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The Orville Season 2


Ser Scot A Ellison

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So, it’s back.  The Sunday opener about Bortus taking his annual pee was pretty weak.  The normal time season opener was better.  I thought the way they interlaced the “Bortus has a porn addiction” plot with the “rescue survivors of the dying planet” plot was pretty well done.

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I like this show a lot more than I thought I would... granted, its not A-list TV, but its a fun watch...  it's utterly derivative of Star Trek, but it's self aware insofar as it realizes when its silly.... there will be stretches when there's no attempt at humor, and  suddenly something absurd happens... but what i think makes this show enjoyable is that Seth McFarlane is a complete nerd, and this is less of a satire and more a labor of love... 

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1 hour ago, Martini Sigil said:

I like this show a lot more than I thought I would... granted, its not A-list TV, but its a fun watch...  it's utterly derivative of Star Trek, but it's self aware insofar as it realizes when its silly.... there will be stretches when there's no attempt at humor, and  suddenly something absurd happens... but what i think makes this show enjoyable is that Seth McFarlane is a complete nerd, and this is less of a satire and more a labor of love... 

Completely agree with all of that.  I will say that I think that even with the humor, it's spiritually a stronger successor to ST:TOS than a number of the following series.

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6 hours ago, hauberk said:

Completely agree with all of that.  I will say that I think that even with the humor, it's spiritually a stronger successor to ST:TOS than a number of the following series.

right... every once in a while TOS would do a comedy episode like Trouble with Tribbles, or A Piece of the Action....  The Orville is more in line with those, only with TNG style aliens and uniforms.... 

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18 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

right... every once in a while TOS would do a comedy episode like Trouble with Tribbles, or A Piece of the Action....  The Orville is more in line with those, only with TNG style aliens and uniforms.... 

We are on the same page.  

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Man, it really feels like watching ST:TNG doesn't it?

Only I hope The Orville goes back to science-fiction at some point. In these first two S2 episodes, the sci-fi setting is more of an excuse to discuss social issues while in the first season most episodes were genuine sci-fi IIRC.
I like the TNG vibe but I don't like the Orville characters enough to keep watching them grapple with purely social issues.

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I like this show. The interspecies sexual relations is just plain weird, though.

Love the humour in general. Dan the Elevator music guy was great. As was the pilot referring to the wormhole thing as a glory hole. Haha.

The practical joke when Isaac cut off the guy’s leg was great too.

Just cut out the sex with blobs of slime, blue aliens and reptilian looking Krill, though please. It makes no sense at all and is gross.

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Yesterday I somehow managed to watch the first episode of the season. Admittedly, I was having a bit trouble paying attention because of other things, but I still found it pretty meh. I had hoped after the end of last season this whole Ed/Kelly relationship nonsense was behind us, given that I always found it the worst part of the show. So devoting half an episode to it (again) certainly annoyed me. It felt like a bloody reset button.

The part about Dr. Finn's son and his teenage rebellion phase was also absurdly predictable and couldn't move me much (aside the fact that I found Isaac negatively insufferable in this as Dr. Finn brushed his constant insults off). At least I got a small chuckle out of Lamarr's terrible dating advice to Malloy, the trip to the holodeck was the only enjoyable part here.

But from what I've read, the other episodes seem to be getting back on track so far, so I'm looking forward to them.

On 1/12/2019 at 3:37 AM, Rippounet said:

I like the TNG vibe but I don't like the Orville characters enough to keep watching them grapple with purely social issues.

My thoughts exactly. I think I would like what they are doing much more if we had gotten more time to care for these characters. We had only a single episode so far about Dr. Finn's sons and it was pretty good. But this rebellious attitude now only existed for the sake of this episode without any previous character development on that part, which made the point of the episode feel hollow and watching a parent-teacher-conference like a meaningless chore.

It's a shame. The show does strike the right chords, but it does too early. At least you can feel the love poured into these characters, otherwise the writers wouldn't bother so much.

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On 1/11/2019 at 8:37 PM, Rippounet said:

Man, it really feels like watching ST:TNG doesn't it?

