Why I like The Orville more than Star Trek

          I know I’m going to get a lot of flak for this, or at least I might. I should note before I go on that I do love and appreciate Star Trek and have enjoyed the franchise in all it’s forms to varying degrees, my favorite being Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for it’s well developed story line, and overall appreciated it being more serialized with an engaging story than the previous more episodic series. Now, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the other series as well and binge them from time to time whenever I feel the urge. I am, by most definitions, a trekkie. I know more about the Star Trek franchise than most people would ever be willing to admit. With all that said, I still like and enjoy The Orville more for several reasons, despite and probably because of being a long time Star Trek fan. I find The Orville has among other things, one key thing that sets it apart from Star Trek that makes it an overall better and more relatable show overall – its realistic characters.

          One thing about Star Trek that has always annoyed me is its sterility. What I mean is that the characters in the series overall are just plain sterile. I don’t mean not able to have kids in this context, of course, but more like how a hospital surgery room is sterile. The characters are clean, always professional, clean cut, morally superior, etc. Sure, there are moments when starfleet officers were less than perfect, but that’s always rooted out and the idealistic morally superior starfleet officers who are the paragon of virtue always handled such issues. At the end of the few episodes when starfleet officers were less than perfect, the situation is taken care of and everyone except the antagonists come out looking squeaky clean. To Star Trek’s credit, it has always been good family-friendly entertainment, a show you wouldn’t particularly mind letting your child watch – with the exception of Star Trek: Discovery which has taken a far more darker tone with far more “adult” situations. Even then, most of that show is PG or PG-13 with a very few R rated scenes in it.

          I think that’s also why I liked Star Trek: Deep Space Nine the most. For the first time in the franchise, starfleet was less than perfect, and not just starfleet, but key leading characters. Even then, this didn’t happen until midway to late in the series’ run. Section 31 was introduced in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, adding a undeniably dark side to starfleet and the Federation. For the first time, the Federation and starfleet weren’t perfect, they had a flaw. This, of course caused a lot of controversy from those who didn’t like seeing starfleet and the Federation as anything less than perfect. Even then, Section 31 agents acted with the utmost professionalism, never letting anything else show on the surface. Of course, a true trek fan cannot forget the famous Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “In the Pale Moonlight,” episode 19 of season six, a personal favorite of mine. I don’t want to spoil it for those who may not have seen it, even though it aired over 20 years ago, but it’s a great episode where the leading character compromises his very moral fiber and self-respect in order to accomplish a goal where the very survival of the Federation hangs in the balance. However, despite all this, after the episode the character is back to being the paragon of virtue that starfleet officers are known for in later episodes. The moment of realism is buried underneath the veneer of idealism once again. Even when the characters have those moments of weakness, it is a dark and sometimes even sinister tone, never one of jest or of a juvenile nature.

          So, with all that out of the way, let me get to the explanation of why I like The Orville more and address some of the, what I feel are, unwarranted criticisms of the show itself. The show has been criticized a lot by critics, for various reasons. Those same criticisms are why I like the show though. To me, the characters and the universe that The Orville takes place in are more real and more relatable. It’s not sterile like Star Trek is. People are much as they are today, but also with a much more reasonable level of social development than in the Star Trek universe where everyone is so perfect and sterile that even things like dirty jokes and euphemisms are simply unheard of. Personally, I find that unrealistic. I honestly think it’s more likely that people will have varying senses of humor, even juvenile at times.

