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You know, there's tons of posts here that boil down to 'They should do a direct parody of Star Trek Thing X' and I can't help but feel that the fact that they're not doing that is what makes this show so good.
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Jan 25, 2018 19:39
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Kibayasu posted:I'd say it's less people saying that Orville should do a Star Trek Thing parody but just do what it's already doing, which is Star Trek Thing but Mixed Up a Bit. Bringing in some established and recognizable actors to play a character similar to one they previously did in Star Trek isn't really the same as parody. See, even that smacks of gag casting. I mean, sure, have Alaimo on, but not as a reference, or a backhanded reference, or an in-your-face inversion, of Dukat. Like they have Penny Johnson Jerald as a main character, but she's in absolutely no way, shape, or form a reference to Cassidy Yates, either in the 'Look, an independent freight pilot!' way, or 'wink wink! The union boss of a huge shipping cartel!' Everybody was saying that Orville was going to be specifically a parody of Star Trek, or even a homage to STTNG. Instead, it's a space adventure show that's informed by Star Trek, in the same way that any rock band these days is 'informed' by the Beatles, the Stones, but isn't necessarily trying to specifically imitate, or specifically be different from, the Beatles or Stones or whatever. I'm not sure if I'm expressing my thoughts well here.
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Jan 25, 2018 20:54
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Tunicate posted:The most recent episode was the most paint-by-numbers generic prime directive plot imaginable so... No, the most recent episode was the most paint-by-numbers generic cultural contamination/colonialism/cargo cult plot imaginable, though I did like the twist about the civilization outstripping the Union, and not wanting to contaminate them in return. If they'd had the captain solemnly look into the camera and declaim 'Maybe someday we'll have some sort of guidance, some sort of, I don't know, First Rule or Fundamental Dictum or Non-Secondary Guideline...' on the other hand, it would have been shameless pandering, and turned a perfectly competent hour-long weekly sci-fi show into a base Star Trek parody. Kind of like Enterprise was, at times at least.
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Jan 26, 2018 19:53
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Tunicate posted:'General Order One' is literally just a lawyer friendly prime directive.  Point being, you wouldn't be able to write a 'benevolent interstellar organization encounters a less-advanced planet' without having some sort of non-interference policy. Just having it doesn't make for a Star Trek reference, let alone homage or parody. Nor does having Robert Picardo play Alara's father. But if Robert Picardo played Alara's father, and he happens to be a doctor, or he happens to be an emergency services dispatcher and answers the phone with 'Please state the nature of the medical emergency', it suddenly becomes stupid.
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Jan 26, 2018 20:34
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So, I'm finally getting around to watching Black Mirror, over the weekend I got to about half way through S3. I've seen a few references here that Orville's episode Majority Rule ripped off the Black Mirror social networking episode; are people talking about Nosedive, the one with Bryce Dallas Howard? Or is there a later one I haven't got to yet?
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Jan 29, 2018 16:11
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Regy Rusty posted:Yes that's the one because it is impossible to explore a similar concept in multiple ways and everything in sci fi must be unique See, that's what confused me when I saw the Black Mirror episode. The two episodes aren't even exploring the same thing. Christ, they aren't even both using social media as an allegory for anything. The Black Mirror episode, to my mind used social media ranking as a stand-in for wealth. It was an examination of how wealth creates wealth, how difficult it is to gain wealth without having wealth, how people desperately want the appearance of wealth, even over the tangible benefits of actual wealth, and how frighteningly easy it is for somebody who's 'middle class' to lose everything to one bad event. The Orville episode, on the other hand, was a look at the mob mentality of social media, the instant judgement, the frightening fickleness of the mob, and the horror of mob justice, the need for impartiality in the justice system, and the terribly overblown effects of targeted media campaigns.
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Jan 29, 2018 17:04
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Also, one of the things mentioned by Seth in that google talk was that everything was written before they started shooting, rather than making it up every week as they went along. I'll take a tight, well-written 13 episode series over a 26 episode slapdash affair with numerous filler episodes, personally.