Only I hope The Orville goes back to science-fiction at some point. In these first two S2 episodes, the sci-fi setting is more of an excuse to discuss social issues while in the first season most episodes were genuine sci-fi IIRC.
I like the TNG vibe but I don't like the Orville characters enough to keep watching them grapple with purely social issues.

 

To the point I’m surprised Seth can get away with how much of a TNG rip it is.  The only differences are the poop/pee/fart jokes and Seth’s moralizing gets to Ayn Randian ‘beat you over the head with my views’ level.  Gets a little cringey. 

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4 hours ago, Charles Calthrop said:

To the point I’m surprised Seth can get away with how much of a TNG rip it is.  The only differences are the poop/pee/fart jokes and Seth’s moralizing gets to Ayn Randian ‘beat you over the head with my views’ level.  Gets a little cringey. 

Have you seen a TNG episode recently? That's exactly what it did in its heyday! That's what makes The Orville so great at capturing its spirit! Minus the hit-or-miss attempts at humor of course.

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On 1/27/2019 at 7:39 PM, SpaceChampion said:

I want different shows to be different shows.  So TNG is exactly what I don't want out of The Orville.  It annoys me, but I watch.  At least they didn't take out the security officer with a black oil slick.

Mmh... to each their own I guess. Since there is no other episodic Star Trek show around that hits all the right buttons, I'll take it.

Anyway, this weekend I finally moved on to the second episode. And must admit, it could have been far better. The "survivors of a dying race whose planet is about to be eaten by its star" storyline was creative and still straight-forward and did just about everything right. So... why the hell is it just the B-plot? Why has Bortus all the focus and the survivors only show up after half the episode? They haven't even gotten any attention after their rescue because everything was focused on Bortus' relationship trouble. A shame. It could have been the other way around and it wouldn't have been spectacular sci-fi... it still was, though. I also liked the CGI. Especially the shot of the Orville getting its hull plates ripped off by the star's gravity well. That looked extremely cool!

Speaking of Bortus' porn addiction plot... I kinda liked the sorry attempt to link it with the events of "About a girl" and how it's the result of Bortus having grown apart from his husband. And yet, since we haven't gotten any clues before he says so (Show, don't tell! Damn it!), it still felt very contrived the same way Dr. Finn's son's behavior felt in the last episode. Only there to drive the plot. Not that classic Star Trek wasn't known to bend its characters' values for the very same reason, but at least it usually wasn't the whole conflict of the A-plot that hinged on it.

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Okay... I just finished episode 3... and it broke me. I love it, but it still broke me. Amazing episode. Robert Picardo and John Billingsley obviously had a blast playing each other off. The writing was thoroughly decent, a few heavy-handed lines notwithstanding. And as a character-centric episode it worked obviously because Alara so far has been the most well developed character among the cast. It really blew me away from start to finish. Heck, I was always confused as to why Alara doesn't suffer from muscle atrophy before, so having the episode revolving around it and going out of its way to state that this is normal for her people (since it is!), it was a triumphing moment of pure logic that built the plot. But this end...

Spoiler

I'm so utterly mad that Alara has left... apparently MacFarlane hopes she returns, that's why all the doors were kept open. I don't know whether this is because the actress got other roles or whether there are problems behind the scenes (as I have now seen people speculating), but it really awfully saddens me. Alara had been my favourite character so far, damn it... I pray she comes back next season. I mean... only wanting to stay a bit after her father said one nice thing to her? That can't be forever...

Really, the only thing that makes me raise my eyebrows is the fact that the Orville is zooming across Union space for main cast members to solve personal matters. That's something that irks my for quite a while actually. In ol' Star Trek they would have just dropped them off with shuttles while the Enterprise keeps doing its job where it is. It just doesn't feel like something any exploration vessel in any proper organization would do.

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Still catching up...can't believe Alara actually left...

I still have no serious issue with the show. Occasional clunky writing? So what. Reversing what seems like the A and B plots? That almost feels like design.  It's a show aping Next Generation, but at the same time it's not...it works on a basic level...

There's actually some strengths to MacFarlane having that stable of actors, from his other shows, and the relationships he's built up with the star trek community over the years...this just feels like the show meant to be using that live action talent...

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