Thoughts on "The Orville"?

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One of my favorite quotes from Babylon 5 (any TV show really) was from the minor character Zathras.

"Yes. Yes. Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other people's needs. Very sad life. Probably have... very sad death. But... at least there is Symmetry."

Now that is a fatalistic attitude!!!
 
How about this one:

"Now, Landing thruster,.....Landing thruster.......If I were a Landing thruster, which one of these, would I be?" *dink* "Aha!"
 
I watched the first two episodes (well, one and a half because of the football game) of The Orville tonight while folding clothes. I enjoyed it. I even laughed out loud once or twice. It's not the best but like Al says it's much better than "reality TV" featuring narcissists. I'll continue giving it a chance.


Steve Shannon
 
It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth-Minbari War. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last, best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.
 
I watched the first two episodes (well, one and a half because of the football game) of The Orville tonight while folding clothes. I enjoyed it. I even laughed out loud once or twice. It's not the best but like Al says it's much better than "reality TV" featuring narcissists. I'll continue giving it a chance.
You should try to watch the rest of the second episode if you have a chance. I recorded the episode, but the recording only caught the first 15 minutes of the show because football ran long. I finished watching it on Hulu. Reality TV plays a part at the end of the episode.
 
You should try to watch the rest of the second episode if you have a chance. I recorded the episode, but the recording only caught the first 15 minutes of the show because football ran long. I finished watching it on Hulu. Reality TV plays a part at the end of the episode.

Thanks, I will.


Steve Shannon
 
I think the second episode was a fair chunk better than the first.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum
 
It's better than
  • Reality TV
  • Anything involving "housewives"
  • Most anything that showcases "flipping
  • Any sporting event that has spoiled multimillionaires making political statements about how oppressed they are
  • Anything involving a Kardassian

So I will at least let it drone on as filler.
Can't argue with that ^^^

So, I guess I'll have to find a friend who has Babylon 5 DVD's and check it out. Never saw an episode yet...

Me neither, and it's amazing that it is not on *Any* streaming service. Guess I'll be getting the DVD set too.
 
Well, THAT was different (tonight's episode).

A lot less silly comedy for the sake of silly comedy, and some actual meat and potatoes science fiction "things that make you go: Hmmmm".

Update - I looked up an article about the show which may be of interest.

https://tvline.com/2017/08/08/the-orville-fox-seth-macfarlane-sci-fi-comedy/

The Orville: Seth MacFarlane Explains Why His New Show Isn't Just a Comedy

So you’re expecting Seth MacFarlane’s new Fox series The Orville to be a Star Trek parody filled with crude jokes? Well, you’d better reset your coordinates.

The sci-fi series — premiering Sunday, Sept. 10 at 8/7c — is not just a Family-Guy-in-space collection of punchlines; it has a dramatic side as well, with earnest metaphorical explorations of current societal issues. (An early episode tackles the thorny question of gender identity, for example.) And that’s exactly the way MacFarlane, who created the show and stars as the Orville’s captain Ed Mercer, wanted it.

“We really do see it as a sci-fi comedic drama,” MacFarlane told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour on Tuesday. “It can’t just be gag-gag-gag-gag-gag. There has to be some reality to where the jokes come from.” He adds that The Orville never ventures into straight satire, a la Spaceballs: “Nothing ever goes into that Mel Brooks realm, and that’s by design.”

That may come to a surprise to anyone who’s seen the ads for The Orville, which “have leaned very heavily on the comedy,” MacFarlane admits. “Comedy is a very big part of this… [but] it is one piece of a larger geometric shape. The show is seeking to break a little bit of new ground, tonally.”

The Orville isn’t serialized, so it’s free to hop around from lighter stories to heavier ones from one week to next, MacFarlane says: “Each week, you’re seeing a little movie, and each story is different. And tonally, there will be some variance. But the characters are always the characters.” He cites Star Trek: The Next Generation as a touchstone, which had “a big two-part episode about the Borg that was followed up the next week with a story about Picard going home to France to visit his brother at the winery… And I remember thinking, ‘God, this is how TV should be. You should be able to write any kind of story each week, and really surprise your audience.'”

MacFarlane ultimately sees The Orville as an antidote to the current wave of dystopian sci-fi shows like The Walking Dead. “I kind of miss the forward-thinking, aspirational space that Star Trek used to occupy. It can’t all be The Hunger Games. It can’t all be the nightmare scenario,” he says. “I’m tired of everything being grim and dystopian. I miss the hopeful side of science fiction.”
 
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Wow, another for-real Science Fiction episode tonight, emulating real life Earth issues: ignorance / beliefs, vs facts / science.

