“The Orville” is on a smoother trajectory, with just a bit of turbulence
musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog
musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog
Giving them backstories, intertwining their relationships. There's no waste is this this show.
Dann who appears as a background character and brought in for one off jokes, I'm expecting them to elevate round out his character.
The reviewer validates same thoughts I have. Seth McFarlene weakens his own show being captain. The bet jokes are the ones not thrown in your face.
Sometimes the setup of the show feels forced, and they are playing star trek.
I'll take what I can get.
This feels like a revitalised version of TNG, with some humorus quirks, to me.
ep 4 - "If the Stars Should Appear"
ep 5 - "Pria"
ep 10 - "Firestorm"
ep 11 - "New Dimensions"
I think it is the best Star Trek-like show since Stargate Unvierse.
I am watching Star Trek Discovery, and I am confused by the higher tech of the Discovery over the tech used in the Star Trek movies that happen 10 years later. Good fight scenes and battles, but Klingons keep being rebooted in every Star Trek franchise? I am guessing there are like 4 or 5 different types of Klingon races like TOS Klingon-Human fusions, Star Trek TMG/TNG Klingons with bigger forehead ridges, Star Trek Nemesis Romulan-Klingon hybrids created with cloning, Star Trek Reboot 2009 Klingons, and now Star Trek Discovery Klingons with more ridges (Ruffles joke?) and in black or white skin colors? I wonder what the Commander Worf reboot will look like?
It's only 400 years in the future, there's no "beam me up" tech yet, and people are still flawed and "Earthy". I like this aspect, which is reflected in the jokes...
"Our last captain let us have soda on the bridge, and I just wanted to check that was still okay"... "Sure, if you don't spill any on the equipment".
The jokes come and go in the blink of an eye. They are not meant to be killer jokes, it's just a nice unpretentious segway from the main action. This for me, is a "maturity" in Macfarlane's style - not leaning too heavily on brute force humour or scene-stealing punch lines.
There's an efficiency in the writing I appreciate. Each character has individual expression, and each episode is quite unique - different directors are behind each episode. Overall there's quite exciting action and suspense at times, it's highly enjoyable and looks sharp.
I wouldn't even count that as a joke.
Really weird seeing an opinion blog on a scifi show frontpaging on HN though. Definitely the sort of thing you only really see here on a weekend.
To me, The Orville is more like the better "light" TNG episodes, and happily it doesn't put much work into looking at the ethics of a situation unlike some TNG episodes. My prime example is the doctor's actions against her captor in episode 8 - I thought they were going to court martial her and remove what I feel to be the most 2D character from the show.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/star_trek_the_next_generat...
Personally I'm glad both exist. The Orville feels like a retro trip to an older time, and Discovery feels like a new take. Both worthwhile.
(though my personal theory is that Seth McFarlane wouldn't have made it a comedy if he has a choice, but it's the only way Fox would let him do the show)
Without spoiling it too much, a crew member on the Orville had a family dispute that boiled down to alien ethics/culture vs. human ethics/culture. While I feel crews of the earlier actual Star Trek series would have approached the problem with more empathy, understanding and logic, the (mostly human) crew of the Orville were purely driven by emotion and tried to argue their position in ways that made zero logical sense.
It's been much better since then though. These days it feels like Star Trek with a little less philosophy and some poor jokes thrown in to appease the network.
I got through the first argument in About a Girl during the trial and it was so bad I had to turn it off. It was like they were trying to have an interesting episode that represents the best of Star Trek (The Drumhead, The Measure of a Man, Dear Doctor), but their lack of empathy, self-righteousness, terrible arguments, and no attempt to try and learn more about the other culture represented the worst of it.
That and the alien had a sudden realization of how right the humans were because he watched Santa Clause is Coming To Town.
Really frustrating to watch.
Episode 4 is a better episode to judge it on I think so I'd encourage you to give it one last chance.
3 has definitely been the worst so far and I'm not a fan of 9 (though it has some character development) but I haven't regretted watching the rest.
At this point I feel like it's basically Star Trek made more accessible to the kind of person who can't sit through Inner Light or "Shaka, where the walls fell". Tone down the moralising and philosophy (it's not entirely gone but it's definitely reduced), throw in some crude humour and you've got something that much of the US TV audience could actually watch, while still being somewhat like Star Trek to those who want it.
Maybe this kind of thing is an easier introduction for people though, and that might be a good thing.
I get the feeling Seth wants to push it towards the latter, probably because he writes 90% of the goofy bad jokes himself. But if he truly wants to make the series a success, he needs to do 2 things:
1) Do more Rodenberry-esque episodes like that episode 4 you mentioned, which I still think was the best so far.
2) Hire a great full-time comedy writer, if they really want to keep the "goofy" aspect of the show, which I don't think is bad per se - it's the terrible jokes that kill it, not the fact that it tries to be funny.
