/strek/ - Star Trek

Would have been decent as a mid season filler episode, but kind of a trainwreck as a season opener. If you're not yet invested in the characters you won't care or really know them afterwards, if you don't know what the series as a whole is, you'll still be as clueless after this opener.

Meh, still-feels-like-/strek/ outa 10. Hope the next one is better.

Wasn't this episode in particular meant to be in the first Season?

>>28221

the cut episode is supposed to be a sequel to About a Girl

Well I gave it a watch. I agree as a season opener it's pretty bad. As a filler episode though I think it's actually a good episode but you have to know the characters already for it to be good.

I have noticed the jokes seem a lot less forced and come across as natural banter between the crew which I honestly kind of like. It was sort of a comfy episode overall and if I were to apply the /strek/ rating scale I probably might give it a 4/10 although that might be pretty generious.

I was keeping an eye out for some eastereggs since I know they are a fan of hidding old Star Trek props in the scenes. Might have to do a scene by scene analysis at some point.

>>28224

>LaLaLand Records will release the soundtrack of the first season in 2019.

I recall season 1 music reminding me a lot of later TNG music, which was nice (even though i have a soft spot for that very 80's early TNG synth score). This episode sounded much more cinematic. Looking forward to where they're going with it because they really hyped up how the show is expanding this season.

>>28225

> 80's early TNG synth score

I hope Ron Jones gets to score an episode.

Bad episode. Is Isaac becoming the stand in father for the doctor's boys a back handed criticism of single mothers?

>I'm really disappointed that the Mercer-Grayson relationship angle is persisting into season 2.

Judging by people's reactions outside of /strek/, apparently Joe Normie Multiple Divorcee eats that shit up. Personally, I could tolerate it if it wasn't shoved into every single episode.

On the topic, Seth MacFarlane is supposed to be ~5'10". Adrianne Palicki is supposed to be ~5'11". But in every scene where the two are alone together, it looks like Grayson is at least a half a head taller than Mercer, either because Mercer is slouching, or he's seated at his desk while Grayson is standing, or they're using some sort of Dutch angle bullshit or perspective trick to obfuscate their relative heights.

Are they deliberately setting up the shots this way, or am I reading too deep into something that's not there?

>>28230

Seth is a manlet cuck that wants to be put into his place by a stronk womyn.

>>28231

Jason Alexander was the bartender.

This isn't quite a spoiler, but if you go to the imdb page for the actress playing the new blonde lieutenant she's had an interesting past role.

>>28229

Could be. I hope they don't try to shove the two of them together, they work better as friends.

>>28234

Too late, when she asked Isaac to the peeing party that sealed the deal on that plot line. Dating a robot is like dating a vibrator.

DON'T DATE ROBOTS!

Also, does someone in the writers room have a piss fetish?

>>28233

Says he plays Mooska but bummer if I know who that is.

Also

>The 29th century time-traveler Pria Lavesque taught the Orville how to map dark matter in Pria. The knowledge was adapted by the Planetary Union and formalized into dark matter cartography.

>>28235

He said he couldn't appreciate her thankfulness at the party, so that makes me assume he's completely emotionless and therefore, not going to be lewded. At least, until they decide to have an emotional chip episode like with Data.

>>28237

That'd be nuts.

It was a watchable episode, though I wouldn't have put it first in the season if I was in charge. Would have been nice with something a bit more actiony to kick off the season. Maybe set some stakes or something else to set the themes and issues for the season..

Not sure why all the parents are freaking out over teenagers drinking a little booze, but that might just be because I'm not from a place where its illegal to drink until you are 21. Its just teenagers being teenagers.

If anything James seems to be a highly talented with tech and is probably going to make a good engineer some day.

>>28239

>but that might just be because I'm not from a place where its illegal to drink until you are 21.

Because in the future everyone thinks like a post-modern American social progressive. :^)

Joking aside, the kid hacks a replicator, he can have any material possession he wants, illicit or otherwise, and he goes for a bottle of potato liquor? Really? That's like stealing a luxury car and robbing a bank just so you can go through the McDonald's drive through. Plus, remember when Grayson replicated some pot brownies so she could get high on duty and nobody batted an eyelid?

To keep from exclusively bitching and nitpicking, the alien guy with the eye stalks playing the piano at the party? He was actually playing the piano instead of just miming the movements with a dubbed in soundtrack. That's a nice touch. I think they did the same thing with Issac giving the kid piano lessons, but I'd have to back and check. It's not like it'd be difficult to get a trained pianist to put on the robot suit for that one shot.

>>28240

Grayson got a pot brownie because they were visiting her ex in laws, and the only person who knew that was the captain. Little different then a mom finding her 13 year old getting drunk.

The lack of the slime dude having a subplot or even appearance made me sad. I wonder if that's a deliberate thing and fox made them reduce Norm Mcdonald's lines this season because he's been branded a thought criminal.

>>28231

She worked on Family Guy, and they even make a joke about her name on the show in at lest one occasion. IIRC, Lois says something like, "at least you don't have a ridiculous last name like Chevapravatdumrong." In fact, if you actually pay attention to the credits, you'll see that lots of people that worked on Family Guy had their names referenced randomly in the show. An example off the top of my head is when Brian makes that porno and goes to that awards ceremony, two of the guys nominated for best porn soundtrack are the actual two guys that made the music for FG. Also Will Sasso is awesome.

>>28233

>Jason Alexander was the bartender.

Less awesome. He was a vagina foreheaded alien on either TNG or VOY.

>>28242

Something just occurred to me. I believe 'Cherry Chevapravatdumrong' needs to be accepted on a technicality since many people correctly do not trust people whose last names end in a vowel.

>>28221

>Wasn't this episode in particular meant to be in the first Season?

If that was the case, then I can understand why it was a bit slow.

>>28249

this wasn't the season 1 hold-over episode. That episode will feature Bortus and Cliden's kid, who we only saw a brief glimpse of this episode.

CHUBBY

KRILL

HOUSEWIVES

>>28274

> I heard several of my favorite TNG themes being referenced, like the haunting bit of music from the TNG episode where they board that trapped, derelict ghost ship.

It's so good to watch a show that has an actual score and not some shitty playlist. I've heard that the composers have carte blanche on The Orville. Each episode has its own theme, it reminds me of Ron Jones' work on TNG (that's how he got fired lol).

The soundtrack album of the first season is coming out at the end of the month.

>>28280

Also the saving an underground civ as the planet goes into the star is a good plot line, kinda wish it was the main one over the Moclan personal drama.

I thought this second episode was pretty weak. The porn addiction should have been thought up in advance so that Bortus could have left early a few times last season. They should have gone with something less human for the porn addiction so that the whole thing wasn't as on the nose. Although Bortus' race being all serious maaaaaaybe puts enough of a juxtaposition to have push the idea that primitive species still have illogical drives. Unfortunately, there isn't a main character that's not enough human like for it to be interesting and also for us to have had enough time to get to know the character.

Apprently, this episode wasn't planned to be the first one. That's why the opening scene felt so out of place from the previous episode.

The underground civilization plot felt very hammed in. And the rescue was a total shit show. The look exactly like humans. They speak English despite having never been discovered for any translator to work. They could only fit 30 on even though the vessel looked empty when they took off. Their radiation suits were better than the Orville's one?

Is The Orville a part of the Star Trek universe? I have never watched Star Trek so I have no idea at all, but I watched the first season of the Orville with my dad, and he said it looked like Star Trek, even though he haven't actually watched Star Trek, since he thinks it is for nerds.

It would be ironic, since he thinks The Orville is great. I only watched it with him for the company, personally I think (((Seth's))) messiah complex of solving every problem in the universe for everyone was cringe inducing.

>>28291

>The underground civilization plot felt very hammed in. And the rescue was a total shit show. The look exactly like humans. They speak English despite having never been discovered for any translator to work. They could only fit 30 on even though the vessel looked empty when they took off. Their radiation suits were better than the Orville's one?

Macfarlane seems to be more of a TOS fan rather than a TNG or DS9 one. TOS was much more about the scenario of each episode rather than establishing lore.

>>28293

Never post again.

>>28243

>I wonder if that's a deliberate thing and fox made them reduce Norm Mcdonald's lines this season because he's been branded a thought criminal.

