I had to admit to something last night. When Star Trek and Orville were premiering their initial trailers, I was on board with Orville and was unimpressed with Star Trek. Orville gave us characters and Star Trek gave us... its name. That seemed all they cared about was riding off of the label and CBS seemed uninterested in earning its audience. Plus they were going to make us pay for the pleasure of watching a show whose initial producers, people who were big Star Trek fans, had been fired. It seemed so cynical and Orville seemed so fresh.
I still defended Orville after a lot of people didn't like the initial episode. It was wrestling with itself over its identity, but I believed that was temporary, and these characters would be ones I'd want to follow. However, their second episode showed that Seth McFarlane just can't get past his pop culture references and frat boy vision. (Pop culture references of today, that is, which 300 years from now would be like us making references during colonial days.)
Star Trek, meanwhile, was decent. I wouldn't say great, but it was okay. Someone needs to get them a tripod that has all three legs working apparently, and the director needs to stop going, "Look Ma, I'm directing!" But the characters turned out to be more interesting than I thought they would be. However, it wasn't good enough to get me to pay $5 a month to watch it. They're also apparently not allowing the first episode to be seen anywhere online, so if you missed it Sunday night when they wanted you to watch it, you missed it. (I missed the first half because I don't schedule my life around TV. Either I can see it on my time, or I don't watch it.)
It's a pity because we had two chances at a great Star Trek franchise here. I'm still sort of pulling for both of them. I especially want to see McFarlane get his act together as he's been very helpful to cat rescues; so anything he does I want to be profitable. But they both need to start listening to their audiences, who are VERY vocal, so they have no excuse not to hear them.
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