The Orville Marathon

[Aotrs Commander]

I can't stand how unprofessional some of the characters are and they don't take their jobs seriously.

The odd dynamic between completely unprofessional and professional (Mercer, at least, tends to come down hard on that unprofessionalism when it actually starts causing problems) slash genre-savvy made me liken the show to what you would get if you took a fairly typical group of roleplayers and stuck them into someone's homebrew Star Trek rip-off and then made a series out of the transcripts.

Maybe it's the decades as DM, but I can just see that sort of stupidity without thought of consequence, only the DM (and the player of Mercer, some of the time) actually going "really? Really?" *sigh* "Okay then..." (My mates went through that sort of stage where they would find that sort of thing funny. I eventually trained them out of it after thirty years. Well, most of them anyway...)

So I find - in limited quantities - that, while perhaps "charm" would be too strong a word, it doesn't annoy me as much as it might. (As unlike in McFarlane's other works, there does tend to be logical consequences for that kind of childish buffoonry - see Majority Rule, for example.)

[Meushell]

I haven't seen Into the Fold just this review so if I'm wrong about this its cool to let me know. But if the guy holding her hostage was ill and didn't seem as bad as the others could she not just try to strike a deal with him to help her find her kids in exchange for medical aid. Even if I wasn't sure help was on the way or close I would still tell him about our advanced medical care or at least tell him we would get him off the planet where he could be more comfortable. There wasn't anything there that led me to believe he was beyond bargaining with.

She tried being reasonable with him. He made it clear that he wasn’t going to let her go.

[clearspira]

I can't stand how unprofessional some of the characters are and they don't take their jobs seriously.

So... like real life then. And really, in the liberal utopia that the show is mimicking, these sorts of people are actually far more likely to come about.

[TrueMetis]

What's liberal got to do with it? These guys don't seem unreasonably less professional than actual military members I know. I mean up until 2014 you could buy beer from vending machines on ship in the Royal Canadian Navy. Unless we find out that unlike the Federation the Planetary Union has a heavy military bent this seem perfectly fine to me.

[clearspira]

What's liberal got to do with it? These guys don't seem unreasonably less professional than actual military members I know. I mean up until 2014 you could buy beer from vending machines on ship in the Royal Canadian Navy. Unless we find out that unlike the Federation the Planetary Union has a heavy military bent this seem perfectly fine to me.

The more liberal a society the less restrictions you have and thus more likely that you will get free spirits who are inclined and encouraged to express themselves openly.
And seeing as you admit yourself that beer is now banned on Canadian ships and yet we have seen people openly drink on the Orville, its fair to say that the Union is above Canada on freedom.

[TrueMetis]

What's liberal got to do with it? These guys don't seem unreasonably less professional than actual military members I know. I mean up until 2014 you could buy beer from vending machines on ship in the Royal Canadian Navy. Unless we find out that unlike the Federation the Planetary Union has a heavy military bent this seem perfectly fine to me.

The more liberal a society the less restrictions you have and thus more likely that you will get free spirits who are inclined and encouraged to express themselves openly.
And seeing as you admit yourself that beer is now banned on Canadian ships and yet we have seen people openly drink on the Orville, its fair to say that the Union is above Canada on freedom.

Ah that makes sense.

It says something about how the word liberal is often used that someone using it correctly threw me off.

[Durandal_1707]

My short opinions on the first ten episodes:

Episode 1: Sort of like Galaxy Quest, but instead of the bits that were actually funny, let's have dick jokes.

Episode 2: Meh.

Episode 3: God dammit, Braga.

Episode 4: Basically a ripoff of "For the Earth is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," but ok

Episode 5: Am I the only one who was really unnerved by the amputation gag? The rest was fine, I guess, although the crew were acting like unprofessional idiots.

Episode 6: A really good plot idea here. So let's ruin it by having our characters act like complete idiots.