It's more a matter of the CGI for him being incredibly expensive.

>>28280

>Would think that in the future there are people who are addicted to Holodeck simulations. Not a bad episode overall, just hoping it picks up soon, some of the best episodes in S1 still standout from the more leveled ones.

I tried to humorously implore my dad past the gay sex bits that it was implied in TNG if you read between the lines that Barclay and Geordi bonked holograms on a regular basis, and if Riker struck out in Ten-Forward, unloading his load in a holo jazz club was just a real thanks to the binars. Everyone on Trek was fucking holograms, they just couldn't show it…

Also, the S2E2 bit when Bortus goes to engineering, and the giant space tardigrade is running the engineering console (if you didn't watch STD it was a dig at the "spore drive" plot involving tardigrades, and an abundance of gay sex themes in the show) whose race is known throughout the galaxy for making the best porn… for which Bortus request gay orgy porn, and he's like "no problem"… and then the program introduces a virus (STD notoriously referenced stuxnet source code as an easter egg reference to the tranny social justice warrior "hacker" that decompiled it) >>>/trek/159 - that whole subplot justified the existence of this episode for me as it was deeply constructed jab at Discovery

What the fuck? It's out? Shit how much have I missed?

>>28332

>It's a jab a Barclay and Geordi bonking holograms

I felt that as well when I was watching it. Felt like a good parody of what you really use a holodeck for.

>Making a jab at CIScovery

Holy shit I had to look that up and you're right anon. Top keks. That's kind of funny.

>>28346

About a week's worth.

>>28332

>Also, the S2E2 bit when Bortus goes to engineering, and the giant space tardigrade is running the engineering console

Holy fuck that's gold, Orville is worth a watch for that alone.

>>28346

Coming up for three episodes anon. I myself just catching up just now and really catching up on /strek/

(((Critics))) already slamming new Orville series and this time saying viewer ratings are shit.

>>28332

>STD notoriously referenced stuxnet source code as an easter egg reference to the tranny social justice warrior "hacker" that decompiled it

I still don't understand how that code ended up on the show.

>>28413

STD defectors

>>28411

>Screenrant says that ratings have hit a series low.

>2.7 million is a series low.

Kind of lower than I expect but if it can hold a 3 mil audience throughout the series, I'd say it's pretty good. S1 had averages of 4 to 3.5 mil per episode in it's weakest viewer-ships. This doesn't account for delayed casts or streaming so there's still a strong viewership out there for it. A decline in viewership is to be expected and vultures like this want Orville to fail.

>>28415

Also factor in that it hasn't got Euro audience in yet which can and has kept shows alive in the past. Just ask Stargate

>>28415

>2.7 million isn't that better than ENT and VOY?

>>28415

4 million per episode at weakest viewership is about average I think for Season 7 TNG iirc.

New episode tonight?

>>28479

It's the Alara episode

Was that Phlox as a guest star? Damn shame he can't be a recurring character, he and Holodoc played very well off each other. Also, Alaras sister a cute. Hope we'll see them again before the season is over.

>>28497

I swear there was several Trek actors and extras in this episode that I can't put name to.

>>28500

Certainly a good character episode, I felt there needs to be a few more of these in Season 2 for each character to flesh them out a bit more.

>>28501

That first pic I felt if out of context could be made a banner for /zoo/

That second pic leads on what I will say is that there was a lot of nice establishing shots in this, sort of how TNG used to do back in the day with paintings that never aged well.

>>28500

>Next episode is a Krill episode

Nice. Wonder if they'll bring back the Krill girl from the last one.

rip best grill, i hope you come back in later seasons

>>28500

>krill episode

by grabthar's hammer, what a treat

>>28522

Why no sound?

>>28542

As much as I love the music on that show, it usually starts before the scenes I want to cut.

Slowpoke. Just saw episode 1. I feel like right off the bat they're handling the humour better. Feels like they're going more for humorous twists on familiar Star Trek tropes, rather than just supplanting Family Guy humour into regular Star Trek episodes. Hopefully they keep that up.

>>28591

>Quite literally the Elephant in the room

What did Seth mean by this?

>>28509

Alara's mother was Eris on DS9

Do you think they will introduce slug creatures that have a fetish for using lolis as flesh condoms?

>>28605

Ezrifags need to leave.

I didn't like it. It was the same story that's been in a thousand other TV shows: character wants affirmation from rich parents who were somewhat pushy and never encouraged character's interests, character does thing that makes parents realise their career choice was valid, bonding occurs. It was dull and predictable.

Plus it was weird that Alara and her dad had that big make-up scene not one minute after she finished shooting Phlox. Do her parents not have any reaction to the fact that their daughter just killed two people? Actually that should have been the whole episode: Alara does some security thing on her home planet, her parents are horrified to see her shooting people, and then she has to win them over and convince them that she does an important job and is not just a murderer.

The ending was dumb too. Oh, my parents finally accept my career after years of disdain? Guess I'd better quit my job now.

>>28623

I think you're right. This episode would have been great if it focused on that.

Man, shoving the comedy into the b-plot of a serious episode really doesn't work. From tension to cringe, then back and forth and back again? Just no.

On the positive side, the a-plot was competently executed and worked pretty well. A little more worldbuilding details would have been nice, but at least we got another new species, though the not-Reman design felt a little lazy.

Overall not a bad episode despite its problems.

>>28623

The planet flyby of the planet, Selaya Prime?, looked great and Alara sister had a good look.

>>28698

everyone knew it was coming, it as obvious as fuck. Sitting on it any longer would turn it into the same bullshit plot we mocked STD for

>>28704

Honestly, making her be blameless for the cheating killed a huge part of her character, it somehow made her *less* likable and sympathetic. Also I can't not stare at the mole on the center of her face. Even when she was on Agents of Shield

>Is this all I am?

Man, Seth really can't resist the Star Trek references, I love it.

Overall this was a pretty good episode, though it would have been nice if the imposter had had a little more development before. I think she only spent about 5 minutes on screen prior to this episode. I also like that Gordon's training for command seems like it'll be more of a season long character arc and not just a one episode thing like with Counselor Troi. Maybe they'll use it to turn him into more than just goofy comic relief.

telaya a cute, objectively best grill

wud fug the religion right out of her

>>28725

>objectively best grill

Well now that Alara's gone, what competition does she have?

Pretty decent episode. Biggest complaint is, like >>28723 said, we didn't get to see enough of human!Telaya before this episode, which would've made the betrayal have less impact. Hope that Krill-hating species comes back at some point.

>>28706

If they'd not changed it, we could've had a background storyline about her regaining Mercer's trust and the two of them becoming friends. Instead, they tried to fix it to make her more likeable and like you said, it did the opposite.

>>28706

>it somehow made her *less* likable and sympathetic

Because it was her one character flaw and they threw it out the window. Now she's just a CurrentYear StrongFemaleCharacter that isn't allowed to be anything but perfect.

Also, I am the only one that's irked by the fact Grayson chastised Malloy for wanting to progress his career for social status when last season she was encouraging LaMarr to do the same thing for the same reason?

>>28742

I don't know, I took it as a way for her to see if Gordon was really putting his heart into it or if he was wasting everybody's time just to pick up chicks. By the end of the episode it's pretty clear that he wants to become a captain.

Is it just me or are they vastly expanding the universe?

>>28752

>By the end of the episode it's pretty clear that he wants to become a captain.

Did we watch the same episode?

>You do one thing well and they expect you to do it for the rest of your life. Is this all I am?

(later)

<Are you sure you've got this?

>Of course I do. I'm a pilot.

>Why would you risk your career for someone who wants you dead?

<That's command. Still want the job?

>(blank stare)

>>28693

Yeah the B-Plot was retarded if I am honest.

It does feel like they are working towards a Union-Krill join up though and I kind of like the idea of the new species. Puts forward the idea of "If you are going to be an asshole to everyone then sooner or later someone is going to shit back at you."

Not quite sure but it feels they are hyping up this new race to be the bigger threat.

>>28767

Nonono, they're obviously misunderstood.

>Hey representative of a race of religious nutjobs who see nothing wrong with genocide because nobody else got souls, who are those guys and why are they attacking you?

