The Orville |OT| MacFarlane's sci-fi com-, wait it's a drama!? That can't be right

I can't quite explain why, but I love this show

I like to imagine this stuff is kind of like what goes on in between episodes of TNG

Better than the new star trek war mongering trash, although I only watched the first episode of that.
 
LiQuid! said:
All the sight gags with the leg this episode were priceless. I nearly died when he showed up on the bridge with the floppy, shitty, half-leg. .
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And then they messed it up with the leg that fell from the ceiling being amputated at a higher point (groin/thigh) than where it was amputated at the knee on the crew member.

Sloppy.
 
jiji said:
Sometimes with this show I can't tell if Seth is ripping stuff off just to show that he loves it, because he wants to parody it, or because he doesn't have any ideas of his own.
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Honestly I'm willing to chalk it up to Star Trek being the The Simpsons of sci-fi. You can't avoid retreading their ground, because Star Trek has done everything.
Including the Scottish sex ghost.
 
it does seem like a bunch of idiots trying to act like they know what theyre doing

but they dont play it like that at all, so its not really that funny or satirical.


this ep was fine, probably the second or third best. last week's was probably better
 
Ri'Orius said:
Honestly I'm willing to chalk it up to Star Trek being the The Simpsons of sci-fi. You can't avoid retreading their ground, because Star Trek has done everything.
Including the Scottish sex ghost.
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Actually it's because he is a huge fan of TNG. What he wanted was for CBS to make a new series in the same style as TNG because many shows have been moving away from that.

That it's like TNG is no accident.
 
aliengmr said:
Actually it's because he is a huge fan of TNG. What he wanted was for CBS to make a new series in the same style as TNG because many shows have been moving away from that.

That it's like TNG is no accident.
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The next generation was largely humorless. If anything, I think Orville is more in the spirit of the original show.

I'm surprised at how much I like the cast for Orville, even the newly introduced engineer. This latest episode had some funny moments, and -- should it last that long -- may have set up a recurring foil.
 
That episode was really good. The Humor was better than before and the story felt like a nice mash-up of ST episodes.


I really enjoy this show.
 
firehawk12 said:
I know this is pointlessly pedantic, but this is basically what Star Trek conversations were like so it's fine. lol

But anyway, if time is linear and you can change the past from the future, then why would taking out the wormhole also remove Pria from the current timeline unless saving the Orville prevents her from being born - in which case, he really did change the future and wipe it out.

If time is a continuum and everything happens at the same time, then cause and effect is broken and there's a future where Pria wouldn't know the Orville would have been destroyed, which means she wouldn't have come back for it in the first place, which means that it wouldn't have been saved, etc etc.

Maybe it's like that Worf episode with the thousand different realities, and they just created thousands of new branches and there is a timeline where destroying the wormhole also destroyed the Orville.
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Its nice to discuss this I have been waiting for a trek like show for a while to get that old feeling again.

I have to assume time isn't linear in the Orville universe Mercer brought up quantum science. In general time is continuous in quantum mechanics but there are alternative theories that time is not linear and I think that is what the Orville universe is hinting at. For the human perspective time only can be linear, and to steal a line from Interstellar but to other "time might be another physical dimension. To them, the past might be a canyon that they can climb into, and the future, a mountain that they can climb up". So the possibility that time is not what humans can perceive it to be is open to interpretation/measurement.

I might be thinking way to deep into this for a Seth MacFarlane show but the fact that Frakes directed this episode gives me hope that I'm not taking crazy pills. I thought it was really smart sci-fi that its the wormhole causing the fluctuation in the the timeline, and as long as it exist in the past the changes from it remain. So the paradox that the Orville still exist does not matter if Pria caused it or not the wormhole affect on the time line allows the Orville to exist.
 
Ducarmel said:
Its nice to discuss this I have been waiting for a trek like show for a while to get that old feeling again.

