Author Topic: The Orville Season 2  (Read 13659 times)

MyriVerse

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The Orville Season 2
« on: December 31, 2018, 07:35:13 PM »
Well, I really, really hope this episode wasn't indicative of what this season will be, or it will be the last... that I watch, anyway.

This episode was a real bore-fest. Bortus is such a horrible character at this point. He never does anything. This plot went nowhere. Of course, none of the B-plots in this episode went anywhere, and there was no A-plot. So, we were left with a complete waste of an episode. It might be impossible to spoil this episode because of the utter lack of meaningful plot.

Not a way to start a season.
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Tenzhi

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2018, 11:23:20 PM »
I didn't hate the episode, but it was all over the place with too many things going on.  And none of the things really amounted to anything.  Gordon's little story annoyed me the most.  It felt... contractually obligated. 
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GamingGlen

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2019, 02:57:47 AM »
It was still better sci-fi than no sci-fi.  And the more they show Grayson (Palicki) the better *sigh*.

I didn't mind all the sub-plots, but I do agree it needed an A-plot. Perhaps it could have been a link between episodes having a major involvement in a 3-episode A-plot, which this episode downplays a little (A-plot blows up to be a major crisis in episode 3).  But what do I know about writing TV shows?


MyriVerse

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2019, 07:00:03 PM »
It was still better sci-fi than no sci-fi.
It was lucky to be on a holiday Sunday. It's now moving to Thursdays and tougher competition. In the future, I might even decide to watch reruns on H&I (TNG) or Comet (Bab5).

Quote
Grayson (Palicki)
I'm kind of irritated with her. Whether she and Mercer are together or not, she knew the feelings were still there before she ever stepped foot on the ship. Yet she wants to tease him with this "it'll hurt your decision making" nonsense. Whether they're together or not, it's going to hurt his decision making, and she knows making decisions isn't his strong point.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2019, 07:59:28 PM by MyriVerse »
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GamingGlen

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2019, 07:48:37 PM »
I'm kind of irritated with her [Grayson]. Whether she and Mercer are together or not, she knew the feelings were still there before she ever stepped foot on the ship. Yet she wants to tease him with this "it'll hurt your decision making" nonsense. Whether they're together or not, it's going to hurt his decision making, and she knows making decisions isn't his strong point.


That has always bothered me, too.  I don't understand why high command would approve of it, unless they thought the ex would keep the on-shaky-ground captain in line.  Perhaps Seth sold the idea to Fox executives as a way to increase tension and drama in the show with hilarious results and now have to follow up on it. 

I felt that way about the whole pee once a year thing: a one-line joke they decided to follow up on.  It's probably meant to parody Amok Time from TOS (Spock's once per 7 year "itch") but I think it's a poor parody. 

Tenzhi

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #5 on: January 01, 2019, 10:23:17 PM »
Personally, I was hoping the separation drama would've been resolved.  It seemed like an arc that should've been completed at the end of first season.  Evolve and move forward.
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Tenzhi

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2019, 01:52:22 PM »
Episode 2 seemed a lot better.  Although Kelly's "my god we're burning up" may have been the worst line delivery in the series.
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MyriVerse

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2019, 09:18:30 PM »
I was briefly like "oooh, something's happening with Bortus."

Aaand... it's gone. :-\

Bortus is such a screwed up character that he even condones his own murder. WTH?! Maybe his husband should be a crew member.

And I really, really dislike these types of stories. I don't even like the "classic" pon farr Trek episode.  Surely, an alien species would be vetted and knowledge of such extreme cultural traits before they can even serve on board a starship. It completely breaks my suspension of disbelief to accept such illogic.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2019, 09:23:42 PM by MyriVerse »
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Tenzhi

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2019, 06:10:53 AM »
Sometimes it's hard to remember this is a spoof.  In any case, the divorce/relationship plot seemed to be more of a catalyst for the ship-in-danger/rescue story.  It was a bit silly, though. 
When you insult someone by calling them a "pig" or a "dog" you aren't maligning pigs and dogs everywhere.  The same is true of any term used as an insult.

MyriVerse

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2019, 03:57:32 PM »
Well, thanks Seth and everyone else involved for making my decision easier. I'm done with the show now.
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Tenzhi

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2019, 01:55:15 PM »
That was an awesome episode.  A shame about the loss of probably my favourite character, but still it was great from start to finish.
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MyriVerse

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #11 on: January 12, 2019, 03:12:01 PM »
They can create artificial gravity, even to the point of protecting an individual in a suit from the planet she was from, but there isn't a more permanent solution? I just can't.

And her replacement? Ugh. I never wanted a live-action Futurama.

This series was already hanging by a thread for me before this season, but this makes 3 bad failures in a row for me. I don't think I've ever been more disgusted with a scifi series.
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Tenzhi

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #12 on: January 12, 2019, 10:01:12 PM »
They came up with a permanent, or at least long term, solution for Alara.  She chose not to take it.

Unless you're complaining about the time limit on the suit, but that one's too easy.  There are too many potential tech limitations to explain it away to remotely be bothered by it even if this was hard sci-fi.