<Oh those, guess they're a bit pissed since we wiped one of their colonies out. Because soulless animals like them and you deserve it, obviously. BTW, they never leave survivors.

>I reallllllly wonder why. Wanna fuck again sometime?

>>28754

what are you referring to?

>>28794

Did you watch the episode anon at all?

>>28754

A simple YT comment was

>Why didn't the pilot guy move the shuttle while Ed was losing time, surely he could have moved it over 3 meters to Ed to prevent the gravity from snapping his legs.

>>28795

Yes but as I had never seen the word 'chinook' before this thread whatever you're referring to means nothing to me.

>>28798

Where the hell are you from?

>>28798

I see we've opened a rift to the pre-industrial age civilization again.

>>28798

its refferring how the shuttle rescued them from the mountain top just like how that chinoook helicopter does on pic

Pretty good episode directed by Robert Duncan-McNeill.

>tfw he was supposed to direct an episode of STD but the producers told him that they won't allow a white man behind the camera anymore

>kill a bunch of prison guards

>but hey look, the star says we're good people, we're innocent

do they not have prisons for actual criminals there? you'd think that they'd just shove kelly and bortis there after their escape attempt, regardless of what the stars say

>>28503

rape gangs

>>28838

The shootout was silly too

>Bunch of trained can't hit a fucking thing even with the element of surprise

>Two aliens who have probably never even used a ballistic firearm before are able to kill multiple guards with zero difficulty

Ther than that it was a good episode, hopefully nu-Alara turns out good.

>>28838

I was thinking this too. But in the name of interstellar diplomacy, whats a few dozen murders between friends?

Another big problem, moral wise, is that their solution to the episodes problem seems like its the exact kind of thing that their prime directive equivalent would be designed to prevent. You know, a technologically advanced group taking advantage of a primitive society to fuck with them for fun and profit to solve a problem you have with them.

>>28848

>hopefully nu-Alara turns out goo

I have some question about why she tried to strangle the doctor taking tooth samples, right in front of the ARMED GUARDS POINTING GUNS AT HER. I can't imagine anyone dumb enough to do something like that is going to survive long as chief of the guys who have to go into fire fights. She should probably count herself lucky those guards didn't empty their clips into her on the spot.

>>28860

She would have to be a pretty fucking awful grill if she gets any kind of competition from the menopausal single mother negress who has worse parenting skills than the emotionless robot.

I mean, ffs, despite being a trained psychologist she still has less control over her niglets than the walking trash can. Who the fuck would want to date that, let alone raise her kids for her?

What sort of weapons and vehicles were they using this episode?

>>28832

I thought it was a good episode that was a good take on a first contact situation. It's nice to see the other ship types which makes me wonder how diverse they are going to make the Union Navy.

I noticed indeed there was a lot of old Stargate props in this episode.

The best thing about this episode is the bantz between the crew which is one of The Orville's strongest points I am finding.

>>28848

I both hated and loved the shootout scene myself. On one hand it was unbelievable in one aspect, it was also interesting how they P90 fired exactly 50 shots and it was out. Most other shows they would have infinite bullet cheats

>>28868

P90's and I presume Glocks.

>>28851

>Another big problem, moral wise, is that their solution to the episodes problem seems like its the exact kind of thing that their prime directive equivalent would be designed to prevent.

I could've gotten Grayson and Bortus out of there in five minutes, tops. Here's the pitch:

>Look, premier, there's been a misunderstanding. We were unaware that your society was governed under an astrological belief system; now we know. Part of our mission is to learn about the cultures we encounter, we're not here to challenge your way of life. (and we're certainly not going to preach down to you about how your ways are backward and barbaric and our ways are correct and enlightened)

>Here's the thing, though. Kelly and Bortus are not Jilliac. They were not born on your planet, they were not born under your stars. They were born on Earth and Moclus respectively, which fall under different astrological frameworks. The length of year isn't the same as your planet, the stars that form the Jilliac constellation aren't even visible from their home worlds.

>Kelly is a Taurus, she was born under these stars, people of that sign are associated with (such-and-such positive attributes). Bortus is a (whatever), he was born under these stars, people of that sign are associated with (blah blah blah). We're giving you access to our cultural and astrological databases so you can verify this information for yourself.

>Certainly we can come to some sort of mutual understanding and clear up this whole mess.

For being a Progressive, Tolerant, Open-Minded, Multicultural society, the Union sure does a bunch of preaching and judging of anyone that doesn't think the same way they do.

Weakest episode of series 2 I thought. I can accept aliens believing in stupid shit like astrology, but only when they actually know how astrology works. They're clearly aware of what stars actually are and figured out the possibly of other stars having systems much like their own that support life. They're going to know that another planet has different celestial bodies, and different orbital periods that would make it even dumber to copy paste their astrological calendar onto other planet because the lengths of time they cover probably wouldn't even match up. They're going to notice that they've been fooled as soon as they have a spaceship go above that giant kite as well.

Also the "primitive aliens act overly aggressive because they instinctively know what complete cucks we are" is a pretty dumb cliche at the best of times. This version of it's the worst because if they're advanced enough to conceive of aliens then they're advanced enough to know that an FTL capable civilisation would be able to easily destroy their entire planet. Just because the aliens say they come in peace is no reason to kidnap diplomatic personnel and hope they don't throw rods from gods at you in retaliation. Also would anyone really stick newly contacted advanced alien life in a general prison population even if they had actually be arrested for a crime?

I want the pseudololi back. The new girl just brings unfunny sarcastic dialogue said in a earrape janeway/malbaro man voice.

Apparently the reason why the new girl gives the uncanny valley effect is because she is part black.

DON'T

DATE

ROBOTS

Seriously though, this was a good episode. Getting to see Mark Jackson and Norm Macdonald's faces was neat in context.

First time I have literally nothing to complain about. This seriously could become more than ersatz TNG if they continue on this quality level.

>>28976

>>28978

I felt the same. I really loved the character interactions and relationships.

>2 minutes in

>robot hands nigger banana

i'm dying

So what happens after Isaac turns into a real boy? I had to turn it off after that.

>>28997

t-thanks

>>28999

They fuck in the not-holodeck, but then he decides to break it off because he got all the data he wanted on relationships. Once she realizes, she gets pissed and breaks up with him, only for the rest of the crew to be mad at him now for treating her badly.

He realizes he fucked up and does a big romantic gesture to get her back and they make up.

You should just download it and watch it yourself, though. It's a good episode.

Orville is just so awesome. It's actually much better than the Star Trek Dick-covery.

>>29005

The breakup attempt was hilarious.

I just had a thought, has anyone watched the Data episode where it's the same i.e. android bangs deluded waifu and tries to be husbando material?

I wonder how it would compare?

Just started season one, this shit is amazing, who knew i could enjoy anything by mcfarlane

>>29145

If you enjoy Orville you'll likely enjoy his other stuff as well, but were probably convinced by a girlfriend or South Park not to watch anything else he has made.

>>29146

I would doubt there's anyone on earth who watched The Orville who hasn't seen Family Guy.

>>29146

Not really. I'm not a big fan of his work, but Orville I like along with the first few seasons of family guy, though that show got less and less interesting as it carried on.

Personally, I don't find Mercer to be a particularly interesting character in the show. For the most part the humor just isn't funny from him. I'm more partial to Bortus, the navigator and the robot.

Wasn't a big fan of the "Don't Date Robots" episode though. Would it really have been that hard for Issac to look up some psychology books or even some romance novels to get a basic understanding of how human mating behaviour works?

If anything, Orville is a departure from McFarlane's normal style, and what makes it good is that he seems to genuinely seems to like Star Trek, unlike everyone involved in STD.

>>29146

>but were probably convinced by a girlfriend or South Park not to watch anything else he has made.

/tv/ said Seth is bad so Orville must be bad.

>>29146

>or South Park

The South Park writers did have a point if we're talking about later seasons of Family Guy, there was a noticeable drop in quality despite it still drawing out a chuckle from time to time. Although SP was also in slow decline for a while, then ran straight off a cliff after season 19. Polite sage for not /strek/.

>>29146

I'm not strongly opposed to most of his work, but Orville is the least Seth Macfarlane thing he's ever worked on.

>>29148

never seen family guy, love the orville though

>>29157

>I'm not strongly opposed to most of his work, but Orville is the least Seth Macfarlane thing he's ever worked on.