If they do that for season 2, they may actually get most of the Star Trek fans to watch it, and maybe quit watching STD if they haven't already. Most of the people that I saw were disappointed with Orville were disappointed because it did too little of 1) and too much of 2) (mainly the bad jokes, though).
I think Orville has the potential to be a 7-10 season iconic show if they shape it towards what the people actually want it to be rather than Seth's original vision. If nothing changes, it will remain a mediocre show, and maybe get killed after 3-4 seasons when people get bored with the same tired old jokes.
But luckily, there is the Orville. After every episode of ST:D, I would watch an episode of the Orville. Honestly, I would have given up on modern science fiction if it were not for the Orville.
(I don't like modern TV series. I don't like the "bingeable" cliffhangers. I don't like the negativity. I don't like that "epic" CG effects have become more important than likeable characters or a coherent world. I don't like the blatant stupidity of most if the writing. I really haven't watched TV for about a decade. Maybe the Orville is just a throwback to older times. But I like it. )
I watched the first episode and it came across as trying WAY too hard. Very patchy and uneven tone, and the best jokes weren’t the direct lines but the asides or concept jokes (like the super nice Orc, vs the Dog Humping)
Worth me watching a few more?
It is very rare that initial episodes of any new series are good. TNG was atrocious.
In the case of The Orville, there was way too much humor, specially in the first episode. Now it's trending more to a sporadic, comedic relief at times, instead of a full blown comedy.
IMHO, they seem to be much closer to finding the sweet spot now. The latest one was a great sci fi episode (even if the premise was nothing new), but still managed to deliver a few good jokes.
Well, that assumes you are ok with shows that don't take themselves seriously all the friggin time. The Orville is supposed to be crewed by a B team, they are not the flagship.
Sounds like they worked out a balance (or it at least got better). Will attempt some more episodes.
To present a dissenting view, I think there are better episodes, but all your points still seem to hit every episode.
At this point I really like the show that generally has episodic content just as a simple break. Not everything needs to have a giant arc.
The antagonism between the captain and commander about the relationship was mostly toned down until an episode where it was actually appropriate.
If the humor is just not your thing, then you made the right call to abandon it in the second episode. On the other hand, the third episode seems to be the first one that people really liked. That one really felt like a TNG episode and the plot had a couple of surprises in it that I think made the story better. It was also kind of heavy-handed, but then none of the Star Trek series were known for subtlety.
- I'd skip episode 3. Maybe come back to it later. It's the episode that nearly put me off the series. I think 4 is a fairer episode to judge it by.
- It's not a parody of Star Trek and it's not meant to be one. It's more like Seth MacFarlane really wanted to run a Star Trek show and couldn't, so made something about as close as he could while still appeasing the networks with some crude humour thrown in.
It's not as good as TNG but it's definitely an okay Star Trek at this point. They've toned down the stupid humour and premises from where it started.
Seth apparently had to work really hard to get his own The Next Generation show. They wouldn't give him Star Trek, so he had to go write his own. So it's likely to have been played safely.
I do hope they get a bit more serious in the second season. Army pranks in space won't last that long either, I don't think.
The crew of the Orville was driven by emotion, barely took any time to consider the aliens' point of view, didn't seek any evidence for either side's position and argued their point primarily with logical fallacies ("look, these problems don't exist in other species, so clearly they can't exist in yours").
I don't think this episode could have worked in TNG because the episode would boil down to:
"Picard: What evidence do you have to support your beliefs?"
"Aliens: Uhh, why do we need evidence, clearly it is this way?"
"Picard: Let's find some evidence"
It had its upsides for sure but it's definitely not comparable to TNG.
In TNG, Data would also have found the whole thing very confusing and grounded the crew somewhat. Isaac was notably absent in this episode.
The ending was interesting and I think this episode could have been _much_ better if the rest of it was handled better but the irrational behaviour of the crew was so bad it broke the suspension of disbelief for me.
I may be naïve to think I can do better but I'd do it something like this:
- Crew asks, in a great deal of detail, what exactly the aliens believe the problem is and why they believe it's there
- Aliens respond with their concerns and that they are primarily based on custom/legend and there is no modern evidence
- Crew asks if it would be possible to gather evidence
- Aliens say no
- Crew tries to justify their search for evidence with the arguments presented in the episode as it was originally written
- Aliens rightly point out that those arguments are invalid, continue to say no
- Crew gathers evidence on their own, sneaking around and maybe getting in a bit of diplomatic trouble
- Crew finds evidence, makes argument
- Argument is overruled, episode keeps its nice ending
The cleverness of that episode is, in part, how it contrasts TNG. I agree with your assessment of the situation, and judging by the way The Orville pulls from TNG, it was intentional. They SHOULD have lost the trial, and they DID, unlike TNG where everyone can quickly become an expert legal representative within 48 hours. It's analogous to why they have awkward quote scenes - in TNG everyone had a quote at the ready for any situation, but in reality, who does that? They argued like regular people argue, not lawyers. And true to Trek nature, even though they lost, they still won a little by bringing out the female author.
