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Hey here's a can of worms we haven't opened yet. "You're the one who begged the admiral for another Xelayan." Haha just kidding I don't actually want to have this conversation at all but let's take this moment to remember that this poo poo can and will have bad, absent-minded writing in it with a short cut to Kelly saying "we're burning up!" or "talk about a birthday gift!" to keep it super awkward. I'll take the positives where I can but this episode was fighting really hard against having any. I half-expected Talla to go full Beerfest and say "Actually I never liked the name Talla, if it's okay with you guys you can all just call me Alara instead!" DaveKap fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Jan 27, 2019 |
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Jan 27, 2019 00:12
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:It feels like the show runners (and the composer!!) are WAY too invested in replicating the feel of the old Star Trek series to actually let this crew be the losers of the fleet. They may get a little lost along the way but they always win through in the end and save the day. Losers is overstating it, and I should have been clearer. They're all good at their jobs, they just don't have "pick up another advanced degree" as a hobby. None of them, except probably Finn, would be a culture fit on the 1701-D. And none of them would get the offer to transfer (except Finn and possibly Kelly) anyway. They're just regular folks, not exceptional, but they do their job. And they win through and save the day, sometimes despite themselves. Another way to look at it is: TNG characters take themselves and their jobs seriously, Orville characters watch sitcoms on the main viewscreen during slow shifts.
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Jan 27, 2019 00:24
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Othin posted:I’m the native species that has an expansive astrology mythos and dedicated satellites to track star positions but also have no name for their own planet other than by its place in the star system. I thought this Q_res posted:Every race has a specific name for their planet, the problem is it always translates to Earth/Terra. So the UT just alters it to provide a frame of reference. Then I thought this. It's not perfect (just don't translate proper nouns) but it's fine
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Jan 27, 2019 00:32
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Welcome to Sol III
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Jan 27, 2019 01:01
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AlBorlantern Corps posted:The reason the Jilliac constellation lost a star is because society want letting Jilliacs kill enough and satiate their inborn violent tendencies. When Kelly and Bortus went on a rampage and killed like twenty dudes it was the first successful jilliac killing spree in 5000 years. It single handedly brought back the star. Regorian society learned that you gotta let Jilliacs have their fun. Unironically a better ending
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Jan 27, 2019 01:13
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I am always pro loving up bigoted societies, especially shooting of those who enforce it, so good job Kelly and Bortus for showing no mercy to the camp guards. The way they acted, it seemed like the entire planet had made signs law, as the baby was said to be "born to lead", which means that her natural talents or own desires were secondary to the demands of their society, because people born in Blabuary are leaders. And it seemed like these people would have probably gone out into the galaxy and started poo poo with everyone because they felt the Jelliacks of all races should be locked up by them. No one is going put up with that poo poo.
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Jan 27, 2019 02:24
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Othin posted:I’m the native species that has an expansive astrology mythos and dedicated satellites to track star positions but also have no name for their own planet other than by its place in the star system. Isn't their society incredibly heliocentric? They'd name themselves after the star
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Jan 27, 2019 02:27
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1glitch0 posted:This last episode obviously didn't nail the (or any) ethical dilemma, but the episode with Bortus' child's gender or showing a society they were being lied to be religious leaders, or even Alara's exit episode I think stand pretty high up there with most of the better TNG episodes. Nahhhh And they don't have any strong actors to be able to get there either.
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Jan 27, 2019 02:39
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DaveKap posted:Hey here's a can of worms we haven't opened yet. That line was likely a direct reference to Kirk's "I'd still like a Vulcan there" from TMP and probably no further thought was put into it than that fwiw
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Jan 27, 2019 02:40
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The new cast member cannot act. She's as bad a J. Lee. Also they gave her a dumb haircut
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Jan 27, 2019 02:44
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Not a fan of the implication that Ed still has feelings for Kelly, judging from the prolonged final shot of him wistfully looking at her. Move on, dude.