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Jan 29, 2018 21:55
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LividLiquid posted:Bury your gays is a thing. Star Trek did it and I'm sick of it. Gay characters having plot armor is just as bad, imho. Doc’s death was organic to the story, pushed the plot, made sense, handled tastefully, and if he’d been written as a woman, you’d have just linked to women in refrigerators instead of bury your gays.
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Feb 8, 2018 13:19
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Well, by this bury your gays logic, ST:Disco is horribly racist because hey look: yet another black main character is introduced, immediately commits a crime, and is sent to jail.
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Feb 9, 2018 13:14
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Orville good. I fully intend a full rewatch of Orville before the next season. I have no intention of rewatching any other show I've seen in the last year. Also, I fully expect that it Fox, well, foxes up like usual and cancels Orville, starts jerking around with their usual timeslot fuckery, whatever, it'll wind up being immediately gobbled up by Netflix or something.
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Feb 9, 2018 15:05
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People have this weird idea that if Seth McFarlane had his druthers, Seth’s show The Orville would be wall to wall dick and fart jokes.
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Feb 9, 2018 17:51
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Grand Fromage posted:I think if he had his way entirely he would just be doing a new literal actual Star Trek series. I wonder if he actually tried to pitch to CBS, just figured it wouldn't fly and started his own thing, or actively chose not to pursue the Star Trek license and therefore not be beholden to the license holder's whims and interference.
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Feb 9, 2018 19:36
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CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:That's not to say that trying to do better is for suckers, of course. Define “do better.” “Ok, so the doctor discovers that the patient has undergone surgical alteration and is a sleeper mole. The agent kills the doctor and goes about his evil plans. The doctor’s husband senses this loss, comes out of his coma and is grief stricken. Later on, he’s forced to interact with the now deprogrammed sleeper, and drama ensues.” The gender of the doctor should be meaningless here. This isn’t “doctor reveals gay feelings, then gets killed as karmic retribution.” This is “standard television drama, and the sexuality of the characters is utterly irrelevant,” which to my mind, is as it should be.
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Feb 10, 2018 18:27
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Facebook Aunt posted:Yeah, the idea of a sapient species that evolved from a non-predatory species is interesting. Danger sense tingling like a wormy spiderman was just bad though. Why? He’s got a slightly stronger version of “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” and instead of “the hair on his neck rose” it’s “his ganglia protruded.”
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Feb 18, 2018 13:18
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MillennialVulcan posted:I'm wondering how the Alara thing is going to play out in season 2 as well. I seem to remember reading that the new cast member is going to be the same species as her and also in security, but I'm sure they'd find a fun way to play with that. My initial thought was "what the hell would they do with two Alara types?" but then I thought "what would TNG do with 2 Worf types?" and that'd just be sick as hell.
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Jun 27, 2018 18:22
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Brawnfire posted:Yeah, I challenge the next person to write a trek story to keep fights out of it. Starship battles, fine, but again it should be last course of action, after tons of building up, and it would be the main climax. One of the best details of ST2 was that Kirk and Khan never interacted in person. Conversely, one of the best bits of ST3 was Kirk having had enough of Kruuge, with no music soundtrack. Alternatively, one of the best bits of ST4 was that there was no bad guy. And interestingly, the main enemy of ST6 is ideology and the past. STV could have been up there, too, with Sybok as the ultimate 'road to hell' type as he uses what he thinks is just good old fashioned therapy, but is actually alien prisoner mind juju, as he's duped into freeing said alien prisoner all the while thinking he's freeing people from their pain. OTOH, the best part of ST2009 was the Kelvin simply lighting up like an 80's hot-blooded-anime battleship.
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Jul 19, 2018 17:44
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Phenotype posted:It's not though, is it? I mean, if you can make a delicious home-cooked meal, can't I just replicate it? Here's how they explain it in The Unincorporated Man (aka Stranger in a Strange Land for a New Millenium) where matter replication is a thing. quote:Justin found Omad sitting in a small town pub, hunched over a bar. It was lower-class digs all the way, but Justin would never have been able to tell that by using any of his old cues. This place, on the face of it, was kept spotless—but nanites and drones did that for next to nothing. The fittings all looked new, but furniture was as cheap in this day as coasters were in Justin’s, so that was also no clue. And all the alcohol probably tasted great, the drugs would get you blasted, and the food was, more than likely, uniformly delectable.
