So where is this currently, legally available?
Nowhere on broadcast / streaming.
It's up on Google Play, and I assume iTunes.
EDIT: Although I found it on GP in my browser, it's not showing up on my phone, so I guess it's not available even there...
I hate that duck! I assume this is not a thread about Keith Harris.
Decided to give this a go, not gonna lie - I torrented it. I'm not proud.
Absolutely fantastic stuff!
A massive love letter to Star Trek Next Gen, with a bit of humour and some great sci-fi concepts.
Very pleased that the show isnt taking the piss out of sci-fi, or Star Trek for that matter, and is just being funny in it's own right.
Very much recommended, when it's legally available.
And I'll be buying the DVD, as I feel guilty as hell about torrenting it :(
Quote from: Tiplodocus on 02 October, 2017, 09:25:26 AM
So where is this currently, legally available?
Can't you just wait a week or two until Fox cancel it and then buy the box set for a fiver?
I didn't like the first two episodes - not a drama and too few laughs to be a comedy. I think ' a love letter to TNG' is a kind way of saying a total rip off - the junior officer being left in charge of the bridge and bringing off the win after some setbacks was way too familiar. Not going back unless I hear of a great upswing in quality.
I've only laughed once at The Orville. [spoiler]Woof![/spoiler]
I'm just here to say how rubbish Star Trek: Discovery is and to annoy Professor Bear! <Evil Grin>
I'm mostly enjoying The Orville; the humour can be a bit silly (that last episode especially had some really duff jokes) but if they can fix this I think there's real potential here. It's never going to be Babylon 5 or Firefly but if they can approach humour in the same way these two masterworks did instead of trying to shoehorn jokes in just anywhere then I think this show could be a winner.
HMPH
I thought we could have at least ONE ORVILLE THREAD where we don't talk about Star Trek bloomin Discovery but clearly I was mistaken.
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 18 October, 2017, 09:33:56 PMI think this show could be a winner.
It's been cancelled.
edit: Sorry, getting ahead of myself. I thought it was Friday.
I got ahead of meself there as it hasn't been canceled yet, but I can't guarantee it won't have been canceled by the time I finish typing this.
I actually don't think it's that bad. I mean it's got solid characters and good effects, it's a nice mix of funny-ish stuff and sci-fi melodrama, and the performances are good. However it's just TNG. The same music cues, the same transitions, the same sort of plots, the same sort of designs, the same directors, the same producers, the same everything. If it was what the trailer said it was going to be and like - 20-minute Macfarlane sharp spoof stuff rather than a carefully crafted 40-minute long lightly comic but largely weirdlyserious tribute to TNG then maybe folk would feel more than they do about it which is faintly bemused.
Also Bear. Relax and let it happen naturally, these things shall surely pass. Like the neverending cycle of the seasons or that odd rash.
I am enjoying The Orville, probably more than I should, and I hope it doesn't get cancelled just yet. It seems pretty solid to me, apart from the odd shaky bit, and I'd like to see it go from strength to strength.
Sorry I mentioned The Other Show - I was just trying to be funny. I know, I know, it'll probably never happen but I live in hope...
THIS IS A STAR TREK THREAD NOW so Star Trek Continues has just dropped the first part of their two-part series finale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCBuaTnDsQs), having been forced to curtail their efforts by CBS' fan movie rules, which they introduced to prevent stuff that was detrimental to the Trek brand like (checks CBS fan movie guidelines) spending too much money, using foul language, or portraying excessive violence or gore.
Quote from: CrazyFoxMachine on 19 October, 2017, 08:21:37 PMIf it was what the trailer said it was going to be and like - 20-minute Macfarlane sharp spoof stuff rather than a carefully crafted 40-minute long lightly comic but largely weirdlyserious tribute to TNG then maybe folk would feel more than they do about it which is faintly bemused.
TLDR MUSINGS ALERT:
In the Charlize Theron episode, Mercer finally admits in a moment of pillow talk that his marriage failing was for the exact reasons that his ex-wife suggested, but which he has so far dismissed as an excuse on her part for her infidelity. This establishes that Mercer has a blindspot in his judgement where his ex-wife is concerned, while the series has established by this point that his ex-wife is a good officer, and reviewers have already established they see similarities in the show to TNG among others and TNG did at least two episodes with a similar premise to this one so they must know there's a twist and heel turn coming in the second or third acts - and
despite all this, when the ex-wife questions Mercer's judgement - which, again, we know is compromised both within the context of the story and by our exposure to the "charming rogue turns a main character's head" trope - reviews promptly called the episode misogynistic because the ex-wife is
obviously jealous, Because MacFarlane.