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Jan 27, 2019 03:58
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That wasn't wist, that was "Everything's gonna be just fine"
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Jan 27, 2019 04:01
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mllaneza posted:Another way to look at it is: TNG characters take themselves and their jobs seriously, Orville characters watch sitcoms on the main viewscreen during slow shifts. Seriously this episode is falling apart more and more as we analyze it. One thing in particular, was simply the fact that the Orville made first contact. I mean, in the very first episode of the series we were bluntly told that Mercer was not one of the Union's shining stars. Bu then, they're cruising along planning a birthday party when they hear a new, undiscovered civilization on the radio, and they're all "woo woo, first contact! let's go!!" You'd think that the Union would sent the equivalent of Picard to do something that important. Heck, you'd think Ed would get on the horn with Union HQ before zipping off. Granted I'm going to assume they called HQ before arriving at the planet, but still.
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Jan 27, 2019 04:08
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Gynovore posted:Seriously this episode is falling apart more and more as we analyze it. It seemed like protocol was that the first ship to get the messages gets there as quickly as possible to beat any non-union races to them. It would rule to make first contact. You'd be famous as gently caress on that planet.
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Jan 27, 2019 04:14
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the Union protocol seems to lean heavily on the idea of "Hey, if you're broadcasting into space, you need to know ASAP that there are some HUGE assholes out here"
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Jan 27, 2019 04:17
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Gynovore posted:Seriously this episode is falling apart more and more as we analyze it. It seems like the Union operates more like TOS than TNG where it's first come, first contact. They're pretty clear about their reasoning, too: if an aggressive, expansionist stellar power were to encounter that broadcast first, they'd see the planet as the perfect place to set up a new colony and start oppressing the locals. The Union wants to establish diplomatic relations ASAP because that gives them a chance to guarantee their independence and maybe start talking them into joining.
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Jan 27, 2019 04:18
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I feel like The Orville kind of wants to have its cake and eat it, too. They play up the whole “ordinary schmoes in space” angle for comedy, but still want the story to treat them like the distinguished crew of the Enterprise, getting the important missions and being given a lot of leeway that feels unearned.
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Jan 27, 2019 05:19
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Phylodox posted:I feel like The Orville kind of wants to have its cake and eat it, too. They play up the whole “ordinary schmoes in space” angle for comedy, but still want the story to treat them like the distinguished crew of the Enterprise, getting the important missions and being given a lot of leeway that feels unearned. They did not get this important mission assigned to them though, it was just coincidence that they happened to be the closest ship nearby
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Jan 27, 2019 05:22
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Phylodox posted:I feel like The Orville kind of wants to have its cake and eat it, too. They play up the whole “ordinary schmoes in space” angle for comedy, but still want the story to treat them like the distinguished crew of the Enterprise, getting the important missions and being given a lot of leeway that feels unearned. As far as I can remember, all the "big" things that have happened to the Orville are either time-sensitive missions they were likely given because they happened to be the closest Union ship or otherwise happened to them on accident in the course of a normal mission. Like in the case of first contact, they probably want the nearest Union ship to respond ASAP so that the Krill or some other baddies don't beat them to it.
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Jan 27, 2019 05:27
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WampaLord posted:They did not get this important mission assigned to them though, it was just coincidence that they happened to be the closest ship nearby Then they got it taken away for buggering it up. I liked how in the old Star Trek EU they’d have xenopologists studying civilizations on the cusp of first contact for years, specifically to avoid crap like this.
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Jan 27, 2019 05:33
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MillennialVulcan posted:the Union protocol seems to lean heavily on the idea of "Hey, if you're broadcasting into space, you need to know ASAP that there are some HUGE assholes out here" I think the idea is that as soon as someone starts to actively look to join the galactic society the Union shows up.
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Jan 27, 2019 06:46
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Pakled posted:As far as I can remember, all the "big" things that have happened to the Orville are either time-sensitive missions they were likely given because they happened to be the closest Union ship or otherwise happened to them on accident in the course of a normal mission. By accident. So this isn't a complete waste of a post, I wanted to note that even if they're not Picard calibre, they're still qualified to fly a spaceship around and are classified as an exploration vessel. The idea basically seems like whenever they're not doing something routine like supplies, they get to go poking around the edges of the map. Kind of like the Stargazer, I guess. And yes, that is the hill I am willing to die on.
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Jan 27, 2019 07:01
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Mercer was really highly-regarded before his divorce, and the crew of The Orville aren't all supposed to be known fuckups. Just Malloy.
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Jan 27, 2019 07:08
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I say give Alara's replacement five or so episodes. It's always awkward when a character is changed out so it takes longer to acclimate.
