I actually really liked the Enterprise song and intro. At least in the first two seasons, they modified it for the worse later. It was very different than anything before in Trek, but I thought it actually fits the feel and the themes the the show was going for. The theme I wasn't fond of was Voyager, it was a bit to slow and lacked energy compared to TNG and DS9, but it was still an ok piece of music, and I did remember it easily, still do. This... you're right, I can't remember it today for the life of me. I hope that maybe, somehow, in it's entirety and coupled with the show's intro it will be better.

so what are everybody's thoughts on the orville? I thought it was ok. maybe a little bland. but I'm not ready to give up on it after the pilot. the only big beef I had with it was that I thought the exchange between Gordon and Kelly fucking completely lacked the dynamic that MacFarlane was going for between them. you wonder how that shit made it through. cause certainly he couldn't have been going for something that was that flat. I thought it was supposed to be a scene where Gordon was largely lying through his teeth, and there just being this huge undertone of hostility dripping through civility. it was largely completely straight though. the way they were playing it, it almost makes you wonder if there was some cheating with her and Gordon. more likely the scene was just botched. but then, it goes along with what people have been saying about the show maybe being a bit bland. still, again, not ready to give up on it.

the critics are fucking skewering it though.

what did everybody think of the show? I think it really does have a sort of spark of that Star Trek feel in there somewhere.

I liked the show. The characters are great and the light heartiness reminds me of the old Star Trek shows until MacFarlane throws in one of his vulgar jokes. But even those jokes weren't as over the top as his movies (Ted movies for example) and was spaced out with plenty of other jokes that I actually found myself chuckling to some of them. It's only one episode but I think it has a lot of potential. I just hope Fox doesn't cancel it early just because of bad critic reviews.

I watched the first episode of the series and it's like some sort of badly written, incredibly stupid fan fiction of Star Trek. I dropped the show in disgust. Mind you: it would be very, VERY stupid even without the Star Trek fan fiction part...

haha, i only watched some trailer but this IS how the real trek was, not the crap jj abrams puts out.
UPDATE: I watched some more resources and calling it now: This show will wipe the floor with anything Paramount puts out. Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are wrong on this one.
Remember the original series was also slammed by critics but I feel this is exactly the kind of show the audience wants. You CAN do comedy and drama and if Seth can keep this up this will air forever.
Interesting that the original has lost its way so badly that the spoof is now the original.

The only thing I ever liked from Abrams was the Fringe series. Its probably an unpopular opinion but my favorite series was Enterprise. Next Generation was great too, the other two I never could get into.

Overall movies and TV series in general are pretty bad these days and remakes are even worse, so I have little faith in the direction of Star Trek. I think Hollywood needs to go back to the basics and rethink the intelligence of its audience.

I think Star Treks perception of reality doesnt really match up with whats acceptable in Hollywood anymore. Having a certainty of right and wrong and any sort of morality isnt Hollywoods strong suit.

Listening to George Takei's interview about some newer Star Trek movie wanting his Sulu character reboot to be gay and his answer was enlightening about the politics that subvert the creative process.

I

It's in Hollywood's interests to have the dumbest audience possible and expand it to make easily recyclable movies and concepts. The same car year after year - just in a different color.

http://grantland.com/features/2014-hollywood-blockbusters-franchises-box-office/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_W._Adorno#Standardization

What? TV is probably better than ever nowadays, with the advent of streaming finally making prestige TV mainstream.

I'll 2nd this.

Some sitcoms are just as bad, but when I was a kid there was nowhere near the quality you find now. Can anyone here imagine a show as well done as Game of Thrones, SVU, or Sapranos thirty years ago? No way.

TV used to be where great actors went when their careers hit a slide and they had no choice, now they seek it out because the quality has risen so much.

If I was to make a list of the best tv series I've ever seen the latest entry on it would probably be Angels In America. That's from 2003. I honestly can't think of a single TV show I'd consider truly great after that. Even the list of just good ones would be pretty short. Budgets may be bigger, but that's it, and that doesn't really mean anything.

