The Orville |OT| Open this pickle jar for me.

Yes yes! Thanks for the OP!

Returns tonight, can't wait!

Excited for the return tonight! :)

The best Star Trek show of 2017. :)

The show is legit good now [after a OKish premiere], but I hope they will tone down the comedy a bit as the season goes.

I love this show and was thinking of doing an OT, so you have my utmost respect OP. I enjoy this much more than ST: Discovery (not to say that I outright dislike that show).

So it looks like this is their take on The Prime Directive.

Maybe also a take on A Piece of the Action Star Trek episodes.

Haven't watched tonight's yet but I'm subscribing to this thread

Can't wait for some Star Trek: Lite, missed it last week.

Well that was an interesting commentary on how social media reacts when someone fucks up.

I enjoyed that one tonight, but it wasn't my favorite episode of Black Mirror.

New episode?

Let's get it Hulu!

Rowlf

should this be in the main EtcetERA forum? This thread is not going to get much traffic in here.

How active was this thread on GAF? Is there anybody that posted there that made the jump and hasn't posted here that you could PM? I'm hesitant to move this to EtcetEra, as it's been on for, what, a month or more?

Rowlf said:

How active was this thread on GAF? Is there anybody that posted there that made the jump and hasn't posted here that you could PM? I'm hesitant to move this to EtcetEra, as it's been on for, what, a month or more?

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I just checked it... about 655 replies in a little over a month, thought it'll be more than that for some reason :(

I posted there a little, I'm currently watching now. I'll post after I'm done

lol thanks for making this, even though I know some people will probably hate it.

I find it amazing that this is basically a TOS episode plus a Black Mirror episode. I'm impressed that they can rip off so much and presumably feel no guilt about it.

firehawk12 said:

lol thanks for making this, even though I know some people will probably hate it.

I find it amazing that this is basically a TOS episode plus a Black Mirror episode. I'm impressed that they can rip off so much and presumably feel no guilt about it.

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Lol yeah first thing I thought of "hey this is like that one eps.."

But they make it work, I liked it. I thought the dancing bit was stupid until it tied into the plot. Seth also stepped aside and let his crew handle it which was nice.

Oh man i did not have time the last two weeks to watch this. Can't wait for the weekend. I really love this dumb show.

Currently watching...upvote and downvote in RL

This is Reddit lol

I mean, this is literally a Black Mirror episode though. lol Like almost beat for beat...

DieH@rd said:

The best Star Trek show of 2017. :)

The show is legit good now [after a OKish premiere], but I hope they will tone down the comedy a bit as the season goes.

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Agreed.

This must have been a budget episode with the "exactly the same as earth but slightly different" lol

Dam this ep is BAD. Not even cuz of dick and fart jokes like the first couple episodes were bad. This was just a bad Black Mirror copypasta executed badly. Been loving this show in spite of its shortcomings, so this was actually more disappointing than the episodes that were bad before I started to like it.

Haven't seen the latest episode but glad someone made an Orville thread.

I think as long as the show/movie is a currently on the air it is okay to post it in the main section and not hangouts.

Yes! Glad this thread is back.

Yeah, that sure was the weirdest episode yet which is saying something after the zoo one. Definitely reminiscent of Black Mirror and I appreciate the effort, even if it didn't feel as well thought out as the third ep.

Had a few funny moments though; either Seth's humor is starting to grow on me or it just worked better here because all the references didn't seem as out of place in this setting.

I thought the episode was pretty good.

Apparently the Union has much lower recruiting standards than the Federation (except for the admirals).

I was trying to find this thread, really like this show. I agree it should be in the main forums since it's currently airing and people won't find it here.

Surprisingly enough, this episode my wife watched with me and now she is watching the previous ones. Couldn't get her to watch it before, but she loves black mirror and I think that's why, heh.

Himynameischris said:

This must have been a budget episode with the "exactly the same as earth but slightly different" lol

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Think about all the times TOS basically ended up on a version of Earth. lol

Yes, OrvilleERA is back.

I adored episode seven. What a great bit of commentary regarding social media. Oh, and J. Lee (LaMarr) did an AMA on the official subreddit (/r/TheOrville/), stickied. He's a trained classic pianist and writes for the show, seems like a cool guy.

Glad to finally read the thoughts of others who realized that episode was pretty derivative of the Black Mirror episode 'Nosedive' which explores a similar premise of the influence one's social desirability imparts in their every day lives. That got lost on my friends who for some reason haven't made the decision to watch Black Mirror even though I've been nagging them to give it a shot for the past couple years.

I didn't mind The Orville's take on dystopian fiction and social satire, but it just felt very identical from the start.