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Jan 27, 2019 08:25
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LividLiquid posted:Mercer was really highly-regarded before his divorce, and the crew of The Orville aren't all supposed to be known fuckups. Just Malloy. Even Malloy is known to be scarily good at what he does, though. He's just insubordinate and a horrible discipline problem. But he's a great pilot.
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Jan 27, 2019 08:56
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I may have missed it in the comments, but... did anyone else at any point suspect that the reason for all the C-sections, and the initial reaction to hearing "birthday" and what seemed to be a pejorative word in "gilliac," was that the medical industry of this planet had run amok and managed to manipulate the society in such a way that they vilified natural-born infants and all but forced any parent who could afford medical care to undergo "necessary" C-sections? I seriously thought this would be a "the medical industry has gone too far! Medicine shouldn't be for profit!" episode. It all fit until it was clear that merely being born (as opposed to being from one's mother's womb untimely ripped) wasn't the issue, but the birthday was. I figured they came up with a bad word to describe those born via a vagina, and the whole angle would be how bad it was to come out of a womany hole like an animal... or some massive manipulation by a medical industry run amok... or something along those lines. Being "born" was a bad thing; they had a better word for better people who were better birthed in a better, more modern way. The entire episode would have been better if they worked the plot from that angle, I think. They could have made a more relevant argument about a topical issue, which is always good for sci-fi (and Trek-like shows in particular). And, it wouldn't have required massive plot holes revolving around a thousands-of-years-old superstition. It would allow for some level of logical argument. It could have worked so much better if they'd worked this angle. (For those who think I'm nuts, here's a bit of context: I'm old enough to remember more than a couple of examples of the medical industry going nuts and doing unnecessary procedures. Until the 1980s, women getting hysterectomies was a common occurrence, until stories in the media began to report that most of them were totally unnecessary--doctors simply were doing them to menopausal women as a matter of course, and collecting the fees associated with the procedures. And for children, tonsillectomies were so common that every sitcom featuring at least one young child had a Very Special Episode where the child had to have their tonsils removed, and there'd be a long dream sequence that ended with "it was all a dream!" and iced cream. And, there are many doctors and researchers who think that C-sections are preformed far too often in the developed world. So it's not like this is a nutso crazy idea. This could have worked for a totally plausible plot.)
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Jan 27, 2019 09:08
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That was my first guess, that they were radically anti natural birth.
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Jan 27, 2019 11:12
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precision posted:That was my first guess, that they were radically anti natural birth. This was also my first thought. The astrology explanation from Finn really seemed to come out of nowhere, and the only clue given is the single line just before that about the results of their sample testing.
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Jan 27, 2019 12:04
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Like basically everyone else, I also felt the episode was flawed. I really had to wonder who exactly was running the ship when everyone went to the planet. That was the top 3 in command and the chief of security. So... Lamarr? In an episode where you specifically said "we don't know that much about these people", you're sending all those guys down? It might not have made a difference, but they should have at least shown Mercer trying to make an Earth and Moclus astrology-based argument. The fact that they didn't, but did have time for a birth sequence and a prison escape sequence wasn't the best plan. The prison breakout sequence would have been far less troublesome if Kelly and Bortus were using some kind of stun weapons instead of what seemed to be bullets. I guess they couldn't because a directed energy weapon would be too advanced for the culture, and they didn't want to put the Orville crew's weapons in the prison camp. Shooting a bunch of guards in a failed escape attempt doesn't seem like it would go down too well with the admiralty who forbade Mercer from interfering in that way. Kelly and Bortus should have known that was likely the case after a month there.
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Jan 27, 2019 14:02
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Big Mean Jerk posted:This was also my first thought. The astrology explanation from Finn really seemed to come out of nowhere, and the only clue given is the single line just before that about the results of their sample testing. Also when they got to the plant Isaac said they had a lot of satellites with spectrometry, but no spectroscopy, and explained that this would let them track the position of the stars but not their brightness or composition
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Jan 27, 2019 14:25
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It’s a warning signal. Such an incoherent episode may mean the show runners are sleeping at the wheel and we’re moving into SG-1 quality territory - not a bad thing maybe, but Orville so far made some very good showings as a proper sci-fi series. There’s also a slim chance they’re telling a story here - perhaps the Planetary Union and Mercer are not that as competent as we assume, and this planet will evolve into a new, scorned enemy. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.
