The Orville Catch All - Beware: Spoilers!

This week's episode didn’t land for me at all. They had a fantastic set up with the Krill, but killed it with the (way too often) awkward bumbling attempts at humor.

It’s fine if they do serious and then break the tension occasionally with a dick joke, but I’m starting to feel like there aren’t any real stakes. It still feels like an exaggerated caricature.

Yeah, the idiocy in a deadly situation didn't land with us either. I do think, though, that the episode recovered at the end with the choices in front of Ed and the resolution.

The humor in this show is dreadful and ill timed. It could be such a good show if they just f*cking stopped! They can't get it right.

Rewatching TNG season 1 and my did they get a lot long. Orville learned from a lot of those mistakes, while emulating the good.

The humor... yes. Some of it is not suited for the tone of everything else around it. Sometimes it fits fine. But, I don’t think the show would suffer with a 75% drop in jokes. It’s still far less joke focused than I expected.

Gaald wrote:

The humor in this show is dreadful and ill timed. It could be such a good show if they just f*cking stopped! They can't get it right.

But then it would just be Star Trek. I understand if that's what you want. I'm just glad this isn't "Douche bags in Space" because I'm enjoying the idea that just because we become a space faring society doesn't mean that we're any more enlightened than we were before.

Gaald wrote:

The humor in this show is dreadful and ill timed. It could be such a good show if they just f*cking stopped! They can't get it right.

IMO this is very much Star trek through the lens of Seth McFarlane's sense of humor. If you don't enjoy McFarlane's comedic sense you definitely won't enjoy the show, but that slightly awkward timing is very much his intentional style.

I was sold from the moment I saw the dog licking its balls in the background of the video screen. Brilliant setup and punch.

Mixolyde wrote:

I was sold from the moment I saw the dog licking its balls in the background of the video screen. Brilliant setup and punch.

"Did you see that dog licking it's balls..." "yea man"

Grenn wrote:
Gaald wrote:

The humor in this show is dreadful and ill timed. It could be such a good show if they just f*cking stopped! They can't get it right.

But then it would just be Star Trek. I understand if that's what you want. I'm just glad this isn't "Douche bags in Space" because I'm enjoying the idea that just because we become a space faring society doesn't mean that we're any more enlightened than we were before.

No, if they got the humor right then it would be like Galaxy Quest or Red Shirts: something that fully embraces the Star Trek universe (and sci-fi tropes in general) and has a lot of fun doing so. Heck, I would have taken The Office in Space.

Instead we have someone making a sort of serious Star Trek knock-off who then bolts on some terrible, ill-timed jokes and awkward sitcom premises.

The 'serious' premises take viewers out of the comedy and the comedy takes viewers out of the 'serious' premises. You end up with a show that just doesn't work on multiple levels.

I'm having a good time with both The Orville and Discovery.

But I've always found the vast majority of pre-Abrams Trek to be a bit of a bore so I guess that's not surprising. The amount of enjoyment I get out of any given piece of Trek seems directly proportionate to how much most Trek fanatics are annoyed and upset by it.

Except Wrath of Khan. But I mean... of course.

Thin_J wrote:

I'm having a good time with both The Orville and Discovery.

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

IMAGE(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f8/d0/9e/f8d09e19cd51012d0454bc57b26b3abe--star-trek-tos-star-wars.jpg)

Those nipples seem really far apart. Maybe it's just me?

Far apart and especially sharp.

thrawn82 wrote:

Far apart and especially sharp.

A valid description of my vocal abilities.

LOVED this weeks episode.
The Reddit-pisode

Of course, the silly ways they saved John from brain-melting, is totally true. Reddit can be a fickle pickle.

My 15 year-old and I enjoyed it, too. Definitely in the spirit of ST: TOS and TNG. It was an opportunity to discuss civics, how free world nations are not pure democracies, and why that is a good thing.

It's very scary to think that the majority can trump educated experts, science and even the rule of law on any matter.

One nitpick:

Spoiler:

Unless the total population of badge wearers is under 20 million, the number 10 million (the level where "correction" is required) should not be significant. On our world, any famous person could exceed that number of dislikes, even if they are widely popular with the majority. For the show, it's a nice scary big round number, so maybe that's all that matters.

