matter are U.S.-ratings, and most people are not going to pay a monthly cost for CBS All Access just to watch 1 show. In fact, if I had to guess, most people are either going to download the episodes illegally for free... or they'll just wait until the very last month after all the episodes of the season have been uploaded, sign up for a free trial, binge-watch everything within a few days, and then cancel the trial before they get charged. All Access is a niche SVOD and it just can't compete with Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. CBS and Moonves really dropped the ball on this one.
 
...or they'll just wait until the very last month after all the episodes of the season have been uploaded, sign up for a free trial, binge-watch everything within a few days, and then cancel the trial before they get charged.
This. Although I'll have to pay since I already used up my free trial, I won't complain too loudly about paying $6 to watch "Discovery" and "The Good Fight" and then cancelling again.

And you are right about the feel of the show being 1960s upbeat Star Trek vs. the darker tone SciFi shows have taken. Kudos to "The Orville" team for being a lone beacon of hope in a sea of dystopian futures shows and movies.
 
I think FOX is happy. The ratings are in for the premiere of The Orville -- 7.3 million viewers and a 2.3 in the coveted 18-49 demo.

As Variety put it, “The second-biggest broadcast drama premiere in the key demo since NBC’s “This Is Us” last September (2.8).” They also mention that the ratings could've been higher if the premiere hadn't been preempted by Hurricane Irma in some markets.

Obviously we'll see how much retention occurs this Sunday for the second episode. And then of course, the key factor will be how the show performs after it moves to its permanent slot on Thursday nights and doesn't have the NFL lead-in. But so far, so good. :D
 
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In our market, it was pre-empted for a 90 minute media event over the Packers home opener win. Finally aired at midnight. Thank goodness for TIVO.

FWIW, I liked it and will leave a season pass running for now.
 
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