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Jan 27, 2019 14:31
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The title of this last episode was "All the World is Birthday Cake" which obviously references the fact that the crew had a birthday party but they also visited Crazy Birthday World. But it looks like they took the title from the Beatles song "It's All Too Much" which has the lyrics "All the world's a birthday cake / So take a piece but not too much." Is the episode referencing the Beatles song in some other way or am I just trying to read too much into it? Their episode themes are usually tied to the original context their titles are taken from and often have a double meaning. 'Mad Idolatry' (the episode with the Church of Kelly) comes from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida and the full quote is " 'tis mad idolatry / To make the service greater than the god". "Into the Fold" is a common saying but it references the ships going through a space fold, but also Isaac being welcomed into the fold by the Finn family. "If the Stars Should Appear" (the episode with the ark ship where the inhabitants have forgotten that there's a larger universe outside) is referencing the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile." "Command Performance" references Alara's difficulties in leading the ship on her own, but also references the fact the Ed and Kelly are trapped in a zoo and are expected to perform in front of a superior race. It'd be a little odd if this latest titled was taken from a Beatles song but didn't reference it in any other way. Maybe it's taken from somewhere else? Mokotow posted:It’s a warning signal. Such an incoherent episode may mean the show runners are sleeping at the wheel I recently watched a few interviews with the producers and creatives behind The Orville and something that struck me is that most of them are 100% committed to giving their absolute best to the show. The makeup and wardrobe guys spent months and months preparing for the show (the wardrobe guy had all the uniforms made out of specially designed sneaker material which he had made in a factory in China, the makeup team all wake up at 4am every day of shooting, etc) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N54eNGRDH8
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Jan 27, 2019 15:25
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I can't help but wonder if some people are so used to being spoonfed, they've lost the ability to find subtle things. I thought this episode did a GREAT job of showing that while the Union has 'first contact protocols,' it doesn't have anything like the Prime Directive. I thought it did a great job showing how Mercer is changing over time, as he settles into his new reality, starts to (re)gain his command chops, and recovers from his breakup. Sure, the scene at the end where he's clearly more at peace with Kelly and Cassius or whatever the gently caress his name is, but the one part where they're discussing rescue options, and he muses that maybe he should have done a combat drop on Moclus to liberate Bortus and Clyden's child before the surgery. It's nice to see Bortus finally do something other than glower. It's good to see that he doesn't have some sort of suicidal cultural imperative to fight against unwinnable odds, yet can be easily talked out of it. It's nice to see that Kelly is actually a decisive, bold, and capable commander, but she's subordinating herself to Mercer, like a good exec should. It's nice to see that these aren't shining avatars of dramatic archetypes bringing civilization and enlightenment to the primitives; they pulled a fast one, and got out while the getting was good. Then they hung a lampshade on it, and left a nice hook for a future consequence. It's nice that they reinforced that your average Xelayan is probably a doctorate-level expert in various fields, without somebody saying 'gee, even the dumb jock Xelayans are smarter than us.' It's nice that they explored the idea that you can't just talk somebody out of an irrational belief with an impassioned stentorian speech. It's nice that they showed that you can't just talk somebody out of their fundamental cultural beliefs in a two minute 'getting to know you' chat. If this were TNG, there would have been people in that camp who were part of a hidden underground of non-astronomy believers, who were JUST WAITING FOR THE RIGHT MOMENT when the STRANGERS FROM THE SKY appeared to help them THROW OFF THE DESPOTIC CHAINS OF ASTROLOGY. Nope, Kelly and Bortus were on their own. (I mean, I'm liking Destiny S2, and I liked the New Eden episode, but guess who the landing party discovered when they beamed down to the theological, luddite planet? Why the family of rational science-believers who had been quietly and secretly keeping certain knowledge alive for 200 years and JUST KNEW that the STRANGERS FROM THE SKY would eventually come to SAVE THEM FROM PRIMITIVE LIFE. I like how they didn't throw the caste system into your face, but they left it for you to figure out. Like, the doctors were probably all the same sign. The soliders were probably all the same sign. I liked how they showed that people were weirdly both utterly believing, and willing to game, their beliefs. The first example, but not the only one, is Jewish workarounds for the Sabbath; you can't turn your lights on tomorrow, but you can set a timer today. Your kid is a criminal if he's born tomorrow, so lets C-section him today. Seems like short-circuiting destiny, to invoke