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Jan 3, 2019 23:29
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Yeah. To this day, I'm still bitter about the Sorboization of Andromeda. It had real potential. Plus John de Lancie.
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Jan 8, 2019 20:06
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Grand Fromage posted:What were the gay porn stereotypes? Those all looked to be just generic porn plot stereotypes to me, only thing missing was a pizza delivery. (Bortus punches button to slide the door open.) Delivery guy: Greetings. I have been tasked with delivering your sustenance. I require payment. Bortus, standing stock-still and completely stone-faced: I apologize, I do not have any currency, nor access to my electronic accounts at this time. Delivery guy: That is unfortunate, for I am unable to relinquish these victuals to you without adequate compensation. Bortus, still standing stock-still and completely stone-faced: Perhaps we can come to an agreement regarding alternative forms of compensation. Delivery guy: What do you propose? Bortus, now unsealing his tunic, still completely stone-faced: I shall recompense you by experiencing the sexual event with you. Delivery guy: That is acceptable. What truly sold it for me was Bortus staying in perfect character as the stone-faced, stoic stern guy, for each and every scenario. Also, yeah, they went full Horner for the escape sequence, and it was awesome.
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Jan 8, 2019 21:01
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Von_Doom posted:This show really did surprise me. The comedy made me laugh harder than I normally do at television and the Mole People finale made me get all weepy. The Orville really is far better than I had ever expected it to be. It's been a long time since DS9 and its proper nice to have Star Trek back. Iron Crowned posted:She left her name out of the lottery, so she never would have been on that shuttle. I think she was in the lottery, but didn't simply claim a spot by fiat as First Minister or whatever.
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Jan 8, 2019 22:18
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Iron Crowned posted:No, her "husband" flat out comments that she should have added her name to the lottery, which implies that she never intended to leave Hmm, it's kinda ambiguous, but: FM: "The lottery is finished. These thirty will go with you to your ship." Bortus: "Very well. We must leave, now." FM's husband: "You could have included yourself. You're the First Minister." FM: "That would have been wrong." What would have been wrong about including herself in the lottery? Nothing I can think of. I think he meant 'as First Minister, you could have included yourself in the group of designated survivors.'
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Jan 9, 2019 15:55
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twistedmentat posted:So the Orgy Moclans totally hosed Issac right?  Thank you for your interest. While I do find primitive mating rituals fascinating, my body is a self-maintaining sealed system, and has no openings or access ports, nor is my outer shell capable of registering physical touch other than levels of pressure and temperature. However, feel free to continue amoung yourselves, and I will observe.I tried to work in something about arcade machine 'attract' modes, but couldn't.
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Jan 10, 2019 18:36
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Davros1 posted:The thing that upsets me more is they're replacing her with what sounds like the exact same character. Spock/Xon.
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Jan 15, 2019 01:08
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Beachcomber posted:She can always come back later like Tasha did as Sela. Dude, it’s also the mountain they need to bring Spock to in ST3. quote:[Kirk finds McCoy in Spock's quarters]
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Jan 16, 2019 04:27
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Beachcomber posted:Xelayans seem pretty confident in their own security due to not being really invadable, so it could be interesting if they're attacked by a different high gravity species out of nowhere, and suddenly their planet of scholars has to put themselves on a war footing because no one else can really help. That, or the Krill start dropping big rocks on them from orbit. Whoever controls the orbitals, controls the planet. Besides, high gravity planet, who needs big rocks? Good old titanium Rods from God'll do just fine.
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Jan 17, 2019 03:59
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I mean, The Orville isn't a warship, but it is a military vessel, expected to able to operate independently and with little support. Thus, you need a fair amount of redundancy in staff. It's not like the ship can pull over and take a day if the captain has the flu and the first officer slipped and fell and has a concussion. Notice how in the last episode, for example, when Ed goes on vacation, Kelly simply fills in for him, and Bortus, in turn, fills in for her. It also nicely avoids the Star Trek 'Hey, lets send the most important guys out on away teams!' problem. Bortus tends to get sent on away missions; he's high-enough rank that he can make decisions, but he's not primarily responsible for an active duty station. (At least they don't do the thing where the Captain says 'right full rudder' to the Exec, who says 'right full rudder' to the navigation officer, who says 'right full rudder' to the guy actually standing in front of the rudder control.) TheCenturion fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Jan 20, 2019 |
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Jan 20, 2019 15:38
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Isn't it ironic that this very example has become a classic of the genre in and of itself? Or maybe it's just me. I love classic Buck Rogers.
