Review The Orville (2017)

The Seeker

The Seeker

Member: Rank 6
So does anybody besides me watch it? I like it but one thing bothers me. WHY are people in the 25th century watching movies and listening to music from the 20th century?? Does MacFarlane have no more imagination than that??
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
As usual, I am well behind on my viewing, but I have seen the first episode of the second season and still like the show, mainly because it seems to have the spirit of TNG, and see it as a good alternative to what I feel is the utterly wrongheaded DISCOVERY. Need to watch a few more of this season though. I hear that the first two episodes didn't go down too well, but that it picks up from the third episode onward.
 
The Seeker

The Seeker

Member: Rank 6
I still have to watch this week’s episode, but I have liked it a lot so far. I liked the second episode but I know not everybody was down with those first two episodes.

The fourth episode really wowed me. A reviewer at the AV Club said he knew what was going to happen, and so did some of the commenters, but I had no idea.
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
From just before the launch of the show.....



Fox: We're not worried Star Trek will sue us for Orville

So a critic asked Fox Television Group chairman and CEO Dana Walden: Aren’t you worried about being sued? Especially since CBS Television Studios, which owns the TV rights to Trek, is about to launch its own Star Trek revival this fall, Star Trek: Discovery.

At first, Walden made a joke about wishing somebody else on the panel (like Fox entertainment president David Madden) would answer the question on her behalf, but he didn’t. So she plowed ahead: “We’re not really concerned,” she said. “We obviously have a big legal team. We vet things, so it’s not like we’re just flying by the seat of our pants out here. Seth’s intention is to do something that clearly pays homage to Star Trek, that clearly was inspired a lot by Star Trek. He talks about The Twilight Zone, a show that examines the human condition in the future and looks at the human condition through little morality plays, but I can’t imagine, especially when you see the direction that the Star Trek franchise is moving, that anyone involved would consider it anything other than a compliment. Most shows have some DNA of previous shows. There are very few shows that I’ve worked on that weren’t slight reinventions of something that’s come before it. It is a certain format of storytelling, it’s a certain act structure, there are certain limitations to what we all do in this storytelling form, so I find it to be flattering and I know Seth holds the Star Trek franchise in the highest regard.”

Typically, creative works are required to have a certain degree of difference from other titles, but there’s typically a fair amount of leeway there — especially for a parody. One title that comes to mind is the 1999 film Galaxy Quest, which was clearly a Star Trek spoof. The Orville is more sincere, however.

CBS had no immediate comment.
 
The Seeker

The Seeker

Member: Rank 6
Did anyone watch that last two-parter? What did you think? Here are my thoughts:

Who would have thought Isaac would turn out to be evil? Or the Kaylons, specifically. Evil in an impersonal and therefore more chilling way. On one hand, you can understand why they wiped out their creators. But on the other hand, why do they need to take over other planets now? They're not organic so in order to reproduce they'd have to keep building new ones, and why would they do that?

And the second episode - I like Isaac a lot and it's nice they found a way to keep him on this show in his old capacity, but it seemed Implausible (and schmaltzy) to redeem him. If they were going to do that it would have made more sense, dramatically, to keep him deactivated. But they found a way to push the reset button, thereby cancelling out a very daring direction for the show.

It's nice that Captain Mercer has such an accepting disposition, in that he's always willing to give his crew another chance and that he genuinely wants to find common ground with the Krill. I hope to see Telaya again

And explosions in space? It looks awesome but really, this is true science fiction, not Star Wars! THERE SHOULD NOT BE EXPLOSIONS IN SPACE!
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
The Seeker said:
Did anyone watch that last two-parter? What did you think? Here are my thoughts:

Who would have thought Isaac would turn out to be evil? Or the Kaylons, specifically. Evil in an impersonal and therefore more chilling way. On one hand, you can understand why they wiped out their creators. But on the other hand, why do they need to take over other planets now? They're not organic so in order to reproduce they'd have to keep building new ones, and why would they do that?

And the second episode - I like Isaac a lot and it's nice they found a way to keep him on this show in his old capacity, but it seemed Implausible (and schmaltzy) to redeem him. If they were going to do that it would have made more sense, dramatically, to keep him deactivated. But they found a way to push the reset button, thereby cancelling out a very daring direction for the show.

It's nice that Captain Mercer has such an accepting disposition, in that he's always willing to give his crew another chance and that he genuinely wants to find common ground with the Krill. I hope to see Telaya again

And explosions in space? It looks awesome but really, this is true science fiction, not Star Wars! THERE SHOULD NOT BE EXPLOSIONS IN SPACE!
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I just recently (finally) saw it the other day.

