Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery

-

Every so often, Hollywood will drop two similar but competing movies or TV shows at the same time. For example, in summer 1998, there were two movies about an asteroid poised to strike the Earth: Michael Bay's Armageddon and Mimi Leder's Deep Impact. 2013 saw two films about the White House being attacked: White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen. Even a major franchise like James Bond has battled with 'itself': 1983 saw two competing Bond movies released in theaters, Octopussy starring then-current Bond Roger Moore defeated the original 007 Sean Connery's Never Say Never Again at the box office. While not competing with each other, both The Walking Dead and its prequel spinoff Fear The Walking Dead are staples of AMC. Now, the Star Trek franchise and its newest incarnation, Star Trek: Discovery, faces a similar type of doppelganger, Seth MacFarlane's The Orville.

The Orville debuted on FOX a couple of weeks ago to strong ratings (aided by its Sunday Night Football lead-in) before settling into its regular Thursday night time slot. Executive Produced by Star Trek veteran Brannon Braga and MacFarlane, who also headlines the series as Captain Ed Mercer, The Orville features a very familiar (by design) premise to Star Trek fans. A science fiction comedy/drama set in the 25th century, The Orville centers on an exploratory ship in the service of the Planetary Union - essentially Star Trek's United Federation of Planets - commanded by Mercer and his First Officer and ex-wife Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki). Their crew is a multi-species assortment of humans and aliens, and together thus far, they've engaged in the morality plays and space battles fans associate with classic TV Star Trek. The Orville is very clearly modeled after Star Trek: The Next Generation in nearly every way, save for its sitcom-level comedy.

This Sunday, after years of production delays and creative upheavals, Star Trek: Discovery premiered its first hour on CBS also to strong ratings (better than The Orville's) before settling into its berth behind the paywall of the network's streaming service, CBS All-Access. Melding the visual style of the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films with the more complex drama classic TV Trek is known for, Discovery is a prequel series set a decade before the voyages of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the Starship Enterprise. The first way (of many) Discovery breaks Trek tradition is by centering not on a captain, but on Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), the First Officer of the U.S.S. Shenzhou commanded by Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh). Raised on Vulcan by Sarek (James Frain), the father of Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Georgiou makes a life-altering and tragic decision when the Shenzhou comes face to face with impending war with the resurgent Klingon Empire.

MORE STAR TREK THAN STAR TREK?

Scott Grimes J. Lee Seth MacFarlane and Adrianne Palicki in The Orville

Which series honors Star Trek in better ways? This depends on the viewer's opinion of and desire from Star Trek. MacFarlane is a lifelong Star Trek fan and everything about The Orville makes this evident. Along with Braga, whom he met when he guest starred on Star Trek: Enterprise, MacFarlane seeks to bring back the classic aspects of Star Trek that have been missing since the more hyperkinetic Abrams films became the only new Star Trek audiences experienced for a decade. Like most Star Trek series, The Orville is structured to be more episodic week-to-week, as opposed to the tightly serialized television series that are prominent today. Though certain story threads, like the constant bickering between Mercer and Grayson as they sort out the lingering bitterness of their failed marriage, carry over though each episode, The Orville takes The Next Generation's approach: meeting a new alien race posing some sort of moral and ethical dilemma, solving it, and moving on to the next problem.

The Orville's visuals, color-coded uniforms, command structure, and the look of the starship itself purposely evokes The Next Generation's venerable U.S.S. Enterprise-D as well as the U.S.S. Voyager. Like the Enterprise-D, the Orville is basically a bright, comfortable, and inviting hotel in space. The Next Generation's tropes like its Ten Forward bar are present on The Orville, as is the holodeck, where crew members can cosplay as characters in any time period and enjoy recreational virtual reality simulation. The only thing missing are transporters, one of Star Trek's signature staples. Beyond that, The Orville is essentially a mock up of Star Trek that is tweaked just enough to avoid any lawsuits for infringing on Star Trek's copyrights. The cast of The Orville freely admits they hope the series slakes the desires of 'disgrunted Star Trek fans,' of which there are many, especially where Discovery is concerned.

In contrast to The Orville, Discovery is Star Trek, in ways both familiar and jarringly different. The look of the Klingons has been reimagined, to the chagrin of many Trekkers who have issues with how this all makes sense in accordance to decades of previously established canon. Trekkers who scoffed at the frankly Star Wars-like breakneck pace of Abrams' films and longed for the calmer and more comforting Star Trek the classic TV series presented are similarly put off by Discovery's cinematic style and darker visual palate. The series' divergences from canon make some fans question whether Discovery is set in the classic Prime timeline of Star Trek, as the producers attest, or if it actually takes place in the rebooted Kelvin timeline of the Abrams films. Also lacking is the familiar triumvirate of core characters who are fast friends, epitomized by the heroic trio of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy (DeForrest Kelley). The warm mentor/student relationship established between Michael Burnham and Captain Georgiou is immediately torn asunder before the first episode is over.

Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green Star Trek Discovery

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Both The Orville and Star Trek: Discovery do honor the spirit of Star Trek, but in their own different ways. However discomforting as Discovery can be, it's clearly an ambitious and high-quality series with a story it wants to tell. The chances it takes with Star Trek's tropes - such as how the Starship Discovery doesn't even appear in the first two episodes - are actually a virtue to those seeking a more complex series that places Star Trek on the same playing field as prestige TV shows like Game of Thrones, Westworld, and Battlestar Galactica. (Some however, don't want this from Star Trek - they want the familiar, especially after the Abrams movies.) Discovery is clearly not modeled after its predecessors' brand of seeking out new life and new civilizations - essentially humans meeting aliens with problems and solving those problems in an hour before moving on to the next planet.

Discovery upended the old Trek paradigm immediately and in the case of Michael Burnham, we realize by the conclusion of the second episode that our lead character is a disgraced and broken mutineer stripped of her rank and undergoing a redemption arc. There have been a few disgraced and incarcerated characters in Star Trek before, such as Ensign Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes) and Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeil), who have gotten second chances to serve on starships. Paris, who became helmsman on the U.S.S. Voyager, is clearly the model for The Orville's wisecracking helmsman Lt. Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes). Burnham, however, is the series lead, not a supporting character, which, along with being an African-American woman, makes her a first for Star Trek. Discovery, like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's later seasons, is a show about a galactic war and about the difficult moral and ethical choices our heroes face in the midst of that war.

While Discovery flies out of the gate confident of what type of science fiction series it is, the same can't be said of The Orville, which struggles from the get-go to find an appropriate and pleasing mix of science fiction, drama, and comedy. In MacFarlane, The Orville centers around a talented comedy writer who makes a questionable leading man. MacFarlane is frankly miscast as a captain who would inspire the loyalty of hundreds of souls choosing to follow him across the galaxy; it seems like hubris for MacFarlane to place himself in the same spiritual seat as William Shatner or Patrick Stewart. The Orville wants to tackle complex moral quandaries - such as the third episode addressing the gender identity of the daughter of Bortus, their Morclan second officer - but the quality of the courtroom scenes that decided this problem was embarrassingly staged and the writing was ham-fisted. In every episode of The Orville thus far, dramatic and tense moments are consistently undercut by MacFarlane's penchant for inserting anachronistic references like Beyoncé song lyrics and juvenile jokes, which often land with a thud.

THE REAL STAR TREK

What Star Trek: Discovery's Episode Titles Reveal

The Orville has found success on FOX and it does seem to service some Trekkers' desires to have an entertaining Star Trek substitute to watch. The fact that The Orville is on free television gives it a huge advantage over Star Trek: Discovery, which many fans feel just isn't enough of a reason to subscribe to a streaming service they otherwise don't want. For its part, The Orville plans to continue mining tried and true Star Trek tropes and having prominent Trek actors appear in cameos. For those not willing to pay to see the new Star Trek series and are finding The Orville's spin on Trek enjoyable or even intriguing, The Orville is pleased to cater to their tastes.

Star Trek: Discovery has drawn critical acclaim for its bold attempt to tell a new kind of Star Trek story and for bringing blockbuster cinema to television. If CBS chose to release Discovery from behind its paywall prison and allowed it to be seen for free like all of its other Star Trek TV predecessors, at least some of the ire toward Discovery would dissipate, and fans would find a rich, complex adventure tale set firmly in the Star Trek universe to relish (and nitpick). How far Discovery will go in its 15 episode voyage to deliver its version of Star Trek is the big question. Discovery sure to continue to court some controversy as it challenges some established and cherished norms of Star Trek - for better or worse.

The choice, if you're looking to make one, between The Orville and Star Trek: Discovery is like drinking supermarket-brand soda instead of brand name Coca-Cola or Pepsi. There's nothing wrong with partaking in the offshoot brand if you prefer not to pay for the premium brand. However, in the Star Trek Challenge Taste Test, there is nothing like the real deal.

NEXT: EVERY STAR TREK EASTER EGG IN THE ORVILLE'S PREMIERE