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Jan 22, 2019 18:42
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TK-42-1 posted:if they tried to do some wacky future sitcom it'd just end up like the Where's My Pants joke from the lego movie. But I imagine Moclan comedy, tragedy, drama, and romcoms all involve ludicrous amounts of stabbing wounds. Hey Bortus, what are you watching? A Moclan tragedy. Oh really? What's the plot? The main character, (insert a name here, I can't think up one right now) has failed to meet his work responsibilities due to circumstances beyond his control. And? And it is a tragedy. He is about to be terminated from his position. Oh, so they're giving him the ol' pink slip? If by 'pink slip,' you mean he is being ritualistically stabbed in the chest with a dagger, then yes. ....I see. Sounds like he needs a better union representative. It is the union representative that will be stabbing him. Gee, I'd hate to see what a Moclan comedy would involve. In a comedy, the dagger would be the product (main character) was responsible for manufacturing.
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Jan 22, 2019 18:48
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WampaLord posted:They did not get this important mission assigned to them though, it was just coincidence that they happened to be the closest ship nearby Then they got it taken away for buggering it up. I liked how in the old Star Trek EU they’d have xenopologists studying civilizations on the cusp of first contact for years, specifically to avoid crap like this.
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Jan 27, 2019 05:33
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I can't help but wonder if some people are so used to being spoonfed, they've lost the ability to find subtle things. I thought this episode did a GREAT job of showing that while the Union has 'first contact protocols,' it doesn't have anything like the Prime Directive. I thought it did a great job showing how Mercer is changing over time, as he settles into his new reality, starts to (re)gain his command chops, and recovers from his breakup. Sure, the scene at the end where he's clearly more at peace with Kelly and Cassius or whatever the gently caress his name is, but the one part where they're discussing rescue options, and he muses that maybe he should have done a combat drop on Moclus to liberate Bortus and Clyden's child before the surgery. It's nice to see Bortus finally do something other than glower. It's good to see that he doesn't have some sort of suicidal cultural imperative to fight against unwinnable odds, yet can be easily talked out of it. It's nice to see that Kelly is actually a decisive, bold, and capable commander, but she's subordinating herself to Mercer, like a good exec should. It's nice to see that these aren't shining avatars of dramatic archetypes bringing civilization and enlightenment to the primitives; they pulled a fast one, and got out while the getting was good. Then they hung a lampshade on it, and left a nice hook for a future consequence. It's nice that they reinforced that your average Xelayan is probably a doctorate-level expert in various fields, without somebody saying 'gee, even the dumb jock Xelayans are smarter than us.' It's nice that they explored the idea that you can't just talk somebody out of an irrational belief with an impassioned stentorian speech. It's nice that they showed that you can't just talk somebody out of their fundamental cultural beliefs in a two minute 'getting to know you' chat. If this were TNG, there would have been people in that camp who were part of a hidden underground of non-astronomy believers, who were JUST WAITING FOR THE RIGHT MOMENT when the STRANGERS FROM THE SKY appeared to help them THROW OFF THE DESPOTIC CHAINS OF ASTROLOGY. Nope, Kelly and Bortus were on their own. (I mean, I'm liking Destiny S2, and I liked the New Eden episode, but guess who the landing party discovered when they beamed down to the theological, luddite planet? Why the family of rational science-believers who had been quietly and secretly keeping certain knowledge alive for 200 years and JUST KNEW that the STRANGERS FROM THE SKY would eventually come to SAVE THEM FROM PRIMITIVE LIFE. I like how they didn't throw the caste system into your face, but they left it for you to figure out. Like, the doctors were probably all the same sign. The soliders were probably all the same sign. I liked how they showed that people were weirdly both utterly believing, and willing to game, their beliefs. The first example, but not the only one, is Jewish workarounds for the Sabbath; you can't turn your lights on tomorrow, but you can set a timer today. Your kid is a criminal if he's born tomorrow, so lets C-section him today. Seems like short-circuiting destiny, to invoke destiny. I like how they illustrated the tensions that the system produced; dad wanted the kid to have the best life possible, mom wanted the kid to have it's parents, even at the cost of being born to the lowest caste. Snowglobe of Doom posted:The title of this last episode was "All the World is Birthday Cake" which obviously references the fact that the crew had a birthday party but they also visited Crazy Birthday World. Well, think of the world as a birthday cake, where each slice is a Zodiac sign, and the slice of cake you happen to be served determines your life choice. Everything about that world centers around which slice of birthday cake you got. Also, different signs are probably served different types of cake, like birthstones, but whatevs. I wonder if it's also a nod to classic TOS highfalutin' titles. "For The World Is Birthday Cake, and I Have Ate A Slice." TheCenturion fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jan 27, 2019 |