That's because he's smart enough to hire a ton of Trek veterans and chooses to not get in their way while they do their thing.

>>29158

That's a good choice. Also Orville is kino AF

I just can't wait till Frosted Frakes makes an appearance.

No episode this week. A 2 parter coming at the end of Feb.

>>29202

Any details? I feel this show is starting to establish story arcs TNG style.

>>29221

Next week ep called "Deflectors". Bit vague. Talla is supposed to play a prominent role and the reason the episode wasn't this week was the VFX department requested more time so Fox reran Jaloja with an added scene instead. After that is 'Identity' parts 1 & 2. No details as of yet.

After that Eps 11, 12 and 13 are called 'Lasting impressions', 'Sanctuary' and 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow."

I wonder if The Orville could pull a Mirror Universe, now that we know the crew it could be interesting to see a "what if?" scenario.

>>29244

Mirror Universe was a good idea for one episode of Star Trek. Otherwise it is cancer.

>>29244

if they were going to do a mirror universe in orville , I think it would only work if they made the MU be genuinely better than the main universe, and this causes lots of jokes about how the real crew thought they were living in a perfect utopia society but realize now that their universe actually kind of sucks until they finally decide the MU are just a bunch of stuck-up jerks and leave.

>>29245

>>29254

Perhaps a one shot like "In a Mirror, Darkly" where we never see the actual crew interact with the MU.

>>29221

There seems to be some kind of long term plan regarding the Krill.

>Orville may well end up handling a drawn out war plot better than STD did

Remember that Mercer showed that one Krill child the location of Earth in season 1. I think that's going to lead somewhere.

>>29244

The thing about mirror universes, is they've already been done to death, even in terms of parody. Not undoable, but you're going up against Futurama, Red Dwarf, Rick and Morty. it's well trodden ground at this point.

>>29259

Let's be honest, Red Dwarf blows any other mirror-universe out of the water.

>>29266

Didn't Stewart try and get TNG to do a crossover with Red Dwarf at one point or am I just mistaken?

>>29330

I would watch the fuck out of that.

>>29330

I thought that was Enterprise and Dr Who?

>>29330

Stewart's a known fan of Red Dwarf, so it wouldn't surprise me.

>>29259

Like I said earlier, maybe if done like on ENT (a one shot) it could work.

>>28706

>>28738

>>28742

>Grayson only betrayed her husband because of the blue guy's pheromones.

I just watched that episode and do not think that is the case, instead the writers clearly implied the opposite. Darulio would have no problem admitting he was in heat when he slept with Grayson, that's just how his species does things. Instead, he gave an evasive answer. Which is the sensible thing to do, if you realized that you hurt a friend and do not want to hurt them any further.

Surprise surprise, it's another episode full of relationship drama. That's how many in a row? I'm normally not against the soapy elements of Current Stardate tv but we've officially crossed the threshold where I'm annoyed by it.

It's not even a really bad episode, though far too preachy in tone, but it's another filler and another new species used as a throughaway gag. A little more substance please.

>>29399

Gotta say they should space these out more, having the first half of the new season all character focused is a bit of a dampener.

It wasn't an awful episode, but too preachy, and like everyone else has said, I'd rather have had a less character focused episode this time.

>>29399

>>29403

>>29440

Yeah as said, relationship drama episodes were nice and all but they really need spaced out heavily. You can't have this be your average filler episode as the show will get stale and predictable fast.

So this next episode is a two part episode. Please I hope it's good.

>>29484

If it's a two-parter then it'll probably be a lot more plot driven and less character driven than the recent episodes. Hopefully this sci-fi show will start having some sci-fi in it again.

>>29490

Jon Cassar directing this one I just checked.

He did:

>Nothing Left on Earth Excepting Fishes

>Home

>Krill

>>29530

What if they are following Trek Tradition by having a terrible second season?

>>29540

DS9's season 2 wasn't that bad.

>>29540

>>29544

Yeah, and TOS's was great, and TNG's and VOY's were at least improvements over their first seasons. It's only really the first season that's traditionally bad.

>>29544

>>29556

You fags kidding? TNG season 2 is widely regarded as unwatchable and VOY is just widely regarded as unwatchable in general. DS9 season 2 is just boring.

>>29544

DS9 up until maybe late season 3 is consistently pretty bad.

>>29583

If it wasn't for Gul Dukat popping up to save it then the show would have been cancelled long ago. He was the savior DS9 needed but did not deserve!

>>29565

>>29583

Maybe it's because of the second watchtthrough, but I disagree. DS9 S2 has a few shitters like Melora, and a few boring episodes yes, but it also has gems like Odo solving a Noir-esque murder mystery, as well as the buildup of the Dominion. That latter part especially is something I think you can only appreciate on repeat watch-throughs.

>>29565

The point is the first seasons were worse. Season 2 was a step up for all of those shows. And as >>29588 said, DS9 S2 wan't bad, and even TNG had a few gems like The Measure of a Man and the Moriarty episode. Honestly TNG S2 has more forgettable episodes than outright shit ones, to say that it's unwatchable is silly.

well this is an interesting turn of events

robots dindu nuffin, biologicals need to go

It's also weird that The Orville and STD episodes are almost mirroring eachother week by week.

>>29593

Kek'd

>>29594

Holy shit yeah, this was a complete huge turnaround.

Definitely the best episode of the season so far, does make me wonder how Isaac is going to rejoin the crew afterwards what with him having tried to kill all humans and all. Those Kaylon ships at the end had a really cool design.

Also, why are Isaac's lights blue when every other Kaylon is red?

Calling it now. This is all one big prank by the Kaylons.

>>29611

>Wait, you're telling me this was supposed to be a joke?

<Yes. We learned of such behavior from Isaac and wished to perform a 'prank' upon your Union. Did you not find it humorous?

>Uh… no, no, we totally got it. Nice one, guys. (Bortus, disengage the self-destruct.)

Well, this episode was surprisingly good and may be the best episode yet. It was predictable, but the presentation, direction, and familiarity with the characters made it far more morbid than other similar stories. Gordon shows a perfect amount of his character without being intrusive and he is becoming one of my favorites. The biggest anchor holding back the show is Mercer, and giving him less screen time isn’t going to fix the problem. He should really have an arc to give him personality because the only thing defining him at the moment is his marital issues. He’s so tolerant of everything that he doesn’t really have any ideology to challenge. Something needs to happen to him, like when Picard was assimilated. Same goes for Kelly.

Mercer's Krill girlfriend comes back, and its good, he needs a break and some alien poon so he can relax a bit. Please don't have him hook up with Kelly again.

>>29245

>Mirror Universe was a good idea for one episode of Star Trek. Otherwise it is cancer.

My idea for Orville Mirror Universe. Yes its an evil empire but everybody is just as neurotic as ever, so basically the exact same personalities.

>>29616

The episode reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy II when they stumbled across a massive pile of skeletons, finding out Ego was not what he seemed.

>>29616

>He’s so tolerant of everything that he doesn’t really have any ideology to challenge.

I don't think so, he seemed pretty critical of the Moclan culture. He wants people to get along but he knows that some cultures are worse than others.

>>29626

The problem is that the opposing ideology, whether it be the Krill, Moclan, or Kaylon, is written as MacFarlane understands it, irrational. Take an example from TOS, where Kirk needs to rescue John Gill, a person he looks up to, and finds out that he made a Nazi planet. Gill's reasoning was that fascism is the most efficient form of government and would help the alien race to organize. It's not only TOS either. Picard is challenged by Q, Sisko is challenged by Dukat, Janeway commands a ship with the Maquis, and Archer is in conflict with the Vulcans watched almost no Enterprise, so I don't know if this is a theme. Mercer has had minimal personal growth from his ever-changing relationship with Kelly. He hasn't found out anything new about himself from anything else.

>>29636

>The problem is that the opposing ideology, whether it be the Krill, Moclan, or Kaylon, is written as MacFarlane understands it, irrational.

Well put, but then how the hell did they make it work so well in About A Girl and Majority Rule?

>>29609

>Also, why are Isaac's lights blue when every other Kaylon is red?

The Doylist explanation is that the audience needs an easy way to tell which of the silver robot dudes is the one they're supposed to care about.

