The Orville — Why the Hate?

I was a big Star Trek fan until JJ Abrahms came along with his reboot. I did not like it. I acknowledge that the special effects were good, the action was non-stop, and the acting was fine. But it just wasn’t Star Trek for me. However, people who either never watched Star Trek or hated Star Trek liked the JJ Abrahms version. So I guess that is just how things go; people have different tastes. And I don’t dislike everything JJ Abrahms did; I liked Fringe except for the last season which sucked. I guess the new Star Trek was/is just aiming away from the traditional fans and is looking to attract a different audience.

The Orville on the other hand poses a totally different issue: the divide between professional critics and the audience. As you can see from the image above, a screen capture from Rotten Tomatoes, the critics overwhelmingly disliked The Orville resulting in a score of 20%, yet the audience overwhelmingly loved it giving it a score of 93%.

There has always been a difference between paid critics and audiences, sometimes subtle and sometimes not. But now it is becoming glaringly obvious. The critics just hate The Orville! Why? Seth MacFarlane suggests that the early marketing for the show was misleading since it leaned too far towards the comedic parody part of the show, which does indeed exist, and not enough towards the legitimate stories and drama reminiscent…