Science Fiction

I was surprised by how good season one was. Season two was great fun. I hated season three.

I feel they tried too hard to make serious points and failed at telling good stories. They wanted to have big thoughts, but just weren't entertaining.

Entertainment wise, I find it to be very fun to watch and am always engaged while I have it on.

Thematically, I think it has either a bad or watered down argument sometimes, but other times I think it really hits. Either way though, I find the way it approaches certain ideas very interesting and compelling to discuss with my SO while we watch it, so even when I don't agree with the thematic intent of the episode, I find it worthwhile to interact with.

That said, it did make me cringe a little bit for the first 2 episodes. They're still worth watching for context instead of skipping them, but don't make any judgements on it until episode 3.

All in all, I give it a 8.5/10 personally but a 7/10 critically.

Cheesy but a different kind of cheesy than Star Trek.

When The Orville came out, I hadn't watched much Star Trek. Growing up, TNG was the one television show that my parents would break the "no TV at the dinner table" rule for, though it happened rarely enough that I really have no memory of it.

About 20 years ago I watched several episodes of TOS and liked it well enough.

I always wanted to like Star Trek, so ~10 years ago I tried season 1 of TNG, which I now realize is rather universally considered an error; and as a result, I didn't much care for TNG. But I still wanted to like it, and Star Trek in general! So when I saw The Orville, I decided to give it a shot. And while I agree that the early mix of comedy with more serious material was a bit off-putting, I thoroughly enjoyed the show. This was what TNG was trying to be (I mean, that's not really fair, but it was my initial sense).

Which then led me to season 3 of TNG, which I started watching last year. And I absolutely love it, and find it overall better than The Orville (which I still really like); but The Orville was basically my gateway to actually enjoying Star Trek.

So maybe I'm coming inside-out from most viewers, but I really like The Orville, and as a bonus, it got me "back" into Star Trek proper.

It had some jokes thrown it at the most inopportune times

That's Seth humor in a nutshell.

Perhaps the first half of the first season was actually a bit rough

Name a show that started off any other way though. Even SG1 is cringe in the first season. Lexx maybe, but even that one grew different after the first few episodes.

While I don't regret watching it—and I'd probably even throw on a new season if it gets one—I felt like it was missing any true classic episodes. I also kept having this strange sense of familiarity with episodes, as if it was just repurposing or rehashing older Star Trek plots.

I kept thinking, "Wasn't there a TNG/DS9/Whatever episode that explored this same general concept/idea, but better?". It felt like it was maybe borrowing just a bit too much from it's inspiration.

I wished I could have gotten past the awkward comedy you mention. Couldn’t get into it because of that.

I loved it and it's definitely on the list of shows that I'll rewatch sometime sooner or later

I did it backwards and started watching Star Trek shows because I love The Orville so much! Hoping it gets renewed for another season soon.

Season 3 was not good; it was heavy-handed writing and wasn't all that good drama.

Blatant self insert early TNG fanfic. If you liked (or even wrote) that kind of thing in the 90s, you'll like Orville.

The Orville is to Star Trek as Spaceballs was to Star Wars. A humorous parody, but I can appreciate the effort that they put in to have the show take itself a bit more seriously during dramatic scenes. I enjoyed it, although I only saw two seasons.

I liked that they weren't the most important ship... and then they became the most important ship. Near the end the fate of every species in the galaxy hinged on the love life of three couples on a minor starship.

It also felt like they had 2 or 3 seasons of stories and hulu said "you get one", so they rushed it.

I hated the pilot, never went back

It was surprisingly good. I enjoyed it a lot. Didn't think I would but it's much better than Picard, such a boring show.

I stopped after watching a few episodes. I guess it just wasn’t for me. Most people I know like it though.

Best modern Star Trek show.

By "modern Star Trek" I mean every show from Discovery to Strange New Worlds.

Actually I think much like Strange New Worlds, I think that it showed me how much of the recent issues I have with Star Trek is that it takes itself too seriously. (In fact also as for Star Wars, as blasphemous it is to mention here)