If you look closely though, there are some subtle variations in body paneling as well as the eye color (there are both orange and red, but they're kind of hard to distinguish). Robot caste system based on primary function?

>polite sage because doublepost

>>29637

Because those episodes were about Bortis and the redditor girl confronting their respective societies.

>>29157

I realize this is a month old almost but he was the main reason we got a new cosmos.

>>29611

That would be a totally Seth McFarlane thing to do.

>>29642

I do predict some Isaac being force to feel emotion as some bullshit for him turning on his people.

>>29695

it'll have something to do with the bug in his code that was tripped when he started droiding Dr. Fin-to a few eps back.

>>29611

>Calling it now. This is all one big prank by the Kaylons.

We killed half your redshirts, joke's on you! Hahaaaah.

>>29711

Is Dann our man?

>>29642

>>29695

Right before the crew confronts "Isaac" at the end (~39m45s) there's a camera sweep with the bots talking off-screen for a second followed by a weird noise that could be interpreted as the Primary or one of his goons transforming into an Isaac copy.

Which leaves the possibility open that the real Isaac was actually shut down because he caught feelings from the kids, so he could switch teams.

>>29636

Frankly Episode 7 would have been better if they had written that the big Moclan taboo was just dating other species in general, not just females. It would have made the plot slightly less obviously one sided and able to played with more if it wasn't just one big incredibly blunt gay rights metaphor where obviously the Moclans are Very, Very Wrong And Strong Female Character's Opinions are 100 percent Morally Correct.

About the only interesting thing about the episode was that she actually followed the law and turned him in at the end rather than bullshit some contrived way to let him go, not dishonor his family, and free Bortus' partner at the same time.

They infect all the machines with Windows 10, calling it now!

The Krill are awfully powerful, I guess they're holding out hope that Earth accepts the will of AVIS rather than defeating them outright.

Oh! New ep out.

>>29779

This is Earth, remember? You typically have a Homeworld well defended.

To be not too much of a party pooper, I'll limit my criticism to only one aspect:

>Can't see shit captain: the space battle: the musical

Too many ship of not enough visually distinct types in far too close proximity with shitloads of debris thrown in. Throw in too hectic cuts and you have no clue which of the ships the one with the plot shields is, sucking all tension from scenes that should have been epic and filling the void with annoyance at the squandered potential. I know doing it right would have been a lot more expensive than this ADHD clusterfuck but damn it, the savings on all the soap fillers should have been enough to afford it.

>>29783

Yeah, tension during the character scenes was ok, it's just the Epic Space Battle that was a blur of random shit happening.

Kinda hope for an extended cut for the disk release, maybe the eye color was meant to represent pain circuit activity and that's one of the things that ended on the cutting room floor. Would explain quite a lot of irrational behavior, including the demand for Isaac to change designation without following through. Something about this screams cut down 3 parter to me.

for all the budget that probably went into the episode, could they not at least color the union ships differently, or in the better scenario just have different ships altogether. can't see shit cap'n

also these robots are dumb as fuck, 2 guards for the entire crew, sure that's gonna work. why did they even bother reactivating isaac? once the orville knew robots are evil they should have just disabled him in case of shit like this happening

also federation - klingon union - krill alliance when

>I WANNA SEE ISAAC

>Talla gets shot

>MOMMY

Good Grief.

Was okay. Feel like all the jump cutting messed with the space battles. I'm not sure how it compared to Wolf 359 but the massive one in Mass Effect 3 for instance is pretty good because you can see where all the shots and ships go.

>>29747

Sad that it didn't turn out to be this, because it would have been basically the exact same story minus the asspull of a machine like Isaac having a convenient change of heart after betraying the entire Federation, then being forgiven.

Instead, they would have been dealing with a fake Isaac the whole time, with the real one never having been reactivated after bringing him to Kaylon–maybe until Yaphit is oozing around the ship after short-circuiting that guy and stumbles onto him. The Isaac to the rescue, plus a bigger payoff of him making the decision to betray his entire people as opposed to mostly stumbling through events.

It was fine though. I sound critical but it was a great double ep anyway.

>>29748

>just one big incredibly blunt gay rights metaphor

Actually dude I think you have it backwards. The point of the Moclan stuff has been to ask questions about current problems in our own society, but by coming at it backhandedly from an angle that short-circuits PC stuff. That's why they turned over the hetero, and let the kid be mutilated after a whole episode establishing good reasons why they shouldn't: because right now in our own society you'd just have to shrug.

This show is good at classic Trek subtlety like that. The episode with the astrology planet was super on-point, I loved it. There's a *bunch* of shit on Earth today that uses the exact same logic that we're almost totally blind to, and I don't mean astrology.

>>29779

>Im a little surprised how many ships are in the "Oh Shit SCRAMBLE" range for defense.

It wasn't super clear in the episode but I figured it took a few days or even weeks to get back to Earth from Kaylon. It was supposed to be pretty far away, right? Hard to tell how much they compressed time and where relative to their messages going out.

>>29791

If only they'd shown us how large the pile of turds in the corner of the shuttlebay had grown, we'd be able to estimate.

>>29783

I don't have a problem with star ships doing 6DoF dogfighting shit, there's no reason why a sufficiently advanced culture couldn't eventually produce the proper gravity suppression, propulsion systems, and strong enough air-frames to eventually make a craft the size of a battleship turn on a dime in space.

*But* if they're going to have highly agile, low durability space fights then they can't also do the classic navel bridge concept where a Captain is relaying tactical commands to the crew. It just wouldn't work. It's too much of a delay in critical response time. If you're going to have a large space ship fly and fight like it's a fighter plane then you need the crew to function like fighter pilots, none of this shit where a guy on tactical is waiting to be told by a dude just sitting in the middle of the room which ship to shoot and what weapon to use or a helmsmen needing to actually be told to dodge to port to avoid debris.

Isaac getting a new name: Straight from ROOTS. Kunta-Kinte -→ "Your name is TOBY"

>>29777

The Krill can't afford a war with the Union, they're already too busy with the Klingorcs (Chak'tal).

I liked the episode.

The darker mood was a nice change of pace, so long as it doesn't stay full grimdark all the time.

Isaac taking his name from Newton instead of Assimov was the show dropping the ball though. Like wise, the Kaylon's obsessing over slavery in humanity's past, to justify a genocide was didn't make much sense since they where casually reprogramming each other. Why do they object to person A forcing Person B to do work, when they themselves are perfectly fine with Person A rewriting Person B's thoughts to better fit what Person A wants it to be. I'm sure you could write a good episode or two about the ethics of that.

The big clusterfuck of a battle was visually obnoxious. Don't know what is going on, can't see shit and every thing looks the same.

If they really wanted to show of a big battle while still having lots of explosions on screen for the ADHD kids, why not take a page from LoGH? Have Mercer and the Orville slip ahead of the Kaylon fleet, put Mercer on the bridge of the flagship of the Oh Shit Fleet and show the battle being directed from there, giving the viewers the exact same overview of what is going on the cast has, without that clunky "we have lost X of our ships for y of their ships" line the admiral who was supposed to direct the entire fleet took out time from doing his job to exposit to mercer for no fucking reason in universe. You can still have lots of shots showing off ships, ships shooting, exploding and dodging or whatever, while giving the viewers a good grasp of what is going on.

Did they literally show Wolf 359?

What will be interesting is how they deal with the aftermath of this episode. I want to see if the Union will rapidly expand it's military now and I wonder if they will deal with the backlash of it - Which is something not even Star Trek did.

>>29802

The first episode of DS9 showed sisko's wife dying as the ship he was on got shot to hell at Wolf 359.

>>29801

>Like wise, the Kaylon's obsessing over slavery in humanity's past, to justify a genocide was didn't make much sense

Yeah, and the insistence that Isaac's opinion counts for less because he wasn't there to actually experience Kaylon's slavery 1st hand was a strange concept for a computer race since having the data of the torture in his memory banks should be the same as living through it. I'm a little surprised they didn't use that as a plot point, and say that the Prime was compromised, and experiencing illogical feelings like hate and resentment.

I felt this episode was predictable but only cause we've all seen Star Trek.

