I asked this question sometime ago on The Orville’s subreddit, and surprisingly got mixed responses. I assume most here however, are going to prefer Star Trek, specifically TNG that its aping from. For the record I do prefer TNG as well, but rewatching The Orville, after you get past its kinda sucky first season, I really enjoyed the show and feel it’s a very good successor to TNG just with added humor and levity which I think is a good thing. And there are elements I find better in The Orville. And now that Lower Decks is back (a show I’m now a fan of after dismissing it for so long), I felt the need to return to The Orville and see if I still liked it. I’m really hoping it at least gets a fourth season. Anyway, what do you guys think?
The other way I look at it: TNG was following the premiere ship in the galaxy, with plenty of places to explore, so it was always encountering “new frontiers”.
The Orville on the other hand was more a premise of “what happens when space travel is commoditized and you have more than enough ships and now need competent bodies to staff it?” For that it feels more “real” that you’re getting people who do it as a job, not a calling, which explains the random humor and diversions and a look at new discoveries through fresh eyes rather than “wow, more new as this is normal for us”.
Ironically though because of its higher budget, The Orville ran into more alien “strange new worlds” and species than TNG did.
Lol. I too have noticed that fewer planets in The Orville are “basically earth but in 19xx”, than in TOS.
There have been a few, off the top of my head I remember “what if current earth, but justice system is social media”, “what if current earth but horoscopes are state Religon”. Not that these are bad ideas.
And they all look like southern California