TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

but then for some reason they kept trying to introduce Klingons into it.

Ones with a third different head shape, no less!

Agreed. It's a decent action scifi show that is hurt by trying to fit the IP. It did do some interesting things with the mirror universe, and some of the latter season parts where it takes nonsensical one off TOS concepts and completely seriously says "that's canon, let's build a plot point on it" were entertaining, if not good.

But it just doesn't get Star Trek and it says something that I tell people getting in to the shows not to watch it.

The best way that I found to think about The Orville is that Seth MacFarlane had to shoe-horn jokes into the first few episodes to satisfy the execs who expected him to make a comedy and then gradually that tapers off to become a really solid Star Trek-type show (that still has humor, but it’s more organic, workplace type humor).

The Orville is a weird show. It hews very closely to the format and production design of 90s Trek (including a lot of budget-conscious decisions), and many of the creatives have a Star Trek background going back that far. Frankly, I think a lot of the scripts were from the TNG slush pile. It's clearly a love letter to those shows.

However, it's also clearly Seth MacFarlane's love letter. He gets to be the captain. His friends and lovers get to play major parts despite sometimes not really having the acting chops for it. The characters are all obsessed with the cultural touchstones of white American Gen-X'ers. In the early going, the Family-Guy/Ted/etc. sense of humor is front and center, and while that gets much better, it never fully goes away. One can also just about imagine 20-something Seth and his buddies screaming at the TV that there is no moral ambiguity in a given ST episode and that Jean Luc needs to just pick a side.

In some ways, it can be pretty rough, but then, mostly because it is such an earnest homage, it's greater than the sum of its parts. I never fell in love with it the way many have, but after wading through the first few episodes and getting a feel for what it was and wasn't, I grew fond of it. I'd say it's worth watching, but you don't have to apologize for not fully buying in. TBH, I feel fairly similar levels of tempered fondness for Disco, though for very different reasons.

wjrii hit the nail on the head. If you categorically don't like the vibe it might not be for you. Like any true Trek show it takes time to find its feet. The plot is coarse and hamfisted (as a trans person, the trans allegory episode was hard to get through) but eventually turns around to be a good example of scifi for contemporary social commentary. The humour (both quality and balance) improves but it doesn't stop being a Seth MacFarlane show. I value its earnesty, but it's pretty far down the list for my suggested "Star Trek" viewing order.

The problem with s3 wasn't the seriousness - we had plenty of that everywhere else - it was the missing small moments. Those little filler moments they slipped into the episodic serials that picked out little threads here and there and brought such a very very heartwarmingly humorous and human element to the show. Bortus’ moustache. The random Karaoke. Talking shit in the mess, finding out a crewmember can eat anything and Gordon promptly producing a cactus and a dare. Latchkum!   Shit that made you invest in the characters.  The reminder that even in utopia we're still batshit humanity

Admittedly I haven't exactly been keeping up with the news but it's been radio silence for a few years now so I am kind of sceptical.

The fact that they didn't immediately go into season 4 after finishing season 3, which is what most shows do, kind of implied that the studio at least felt done with it. Which personally I think was short-sighted. You don't leave large gaps like that because it increases the likelihood that the actors are going to go off and get other gigs. It's not like they're being paid in the interim so they kind of have to.

That's a reassuring bit of info. If the in-universe explanation is that he isn't the best captain, I might give it another shot.
As my initial reaction was "has McFarlane just made himself kirk?"