Also the basic premise is a LOT like a famous Star Trek episode. To even say the title would it give away, so as a spoiler prevention here's a tinyurl link to a Wiki describing the TOS episode.

Do NOT click on it unless you saw the Sept 28th episode. https://tinyurl.com/ycayfp3d

I think maybe these last two Orville episodes had more in common with core values of Star Trek, than the last three Star Trek movies had.

BTW - I do see some potential with ST Discovery to also outdo the last three movies in that regard. Though I'm not betting on it, and that bar (last 3 movies) is low anyway.

Oh, back to the Orville episode, there was a brief cameo appearance by a skilled famous actor. For those who saw it but did not recognize the actor, here's another spoiler-avoiding blind tinyurl link:
https://tinyurl.com/74fdbrd

And next week, Charlize Theron as a guest star, not a cameo. I wonder if that episode should be titled "A Million Ways to Die in the Universe"?
 
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I liked this last episode except for a few of the adolescent jokes.
 
Latest episode had more than a passing resemblance to Heinlein's "Methuselah's Children". What's next, flat cats?
 
It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth-Minbari War. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last, best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.


STOP, YOU'RE MAKING ME TEARY-EYED! I MISS B5!!!

By the way, for screwing-up CRUSADE...

TURNER NETWORK TELEVISION, ROT IN HELL!!!!!!!
 
STOP, YOU'RE MAKING ME TEARY-EYED! I MISS B5!!!

By the way, for screwing-up CRUSADE...

TURNER NETWORK TELEVISION, ROT IN HELL!!!!!!!

Sounds like for you......
."It was the year of Fire,
The year of Destruction,
The year we Took Back what was ours.
It was the year of Rebirth,
The year of Great Sadness,
The year of Pain,
And the year of Joy.
It was.....a New Age!
It was the end of History;
It was the year Everything changed.
The year is 2261,
The place: Babylon 5."
 
Me neither, and it's amazing that it is not on *Any* streaming service. Guess I'll be getting the DVD set too.

My understanding - what I remember anyway - is that the network ownership setup for B5 was NOT done so well, so nobody can really offer it as streaming, or air it in syndication.

My daughter gave me the first season [series] DVD box set a few years ago, and I love it. NOW all I have to do is get off my FAT ARSE and ORDER the rest of it.
 
I wish Crusades had continued.

And I will think I just hit on a Fantasy-Scale Rocket idea....... The Excaliber!



That could be a cool rocket.



I agree about the Excalibur! But there is 'something' about the design that befuddles me a bit.

I have the CRUSADE DVD box set. My daughter gave it to me a few years ago. But before I continue - and speaking of CRUSADE - just let me say...

TURNER NETWORK TELEVISION, ROT IN HELL!!!!!!! :wink:

Now then...eRockets sells a kit called the "Excalibur" that vaguely resembles the ship from CRUSADE:

https://www.erockets.biz/semroc-flying-model-rocket-kit-starship-excalibur/

It ALSO seems - IIRC - that this rocket started as a model rocket design contest winner from the early 1960's, although right now I cannot locate my 'source material for this, either online or hard copy.

I mentioned that I have the CRUSADE DVD box set. In the commentary extras, they show how the design of the starship came about, and it had nothing to do with model rocketry. It actually sort-of evolved from a Minbari cruiser-ish spacecraft to what is in the show

So, did someone working on CRUSADE "subconsciously" channel the model rocket design into the EAS EXCALIBUR? Did SOMEBODY in the early 1960's have a "precognitive flash" in designing a model rocket whose design would later appear in a tv show called CRUSADE, or is it all just a big coincidence?

"How the hell should I know?! -- THE RAVEN [1963]
 
My thought was "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"

I just watched it- certainly For the World is Hollow and so have Touched the Sky.

I thought the first episode was rough. Since then I think each episode has gotten better. Starting to really like it.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum
 
I had it wrong. It was Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky".
From https://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/For_the_World_is_Hollow_and_I_Have_Touched_the_Sky_(episode)

...Olaf Stapledon and Don Wilcox wrote stories about the idea in the 1940s, and Robert Heinlein originated the notion that inhabitants might forget they were on a ship in his book Orphans of the Sky...

Heinlein also wrote "The Rolling Stones", which featured flat cats. David Gerrald turned these into tribbles for the Star Trek episode.
 
Just watched the first 3 episodes on Hulu. It's a good real-life "Star Trek". How people really would be in the future. People don't change, only technology does.

Less synthehol, more tequila. I like that they keep it focused on sci-fi with a fair amount of adult humor mixed in.
 
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