‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Or ‘The Orville’: WTF Do Trek Fans Really Want?

Where to Stream Star Trek: Discovery

I’m a geek. I’m many other things, for sure, but if outsiders were going to slap labels on me, they’d take one look at my X-Men shoes and Star Wars lapel pin and know exactly what I’m all about. I walk the walk, I talk the talk–especially if that talk is about which Buffy season is best, and I will reply with “Glory, Glory, hallelujah.”

But all my geek bonafides aside, I apparently just don’t understand Star Trek. That was made clear to me when J.J. Abrams took over the film franchise. I love those movies, possibly just because of Simon Pegg’s delightfulness, but I also get where the storytelling and originality fell short for a lot of viewers (and not just Star Trek aficionados, either). Still, I like Star Trek: The Next Generation just fine, adore the aesthetic of the ’60s series–hell, I call The Voyage Home my favorite original cast movie! It’s delightful! And with the launch of Star Trek: Discovery, I finally have a Star Trek series that I’m watching week-to-week–and I love it! I’m finally getting the classic Star Trek experience of sitting down for a weekly jaunt with a Starfleet crew. Maybe I’m finally getting into Star Trek!

Nope! I’m only more confused than ever! That’s because while I’ve been developing a gradual crush on Stamets (hello, Anthony Rapp) and thrilling at every daring storytelling choice, almost every single Trekkie in my life has been gushing about The Orville–yes, Seth MacFarlane’s TNG fanfic that he got Fox to pay dollars upon dollars to produce and air. I swear, I cannot win with Star Trek fans.

I watched The Orville’s pilot right after it aired, despite the dire warnings from co-worker Kayla Cobb who had seen the first three episodes. I was bracing myself to like it since I love Galaxy Quest, even if I really don’t like any of MacFarlane’s other work; I was not prepared to watch, as I’ve already pointed out, an hour (a totally dramatic hour!) of Star Trek fanfic with a major network’s budget behind it, except with MacFarlane-certified “My ex-wife’s a total nag” jokes.

I also thought society had reached the same consensus on The Orville! It has a 19% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning it would probably be the worst-reviewed show on TV right now if Marvel’s Inhumans wasn’t around. But not only were all of my tastemaker Trekker buds falling for a show that could have been called Star Trek: With One Or Two Silly Jokes, they were uninterested in or outright angry at Discovery!

Just look at the ridiculous disparity between the critic and audience scores for both shows on Rotten Tomatoes!

This is when I realized that I’ve never been a diehard Star Trek fan because I want fundamentally different things from the franchises I love than what Star Trek fans apparently want from Star Trek.

I have seen two Orville episodes: the pilot and, for the purposes of writing this very article, episode 6 (“Krill”). No, I did not watch the third episode because, like, every critic called it one of the most tone deaf hours of television ever (although most Orville viewers say it’s when the show gets good! I have no idea what to believe!!). I’ll say this: if I’m gonna watch Star Trek: The Next Generation, I’ll watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Orville does shoehorn a gag or three into every episode along with ’90s pop culture references because MacFarlane’s gonna MacFarlane. When it comes to comedy, an alien god sharing a name with an Earth rental car company is the level we’re operating on.

Contrast all this with Star Trek: Discovery, a new Star Trek series that is actually Star Trek. Moving beyond the gripes about it being on CBS All Access, I’ve seen big Trek-heads upset that the show is following a former first officer (Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham), that Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs) is ethically dubious, that we don’t meet the Discovery crew until episode three, that the opening credits aren’t Trek-y enough, that the Klingons have weird heads, and that the show isn’t a utopian fantasy. Everything I view as riveting storytelling (the two-episode Burnham Begins arc, the cast’s slow reveal, the last gasps of humanity’s worst qualities before peace is won) is apparently anathema to Star Trek’s most loyal followers.

But…why? And why is The Orville the answer? It’s like Star Trek fans have a very rigid checklist, and whatever checks off the most boxes–be it Star Trek or not–wins. From my layman’s POV, a checklist for every Star Trek TV show would look like:

Set in a utopia Deals with moral quandaries Lengthy, even-tempered discussions Follows a morally sound captain Social commentary through sometimes heavy-handed metaphor Babes in tight uniforms Set in stone dramatis personæ Opening credits of a ship in space Episodic No running

The Orville checks off all those boxes. Discovery maybe checks off two of them (#2 and #5). Do Star Trek fans really value the checklist over an actually engaging new spin on the franchise?

For help wrapping my head around all this, I keep coming back to the franchise that I am insufferably obsessive and picky about: the X-Men. X-fans are known within the comic book realm for being a particular and intense bunch. That being said, X-Fans don’t have an agreed upon version of what is and isn’t X-Men. The X-Men have been adapted faithfully (the ’90s cartoon), loosely (Legion), fantastically (Logan), poorly (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and soap opera-ily (The Gifted). If X-Men fans could agree on a checklist to begin with, then none of these adaptations would check all the boxes.

Even Legion, a totally brilliant show that I lost track of because it wasn’t X-Men-y enough for me, has been hailed by many of my X-friends as the most faithful adaptation ever. Surprise! And when NBC created a pseudo-X-Men knockoff called Heroes, X-Men fans didn’t rally around it the way I’m seeing Trek fans back The Orville. As an X-Men fan, I’ve gotten used to adaptations that play fast and loose and celebrating what they get right. That’s the mindset I bring to Trek, and why I am so into Discovery while also being able to enjoy the random Next Generation episode.

Decider’s resident Star Trek guru Meghan O’Keefe helped me understand this disconnect a bit more. I think X-Men fans can take change because change is at the heart of the franchise. The entirety of X is built on the foundation laid by writer Chris Claremont during his 16-year stretch on Uncanny X-Men–a stretch of comics defined by being undefinable. The team, their mission, their role in the world, it all changes, and at times the X-Men don’t even exist in that run. The X-Men, therefore, have reinvention built into their mutated DNA. As Meghan pointed out to me, Star Trek had just the original series and the cartoon for a decade, followed by movies starring the same cast that were inline with what came before. And when The Next Generation came along, it updated the franchise but cemented what Star Trek was. That show put the checklist in place that later shows would follow. X-Men is built on change while Star Trek is built on a stability, the comforting stability that comes from episodic morality tails set in an aspirational future starring inspirational characters. Discovery isn’t always that. The Orville kinda is (even if I find the show maddeningly hollow).

I still cringe at the thought of Seth “We Saw Your Boobs” MacFarlane being the guy Trek fans are turning to now, and I can’t believe that the guy whose most well-known show produced a disgusting moment of aggressive transphobia is now writing (poorly reviewed but surprisingly well-received) morality plays. But sure, okay, they don’t make Trek like they used to anymore and, as a big fan of the new Will & Grace, it would be stupid of me to act like I don’t understand the allure of nostalgia. And sure, I’ve also rejected some things because they didn’t check off all my boxes (I’m going to finish Legion someday, I swear). But when it comes to Star Trek, I now know that I will never be a capital “F” Fan, at least not in the way that most Trek fans are, because I want an experimental Trek that adapts to the times, one willing to dig in the dirt of humanity in its search for hope. And I guess almost every other Trek fan I know… wants The Orville.

Where to stream Star Trek: Discovery