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Jan 27, 2019 15:35
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mllaneza posted:Of course he does, they showed a constellation and it wasn't one of ours. Now, there's no telling why he didn't have the captain make that argument. Because why would they care? That's the point. Irrational belief is irrational.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:39
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Maybe they'll go back to straight-up sponsored episodes. "Tonight's episode of Riverdale brought to you by Trojan. Do you really want to wind up having teenagers like this? Trojan. For a drama-free life."
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Feb 7, 2019 22:00
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Also because it follows the Alara can’t find love thread. I think this also answers the “why insist on another Xelayan Security Officer” nitpick; because the scripts needed less adjusting that way.
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Feb 17, 2019 18:31
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Issac sold that activity from the cold open to the kids as 'a game' but he was actually teaching them Kaylon decryption techniques or some poo poo.
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Feb 24, 2019 20:12
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I feel like they missed an opportunity with Kaylon, to be honest. It would have been neat to see robbuts of all sorts of shapes, sizes, and bodyplans just tooling around doing their thing. "Why would we all happen to be humanoid bipedal? We're robbuts. We just download into whatever form is most useful for what we're doing. Issac? Of course we stuck our emissary into a human shape. That's the most useful form for dealing with humanoid bipeds. Duh."
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Feb 25, 2019 21:14
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cheetah7071 posted:My read is that they're still discrete entities with humanoid shapes, rather than the most efficient beings robots could become, because that's how they were created and fundamentally altering that would be some body horror poo poo for them If so, that would be an interesting thing to explore.
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Feb 25, 2019 21:33
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Donovan Trip posted:Maybe, or maybe their creators were truly awful to them and they mean it when they say they're afraid of being destroyed Captain, V'ger is a child. I suggest you treat it as such.
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Feb 25, 2019 22:30
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I mean, the Kaylons obviously have emotion all over the place. Prime hated and resented organics, he was cruel, he was spiteful, he was malicious, he was arrogant. His last living act was to try to verbally hurt Issac. But look at it this way; maybe, by-and-large, Kaylons have the ability to feel negative emotions, but haven't yet really learned about positive emotions. It's easy to learn hate, fear, and anger when you've been upgraded specifically to be torturable. Issac might be one of the first ones to really be learning about things like love, empathy, sympathy, and what not.
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Mar 1, 2019 22:42
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I love how they sent the kid because he was the only one that would fit, and rather than him having the same, or better, skills as experienced veterans, his job was to mash buttons at random.
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Mar 3, 2019 02:31
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Beachcomber posted:The code should be "You didn't need to check on us. We're completely fine. 100%." Everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine, here, now, thank you. How are you? But really, Issac had a 'provisional commission,' so yeah, any 'official' duress codes would be known to him, and hence, out the airlock. I think my favourite was from one of the Honor Harrington books; the bridge gets taken over by 'allies,' the guy calls down to the captain, and says something like 'Don't worry, Captain, we have a bounty of extra hands' or something. Mutiny on the Bounty. TheCenturion fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Mar 4, 2019 |
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Mar 4, 2019 00:01
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