Regardless, I love the exploration of a society whose entire essence revolves around one's own constant self-consciousness and the interactions there with-in that are primarily defined by likability. Being forced to conform to particular ideals at the expense of one's own individualism and free will is both an uncomfortable and inescapable exploration of the direction our own society seems to be rapidly progressing towards and they handled it pretty well.

I was originally pretty hesitant to give this a chance and the most recent episode is the first one I've caught as it's aired. Binged the previous 6 a few nights ago and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Pretty good ensemble cast of characters too. They play well off of each other which I think is the main reason this show is working for me so far.

Black Mirror is a trashcan show and even it handle the social media thing better than this, so that's telling. It's ok tho Orville, I still love you. Every episodic sci-fi show is going to have some wack episodes, we can just move on.

LiQuid! said:

Black Mirror is a trashcan show and even it handle the social media thing better than this, so that's telling. It's ok tho Orville, I still love you. Every episodic sci-fi show is going to have some wack episodes, we can just move on.

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To be fair, I think Nosedive is the worst episode of Season 3, if not the entire series of Black Mirror, so I would say that at least Orville built a better story around the concept. That said, I'd still love for them to at last try not to "borrow" from someone else. Even the way the episode ended is ripped from a Voyager episode.

I really enjoyed this episode. Lamarr can still get some more fleshing out, but everyone else is great.

I wasn't a member of this forum yet when the latest episode aired, but I have to say that it was definitely my favorite episode, so far. It's also the first episode that I think is safe to state as unequivocally good. I can't remember any instances of the humor falling flat, and the story was original and pretty well done.

Edit: I made my reply before reading this thread, and I guess this episode was a ripoff of a Black Mirrors episode. So I guess the story wasn't as original as I thought, but it's still my favorite episode.

I haven't seen past the first episode of Discovery, but between that and the most recent movie the Orville feels more like Star Trek than Star Trek lately.

And one thing I like a lot about the Orville is it's not so stiff as Star Trek tends to be, which is a criticism I've had of the various series though I haven't seen all of them (and still found them to be generally enjoyable regardless). The characters on the Orville feel like they have more freedom to express themselves, even in sometimes kind of stupid ways, but people are kind of stupid sometimes -- which makes them feel a little more human.

Basically, 'goofballs running a starship' is a nice different take on the idea, and is free from the decades of history and expectations Star Trek is under.

It's a lot like I've been wanting from Star Trek for a while, actually. It just feels more fun.

The one thing I really enjoy is that Seth MacFarlane has decided not to introduce transporter technology in The Orville's universe.

He mentioned that he respected Roddenberry's vision but didn't want to completely mimic Star Trek. Not only is it a show of respect, but it also shows restraint. If there's a huge complaint about Star Trek, it's that too often they're able to write themselves out of any predicament by using transportation technology and extracting people from situations.

If we're going to compare it to Discovery, its narrative is hampered by the fact the ship can instantly appear anywhere in the galaxy if it needs to. Science Fiction is more interesting when it has limitations.

compo said:

Edit: I made my reply before reading this thread, and I guess this episode was a ripoff of a Black Mirrors episode. So I guess the story wasn't as original as I thought, but it's still my favorite episode.

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It was, but at the same time it should be noted that our society's obsession with social approval is an obvious target for satire and other shows besides Black Mirror and The Orville have tackled dystopian fiction as well. Community's 'App Development and Condiments' was really good on this front.

I am willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to The Orville here and think its most recent episode stands on its own merits, I just don't want to see every show's take on it become so derivative to the point where the premise suffers because of it. I really liked parts of this episode but there were certain aspects where the execution was lacking and felt a little bit labored.

It definitely felt like an episode out of order, which would be par for the course with FOX. Still, I enjoyed it.

I thought the episode was ok. Definitely felt like Black Mirror handled the whole 'social media is controlling our lives' concept better. I do appreciate that some of the other characters are getting more fleshed out. Episodes 3, 4, and 5 have been the strongest for me. We are now a little over half way through the season.

In contrast to nearly everyone here, I thought episode 7 was the worst after the season opener.

Having an exact replica of Earth in the 21st century is just too much and completely took me out of the show. The drop in quality from the last episode to this one is huge and this episode is just terrible throw away episode contributing nothing to the overall plot of the show.

Teddy said:

Having an exact replica of Earth in the 21st century is just too much and completely took me out of the show. The drop in quality from the last episode to this one is huge and this episode is just terrible throw away episode contributing nothing to the overall plot of the show.

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While I don't think it was the greatest episode (still liked it a lot), the whole "Planet exactly like __ century earth" is a Trek trope from way back. At least it saves some budget for an episode.

I gotta give the Orville credit, the first episode wasn't great but it's been getting better and better for the most part. The humor is pretty hit and miss (mostly misses for me) but the stories feel like solid TNG stories. It honesty feels more like Trek than Discovery a lot of the time.