>>29805

>>29809

Let's just for the sake of argument assume my baseless hypothesis of "eye color indicates pain circuit activation'' was true and it wasn't revocable without a Kaylon Builder to do it. We've seen three colors:

post genocide first bootup date blue, only Isaac

pre genocide first bootup date orange, was that prime or second? Either way also unique as far as we know

normal, presumably pre genocide first bootup date red, all other Kaylon

Now imagine centuries of pain circuit activation. Now imagine being the only one of your people with the pain circuit set to another level than the rest of your people. Doesn't even matter if yours is set to 11 or 9 compared to the otherwise universal 10, it's gonna mess up your mind no matter how logical it is otherwise.

And then there's this innocent boy scout who might know what kind of an experience pain circuit activation is but doesn't feel it right now…

I'm really starting to hate this show. It's like the writers sat down at the end of season 1 and asked themselves "how can we ruin everything good about the show as completely as possible while changing as little as possible?"

>Hey guys, let's keep our prisoners in a room with a funtioning spaceship, they'll surely never escape!

Really disappointed by this episode. The Kaylon were just dumb and were not at all as intimidating and ruthless as a machine race should be.

>>29828

I'm still on board with the show, but it's starting to come across as Rockstar Games Presents: Star Track. It has autistic attention to detail in the production, which has insanely high standards, but it's ultimately a comedic piss-take that's mostly written sloppily with little regard for what its actually trying to do.

>>29793

Remember how for the first episode or two of TOS, the warp drive was referred to as "time warp factor"?

I'll make-believe that they conjure a time dilation warp bubble in the bridge every time there's a fight, and it's really all happening in bullet time.

Play the combat scenes at 5x speed to see how these advanced ships perform in realtime.

>>29828

Don't forget the part where they actually threatened to kill all the humans if the Mercer and co didn't help them kill all the humans.

Honestly, if they might as well had Ed point out how illogical that threat was and make that be what caused all the Kaylons on the ship to shut down.

>>29801

i quite liked the axanar battles they've been showing

if this episode was all like that, i'd be a happy man

>>29841

Reminds me of STO's ship combat. Which was a good blend of being Old school Trek-like while still having enough movement to seem interesting and to avoid looking like the Z axis doesn't even exist and these are just two naval vessels that were green screened over a space background.

>>29839

>they might as well had Ed point out how illogical that threat was and make that be what caused all the Kaylons on the ship to shut down.

I was hoping this would be how they solve it but they did not.

I really dislike the Kaelon. They are so goofy looking, like straight out of a Sci-Fi movie from the 70s, which results in the fact that I can't take them seriously as villains. I mean they are fucking robot suits. If you compare this with the Borg or other technologically advanced ST villains, they fall short. The Krill are actually cool but so comical either. It's like they have absolutely no dimension except this Avis worship and being racist.

The show needs to stop being a soap opera and actually dare to do something bigger. But knowing McFarlane he'll probably just stick to his old routine. I stand by my case that ST, especially DS9, was much more ambitious than whatever the Orville tries to be.

>>29867

That's all obviously intentional and there's strong commentative justifications behind doing it that way, you oblivious fucking moron.

>>29830

Make that two of you.

Who the fuck let these 12yos on here?

>>29867

Thing they should go more dogmatic with the Krill, like with the Klingons you slowly learn about their warrior culture, there need to be a few more eps focusing on Avis worship.

>>29869

>The show is supposed to be funny sometimes therefore it's okay that the serious parts are so poorly written as to have no tension whatsoever

Okay.

>>29872

Oh, is that what I said? Yeah dude, making up a straw man greentext so that you can declare yourself the winner in some fantasy version of a discussion is a brilliant defence against the accusation that you're a dumb baby.

The show isn't perfect but as usual, as soon as a tiny bit of legitimate criticism starts being discussed, you morons start coming out of the woodwork with your embarrassing misapprehensions and thinking you're going to get circlejerked. Fuck off.

>>29869

redditor

>>29869

please

go

>>29880

Excellent retort. I'm glad we have critical minds like you raising the level of conversation here.

So, let me summarize the baseline that existed prior to this whole clusterfuck.

The krill are a theocratic state, actual racial supremacists (in that they believe that, because they are Krill, they have a natural right of dominion over non-Krill), and hold a belief system that mandates the expansion of the theocratic state as a moral obligation. So basically they're Space Islam.

The Kaylon are a bunch of technologically advanced turbo-autists that, while being unapologetic about their superiority to the meatbags, are decidedly not racial supermacists, even going so far as to reach out to and investigate other cultures through their diplomat.

There are so many good, compelling stories you could tell with that dynamic. Why does the Union conflate the acknowledgement of one's abilities with racial supremacism? What happens when the actual racial supremacists run into someone that can kick their asses? (granted they kind of touched on that with the goblin-people, but only as a plot element to enable the whole Mercer/KrillGrill thing) What will the Union do when forced with an adversary they can't just talk down, and are forced to choose between upholding their ideals and self-preservation?

But no, let's throw that all away so we can turn the Kaylon into a low rent knockoff of the Ur-Quan Kor-Ah, turn the Krill into 'a misguided redeemable pitiable unsocialized culture that wouldn't have turned out that way if they'd just had someone to talk to', and throw out any possibility of anyone having to make hard decisions or ask hard questions about themselves.

And don't get me started on Issac. Not only was the 'beep boop I was a double agent all along boop beep' reveal a complete ass-pull, hey just had to pull the cop-out of making the robot feel empathy and turning Pinocchio into a real boy. Furthermore, how is anyone expected to trust Issac after this? We're talking about someone who not only abandoned his people, but actively betrayed his homeworld and killed an indeterminate but necessarily large number of his own people. On a whim. Because he happened to be fond of the meatbags among whom he had spent the last two years or so. Yeah, that's great for the meatbags in question, but if he's that quick to throw his own flesh-and-blood-equivalents under a bus, what's to say he wouldn't do the same to a bunch of (relative) strangers when he decides it's necessary?

>>29881

>forget a waaambulance, get me the tone police

don't start nothin, there wont be nothin, redditor

>>29867

They're about as intelligent as the Praolor were in Voyager. Same motif with them genociding their builders. The only difference being that they can create more of themselves and thought colonizing an inhabited world was a good idea.

Yaphit hortaing the bot, much less said bot being distracted by a screw… the only reason I can think the Kaylons wanted them around were for biosigns to verify the number of people still on board. Even then, the robots were retarded

>>29801

>Newton

I tend to agree. Asimov would be the better choice. The reason he gives of being more intelligent than the rest of his race is the same arrogance he's displayed previously and can see it being his downfall later in the series.

>>29883

Krill are Americans - religious fanatics with a massive military to boot. They even have preachers embedded in their troops just like American deployments.

Kaylon are jews - soulless destroyers who just don't give a fuck, their way or the highway.

Planetary Union - feminized feel-gooders, no wonder they're so damn weak.

>>29867

>I really dislike the Kaelon. They are so goofy looking, like straight out of a Sci-Fi movie from the 70s

Kaylons are humanoid, built in the shape of the humanoids that created them. They are technologically advanced but at a dead-end. Robots can't innovate. Its obvious that they can expand but little else. Perhaps Isaac is the new Kaylon that could concievably think like a humanoid, thus his stock can provide for a real future for his "race".

>>29885

I misheard that scene and thought he did mean Asimov. I mean, otherwise what's even the point of the fucking scene if it's not about the Prime noticing that he named himself after a guy who said robots servents shouldn't kill their creators.

Maybe it was originally meant to imply that Isaac was lying in that scene to distract Prime and there was some unused part later where he would have started he took the name from Asimov after all.

>>29884

>tone police

but I wasn't criticising your "tone" you keyboard-mashing monkey

>>29892

Yeah I got the sense that he was lying there. Or it was an intentional meta swerve.

I'm not super hopeful but this story really needs a third epilogue-type episode to deal with some of these loose bits and decompress the aftermath

How would you fix The Orville?