Episode 7: A pretty good Black Mirror-style plot here. So let's ruin it by having our characters act like complete idiots.

Episode 8: Best one so far. The interaction between Isaac and the kids is actually good, and Doctor Kasady is the one character I actually really like in this show—she's smart, competent, and doesn't mess around.

Episode 9: So let's have her get date raped. Oh yeah, let's have everyone else get date raped too. Hell, while we're at it, let's make quaaludes the solution to the problem of the week. What the F were they thinking? I need some brain bleach.

Episode 10: Ripoff of DS9's "Distant Voices" while somehow managing to make less sense.

[TheLibrarian]

So overall, I wasn't impressed with The Orville. There were a few good gags, but for the most part the comedy was lost on me. There were one or two episodes that were pretty solid, and another one or two with a promising premise but lousy execution, but as science fiction it was mostly a lot of recycling of old TOS/TNG ideas without doing anything interesting with them. It barely does any worldbuilding, it just seems to assume you know your Star Trek lore in and out. Maybe in the 1960s TOS could get away with being vague about the Prime Directive, but I kind of feel like The Orville should try and explain what their equivalent doctrine means for the Planetary Union before making it a central plot point of multiple episodes.

And as a Star Trek parody? Where's the parody? It's as much a parody of TNG as Fifty Shades of Grey is a parody of Twilight, i.e. fan-fiction with the serial numbers filed off to avoid being sued. And The Orville comes complete with the author's self-insert Mary Sue protagonist! I can't otherwise explain why every other character on the show follows this incompetent, unprofessional commanding officer portrayed by the show's creator and primary writer so willingly. So many of the episodes centre around Ed, which is one thing, but even most of the episodes that ostensibly focus on other members of the cast still manage to loop in a subplot for Ed!

But as much as I don't like the show, seeing how much McFarlane is invested in this particular project is a fascinating look into his psyche. Like Trek, most episodes centre around a social issue of some kind. But it's interesting how many of them are things that primarily concern a rich, successful, secular straight white man with a large public profile. "What if my partner was unfaithful to me?" "What if I got swarmed by a Twitter mob over a minor thing--would my reputation ever recover?" "How tenuous is my position and status?" "What if those crazy religious zealots were in charge?"

I won't spoil the first episode of season 2 (haven't seen ep 2 yet), but the framing device about Bortus' "annual ritual" was genuinely hilarious and got my hopes up. Unfortunately, the rest of the episode was just a bunch of hacky 80s sitcom plots. sigh

[Sir Will]

My short opinions on the first ten episodes:

Episode 1: Sort of like Galaxy Quest, but instead of the bits that were actually funny, let's have dick jokes.

Episode 2: Meh.

Episode 3: God dammit, Braga.

Episode 4: Basically a ripoff of "For the Earth is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," but ok

Episode 5: Am I the only one who was really unnerved by the amputation gag? The rest was fine, I guess, although the crew were acting like unprofessional idiots.

Episode 6: A really good plot idea here. So let's ruin it by having our characters act like complete idiots.

Episode 7: A pretty good Black Mirror-style plot here. So let's ruin it by having our characters act like complete idiots.

Episode 8: Best one so far. The interaction between Isaac and the kids is actually good, and Doctor Kasady is the one character I actually really like in this show—she's smart, competent, and doesn't mess around.

Episode 9: So let's have her get date raped. Oh yeah, let's have everyone else get date raped too. Hell, while we're at it, let's make quaaludes the solution to the problem of the week. What the F were they thinking? I need some brain bleach.

Episode 10: Ripoff of DS9's "Distant Voices" while somehow managing to make less sense.

Not the show for you I guess. I'd like to know what you're smoking with that episode 10 assessment. How the hell is it a 'ripoff' of Distant Voices?

[kingofmadcows]

They're both episodes about a character being trapped in an illusion where they face their deepest fears. But the premise isn't that unique. Plenty of other shows have done stuff like that.