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Infidelicious
Apr 9, 2013

It's easily the best first season.


Once it gets it's footing and slows down it's got great economical storytelling.

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MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




I've found it's a lot better on second viewing, because a bunch of choices that seemed to just be annoying writing come into focus as being part of character arcs.

HD DAD
Jan 13, 2010

Generic white guy.

Toilet Rascal
LDS and SNW are the only Nu-Treks that I’m actively excited about. And SNW still has a good chance of making GBS threads its pants out the door.

Brawnfire
Jul 13, 2004

🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

HD DAD posted:

LDS and SNW are the only Nu-Treks that I’m actively excited about. And SNW still has a good chance of making GBS threads its pants out the door.

COMPUTER OVERRIDE SECURITY LOCK RESTROOM DOOR ALPHA NINE AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGHH goddammit

Khanstant
Apr 5, 2007

Kurzon posted:

It's clear that Gene Roddenberry and the other Star Trek writers didn't fully think through all thematic choices they made for Star Trek, or maybe they didn't care. The Enterprise-D has families on board, which could make sense for a ship that does long-range scientific work, but then they assign the ship to do dangerous tasks close to home such as patrolling the Cardassian DMZ.

I think in the future they're just less precious about kids. Children are capable of being miners and soldiers IRL, we just don't let them have those jobs because they'd take them from the rest of us. Really, it's less about the danger to the kids and more about the potential threat to Cardassians.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





Brawnfire posted:

COMPUTER OVERRIDE SECURITY LOCK RESTROOM DOOR ALPHA NINE AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGHH goddammit

His name is Captain Christopher Pike, not Captain Christopher Shits All Over The Floor :mad:

Senor Tron
May 26, 2006


G-III posted:

3. More to the last part of #2: the scene at the end when Spock finally meets Sarek after his return is way better than people realize. It's the end of a character arch that lasted 30 years on screen.

19 years, but still a good point.

Also Lower Decks is great.

Axe-man
Apr 16, 2005

The product of hundreds of hours of scientific investigation and research.

The perfect meatball.
Clapping Larry
Lower decks makes the baffling at first viewing choice of having most of the cast that you hate, or want to go away, and the rest of the cast being jerks.

CharlestheHammer
Jun 26, 2011

YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!
I mean it isn’t to crazy, comedies have been going that way for a while. Started with Seinfield hit its peak with sunny in Philly.

Hell they had a kids cartoon do that

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


I think there's studio pressure to be way too tryhard in your first couple episodes if you're doing comedy. The Orville had the exact same problem.

Snow Cone Capone
Jul 31, 2003


I dunno how LDS was sold to Paramount, but IIRC the only way Orville was able to get the green light is because it was pitched as more-or-less "star trek but with family guy jokes", and it's pretty noticeable how they toned down the slapstick between S1 and S2

e: like it's still definitely a comedy, but in S2 they tend to prioritize plot and character development over devoting scenes entirely to a couple of mediocre jokes

Tighclops
Jan 23, 2008

Unable to deal with it


Grimey Drawer
The Orville experienced the same upswinging in quality TNG did over three seasons in like five episodes max

Snow Cone Capone
Jul 31, 2003


I still maintain that even season 1 is solid, it just makes a lot of sacrifices in the name of getting some jokes in

kind of like LDS and Trek references

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
My 6-year-old's current cartoon addiction is the 2017 Wacky Races remake, and after seeing a few episodes of this incredibly manic, earlier-series-referential, slapstick show it hit me - the first couple of LD episodes are basically done at the same pace and energy level, joke-joke-joke-joke at machine-gun speed. Luckily, it calms down very quickly, and becomes a lot better for it.

FlamingLiberal
Jan 18, 2009

Would you like to play a game?



https://twitter.com/KenJennings/status/1392965991844388865?s=20

HD DAD
Jan 13, 2010

Generic white guy.

Toilet Rascal

Well this was something I didn’t know I wanted.

Sash!
Mar 16, 2001


I can't help but acknowledge his mask is the exact opposite of the sort required

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

Axe-man posted:

Lower decks makes the baffling at first viewing choice of having most of the cast that you hate, or want to go away, and the rest of the cast being jerks.

Mariner's a jerk and Boimler's a gutless wimp, but Tendy and Rutherford are nothing but well-meaning. And of course, the command staff come off as jerks because they're far away and unconcerned with most of what the other characters have going on, but I think Commander Jack is the only one who really has something wrong with him.

There's some kind of idea Mariner has in there about the command staff being stuffed shirts who don't really pay attention to a lot of important things, but it's really muddled with her own personal issues and she never fully articulates most of her feelings, so it's hard to say how much of a point she has.

Tighclops
Jan 23, 2008

Unable to deal with it


Grimey Drawer

complex emotions

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 

Tighclops posted:

The Orville experienced the same upswinging in quality TNG did over three seasons in like five episodes max

poo poo, I gave up on Orville after two episodes. Sounds like I need to rectify this ASAP.


E: to be clear, I didn’t “this poo poo sucks I’m out” give up, it was more of a “heh I guess this is OK let’s see what else is on [and the he never watched again]” give up.

jeeves
May 27, 2001

Deranged Psychopathic
Butler Extraordinaire
Orville definitely suffers from Seth McFarlane inserting himself as lead.

I really wish he had at least made his character be the XO to his wife as captain.

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Martytoof posted:

poo poo, I gave up on Orville after two episodes. Sounds like I need to rectify this ASAP.


E: to be clear, I didn’t “this poo poo sucks I’m out” give up, it was more of a “heh I guess this is OK let’s see what else is on [and the he never watched again]” give up.

