Hulu's 36-Part Space Opera Is Everything Star Trek Should Have Been

Published Sep 26, 2026, 3:00 PM EDT Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock. When Seth MacFarlane announced he was working on a Star Trek-inspired series, a lot of people assumed it would be a spoof. In the vein of Family Guy or American Dad!, MacFarlane’s space opera was expected to subvert the classic Trek formula with crude humor and cutaway gags. But when The Orville premiered, it turned out to be a surprisingly earnest take on the Star Trek mythos. The Orville has plenty of humor, but it’s not a full-blown comedy; it’s a sincere sci-fi drama with some jokes and sight gags. MacFarlane stars as the captain of an interstellar vessel in a Starfleet-type organization, 400 years in the future. The show starts off with the sitcom conceit of his ex-wife being assigned as his first officer, but that setup is just a springboard to explore Trek’s signature social commentary in space. On its voyages, the Orville encounters all kinds of strange planets and alien species that reflect timely issues on our homeworld. This was always Gene Roddenberry’s approach to Star Trek — he was more interested in exploring our societal shortcomings than having one spaceship blow up another spaceship — and it made The Orville a more faithful Star Trek show than most of the official Star Trek shows getting churned out by Paramount right now. The Orville Is The More Faithful Alternative To Star Trek: Discovery & Picard When J.J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek on the big screen, he both saved and doomed the franchise. By imbuing the film with plenty of Star Wars-style pew-pew action, he attracted the casual audiences who usually feel alienated by Star Trek’s bigger, loftier ideas, and it made his Star Trek movies a big hit at the box office. But it was a double-edged sword, because it created different expectations for the Star Trek universe. With shows like Picard and Discovery, modern Star Trek has been trying too hard to be like Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with interconnected spinoffs, legacy cameos, and more focus on worldbuilding than meaningful storytelling. When Roddenberry created Star Trek, he used a utopian future to imagine how peaceful and prosperous humanity could be if we got over our superficial differences. He used distant worlds and bizarre alien lifeforms to hold a mirror up to the foibles of the human race. In that sense, The Orville feels much more faithful to classic Star Trek than a lot of the official Star Trek shows that have come along lately. It’s more about exploration than action; it’s more about imagining a harmonious future society than the mere spectacle of spacefaring. Star Trek Realized Its Mistake & Made Strange New Worlds After the failures of Picard and Discovery, Star Trek seems to have finally figured out its mistake and course-corrected. Strange New Worlds is the best new Star Trek show in years. Set in the decade before The Original Series, it follows Christopher Pike’s tenure as the captain of the Enterprise. He confides in his science officer Spock, he takes a shine to a young cadet named Nyota Uhura, and he encounters a descendant of Khan Noonien Singh. But it’s not just the legacy characters and TOS timeframe that make Strange New Worlds feel like classic Star Trek; it’s the lighthearted tone, the optimistic worldview, the episodic storytelling, the social commentary. Akiva Goldsman figured out what Star Trek was missing and gladly restored it. Discovery tried to update Star Trek for the age of serialized prestige television, but that’s not what Star Trek fans are looking for. The adventure-of-the-week approach of Strange New Worlds feels much closer to what Star Trek is supposed to be. Now that Strange New Worlds has arrived, the best Star Trek show on TV is actually a Star Trek show and not an unofficial homage. TV Show(s) Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Short Treks, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Video Game(s) Star Trek Online, Star Trek: Resurgence, Star Trek: Bridge Crew First Film Star Trek: The Motion Picture First TV Show Star Trek: The Original Series