I'm committed to the show now and hope it gets renewed. But they still have to find a balance between the legit story lines and the poorly-timed humor. It's like the Earthlings are all pot-smoking academy dropouts, but the fleet was desperate so commissioned them anyway. Yet the alien characters: Alara, Isaac, and Bortus tolerate their complete lack of discipline and professionalism. It's funny, but odd.

I liked the episode, but as with the gender one it touched on an interesting issue but explored it in a rather shallow way. I get that it's supposed to be more light-hearted and comedic, but I think they can do that in different episodes.

This episode missed for me again too. They have great ideas, but the acting and “jokes” are starting to wear on me. The whole premise was too contrived: professional officer who is under cover does the most noticeable in-public activity. Then the future-advanced starfleet says, “sorry, he's on his own.”

I did like the line: “Why would anyone need a cup that big.”

PaladinTom wrote:

I did like the line: “Why would anyone need a cup that big.”

Also, 'I sing.'

‘The Orville’ Renewed For Season 2 By Fox

Seth MacFarlane’s space adventure series The Orville has been picked up for a second season by Fox. The decision comes seven episodes into The Orville‘s 13-episode first season. Because of the show’s elaborate production and post-production, including visual effects, The Orville had been intended for a limited season, and the early renewal will give it a head start on Season 2 whose exact length is TBD.

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAAYAAAYAYAYAAY

Veloxi wrote:

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAAYAAAYAYAYAAY

You took the incoherent babbling right out of my word-hole.

Holy crap, that last episode y'all. SO GOOD. Doctor Finn is quickly moving up my favorite character rankings.

I meant to come here over the weekend when I watched it. That episode was amazing. It was perfect. All the heart and soul and story of Trek, none of the high mindedness that gets in the way of some of the more 'real' situations, none of the worst awkward Macfarlane humor.

Spoiler:

Like the whole subplot with Dr. Finn and her captor? They didn't talk down to the audience to explain how bad the situation was, they didn't try to sermonize about why war is bad or biological weapons are bad. Those things were understood and we just have a biased and unreliable account of what happened which isn't nearly as important as the fact that Finn is trapped with a man of some severe ill intent for her. Even the fact that she clearly killed the man while escaping and later tells her son 'we don't kill' (just before Orville comes in and blows a bunch of them up) doesn't feel like a slip up in any way: She is trying to teach her son right from wrong in a world full of gray and that you've always got to try.

I loved the moment Isaac gives up talking to the kids and just starts spewing every single thing Finn yelled at them to get them to shut up. I loved the brother interactions and the older brother's guilt. I loved that it's hard to say exactly what was happening in the moment where Finn says she can't just watch while her son dies... I swear when Isaac says "I'll be outside" that he expected her to end it. And I'm not 100% sure he was supposed to be wrong in thinking that.

I just keep playing it in my head, everything about that was excellent.

Edit: this episode was written by Brannon Braga & Andre Bormanis, two Star Trek writers, and it's the first one not written by Seth Macfarlane (with one other episode by David Goodman, also of Family Guy fame). I'm really hoping for more non-Macfarlane/Goodman written episodes because that was fantastic.

It's like, just enough MacFarlane humor. The whole soy sauce in the damage report thing was human enough to believe that someone would do it. All we need is Davis complaining about the stain in the background next episode.

This was the weakest and outright annoying episode. Hope we never get to see kids again.

Grenn wrote:

It's like, just enough MacFarlane humor. The whole soy sauce in the damage report thing was human enough to believe that someone would do it. All we need is Davis complaining about the stain in the background next episode.

The Glory Hole dialog was funny too.

Nevin73 wrote:

The Glory Hole dialog was funny too.

It's like the driest humor is the best. Both Bortus and Isaac have been HILARIOUS of late.

"I will not fail you."

Killed me.

Isaac has grown on me a lot. I thought he was a dumb ripoff and poorly executed. But he made huge strides this episode. There were some really tender touches. It should have been the "mother's day" episode.
I always felt that Dr. Finn was under utilized. I am glad they had an episode focused on her.