Never mind that the story has established the male character is at fault and the female character is motivated by legitimate concerns that all of sci-fi ever has established as going to turn out to be completely correct, the only possible interpretation of the story is that MacFarlane hates women.
When this is the kind of already-written copy and prejudgement you're up against, maybe you
should just make the show you want rather than the one people are expecting, though don't get me wrong: I'm as surprised as anyone that this is the format and tone that the show has gone with. I'm just saying that maybe MacFarlane is better off making TNG fanfic and not giving a fuck. If nothing else, a 20 minute spoof would almost certainly have stopped being talked about weeks ago.
The only things I've seen about the Orville are what I've read on here and a promo pic of Seth McFarlane with a silly expression on his face.
Despite this minimal information I seem to have an irrational dislike of it. The whole idea of it just turns me off and I hate the name.
Quote from: Professor Bear on 19 October, 2017, 11:27:20 PM...stuff that was detrimental to the Trek brand like (checks CBS fan movie guidelines) spending too much money, using foul language, or portraying excessive violence or gore.
Ah Bear, your Trek musings do make my mornings pass more easily.
Aye, I agree. Food for thought at any rate.
Now we just need Ricky Gervaise to make a homage to Space: 1999. (The Lunar Office?)
Quote from: TordelBack on 20 October, 2017, 11:42:07 AM
Ah Bear, your Trek musings do make my mornings pass more easily.
What, even more than Alpen?
Even more so than prune juice, and that's a warrior's drink.
Quote from: Professor Bear on 19 October, 2017, 11:27:20 PM
THIS IS A STAR TREK THREAD NOW so Star Trek Continues has just dropped the first part of their two-part series finale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCBuaTnDsQs), having been forced to curtail their efforts by CBS' fan movie rules, which they introduced to prevent stuff that was detrimental to the Trek brand like (checks CBS fan movie guidelines) spending too much money, using foul language, or portraying excessive violence or gore.
Just watched this yesterday. Champion. If Orville had looked like this, I'd have been well onboard.
I believe the way Kirk pronounces "sabotage" in the opening minutes was a stretch goal at the crowdfunding stage.
Quote from: Professor Bear on 21 October, 2017, 12:47:24 PM
I believe the way Kirk pronounces "sabotage" in the opening minutes was a stretch goal at the crowdfunding stage.
Yeah. These guys are heroes from top to bottom.
This show challenges me in ways TNG never did. It raises big questions. I don't doubt Beyonce's talent, but is her talent so enduring that we will still referernce her in the far future?
You may as well ask why are these shows set in a multi-species alliance all about humans and why are they speaking in English? But I'll have a go...
Explanation why The Orville uses so many references relevant to 2017 #1:
We're still using references to the Roman Empire and Shakespeare in our everyday language, and then there's Jesus and co, and people still knowing who Laurel and Hardy or The Fonz are. Even Star Trek uses 20th century references, and often goes back further than that - recall the Alice In Wonderland theme running through Discover right now, or that time TNG teamed up with Mark Twain and he said "HMPH I hardly think people will still be reading Mark Twain books in the 25th century." It's possible the 20th/21st century will be just as huge a cultural touchstone for future centuries not just because this is when we started obsessively recording ourselves and crystallising our entire culture, but also because this is when our culture started truly feeding upon itself to the point there are kids under twenty who talk about G1 Transformers and disco music with passion, even though those things are specific to a bygone era. It's entirely possible we're living through a time that will define some aspects of human culture for centuries, or at the very least will create cultural references that will endure.
Explanation why The Orville uses so many references relevant to 2017 #2:
It's made in 2017 by people living in 2017 for transmission in 2017 to viewers who live in 2017.
Individual players and specific 20th C/early 21st C baseball games are still venerated and argued about in TNG, Voyager and especially DS9. 19th and 20th C scenarios form the majority of all Holodeck programs. Elon Musk got a nod in Discovery only the other week. TOS Chekov is basically Paul. The Beastie Boys saved the Federation with their beats and shouting in the most recent movie. Why not Beyoncé? Whattsamatter Pops, too bootilicious for ya?
Pops is not ready for this jelly, that's what I think.
We just get done defending the 21st century-centric popular culture stuff and then a "society analogous to 21st century Earth that runs on popular opinion" episode happens. It even has a bit where people on tv take a consensus on what constitutes a scientific fact. Hoh boy.