           Now, maybe it’s the era I grew up in, having lived my teenage years during the 90’s, which was the era of Beavis & Butthead, Ren & Stimpy, and when South Park made it’s television debut. However, small talk, gossip, relationship troubles, and many of the issues of daily life we face today aren’t going to go away just because it’s 400 years in the future and humanity has faster-than-light capable spaceships. I don’t think that just because it’s the future, nobody is going to draw a penis on anything, make dirty jokes, or use crude euphemisms either. Juvenile senses of humor are likely to be just as much of a thing in 400 years as they are today. After all, humanity is going to remain human, despite the era that we are living in. It’s possible that in a few thousand, or tens of thousands of years we might be “perfect” (a very subjective concept anyway), but certainly not over the relatively short time span of 400 years. The fact that the show has and features some characters with rather juvenile senses of humor, as well as scenes where something occurs that a normal person would say “wtf?” really endears the show to me. One example would be from the pilot episode (there are a few, really), where they contact the leader of a research outpost, and in the background there’s a dog just going to town licking himself in the background while this conversation is taking place. Yes, even 400 years in the future dogs will lick their private parts at the most inopportune times, such as when a communication is taking place between the leader of an outpost and a starship captain. Of course, the helmsman and navigator notice this during the communication, but only mention it after the communication has ended. They’re still professionals, after all, even if one of them was once reprimanded for drawing a penis on the view screen of another outpost in their backstory. By comparison, you would never see Captain Archer’s dog, Porthos, going to town licking his genitalia in Star Trek: Enterprise. I, personally, would have loved to have seen T’pol’s reaction to that!

          It’s not just the juvenile humor that gets sprinkled into the show that I enjoy, of course. To that point, juvenile humor isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some people legitimately enjoy it, and the roots of comedy itself are in juvenile humor, such as the comedy films of the silent movie era. Just because humor is juvenile or someone enjoys it doesn’t make them unevolved or immature. Quite the opposite, it means that the person is open minded enough to enjoy various forms of humor – something we all have varying tastes in anyway. Humor doesn’t always have to be “refined” or “classy” or “intellectual” even though I enjoy those kinds of humor as well. I enjoy most kinds of humor though, that’s the point. I like how people on The Orville are more real, less sterile, human beings (and aliens) gossiping, cracking jokes, and dealing with the realities and challenges of everyday life just like the rest of us. Even Captain Mercer, the captain in The Orville, is also very imperfect which is very different from any Star Trek captain. In Star Trek, captains were almost always some degree of the paragon of virtue and maturity, near flawless heros, that never let any personal issues or weakness show and always had to be the consummate professional.

          They even make pop culture references on the show just like we do today, which nobody ever does in any Star Trek series. That has always annoyed me about Star Trek, nobody references any part of earth’s pop culture either past or present. It’s like earth’s cultural past is buried, only to be unearthed in brief moments and then quickly buried again before anyone notices. Zephram Cochran playing “Magic Carpet Ride” during the launch of the Phoenix, his experimental warp ship – and humanity’s first warp capable ship, during Star Trek: First Contact is one of my favorite scenes in all of Star Trek, only beat recently by the crew of the Enterprise playing and broadcasting “Sabotage” to beat a very powerful enemy in Star Trek: Beyond. Sure, I can get the complaints that The Orville uses too many modern day pop culture references, and that realistically they wouldn’t. They’re right, and would most likely reference 25th century pop culture instead. However, it’s not like the writers of The Orville have a whole lot of 25th century pop culture references to draw from, since it hasn’t happened yet and they live in the 21st century with the rest of us. Even if they did have 25th century pop culture references, they would be lost on the audience. So, to that point, it makes sense to use references that we all get and can relate to – which so happen to be from the time that we actually live in and have references to draw from.

          I have and will always love Star Trek, after all it has made a great impact on our society and its story line is both intriguing and well developed with over 50 years of content. To that point though, The Orville, in many ways is the show I wish Star Trek would have always been. It has the same idealistic future where money is obsolete, humanity is at peace (at least with each other anyway), and people are relatively free to pursue their passions without worrying about how they’re going to survive or feed themselves like they do today. It also has the added bonus of the characters being real people with real everyday problems, cracking jokes, sharing gossip, having relationship troubles, and all the other touches that make the characters and show itself more personal, more relatable. It has only gotten better in season two with a much more developed story and characters, and I am excited to see this show as it progresses and hopefully flourishes. If you haven’t watched it or given it an honest chance yet, I suggest you do. You may be surprised and actually enjoy the show.