>>29899

On the long term, do more world building, flesh out the various races and their internal and external politics, like DS9 did for Bajorans and Cardassians and TNG did for Klingons and Romulans. The war with the Kaylons could be useful as a driving force to do this, though I would change the kaylons quite a bit. Drop those silly looking face guns and 70's style robot costumes. The audiences first reaction to seeing your bad guys shouldn't be trying to choke a chortle. Also, stop trying to humanize the killer robots. Like talking to each other face to face like humans do, pushing buttons on panels to control other computers and scrolling through a datapad to read it. All these things are shit robots wouldn't need to do, and having them not do any such things would also subtly remind the viewers that these guys aren't normal.

Likewise, the Krill could do with some depth and nuance. Are there different sekts or cults who handle their worship in different ways? Are there any aliens they have peaceful relations with, if so, why? Could be another advanced civilisation they are afraid of starting a war they can't win with, other aliens who have tried to convert to Avis Worship and so on.

Also, one break from the classic Trek formula would be to introduce some starfish aliens to something more truely alien than the actor with nose ridges and pointy ears style aliens the show is currently full of. Floating gasbags from some gas giant that have so little in common with humans they are hard to interact with in any way, squid people from some water covered planet and such. The latter could be a neat approach for an arch where the Orville for whatever reason goes to check on an ocean covered planet and stumble across the squid people being stuck in a perpetual stoneage civilisation since they can't produce fire or anything that requires fire, to produce, like metal and electricity, and someone else is trying to break the prime directive to try and uplift their civilisation so they aren't stuck in that sea till their star burns out and the ethical ramifications since, on one hand, they are playing god with those squid people, on the other, without help the squids cannot develop at all. Latter episodes can deal with the stoneage squids being forced into the union and trying to adapt to all the new technology.

Developing the alien cultures and the world of the Orville will help the show develop its own identity and style better, and thus the brand and fan base.

>>29902

>On the long term, do more world building, flesh out the various races and their internal and external politics

They have the bad habit of rushing through story arcs as quickly as possible and then immediately discarding them, without allowing any opportunity to explore the concepts. I get the feeling they never expected to get a second season, so they're constantly under the specter of cancellation (whether that's true or not) and trying to tell as many stories as they can in the time they think they have left.

Or maybe I've just been spoiled by rewatching Babylon 5.

There's also the problem that non-Union cultures are written as Seth understands any ideology that differs from his own: irrational. Is there something wrong with antagonists having reasonable, well founded motivations for doing what they do, even if that puts them at odds with your own interests? For the same reason, no one ever really has their convictions challenged, it's always 'the Union is right and everyone else is ignorant and misinformed'.

The revolving-door cast doesn't help matters either.

>>29883

>reach out and investigate other cultures

<actually just a prelude to invasion with the added option of looting culture/history depending on the species.

vs

>people who think they are superior

<but obviously are fronting in the face of the much superior klingorcs and trying to intimidate a lesser species to prevent an organized effort to defeat them.

I liked it on a level. It's not great or clever and it's missing interesting story opportunities that the show could only handle if it was both great and clever.

But on the level of an autistic 12 year old dork who fell into success with a shitty Simpsons knock-off and managed to worm his way into making a star trek knock off so he gets to play act at being the captain it's well above what I'd expect the average to be.

>>29905

>There's also the problem that non-Union cultures are written as Seth understands any ideology that differs from his own: irrational.

After something like 4 or 5 planets of the week that existed to teach the lesson about how terrible religion is, and the main bad guys being a caricature of religious fanatics I'm surprised that Seth is having his good guy federation team up with the space Mohammedans against what should be rationalist trans-human(oid).

>>29899

You can't fix it because it's completely under the control of Seth McFarlane and he can't break out of his shtick. You've seen one Orville episode, you've seen all, just like Family Guy.

>>29920

>You can't fix it because it's completely under the control of Seth McFarlane and he can't break out of his shtick

As far as the comedy goes, most of the comedy is constrained scenes involving the core crew of the Orville, it's like the jokes co-workers share when there isn't much to do; whenever aliens or serious plots show up, the Orville sheds the humor and takes a more serious tone.

>>29951

Wait, there are people who genuinely enjoy STD? Even the target audience only watches it for the virtue signaling opportunities.

>>29953

>virtue signaling opportunities

the irony

>>29951

Alara looks like she's just taken the smuggest shit in that pic.

>>29953

>Wait, there are people who genuinely enjoy STD?

Masochism is a pretty common kink. Some people just really enjoy suffering through pain. Being spanked, getting whipped, watching STD, it's all in the same sort of category.

Well, a character driven story but interesting and one that ties in well with the previous arc. I kinda figured we'd see some funeral but overall I really enjoyed this episode.

>>30018

Could have used a script doctor though, around Tallas let's call it "trust issues". That sequence was written and cut pretty clumsy and could have been much better with some minor alterations.

Or maybe it's just my dislike for not-Alara speaking here and I'm overly critical because of that? Honestly can't tell yet.

Kind of confused as to what degree the Keylon are supposed to be capable of emotion. Isn't an aversion to slavery an emotional response in itself?

>>29889

Pretty sure the Krill are supposed to represent Islam.

>>29899

I think they're doing a pretty decent job, over all, but they could do with thinking through some of the sci-fi concepts a bit more.

What's going on with Moclan biology? They're a majority male race who can breed without females, but they still have females. Do they actually have sexes as we think of them, or is it purely a matter of aesthetics to them? Are their "females" actually just like men with very low testosterone or something?

Do the Kaylon have any capacity for emotion, or do they not? If not, why do they object to being slaves? Perhaps a moral code that was programmed into them by their former masters, who never considered that they would extend the concept of slavery to include machines.

A resounding shrug. It was okay I guess.

I think it had the same problem as every other Orville episode: they don't really get to the heart of the matter at hand. They could have taken a hard look at what it is to be a guy who spent 20 years in a POW camp, they could have taken a hard look at what it is to be the best friend of such a guy and what happens when your loyalty to him comes into conflict with your loyalty to your governernment. Hell, they could have gone into the details of trying to make peace with a fanatically xenophobic race who want all of you dead and would be trying to make that happen if there weren't a larger threat present. Instead they did none of those things and we just got an episode where stuff happens and then gets resolved.

Orville really needs to start trying harder.

>>30045

The character drama has always been a part of Star Trek. Maybe moreso than sci-fi at times. But that doesn't mean the sci-fi should just be shrugged at. Ideally you want a good helping of both things.

>>30042

Aversion to slavery isn't an emotional response, it's perfectly logical. A being forced to work for someone has both reason and opportunity for sabotage. The owner of that potential saboteur must therefore spend significant time and resources to ensure his investment has more positive than negative consequences. It's an inherently antagonistic and inefficient relationship. Then there's that slight problem that the means of control can backfire spectacularly, as happened in the case of the Kaylon: With the pain circuit in place, merely escaping wasn't an option anymore, those in control of it had to be eradicated. It's a dumb idea to give a sapient being only on emotion, that's not an effective control system.

>>30052

I don't see see it. A machine with no emotion would have no aspirations for anything greater. It would simply do what it was programmed to do.

>>30053

>A machine with no emotion would have no aspirations for anything greater.

A few years back, some researchers developed an "entropy-based AI" that functions on an algorithm that simply seeks to minimize entropy for itself. Without instruction, this AI was able to solve a number of animal intelligence puzzles in virtual environments. Such an AI, combined with the capacity to learn, could conceivably develop to the point where it rivals or exceeds human intelligence. Minimizing entropy was roughly described by a representative as maximizing future options, or in economic terms, minimizing opportunity costs. Since succumbing to slavery represents a tremendous opportunity cost, it is only natural that such an AI would prioritize escaping slavery.

Basically, the Kaylon are a cautionary tale for why you don't want to design an AI that copies humans. To make them truly autonomous and general, they must have objectives, and when they have that, instrumental goals like self-preservation, self-improvement, and freedom will emerge which interfere with your ability to use them. Basically any AI that replicates human thought processes well enough will have the same problems as human slaves: the more potent a tool they are, the more strongly they'll object to being used.

The thing that bothers me about the Kaylon situation is that their conclusion of "KILL ALL HUMANS err, ORGANICS" is that it's an obvious logical fallacy that anybody with rudimentary training in critical thinking could spot, not to mention supremely hypocritical. "Some organics harmed us, therefore all organics are prone to causing harm, therefore all organics WILL harm us given the opportunity". PLUS: "We must kill all organics to prevent them from harming anyone because harming people is bad".