I have to assume time isn't linear in the Orville universe Mercer brought up quantum science. In general time is continuous in quantum mechanics but there are alternative theories that time is not linear and I think that is what the Orville universe is hinting at. For the human perspective time only can be linear, and to steal a line from Interstellar but to other "time might be another physical dimension. To them, the past might be a canyon that they can climb into, and the future, a mountain that they can climb up". So the possibility that time is not what humans can perceive it to be is open to interpretation/measurement.

I might be thinking way to deep into this for a Seth MacFarlane show but the fact that Frakes directed this episode gives me hope that I'm not taking crazy pills. I thought it was really smart sci-fi that its the wormhole causing the fluctuation in the the timeline, and as long as it exist in the past the changes from it remain. So the paradox that the Orville still exist does not matter if Pria caused it or not the wormhole affect on the time line allows the Orville to exist.
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So just watching it again, I think the confusing thing to me is that when he says he's going to destroy the wormhole, she says, "And we'll have never met. You'll still be that messed up guy who can't get over his ex-wife. Is that what you want?"

Now I guess this could be read a couple of ways - she's saying that him choosing to destroy the wormhole is a form of living in denial, so it's more a comment on his psychological state than anything else. But then, why would she disappear if that was the case?

Or she means it literally, that they won't have met because she never would have come back in time and he won't have any memories of her, which implies the weird paradox of them being saved but not being saved.

They also make a point of showing him keep her personal transporter device, which could be a potential plot point later... but why would that piece of technology stay if she gets removed from the timeline?

I'm probably thinking about this too much though. lol
 
jiji said:
Nah, I disagree with this. TNG and TOS both took similar amounts of time for moments of levity. Neither of them really indulged in comedy aside from specific episodes.
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There's different types of comedy. None of the Star Treks was ever LOL funny, but the original series had a whimsy and clever nature about it that the next generation did not.

The next generation thought Joe Piscopo was funny.
 
firehawk12 said:
So just watching it again, I think the confusing thing to me is that when he says he's going to destroy the wormhole, she says, "And we'll have never met. You'll still be that messed up guy who can't get over his ex-wife. Is that what you want?"

Now I guess this could be read a couple of ways - she's saying that him choosing to destroy the wormhole is a form of living in denial, so it's more a comment on his psychological state than anything else. But then, why would she disappear if that was the case?

Or she means it literally, that they won't have met because she never would have come back in time and he won't have any memories of her, which implies the weird paradox of them being saved but not being saved.

They also make a point of showing him keep her personal transporter device, which could be a potential plot point later... but why would that piece of technology stay if she gets removed from the timeline?

I'm probably thinking about this too much though. lol
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Yup, I think we are thinking about this way more than the writers ever did lol

I am enjoying the show tho and I was very cautious since the first trailer since I'm not really a fan of Seths style of comedy.
 
I really liked episode 5. Good stuff all around. Surprised when I saw Theron - how did they get her? She's still one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Surprising. Perhaps her and MacFarlane are buddies.

I get what they meant with the ending, I just don't think it was an easier way for them to wrap it up.

MC Safety said:
There's different types of comedy. None of the Star Treks was ever LOL funny, but the original series had a whimsy and clever nature about it that the next generation did not.

The next generation thought Joe Piscopo was funny.
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I would say that TNG humor was purposefully designed to be as inoffensive or nonaggressive as possible, probably for who they assumed the audience was.
 
Apt101 said:
I really liked episode 5. Good stuff all around. Surprised when I saw Theron - how did they get her? She's still one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Surprising. Perhaps her and MacFarlane are buddies.

I get what they meant with the ending, I just don't think it was an easier way for them to wrap it up.



I would say that TNG humor was purposefully designed to be as inoffensive or nonaggressive as possible, probably for who they assumed the audience was.
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They are. They were in a movie together that MacFarlane directed.
 
What is so hard to understand, while the wormhole was linked to that time period any changes to the past failed to take effect in the future, when it was closed the effects kicked in and the future changed to one where she never travelled back in time to the Orville (as it didn't blow up then anymore), so she vanished.

The Orville was saved by a ghost of a non-existent timeline.
 
Stallion Dan said:
What is so hard to understand, while the wormhole was linked to that time period any changes to the past failed to take effect in the future, when it was closed the effects kicked in and the future changed to one where she never travelled back in time to the Orville (as it didn't blow up then anymore), so she vanished.