destiny. I like how they illustrated the tensions that the system produced; dad wanted the kid to have the best life possible, mom wanted the kid to have it's parents, even at the cost of being born to the lowest caste. Snowglobe of Doom posted:The title of this last episode was "All the World is Birthday Cake" which obviously references the fact that the crew had a birthday party but they also visited Crazy Birthday World. Well, think of the world as a birthday cake, where each slice is a Zodiac sign, and the slice of cake you happen to be served determines your life choice. Everything about that world centers around which slice of birthday cake you got. Also, different signs are probably served different types of cake, like birthstones, but whatevs. I wonder if it's also a nod to classic TOS highfalutin' titles. "For The World Is Birthday Cake, and I Have Ate A Slice." TheCenturion fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jan 27, 2019 |
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Jan 27, 2019 15:35
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TheCenturion posted:It's nice that they explored the idea that you can't just talk somebody out of an irrational belief with an impassioned stentorian speech. It's nice that they showed that you can't just talk somebody out of their fundamental cultural beliefs in a two minute 'getting to know you' chat. If this were TNG, there would have been people in that camp who were part of a hidden underground of non-astronomy believers, who were JUST WAITING FOR THE RIGHT MOMENT when the STRANGERS FROM THE SKY appeared to help them THROW OFF THE DESPOTIC CHAINS OF ASTROLOGY. Nope, Kelly and Bortus were on their own. (I mean, I'm liking Destiny S2, and I liked the New Eden episode, but guess who the landing party discovered when they beamed down to the theological, luddite planet? Why the family of rational science-believers who had been quietly and secretly keeping certain knowledge alive for 200 years and JUST KNEW that the STRANGERS FROM THE SKY would eventually come to SAVE THEM FROM PRIMITIVE LIFE. That's exactly what happened in The Orville episode "If the Stars Should Appear" 
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Jan 27, 2019 15:39
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I really like the new officer tbh. Looking forward to the hyperbaric timechamber episode.TheCenturion posted:I can't help but wonder if some people are so used to being spoonfed, they've lost the ability to find subtle things. I liked it too. Did not like whatever they were doing with Finn's hair tho. They need to get a black stylist asap
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Jan 27, 2019 15:44
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TheCenturion posted:I can't help but wonder if some people are so used to being spoonfed, they've lost the ability to find subtle things. gotta agree. the solar sail's position was a dumb mistake - they could have had an equally spectacular sequence near the star or another planet, with rigor II in the far distance - but overall i really enjoyed the episode. it's not sg-1 just because there were p-90s involved, not that it would be a bad thing if it was like a (good) sg-1 episode. the camp breakout was, rather obviously, a little homage to the "escape from a PoW camp" genre. remember, kelly and bortus have learned a lot less about the rigorians than the rest of the crew since they were immediately arrested and thrown in the camp. they also don't know whether the orville is still around. they break out so violently because kelly knows that the union is going to leave them - she is very well aware of how the admiralty makes decisions - and probably assumes that if they break out then they can go to ground somehow until they can get a message to the union, at which point union policy conveniently allows the extraction because nobody in uniform will have to shoot at the astrology SS "first contact protocol" might very well recommend exactly that for this kind of situation. the union isn't the federation despite the similarities, and we learn more and more about how different they are with every episode involving a diplomatic crisis
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Jan 27, 2019 16:03
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The Krill will get to them before they find out about the fake star, no worries.
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Jan 27, 2019 17:37
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I really loved the music they had going when they deployed the solar sail.
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Jan 27, 2019 19:08
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Let's spend a insane amount of resources and money to send a message into space, not thing about the actual message until 30 seconds before we send it and have it be about 5 words in our language that we have no idea if others could understand.
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Jan 27, 2019 19:40
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socialsecurity posted:Let's spend a insane amount of resources and money to send a message into space, not thing about the actual message until 30 seconds before we send it and have it be about 5 words in our language that we have no idea if others could understand. Well, people get jobs based on their birthday instead of merit, so...
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Jan 27, 2019 19:42
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