Despite my nagging doubts that this is a stupid idea for a story (and I still think this, as it's like something Sliders would have done), it's actually played out pretty well (apart from some excruciating chat show sequences with the show's painfully-unfunny navigator), taking the starting point of "absolute democracy" implemented through a binary upvote/downvote system via badges everyone is forced to wear. It reminds me more of an episode of the 80s Twilight Zone or the 90s Outer Limits, and it's an interesting point for the show because it's now getting into territory where Star Trek would probably never venture - if only because we've never really seen any kind of social network on Trek that could be used to explore this kind of concept the way Orville does.
Can't say I was crazy about the episode, but I appreciate that it acknowledged the problems of any democratic system, especially the ending [spoiler]presenting a character with a seemingly binary choice between good or bad and instead choosing a third option that is always there [/spoiler]and that will no doubt leave the average Hillary Clinton cheerleader scratching their heads or screaming at their tv about how it was the wrong choice.
The good: Ratings are up. It's slowly getting itself an audience. Figure it'll get renewed at this rate.
The bad: it's too late to pick up and film the back nine episodes. Season 2's gonna be a while.
The ugly: absolutely everything about that episode. I'm so trying here, folks. I really, really am.
Here we are waiting for this be cancelled and Fox can't even do that right (http://deadline.com/2017/11/the-orville-renewed-for-season-2-fox-seth-macfarlane-1202200369/).
Quote from: Professor Bear on 02 November, 2017, 06:40:51 PM
Here we are waiting for this be cancelled and Fox can't even do that right (http://deadline.com/2017/11/the-orville-renewed-for-season-2-fox-seth-macfarlane-1202200369/).
Despite not really liking it in any way, shape or form, I'm glad. If we can have 15,000 versions of NCIS and CSI, we can certainly have two Star Trek-ish shows.
Fox have probably noticed that most people are fucked if they're paying for CBS All Access (including Netflix - BDUM TISH), so it's renew Orville or start from scratch with another spaceship show and hope it similarly mops up those Trek/sci-fi viewers sticking with regular tv packages.
On a completely unrelated note, I remember there being a story - possibly apocryphal - that the reason Charmed kept getting renewed year after year despite only modest ratings was that everyone at the network thought it was shite and they didn't want to look like they were trying to emulate it by pitching or developing their own fantasy show, so by the time that it came to renew shows or commission new ones, no-one had been developing a fantasy show to replace Charmed in the schedules. The only reason it kept going until the cast asked for a raise was because it was more trouble to cancel it than to keep making it.
Quote from: Professor Bear on 02 November, 2017, 08:40:59 PM
Fox have probably noticed that most people are fucked if they're paying for CBS All Access (including Netflix - BDUM TISH), so it's renew Orville or start from scratch with another spaceship show and hope it similarly mops up those Trek/sci-fi viewers sticking with regular tv packages.
On a completely unrelated note, I remember there being a story - possibly apocryphal - that the reason Charmed kept getting renewed year after year despite only modest ratings was that everyone at the network thought it was shite and they didn't want to look like they were trying to emulate it by pitching or developing their own fantasy show, so by the time that it came to renew shows or commission new ones, no-one had been developing a fantasy show to replace Charmed in the schedules. The only reason it kept going until the cast asked for a raise was because it was more trouble to cancel it than to keep making it.
I wonder if that explains how Supernatural has been running for what seems like centuries. And I'm not even bagging on Supernatural when I say that! Honestly, there's clearly a place for shows with modest ratings to survive. I was at the Los Angeles Comic Con last weekend and the actress from iZombie had a line of hundreds of people all day long wanting to get her autograph (and paying $40 a pop). Orville's higher profile than that so I'd imagine if FOX are okay with whatever the budget is and the audience stays constant, Orville's got a future.
Episode 8 was a good 'un. Tips the balance between drama and humor a fair bit in the other direction and burns through a whole bunch of Trek tropes like it's auditioning for a JJA movie, but there are a couple of nice touches, particularly BRIAN THOMPSON wearing a wonky alien forehead! You only think you don't know who Brian Thompson is - trust me, when you see him, you'll know. This show just needs a Colm Meaney cameo and it's basically justified that second season.
Also, the ship's doctor is raising two kids and the dad is nowhere to be seen - zero chance that isn't a DS9 meta reference.
So I've been avoiding this until now, but work displacement got the better of me this morning, and I delved into YouTube for a taster.