The first episode is the worst one. It rapidly improves.

Tighclops
Jan 23, 2008

Unable to deal with it


Grimey Drawer

Martytoof posted:

poo poo, I gave up on Orville after two episodes. Sounds like I need to rectify this ASAP.


E: to be clear, I didn’t “this poo poo sucks I’m out” give up, it was more of a “heh I guess this is OK let’s see what else is on [and the he never watched again]” give up.

Honestly I was just barely high enough to stick it out past the pilot but it was worth it.

Winifred Madgers
Feb 12, 2002

Martytoof posted:

poo poo, I gave up on Orville after two episodes. Sounds like I need to rectify this ASAP.


E: to be clear, I didn’t “this poo poo sucks I’m out” give up, it was more of a “heh I guess this is OK let’s see what else is on [and the he never watched again]” give up.

Yeah, there's maybe one or two episodes worse than that later on, but most of it is decent to good.

socialsecurity
Aug 30, 2003





jeeves posted:

Orville definitely suffers from Seth McFarlane inserting himself as lead.

I really wish he had at least made his character be the XO to his wife as captain.

I thought it would be worst then it is, mainly they don't make him out to be all that great of a captain and kind of a creepy rear end in a top hat. Like if he was Burnham levels of saving the universe single over and over I'd feel different.

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


socialsecurity posted:

I thought it would be worst then it is, mainly they don't make him out to be all that great of a captain and kind of a creepy rear end in a top hat. Like if he was Burnham levels of saving the universe single over and over I'd feel different.

Yeah he's perfectly fine and resists the urge to make it just a vanity project starring himself. It's a real ensemble cast.

Snow Cone Capone
Jul 31, 2003


I also really liked how the alternate future episode was a love letter to Star Wars, inside a show that's a love letter to Star Trek

S3's gonna be great too, it's on Hulu so they probably had even less pressure to make it funny for funny's sake

Laterite
Mar 14, 2007

It's Gutfest '89
Grimey Drawer
Orville is perfectly pleasant TV comfort food and hits all the right spots as a TNG pastiche.

Senor Tron
May 26, 2006


Martytoof posted:

poo poo, I gave up on Orville after two episodes. Sounds like I need to rectify this ASAP.


E: to be clear, I didn’t “this poo poo sucks I’m out” give up, it was more of a “heh I guess this is OK let’s see what else is on [and the he never watched again]” give up.

Yeah, definitely rectify that. By about halfway into the first season it completely finds its stride.

Has a massive amount of Trek alumni behind the scenes as well.

sunday at work
Apr 6, 2011

"Man is the animal that thinks something is wrong."

Laterite posted:

Orville is perfectly pleasant TV comfort food and hits all the right spots as a TNG pastiche.

It's the TNG 2.0 the Berman era wanted to make but couldn't get right.

Snow Cone Capone
Jul 31, 2003


Yeah IMO the main complaint one could make about Orville is that it tries too hard to just be TNG, but IMO that's not a bad thing, and I think it succeeds at it pretty well, while still maintaining its own sense of individuality.

Big Mean Jerk
Jan 27, 2009

Well, of course I know him.
He's me.
It’s definitely a bad thing in the first season because you can tell exactly which TNG A & B plots it’s cribbing from in each episode, but season two was a huge improvement.

Tighclops
Jan 23, 2008

Unable to deal with it


Grimey Drawer
If they were straight up copying TNG plots 1-1 then I would have punched out before the end of the first season, their inspirations are often clear but they always put a spin on it to keep it fresh.

Snow Cone Capone
Jul 31, 2003


To be fair in 7 seasons TNG covered pretty much the gamut of possible "new aliens are weird in _____ way"

I like that certain plot threads aren't just one-offs; despite how poorly some of it is handled I really like the overarching Moclan Females bit

e: the real triumph IMO is the character development, even joke characters like Yaphit (aka a dog-sized CGI snot mound voiced by Norm MacDonald) end up being people you want to see more of. I think Penny Johnson Jerald's character is fantastic, and even for how much I usually dislike Seth McFarlane, it's nice to see that his character is intentionally written as a flawed, but trying, human being, rather than just a perfect Picard knockoff.

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 20:16 on May 14, 2021

Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

There is one episode of Orville in later season 1 that is incredibly bad though.

John Wick of Dogs
Mar 4, 2017

A real hellraiser


Hey a couple Orville S1 episodes clearly from Voyager plots

Marx Headroom
May 10, 2007

AT LAST! A show with nonono commercials!
Fallen Rib
If anyone has any Discovery DVDs or Blurays, do they have Klingon subtitles? I don't mean English subtitles for the Klingons, I mean CBS provided Klingon subtitles for the entire show while it was streaming but I can't find them anywhere and I'm seeing mixed reports online.

Mister Kingdom
Dec 14, 2005

And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Marx Headroom posted:

If anyone has any Discovery DVDs or Blurays, do they have Klingon subtitles? I don't mean English subtitles for the Klingons, I mean CBS provided Klingon subtitles for the entire show while it was streaming but I can't find them anywhere and I'm seeing mixed reports online.

I don't see them on my copy.

Roadie
Jun 30, 2013
The Orville lost me on the episode that's just rape jokes all the way through, and where the resolution is just pheremone mind-controlling the two alien leaders so they gently caress each other and acting like that will fix everything.

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Tunicate
May 15, 2012

Roadie posted:

The Orville lost me on the episode that's just rape jokes all the way through, and where the resolution is just pheremone mind-controlling the two alien leaders so they gently caress each other and acting like that will fix everything.

It was a good angry flower arc.

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