That's a broad generalisation that ignores many fantastic series way better than anything anyone makes today. The cast of I, Claudius was the creme de la creme of british actors and I assure you none of them were there because their careers where going down the drain. I don't think any of the actors of even Game of Thrones has achieved the level of popularity and recognition that Duchovny and Anderson did in 90s thanks to X-Files. As far back as the early 60s Patrick McGoohan chose TV as the medium for his magnum opus passion project The Prisoner.

Not to mention that it's not the quality but the bigger money that is attracting big name actors to TV now. Again it's the budgets that improved, not the quality.

The vast majority of older TV shows were episodic, which I find, with a few notable exceptions, a waste of time, since they were complete slaves to sindication and had no guarantees of which episodes would be aired when and in which order. Naturally this resulted in shows with no overarching plot, or only a shadow of one, where any changes to the status quo, or character arcs, would be reset by the end of the episode. Most episodes were, by necessity, meaningless in the long run, because the writers couldn't count on viewers having seen it so they could build upon it in future episodes. Only the season finale, perhaps, was allowed to have consequences. With few shows escaping this fate.

Then came The Sopranos in the late 90s. The trend continued with shows like The Wire in the mid 00s. But it only became truly mainstream with the advent of streaming, which finally allowed creators to make whatever stories they wanted, safe in the knowledge that any new viewers can start from the beginning, soon catch up with the show, and know everything they need to know. If you want the old episodic style, that's still what most of network TV is, and you can binge on it on streaming services like everything else, but finally there's a place for bigger and more complex stories as well.

As for great TV shows? There's so much stuff out there now that I don't think I could ever check all of it out. Considering all the shows that have come out, or are airing right now, including, but not limited to, all these shows that I either loved or really want to watch but there's never any time to:

Breaking Bad. The Wire. Broadchurch. The Handmaid's Tale. Game of Thrones. Review. The Leftovers. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Bojack Horseman. Legion. Fargo. Orange is the New Black. Black Mirror. True Detective. Band of Brothers. Westworld. Arrested Development. Gravity Falls. Rome. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Mozart in the Jungle. Transparent. The Strain. The Americans. The Killing. The Tick. The Knick. Peaky Blinders. Boardwalk Empire. American Gods. Hannibal. Pushing Daisies. Deadwood. The Crown. Downton Abbey. Taboo. Flight of the Conchords. The IT Crowd. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Halt and Catch Fire. Community. Atlanta. Master of None. Mad Men. Top of the Lake. Mr. Robot.

I'm sure there are others out there that I haven't even heard of yet.

If you can't find a single great show in 15 years of television, then you either don't know where to look, or the issue is with you and not with TV.

I can't wait to not watch the abortion currently in development.

Why hasn't THIS become the default answer to any complaints about current TV series when compared to past ones?

I wouldn't agree to all of them, but still I'm surprised by how many are completely unknown to me... I need to watch quite a few of those. I've been wasting my life. :)

Episodic series without overarcing plots are not by definition inferior. They can still have great, intelligent one-shot stories while a show with that tells a single story over all it's episodes can be crap beginning to end. A lot of them are today. Both models have their pros and cons, and there are great and piss-poor shows in both categories. The shift from one model to the other was not an improvement, it was just change, not good or bad by itself.

Obiously I have not seen all of those, but I gave a shot to quite a few. Other than Gravity Falls, which is indeed very, very good bordering on great the rest was pretty bad. Definately nothing to match the truly great shows that came before.

In a way - I've seen to much truly great shows to take overhyped mediocrity for greatnes.

It is objectively an improvement. Before we were stuck with one format, now we have the space for both.

Well, like I said, I included ones I want to watch and imagine are great, but haven't checked for myself yet.

For example, I watched Legion earlier this year and I thought it was brilliant. This has only solidified the fact that I gotta watch Fargo, by the same creator, when I get the chance.

Before it was hard to find good things to watch because they were so few and far between. Now it's the opposite: there's so many good shows out there that some end up passing you by completely.