When ORVILLE was first mooted, I was really cynical about the sound of it. It just seemed to me that they were going to try and be GALAXY QUEST all over again. Then it started and the joke quotient seemed indeed high; a daft version of TNG, with thinly disguised versions of iconic characters: Bortus as Worf, Isaac as Data. A holodeck, etc. etc.

It was fun, but seemed, to me, ultimately just a throwaway comedy show, paling in the shadow of something like RED DWARF, or indeed the GALAXY QUEST movie.

But something has been happening, gradually. The jokes have been fading and real drama seeping in, to the point where the balance has flipped and now this is a dramatic show with gentle quips and mild gags here and there. Topical issues - some of them hard hitting - were being addressed too; an aspect of TREK that DISOVERY seems to be completely clueless about.

The double episode was a game changer for me. Suddenly it was ramped up to high drama, with.....

...... the revelation about Isaac. Suddenly we were in BEST OF BOTH WORLDS territory. An unstoppable robotic race determined to do with humanity - and any other race - whatever they wished. And a trusted crew member suddenly revealed as a villain in the ranks. Derivative maybe, but at least the show is stealing from the best.

As it was going on, I wondered if Isaac was going to stay evil and unable to be part of the crew anymore - or even destroyed. The reset button was a little too neat, but I have yet to see the next episode and see if relationships are going to remain different regarding the crew towards Isaac or if they forget about this epic two parter (and the fact that he was a monster in their midst for so long) almost immediately. I hope they don't as that was too often a fault of TNG. Picard spends an entire lifetime playing a flute, then is right as rain the next episode.

I really like this show now. If they could come up with some way of making it officially TREK canon, I would not be complaining. And I feel it has the spirit of Berman era TREK in it's bones, helping to slightly take away the bad taste of DISCOVERY.
 
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The Seeker

The Seeker

Member: Rank 6
I love this show. Some people aren't crazy about the focus on the Moclans, but I think they're fascinating and are very good for commentary. I wonder if Bortus and Klyden are going to stay together much longer, but then again to split up one of them has to stab the other to death. Pretty harsh society.
 
ant-mac

ant-mac

Member: Rank 9
The Seeker said:
I love this show. Some people aren't crazy about the focus on the Moclans, but I think they're fascinating and are very good for commentary. I wonder if Bortus and Klyden are going to stay together much longer, but then again to split up one of them has to stab the other to death. Pretty harsh society.
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Meh... I've heard of worse.

Did you know here on Earth, there's a country somewhere that once elected an orange-haired clown from reality TV as their leader?! :emoji_confused:

Can you imagine a society like... Oh, wait... Um, never mind. :emoji_wink:
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
FOX Chief Talks “Orville” Shift To Hulu


http://www.darkhorizons.com/fox-chief-talks-orville-shift-to-hulu/


As we know, the upcoming third season of FOX’s sci-fi series “The Orville” is departing the network and making the jump from broadcast to streaming as it’s set to have a new home at Hulu.


The first season aired September 2017, the second from December 2018 and so going by their production timetables it’s expected the third season won’t premiere until around May 2020. Creator and star Seth MacFarlane announced the Hulu shift at Comic-Con last month, with the reasoning being that the series was simply not feasible to continue on a broadcast schedule.

Fox Entertainment CEO Charlie Collier, speaking at the Television Critics Association press tour this week, confirmed as much and says he’s still happy to support MacFarlane’s endeavours and what works best for the show even if it means it’s not a FOX series anymore:

“First of all, Seth is awesome. It’s his passion project and we’ve talked about it from the day I walked in the door because I’m such a fan of the show itself. You’re right, at the heart of the network’s schedule issue was that he is so prolific in front of and behind the camera and in the writers room that this is a show he really manages every detail.

I talked a lot about supporting the artist and creating a home where we nurture the artist and this is the epitome of it in the sense that we really worked with Seth to make sure he could still do the show he loves on a platform that can handle it on the schedule that’s appropriate for it.

So it’s been great and actually Seth in his remarks, certainly to me and I saw some of the press on it, has been nothing but generous about how much Fox is a home of his on the right project at the right time. Certainly Family Guy, I couldn’t be prouder of that in the middle of our Sunday lineup.”

“The Orville” clocks in at around $5 million per episode on average with the second season finale earlier this year pulling in 2.97 million viewers in Live + Same Day (a number it effectively doubles with DVR/Delayed Viewing added).
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