I still have no idea what this thing is. There seems to be about 1 attempt at humour every 5 minutes, usually just a swearword or some bodily function (often eating?), the rest seems like conventional TV SF with decent (occasionally excellent) production values, with all potential for drama undercut by unlikeable characters (McFarlane and Grimes mainly) mugging for the camera while everyone else plays it more-or-less straight, and by the aforementioned aspiration to be a sitcom.
The tone, and intent, are utterly baffling: would the knowing self-mockery exemplified by Stargate or even Galaxy Quest not have been a better route if so much energy was going to be expended on design, sets and even plots? Is it really just an attempt to smuggle unlicensed Star Trek in under a legitimate parody clause? It seems like a really quite depressing waste of effort, or possibly a tragic missed opportunity - I can't decide. Either way it makes me sad.
Note that this is all filtered through my irrational and possibly unfair dislike of McFarlane's phisiog.
I quite like it but my biggest problem with it, as you point out, is that it's the wrong kind of funny. Farscape, Stargate and Galaxy Quest all handled humour in better, more narrative-grounded ways. But then, humour is the hardest thing to get right so hopefully they'll nail it in the next season.
You couldn't have The Room if Tommy Wiseau hadn't made it.
I'm still trying to get past the warring tones myself, but the contrast creates some interesting moments of cognitive dissonance that wouldn't happen with a show less beholden to Trek or lacking The Orville's clunky humor. I guess it's kind of like the famous sci-fi comedy The Martian: yes, this expensive sci-fi drama production with decent actors is a comedy and we're all baffled by this choice of tone, but here we are.
The humour does sometimes leave me in two minds as well. The "grinding with the statue" scene is a good example. On the one hand, the characters are supposed to be(?) too highly trained and responsible to engage in that kind of behaviour but on the other hand that's just the kind of thing people do to show off. It just felt like "we need a way to get our heroes into trouble so let's do something o.t.t."
In the same episode, the comedy arising from wearing the wrong hat seemed to me to fit in more smoothly with the rest of the narrative.
The Orville, in my humble, seems to fall between two stools - maybe Red Dwarf on one side and Farscape on the other. It doesn't seem to know whether it's set in a funny universe or a universe in which funny things happen.
All that being said, I do enjoy this show well enough and wish it all the best.
Quote from: TordelBack on 04 November, 2017, 11:01:34 AM
So I've been avoiding this until now, but work displacement got the better of me this morning, and I delved into YouTube for a taster.
I still have no idea what this thing is. There seems to be about 1 attempt at humour every 5 minutes, usually just a swearword or some bodily function (often eating?), the rest seems like conventional TV SF with decent (occasionally excellent) production values, with all potential for drama undercut by unlikeable characters (McFarlane and Grimes mainly) mugging for the camera while everyone else plays it more-or-less straight, and by the aforementioned aspiration to be a sitcom.
The tone, and intent, are utterly baffling: would the knowing self-mockery exemplified by Stargate or even Galaxy Quest not have been a better route if so much energy was going to be expended on design, sets and even plots? Is it really just an attempt to smuggle unlicensed Star Trek in under a legitimate parody clause? It seems like a really quite depressing waste of effort, or possibly a tragic missed opportunity - I can't decide. Either way it makes me sad.
Note that this is all filtered through my irrational and possibly unfair dislike of McFarlane's phisiog.
The thing is, it's not really a parody, is it? My biggest hang-up with the show is that it seems a bit too smug, clueless and/or lazy to commit itself one way or the other. Seth's love for Trek (particularly TNG, although I didn't think he meant first season!) isn't fake and there are rumors floating around he actually pitched this to CBS as a legit Trek show. (CBS apparently politely declined, as did Paramount a few years back when we tried to give TWOK the Blue Harvest treatment. Let's not even talk about The Flintstones reboot...) Looks like he just went back to FOX with it and just changed the licence plates.
To be fair, they never really claimed it was a Blazing Saddles/Naked Gun style parody, that was the critics and the audience getting ahead of themselves to confirm their existing opinions of McFarlane. They did actually bill it as a comedy drama, and any enduring claims to parody at this point arguably stem from a belief that Fox will pull the parody defence if they're ever sued by Trek's owners. It's an opinion I may have ventured myself once or twice before considering that CBS/Paramount might have a time proving they have an exclusive copyright on spaceships, planetary unions, and dayglo jumpers.
As I say, I do struggle with the varying tone, but at some point I'll have to cede that this is my own baggage, much as I had to with The Adventures of Brisco County Junior and (coincidentally also starring Bruce Campbell) Ash Vs The Evil Dead.