The Orville was saved by a ghost of a non-existent timeline.
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Then she wouldn't have travelled to the past and they'd all be dead. I mean it was established she came from a time when it either did explode, or it disappeared due to her stealing it and everyone thought it exploded.
 
Napoleonthechimp said:
Then she wouldn't have travelled to the past and they'd all be dead. I mean it was established she came from a time when it either did explode, or it disappeared due to her stealing it and everyone thought it exploded.
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She already travelled back to the past, in the timeline that was erased. The new timeline version of her doesn't need do it too.
 
Stallion Dan said:
She already travelled back to the past, in the timeline that was erased. The new timeline version of her doesn't need do it too.
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They are only there in that exact point in space time because of her. If she never turned up then they'd presumably be somewhere different. But Macfarlane's character is sitting in the same seat with the same dumb expression on his face as he had before she disappeared.

I vividly remember a couple of Star Trek episodes doing the "end of episode" reset whenever this kind of topic played out.
 
Napoleonthechimp said:
They are only there in that exact point in space time because of her. If she never turned up then they'd presumably be somewhere different. But Macfarlane's character is sitting in the same seat with the same dumb expression on his face as he had before she disappeared.

I vividly remember a couple of Star Trek episodes doing the "end of episode" reset whenever this kind of topic played out.
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Voyager did it several times,

It just doesn't make any sense,
 
To be honest, once I got over the fact that the show was not what the ads were selling, I've started to warm up to it. The humor feels a little out of place a lot of the time and it's definitely retreading concepts from older better shows, but it's kind of refreshing to have a show that's an earnest attempt at recreating TNG while not being super self serious.
 
My wife was a huge TNG fan but she's not warming to this show at all. She hates Family Guy so I think the McFarlane bias is working against it. I'm seeing this more and more as a spiritual successor to TNG with dick jokes. Or maybe she just doesn't like dumb humor in her scifi. I can take or leave the humor. I've chuckled a few times, but I'm enjoying the show more for the story than the jokes, which is pretty shocking.

I also think Norm McDonald is way underutilized. He needs more of a backstory than "haha, I'm slime" but they need to use his dry humor more.
 
Jag said:
My wife was a huge TNG fan but she's not warming to this show at all. She hates Family Guy so I think the McFarlane bias is working against it. I'm seeing this more and more as a spiritual successor to TNG with dick jokes. Or maybe she just doesn't like dumb humor in her scifi. I can take or leave the humor. I've chuckled a few times, but I'm enjoying the show more for the story than the jokes, which is pretty shocking.

I also think Norm McDonald is way underutilized. He needs more of a backstory than "haha, I'm slime" but they need to use his dry humor more.
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Norm would steal the show if they let him though. My god I hope everyones seen mike tysons mysteries.
 
Just caught ep 5. He didn't say dick, but then acted like one and shagged the time traveler.

I think 2 more eps of this and I'll have to stop posting.
 
I had no idea MacFarlane was on Enterprise:
s7inMkWl.jpg


lol
 
Jon Cassar (who directed 59 episodes of 24) directed tonight's episode. It'll definitely be action-packed
(which makes sense given the preview)
.
 
This show is a giant love letter to TNG and I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Honestly, if they'd tone down some of the dumb humor a little more it would be perfect.
 
I wanted to hate this show, but it’s growing on me. The humor can be spot on but also out of place depending on the scene, but I’m genuinely laughing throughout. And the rest of the show I really enjoy, the cast is really good, the special effects are great for this kind of TV show and the ideas so far are interesting.

What surprises me the most is that 4 episodes in we’ve already had Liam Neeson and Charlize Theron as guest stars. Theron especially was basically the entire episode, didn’t expect this show to have that kind of firepower. (Neeson was a real short cameo but still, it’s a pretty big name for something like this)
 
Sucks that this show comes on at the same time Thursday night football comes on

(Yes. I'm one of those extremely rare geeks who is also a casual sports fan)
 
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