The Orville

So any chance on Sir Patrick Stewart appearing on the show?

That would be sweet; in particular, I kinda want him to play a Q-like being but with a Neelix-level annoying personality, occasionally parodying his own speeches.

They probably get a few downvotes from convicts, but seeing as how they directly and visibly exercise the people's will, they're probably incredibly popular otherwise... and I leave you with the horrors of that realization.

The whole thing hinged on too much of an idiot plot to be believable, let alone poignant, which is what concerns me with regard to future episodes. TOS was over-reliant on that particular routine - captain hastily drops down to an unknown planet, captain gets in trouble due to lacking any knowledge of said planet's society, captain barely escapes and then proceeds to blame and berate said society for what's actually his fault for diving blindly into a culture he knows nothing about. Give him a Hawaiian shirt and he'd be an American tourist.

Consequently, I don't think this show should be that close an imitation of Star Trek; there are other ways to get involved in allegorical societies without essentially thud and blundering your way through.

FOX renewed the series for a second season, and this season's capping around 13 episodes.

About the last episode Cupid’s Dagger, I found it hilarious. It’s the first episode I truly felt like belonging to a comedy. It was the perfect parody of the typical TNG ambassador-centric episode. I hope there are more like this.

If just the Middle East conflict could be solve that way…

Yeah the new episode was one of the funnier ones. The twist at the end was gold. TBH though the thing I like the most about it is it probably means they won't drag on the jokes about their divorce along anymore.

So I just watched episode 1.

The actors are kinda phony. The effects are kinda wonky. The story is kinda hacky. The jokes are kinda hockey.

I love it so much.

I love love love loooooooove it. It's so warm and nice and comfy and adorkable. It's a sweetheart of a show. It's just so fresh.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I'm watching the latest episode right now.

Security officer just got in a fist fight with Pennywise the clown.

This show is a little nutty, but...I like it.

One Strip! One Strip!

Are we talking the actual clown or is Bill Skarsgard a guest this week?

Actual clown.

So I like this. It does kinda feel like Trek, and even the Seth Green brand of silliness is massively toned down.

It kinda felt like an old school TNG ep. Mc Farlane must have a large amount of respect for the source material.

One Strip! One Strip!

He's a total Trekkie, you can tell. I think he got the TNG cast to actually show up for the convention episode of Family Guy, and Patrick Stewart is a regular on American Dad. Between that and the fact he's a Crosby cousin, the man has serious access to the actual source material of TNG.

Yeah, I think we need this what with Discovery going the Darker and Edgier route (which has been a thing in trek for a bit too long it seems).

It's just...out of all the dudes to go old school idealistic trek, I don't think anyone expected it to be Seth MacFarlane.

One Strip! One Strip!

I don't know why. I just listed off every reason he's practically THE guy to expect that from.His cousin was on the show for a season and never really left it behind. She's done documentaries about the fandom, and she was his main contact for getting the other stars into his projects.

But this last episode "Firestrom" sucked... I hate the All Just a Dream Deus ex Machina.

This show is like a roller coaster of quality.

Best case scenario: This season has Mc Farlane burning through most of his bad/bland ideas with some good ones mixed in.

Worst case scenario: This season has Mc Farlane burning through most of his good/interesting ideas with some bad/bland ones mixed in.

It’s likely that he has some severe budget limitations that he’s working within (the CG is good for what it is, and what it is is kind of cheap. It just very rarely involves extensive CG in the same shots as the characters so it’s harder to tell) there’s at least two episodes that are really blunt remakes/updates of standard Star Trek plots (the generation ship one and the social media planet one) and, while they have fleshed them out a surprising amount, it’s really obvious some of the characters started out as a one-note joke.

I will say, this first season is much better than the average Trek first season, and there is some real potential here. They just need to lean more into the unique aspects and move a bit further away from being a slightly more comedic revamp of TNG. Also, maybe don’t do episodes like the social media planet one again. At least not that straight. There was kind of a good concept there (one which Black Mirror did much better) but Mc Farlane is not very good at social allegories. He tends to be extremely obvious about it and not in a Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped kind of way. It would be interesting if there was an episode about a really Earth-like planet with the focus being on why the planet is Earth-like and the end result is something either really lame or really absurd.

Not Three Laws compliant.

The fact it got renewed really is stunning from Fox.