Quote from: Professor Bear on 04 November, 2017, 03:58:12 PM
To be fair, they never really claimed it was a Blazing Saddles/Naked Gun style parody, that was the critics and the audience getting ahead of themselves to confirm their existing opinions of McFarlane. They did actually bill it as a comedy drama, and any enduring claims to parody at this point arguably stem from a belief that Fox will pull the parody defence if they're ever sued by Trek's owners. It's an opinion I may have ventured myself once or twice before considering that CBS/Paramount might have a time proving they have an exclusive copyright on spaceships, planetary unions, and dayglo jumpers.
As I say, I do struggle with the varying tone, but at some point I'll have to cede that this is my own baggage, much as I had to with The Adventures of Brisco County Junior and (coincidentally also starring Bruce Campbell) Ash Vs The Evil Dead.
I had imagined Seth's muscle in Hollywood was the only thing preventing a lawsuit but more likely, once Orville set up its' stall and CBS saw the two shows weren't going to be identical styles, tones and concepts they probably saw no reason to sue. That probably would have been more of a problem had CBS decided to do a more traditional version of Trek.
Sounds like the show's style has been a tough one to juggle from the get-go. Goodman worked on Family Guy quite a bit and when we asked him what to expect from Orville, he told us to ask Seth as no-one else could nail it down. As for the expectations, yeah, FOX really dropped the ball with their marketing, apparently against Seth's wishes to sell it more honestly, but launching a show is extremely difficult. I guess they figured as long as they get people to tune in, that's all that mattered, not
how they got them to tune in.
I've enjoyed this series so far; tonally it's still a bit all over the place but I hope it finds its feet.
( I feel like it's coming from a much warmer place than *ahem* STD )
BUT- the last episode, (despite a fabbo Kareoke bit at the beginning,) was IMHO the worst one yet.
Really awful.
To be fair to it, it wasn't the worst episode of The Orville, it was the worst episode of anything.
Most recent episode was just as bad; The Orville keeps getting harder to like..:(
Most recent ep was nowhere near as bad, though this was inevitable given what it had to follow.
The latest pulls off a neat trick that Family Guy has done a couple of times: the main plot follows so many familiar tropes that the viewer has too many options to reliably guess what twist the writer will eventually settle upon (I presume they usually go for the most unrewarding twist because that's what the viewer will least expect).
Interesting to see the same tropes and problems as Star Trek Discovery cropping up (particularly[spoiler] killing off main characters/destroying the ship [/spoiler]tipping the writer's hand), yet one of the two gets a free pass - although I'm used to seeing that precarious double standard in these days of nostalgia-led reboots*, and look forward to seeing the Lost In Space relaunch's gnarly 21st century reinvention of the original's communist carrot uprising.
* "The Force Awakens does everything right that The Phantom Menace does wrong!"
Maybe I just disliked it because I guessed 'the twist' so quickly and was hoping to be wrong.
I'd guessed the twist, too (by the time of [spoiler]the Doctor's turn as a mental[/spoiler], the story options for an episodic show become severely limited), but the episode did a good job acknowledging that at this point (it reveals the twist pretty early, and in the middle of what would otherwise be a significant action scene), it wasn't a matter of what was going on but why and how. I particularly liked [spoiler]the misdirection towards the storm[/spoiler] as being significant, but thought maybe given the character arc involved, this episode maybe should have come earlier in the season.
I thought Episode 11 was very good. Jokes , Sci-Fi, pacing, character arcs ,call-backs... it was quite nice.
Think this is coming to the FOX channel, so folk who watch Walking Dead or AHS will be able to watch it properly...
Sean Carroll's Mindscape Podcast Episode 58 - Seth MacFarlane on Using Science Fiction to Explore Humanity. (https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/08/05/58-seth-macfarlane-on-using-science-fiction-to-explore-humanity/)
Recently binged both series of this, I really enjoyed it!! I like the characters and hopeful setting, some of the episodes have made me think and I've got a few good laughs out of it. You can tell they're really finding their identity in series 2, becoming less of a comedy and more of a straight Sci-Fi show, to the point they're ignoring opportunities for jokes.
Like when [spoiler]they rescue Bortus from the Orville on the bottom of the ocean, they ask him how he's survived down there and he says emergency rations - well as a Moclan I thought he should've been eating the ship! Perhaps he says nothing and looks guiltily at teeth shaped chunks missing from the control panels and bridge chairs CLASSIC BORTUS :D[/spoiler].
I noticed a couple of things that I'm sure were nods to Red Dwarf, would be great fun to see those guys in it or have a cross-over or something!