Star Trek: Discovery warps right past The Orville in the ratings
By Jeremy Dick
Audiences seem to prefer the real Star Trek over Star Trek inspired parody shows, as The Orville didn’t do quite as well as Star Trek: Discovery.
It might be time to fly The Orville back to the station!
The battle of the space shows between CBS and FOX is already heating up, according to ScreenRant. Over on FOX, Seth MacFarlane stars in their new comedy show The Orville, a clear spoof of Star Trek and similar sci-fi TV shows. Meanwhile, on CBS, Star Trek: Discovery recently had its own premiere on television — and the fans have voted for which one they prefer with their remote controls.
Last night, 9.6 million viewers tuned in to the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery, the first official Star Trek show since Enterprise went off the air 12 years ago. Compare that to The Orville on FOX which drew 8.6 million, and that tells us that people did enjoy the Seth MacFarlane spoof — but more people were there to check out the real article!
It’s hard to fully judge how a show will perform overall based on its premiere numbers, especially for both of these programs which were led-in by the NFL. What really matters is if fans will stick with it. ScreenRant notes that The Orville has already seen its numbers fall since moving to Thursday night. Star Trek: Discovery is remaining on Sunday nights (for now), but we’ll see if just as many people come back for episode 2.
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Personally, I believe Star Trek being on TV is long overdue, and millions of others seem to agree. The pilot episode was pretty good, so here’s hoping things keep up for the new show.