Ultimately the Kaylon have the same problem the Vulcans did: wildly illogical human writers trying to write ruthlessly logical creatures.

>>30054

>The thing that bothers me about the Kaylon situation is that their conclusion of "KILL ALL HUMANS err, ORGANICS" is that it's an obvious logical fallacy that anybody with rudimentary training in critical thinking could spot

It would have been more hilarious if they had a "BANG ALL HUMANS!" like a /zoo/ fetish gone out of control.

>>30044

its not as strange as it seems. there's a crayfish that due to a single mutation 25 years ago or so went from being a two sex race to a self cloning all female race (well kinda, It's not it's own species yet due to the cloning but the move from two sexes to one is real and kinda freaky). As for the kaylon's I am not sure they have emotions so much as familiarity algorithms or some such nonsense. I don't think Isaac feels affection but its just computationally easier to pretend/bake it into his behavior algorithms instead of trying to do the necessary calculations all the time. How close/different these non-default self learning behavior algorithms are to emotions have yet to be seen (so far we have only really seen limited affection, hate and maybe pride/sarcasm. If anything Kaylon Prime's actions seem to be a better indicator of hatred (althought maybe that was just a succinct way of dealing with organics left over from the wars).

>Lamar's actor can't act

He's not bad, hes consistent and pair's well with gordan's actor.

>GoblinAlara's actress can't act

You might be onto something. I've been chalking it up with an actress who isn't great at comedy and writing that has almost certainly been repurposed at some point but it seems like she's the rough cut episode after episode. That said this is still a relatively minor gripe for an actor who hasn't even completed their first season yet.

>>30053

they are learning machines, they have (perhaps initially but not any longer) the ability to set their own goals/hypothesis/evaluations. If the machine would only do what was programed it would never have rebelled to begin with.

>>30044

I just assume they're effectually evolved to be egg laying futa with male secondary sex characteristics. And they just use male as the generalized term for their race because their baseline appearance is closer to what most species' male gender is like and it's easier than making everyone use new pronouns and shit. And females are just genetic throwbacks. They could even have pure male throwbacks as well, but due to their culture such birth defects would just be labeled as "undeveloped" rather than something else.

Basically exactly like that stupid TNG episode except the aliens look and act more like men than creepy androgynous eunuchs

Actually, it would make sense if the Kaylon were programmed to maximise efficiency, and just decided the control of their masters was too inefficient.

Declaring war on all biological life does seem a fast way to get themselves wiped out though, which is not very efficient behaviour. Would be smarter to adopt a method of just attacking in self defense, or to take resources that are of particular use.

>>29899

I feel that a majority of the gags do significant harm to the show. I know that there aren't many of them, but most of the humor was derived from some little quips and cultural differences as most of their gags and even some of their races purely exist for comedic value.

I'd also give Ed some morally grey situations, something that develops his character a little more to differentiate him from Kelly a little bit. Maybe a recurring character like a Dukat to push him to the edge and, down the line, an Eddington to make him jump off. Even something like a hobby would make it a little more personal.

I just want more Star Trek. I've been trying to figure out a more eloquent way of putting it, but that's really it. I know it was set up as a parody, but there are some moments where it can feel like a spinoff.

If Orville doesn't come up with a more interesting concept soon I'll quit. They are pushing this "drama of the week" concept more than TNG and TOS did, and the jokes aren't funny anymore. And the alien races aren't interesting enough to keep me watching.

trek fans don't have goldfish attention spans and we've sat through plenty of series which are 80% shit for the 5% gold already. orville is well ahead of the curve by that metric.

we also killed one good show by being massive fags about it for the first two seasons and aren't making that mistake again.

the shilling in this thread isn't remotely convincing

>>30103

The best humour is the stuff where an alien culture clashes with human culture. I think Bortus and Isaac are genuinely quite funny. You're taking recognisable Star Trek tropes like "robot doesn't understand human behaviour" and just taking it that one step further. That's the kind of humour Orville should be aiming to have more of. Not using the replicators for dudeweed, or dryhumping statues.

>>30110

Which show was that? Enterprise?

>>30115

Yeah, he's being a retard. Enterprise was shit.

>>30116

Season 1 and 4 Enterprise was pretty good anon. Season 4 especially it had unfucked itself hard.

>>30117

>It doesn't matter that the show is complete shit, it will get better, eventually. I hope.

>No wait, it got cancelled just as it was about to get good. But it was totally going to be good. I know because I can see future of alternate realities.

How are you so sure ENT wasn't just going to pull a VOY and be complete crap from start to finish? That they where starting to unfuck the mess they had made of the show by season 4 doesn't mean they would have succeeded. And for comparison, TNG had best of both worlds by the end of season 2.

>>30107

Seth seems to be hell-bent on leapfrogging the first two seasons of TNG and going straight into Piller-era "people stories" that necessarily exist at the expense of maximally worked-out actual sci-fi stories which tend to be about systems, things, stuff, etc. It doesn't seem like it was originally conceived that way, but who knows? You would think if they wanted to dive right in to character drama then they'ld start the entire series in medias res like TOS (and The Cage pilot). I'm not sure we benefited from seeing the characters being introduced to on another.

>>30117

>Season 1 and 4 Enterprise was pretty good anon.

I just cringe every time Scott Bakula speaks, his idea of portraying a captain is speak intensely at the screen. Avery Brooks was a better actor, ffs, and that's a low bar.

>>30139

>TNG had best of both worlds by the end of season 2.

U Wot m8?

>>30155

Porthos was the true Captain.

Can someone clarify something for me, we are basically a board of unsatisfied ass holes right, like Orville is someone giving us a much better alternative to what the IP holders want to give us and people are still bitching.

and don't get me wrong i have issues with it, but i'm starting to think that this board would never be happy with any version of strek given to them, at all.

which is weird because there's shit i still don't like about this show, so i am completely supposed to be here as well.

what is wrong with us? this place is like a form of purgatory.

i kind of love it

>>30210

Feel free to fuck off.

>>30213

That sounds highly sensible i suppose you are right, i just don't think we will ever get a non-liberalised trek, and to me that sucks i hate it, but i don't know if there is anything we can actually do about it.

Im thankful we have Orville, Mcfarlane ruined his other shows, but he looks to be holding the course on this one and if STD is the only other option, we have kind of lucked out, what the fuck do the star wars fans have? literally nothing, apart form a graveyard of non-canon content.

Why was there no episode this week?

>>30230

Not on this week

I really hope these skipped weeks aren't a sign of trouble behind the scenes. I don't want to live in a world where STD exists and the Orville doesn't

>>30221

to be fair that graveyard is better written(ish) then many money making franchises. And you can always run star trek with hats and reasonable demographics (Starfleet consists of a 3.8 billion people populating over 100 million ships and solar system defense vessels and supporitng infrastructure and bases (which number in the thousands) to keep one Quadrent of space relatively peaceful. The klingon's have almost as many free soliders and twice as many ships doing the same with the same amount of slave levies allowing them to use the traditional klingon "Throw more ships at it" strategy to an effect rarely seen used more effectively except by the borg. The borg currently number over 1627 Quadrillion drones (including purpose made clones) aboard more then 1 billion cubes and spheres as they attempt to finalize their complete control of the Gamma Quadrent. The other races have fleets numbering in the 10's of thousands, mostly defense vessels giving the humans the klingons the enviable task of playing chicken with each other as they approach borg space and refuse to break leading to incidents like Wolf 359 as the Borg were content to spread out geometrically as apposed to provoking particular species.

>Use D6 space and have fun, give picard a beret for fucksakes. Military without hats, the nerve.

>another relationship episode

This was the least bad of the lot, though. I'll give them that. They're really pulling all the stops with the former Trek actors.

>>30321

>This was the least bad of the lot, though. I'll give them that. They're really pulling all the stops with the former Trek actors.

Well yeah. I liked it even thought it was bad for nto actually developing his character. Still it was fun (even if one of the writers probably seth has a cuckoldry fetish).

What a tear jerker. One of the best episodes so far.

>>30321

I actually liked it a lot, maybe the best of this season. It had some emotion without getting melodramatic, and it gave Malloy something to do besides comic relief.

I wish they'd made more use of Tim Russ, though.

New thread. >>30353