So, you're right that they argued with emotion instead of logic, but you have to always be drawing from similar TNG situations with The Orville. It's why you see awkward elevator scenes and people spit out disgusting alien food. Those 'bad' jokes are fun references to TNG. How many times does Picard boldly proclaim to a Klingon that he looks forward to partaking in some zany, macho, ceremonial meal? How many times do we see him with said food in his mouth?
I think The Orville is the best example of "you get what you put into it." Some people want to sit back and take it at face value, so the jokes are terrible and juvenile. Some people engage in every scene like a thought experiment and think about all the threads connecting the characters, the comedy, and the source material, and they probably love the show. And most people are somewhere in between.
I'm far more on the loving it side and part of that is because the more I think about the scenes I don't like, the more I realize that this show is actually really complex. Most of the scenes I disliked on first viewing have become my favorites on second viewing because even when I think I know what it's going for, they slide a whole sub-commentary right under my nose. My first reaction is usually that I'm overthinking it, that it can't be X, but suddenly X is everywhere. For example, 'About a Girl' only seriously addresses gender issues in the reveal of the female author. The vast majority of that episode and its most important points have nothing to do with gender.
And, finally, my favorite aspect of The Orville is that they take a very middle of the road approach, pointing out the faults of conservatives and liberals pretty damn equally. The show isn't trying to say which way is right and just wants to start a conversation. With how divided the US has become, I didn't think there was any way to talk about these issues on TV without alienating one side or the other, but the writers have done a remarkable job of walking that very narrow line.
Anyhow, sorry for blabbing and going off topic a bit. I just wanted to say I agree with your assessment, but suspect that the aloofness was intentional. There was no underdog coming from behind to save the day, no deus ex machina, no pardon from the governor 5 seconds before the execution. It was a way for the writers to say, "This shit matters. Approach it like an amateur and there will be real consequences." Usually it takes shows a season to do the same by killing off a character. They did it in episode 3 and centered around a character that had 4-ish (?) lines in the entire series. And it was still a gut-punch. Okay, I'm rambling again. Anyhoo... so I kinda like the show. Totally cool if you don't, but if you keep watching you might enjoy it more if you associate the cringeworthy moments with the writers telling you to think about the scene more. At least it worked for me.
> They SHOULD have lost the trial, and they DID, unlike TNG where everyone can quickly become an expert legal representative within 48 hours.
This isn't about becoming lawyers, this is about the otherwise shown as brilliant and logical crew throwing all their judgement out the window and making arguments like "all these other species lack the issue you're describing, that means yours does too" and making emotional appeals without looking for _any_ kind of evidence.
Look at their approaches to other problems. They're generally pretty rational and apply logic and reason.
> They argued like regular people argue, not lawyers.
But they're not regular people, they're highly trained explorers, often charged with diplomatic missions and making contact with other cultures. Plus they have a ton of science staff and a superintelligent walking computer.
They don't need to be lawyers but they _do_ need to act like they can do their jobs, at least somewhat.
> I agree with your assessment, but suspect that the aloofness was intentional
I agree with you too that it was intentional but I really don't think it made sense. Am I really supposed to expect that the crew I saw in episode 3 is the same crew I saw in the other episodes?
I could believe it if they showed that the admiralty was so disappointed in their performance that they made them undergo additional training between episodes 3 and 4 but that wasn't the case.
> Totally cool if you don't, but if you keep watching you might enjoy it more if you associate the cringeworthy moments with the writers telling you to think about the scene more. At least it worked for me.
I've kept watching it and I've mostly liked it but that episode just really stood out to me as bad.
> But they're not regular people, they're highly trained explorers
Part of what the writers seem to be doing is feeling out the purpose of the crew and ship. Their mission statement is pretty vague, but a ship like that probably requires a certain mix of specialists and generalists. So, I'm not sure they are actually 'expert explorers'. It feels more like a redemption story for a team filled with people that fell from grace in one way or another. Like Malloy is an amazing pilot, but dumb as a bag of rocks in other ways. The crew as a collective seems to oscillate between expert and idiot which I've seen happen plenty of times in group project settings, especially when you have a mix of motivations and drive. By all appearances to the the higher ups (reports, academy grades, etc.) they are expert explorers, but they have plenty of flaws that the show celebrates (sometimes too much).
I also think episode 3 was set up to be a kind of turning point for the seriousness of the show. They thought they could go in and argue like one of their beloved TV shows and received a tough smackdown. That might be why I let the trial scene slide but not the statue grinding.
> Am I really supposed to expect that the crew I saw in episode 3 is the same crew I saw in the other episodes? I could believe it if they showed that the admiralty was so disappointed...
That transition over the first 4 episodes is part of what sold me on the show. They suffered a big loss and stepped up their game afterwards without needing an authority figure to intervene or punish. The sense of taking responsibility because it is the right thing to do and not out of fear of punishment is quintessential Trek and relevant.
Cool. Cool cool cool...