It's a miracle for Adrianne Palicki who is the most likable actress who keeps getting stuck in bombs.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Eh, they've had Family Guy for how long?

I'm not sure how well I'll agree with him if he does start fleshing out worlds. He did that sort of thing in the Road to the Multiverse episode of Family Guy, and had a universe without Christianity be a futurist's wet dream. Now, I'm agnostic leaning toward "there probably is a god, but we don't have souls, sorry" view, and even I understand what a load of horseshit that is. Christian monks kept a lot of Roman ideas floating out there, and Catholicism helped curb a lot of the warrior tendencies in the people it pacified. While it wasn't everything that helped, and while we still got a shit ton of wars over secular matters, a world without that religion or another unifying one in its place would probably not be half as advanced and/or peaceful as this one.

Yes, Seth has some serious religious issues. He even criticized himself for them on Family Guy.

It's also annoying as well since we're getting into the weird area of science where materialism is flat out wrong (or needs to be redefined to the point it doesn't bear any resemblance to what we normally consider materialism) while religion will probably continue on in a different form thereafter. So having Isaac talk about his attempts at understanding Hawking's origins of the universe is kind of sad.

(You can tell I'm a religious person who loves spooky science)

But hey, it's his show and he can preach if he wants too—I can just ignore it.

edited 22nd Nov '17 4:42:43 AM by CharlesPhipps

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Well, if he's criticizing himself for the attitude, maybe he'll tone it down.

Thing is, religion is like a weapon, is not good or bad, depends on how you use it. I'm atheist but how can I criticize Christianity as a whole when I see Quakers and Lutherans fighting for human rights and minorities whilst at the same time people like The "Amazing" Atheist exist? This is something I think guys like SMF and Bill Maher really don't get. There are lots of religious people that are not mean-spiritted biggots, on the contrary, that their religion inspire them to be Progressive and treat others better. In reality if someone is already a bad person no matter the personal beliefs, will be a bad person, and vice versa. Same with political ideas.

edited 22nd Nov '17 8:11:41 AM by Luppercus

Agreed. Fuck, just about every single war that's ever happened had a SECULAR reason to happen. Religion was an excuse to get us lower classes on board since we knew full well we'd be the ones dying for only a chance at the loot. A religious excuse just gave us a way of saying, "well, if I die, at least I go to Heaven."

Personally, as long as Mac Farlane keeps the worst of his hot-button issues toned down, I have no problems with them fleshing out worlds. If he gets too heavy handed on that stuff, I'll at least be skipping episodes. As it is, I'll wait until Fox releases it on DVD or a digital medium outside its site, like virtual copies on Amazon Prime.

This latest episode reminded me a lot of Crest Of The Stars, where ships travel through 2D space and needed special force fields to survive. So maybe we'll get some blue-haired space elves. On the other side, Gordon's comment about an audience makes me think of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and I want to tell him that there are plenty of things we have no desire to see.

I can't say I agree with making John the new Chief Engineer. He's smart, has some good ideas, but he doesn't seem to have much of an engineering background and it's a huge jump from his current job. It might've been better to promote Yaphit to chief and put John in charge of a smaller unit to learn how to command.

edited 1st Dec '17 10:35:13 AM by Winter

I found the premise a bit amusing because there's ample evidence the 2 Dimensional universe is ours according to recent evidence of the "Holographic Theory."

edited 1st Dec '17 6:35:17 PM by CharlesPhipps

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

I liked the episode and I like that they outright referenced Flatland otherwise would be such a rip-off as the idea of a 2D civilization obviously comes from it.

I think sci-fi has to be like that, leaving you different as how it took you, making you imagine things in your mind about the premise they are dealing with.

edited 1st Dec '17 7:20:52 PM by Luppercus

Thanks for mentioning that. It sent me to Youtube for a short video explaining the basics of the holographic universe argument. Just the metaphor, obviously. The math is over my head and staying that way.

There's a very good argument the universe essentially functions in practice like a computer program with John Archibald Wheeler (i.e. the guy who was arguably smarter than Einstein but much much weirder)'s theory the universe is made of information turning out to be correct.

It's part of the increasing oddity of Quantum Physics that gives rise to so many physicists saying, "Yeah, reality actually might be an illusion. It's just we're illusionary too."

:)

It's the best alternative to the multiverse theory.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.