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How many Star Treks is The Orville better than?


Quintus

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I've seen a fair few Star Trek movies and various episodes of its TV shows over the years, and while I'm not exactly an ardent follower of the franchise, I feel like I'm still able recognise the good from the bad. The original series, TNG, DS9, Voyager; they all had their highlights and are generally decent quality overall (if you are able to enjoy that sort of thing). Movie wise we have Wrath of Kahn, The Voyage Home, The Undiscovered Country, First Contact, Abrams' reboot movie... all of which are fairly entertaining adventures and are overall worthwhile filmic additions to the ST universe.

 

So for me that means all of the others I've seen aren't as good as The Orville:

 

TMP

Search for Spock

Final Frontier

Generations

Insurrection

Nemesis

Enterprise

Discovery

 

 

Which begs the question: is Star Trek really better than everything? I think The Orville proves it really isn't.

 

 

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A typical episode of The Orville is basically modeled after a typical episode of The Next Generation, but with random jokes thrown in

 

 

It's still primarily a drama.  The earlier episodes (like, the first 3) have some more lame forced humor that they do away with after that

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I definitely consider it a comedy drama and I thought the parody style of the first few episodes was really fun, it's what hooked me into the show after all. It does settle down a bit after that though, and there are a couple of boring episodes in there, it can be a touch dour for me during those parts. But on the whole they seemed to find a good balance with the handling of gags and their place in the storylines. The humour thankfully remains present throughout, with the writers and cast showing a gift for timing.

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

A typical episode of The Orville is basically modeled after a typical episode of The Next Generation, but with random jokes thrown in

 

 

It's still primarily a drama.  The earlier episodes (like, the first 3) have some more lame forced humor that they do away with after that

 

Yeah, I thought they got better at working the humor in to the episode such as teaching the robot about pranks.  The humor was forced and awkward in the first episodes but the sci-fi has always been good in a Star Trek TNG way.

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5 minutes ago, karelm said:

Yeah, I thought they got better at working the humor in to the episode such as teaching the robot about pranks.  The humor was forced and awkward in the first episodes but the sci-fi has always been good in a Star Trek TNG way.

 

Yep!

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3 minutes ago, Quintus said:

At this point, I think the Star Trek brand has every right to feel threatened by The Orville now.

 

Now yer gettin’ nasty.

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I don't like pigeon holing over this stuff anyway. That's the pastime of the small-minded. I watch absolutely all kinds, of widely varying quality. The Wrath of Kahn is a good thriller film in its own right though, I'll say that much.

 

And I also say, because it seems I have to now, that The Orville is absolutely not golden age.

 

So once again, Stu has inferred incorrect meaning from things I say.

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What is STAR TREK? ;)

 

I like THE ORVILLE a whole lot more than any STAR TREK incarnation, since it actually spoofs a a type of genre I don't particularly care for (what I somewhat derogatorily call 'pointy ear sci fi'). I even wish it were more 'spoofy' than it is.

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2 hours ago, Quintus said:

At this point, I think the Star Trek brand has every right to feel threatened by The Orville now.

Not in the least. The popularity of Star Trek is Paramount! 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

I like THE ORVILLE a whole lot more than any STAR TREK incarnation, since it actually spoofs a a type of genre I don't particularly care for (what I somewhat derogatorily call 'pointy ear sci fi'). I even wish it were more 'spoofy' than it is.

 

This isn't dissimilar to my own stance. In the pilot (which seems to have divided people), The Orville was the outright Police Squad of dreary Trekish science fiction serials. And I was a big appreciator of that.

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19 minutes ago, Thor said:

(what I somewhat derogatorily call 'pointy ear sci fi').

 

What if that so-called "pointy ear sci fi" as you call it explored issues like alien tinnitus and posed as an allegory to real life sufferers of hearing damage?

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The Wrath of Khan is a great film, but in all honesty, I've always felt it could use a little trimming. You do feel its length at points. The extended version makes matters worse, similar to Spider-Man 2.1.

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1 minute ago, Horner's Dynamic Range said:

I prefer The Final Frontier and Generations.

 

If I could count "All Good Things..." that might be my pick.  As it is, I like Generations and First Contact more for sure.

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Even the best of the Trek movies don't feel much like Star Trek to me. In all of them (except perhaps the first), you really can see how they're trying to dumb the whole thing down for a mass audience. It just got worse as time went on (e.g. Data's "Saddle Up, Lock and Load"). 

 

Star Trek is just made for episodic story telling, and in even the best cases, suffers to one degree or another in cinema.  At most they're good sci-fi action films, but not really Star Trek.

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1 minute ago, Nick1066 said:

Even the best of the Trek movies don't feel much like Star Trek to me. In all of them (except perhaps the first), you really can see how they're trying to dumb the whole thing down for a mass audience. It just got worse as time went on (e.g. Data's "Saddle Up, Lock and Load"). 

 

Star Trek is just made for episodic story telling, and in even the best cases, suffers to one degree or another in cinema.  At most they're good sci-fi action films, but not really Star Trek.

 

Yep.  Which is why there are quite a few feature-lengthish two-parters from TNG/DS9/VOY I'd rank above most of the movies.

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DS9's "Way of the Warrior" or "What You Leave Behind"....now that's stellar Trek cinema!

 

Actually, the last 10 hours of DS9 is more or less one long epic.

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Many people still criticize the awkward Gul Dukat scenes and Sisko pushing him into a fire pit and turning into a spirit, though. The whole ending of DS9 was a huge buildup with payoff for the Cardassian rebellion and then everything else slapped together.

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5 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

I blame that execrable Enterprise theme song.

 

I had forgotten. :blink:

 

Next Generation and Deep Space Nine are stuffy for me in the absolute best way possible. 

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The Orville is overall better than a LOT of Star Trek...but for me that doesn't include the films with the original cast...yes, even V -- despite some terrible elements I love that one, because of the relationship between Kirk/Spock/McCoy and some great individual scenes (McCoy with his father).

 

I do consider most of the Orville to be better than most of Voyager, all of Enterprise that I've seen (I gave up on it and didn't make it to the later seasons that folks tell me improved on the first two)...and actually much better than the poorer episodes of TOS/TNG/DS9 even...let's be honest, each show had their share of clunkers.

 

Oh, and The Orvile is way, WAAAAY better than any of the TNG movies. My favorite of those is Generations and it's still hugely disappointing. In the other three movies I can barely recognize the characters (and I'm not talking about the actors aging). Picard in particular...there's a great redlettermedia comparison of show Picard vs. movie Picard and it says everything.

 

Yavar

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3 hours ago, Quintus said:

 

This isn't dissimilar to my own stance. In the pilot (which seems to have divided people), The Orville was the outright Police Squad of dreary Trekish science fiction serials. And I was a big appreciator of that.

 

Me too. But their apparent appreciation and respect for STAR TREK eventually turned the show into something a little less spoofy, which I think was unfortunate.

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