The only thing that bothered me about Patrick Warburton's? alien was his mode of speech.  And yet he still was less annoying than Gordon.
When you insult someone by calling them a "pig" or a "dog" you aren't maligning pigs and dogs everywhere.  The same is true of any term used as an insult.

Tahquitz

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #13 on: January 12, 2019, 10:46:17 PM »
Possible RL issues with the actress.  Better job opportunities, starting a family, or the scriptwriters intended her to leave all along. 

In any case, The Orville can now try to "Tasha Yar" her back into the cast.  (Parallel Dimension, Evil Alara is the Union's Public Enemy #1 and chases Ed from galaxy to galaxy like a wounded rabbit.)
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MyriVerse

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #14 on: January 13, 2019, 01:17:53 PM »
The "solution" wasn't good enough, and there never should have been a problem in the first place. The crew really shouldn't be just figuring out how to cope with these different races. All of that stuff should be nailed down decades before they're even serving together. This is even a huge problem I had with Trek from the beginning. Technologically, generating this gravity field really should be no different than everything they already have.

Warburton's alien speech didn't bother me. It was just Warburton being Warburton.

And ultimately, her reason for leaving was just a wishy-washy excuse. The character, who was pretty much my third favourite on the show (actually the third of three that I even remotely like), lost almost all of my respect for that.

It did not help that the series was already hanging by a thread for me. I've disliked about 60% of the episodes before this episode. This was truly a straw breaking the proverbial camel.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2019, 01:26:06 PM by MyriVerse »
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Tenzhi

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2019, 02:43:04 PM »
I think it's extremely unrealistic to expect humans to have everything worked out about themselves, and thus by extension certainly not everything about the aliens they're working with.  Moreover, in more serious sci-fi from a narrative perspective these sorts of stories allow the audience to learn about the alien cultures.  Of course, The Orville kinda pretends it wants to be serious sometimes, but it's somewhere between Red Dwarf and Star Trek.

I can't deny that part of the reason I loved the recent episode was due to Picardo and Billingsley, though.  If they ever do an episode with Jeffrey Combs as a key character, there's every chance it could be utterly daft and I'd love it.
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MyriVerse

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2019, 03:34:06 PM »
Humans do have everything worked out about themselves.

We, the audience, can learn about these cultures in ways that don't mean the characters are just learning about them. I think it's very lazy and poor writing to write the characters and society as such buffoons (even for a semi-comedy like this). They would be complete buffoons to have species like these serving without knowing completely what they are and how to deal with them for many years. Nothing like Bortus' episodes or this episode should be happening. It defies all reason.
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Tahquitz

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #17 on: January 13, 2019, 08:22:13 PM »
That's kind of the line they're traipsing over. 

Robin Williams knew it well.  Comics who try to do drama are mostly expected to stop doing comedies.  (Tom Hanks, Denis Leary, etc.)  And dramatic actors who do comedies have a hard time getting back into a drama (Jon Hamm, Robert Stack).  Those who dance between both have a hard time being what they want to be.  A dramatic actor who's funny, or a comedian who does dramas.  It doesn't matter where they're seen to lie, it's the same challenge.  (Bryan Cranston, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson.)  Yes, I know I'm ignoring the origins of most of who I've named.  Jon Hamm started out in stand-up, Denis Leary owes a lot of his success to others, Tom Hanks had no dramatic inclinations until Zemeckis challenged him to try out for Forrest Gump, etc.  Stay with me.

Comedy is for fun.  Drama is supposed to be good.  What's hard is making something that balances both (Scrubs).  Even harder than that, a show that does both elements and does it well.  It's taxing.  (Compare M.A.S.H. and House M.D., but not to each other.  Compare each show's first seasons to their later ones.  It's a difficult marathon to keep up.)

Williams spent his entire career with that fight.  And it seems MacFarland wants to do the same himself.  But I think he's aiming more towards Scrubs than House M.D. here.  The Orville isn't a straight parody since you're supposed to care about the characters past 'slapstick dismissal', but it isn't serious television, because it's looser than Star Trek.  (Except that Star Trek: Discovery let it's cast drop some F-Bombs in the first season out of "See? We can do something The Orville can't!  No bleeps!") I enjoyed the first season of The Orville, but that's mostly freshman luck.  If you do sufficient ground work and find an audience who wants what you're making, it's not terribly hard to succeed after your show is greenlit.  A newly established 'universe', a chance to see how a cast 'gels together' on screen, everything is new plot wise... (if the trope isn't new to the audience, it's new to the actors who can reinterpret it however they wish)

Unlike a franchise, they haven't painted themselves into a corner with established lore, retcons that didn't work, and climax resolutions to weary viewers like Star Trek has fought against with each season.  First Season is cake compared to Season 2, 3, 4... But when they do reach that point, will The Orville be able to hold it's own?  Does he stand true to what the show started as, does he point the ship towards one genre or the other (like MASH did... drop the laugh track and embrace the hell of a war), or does it sink altogether and stop being fun (doesn't matter what decision is made, if that point is reached, who cares if it's a comedy or drama at that point?)

That's why I'm still watching.  I want to see what MacFarland does when that point is reached... or in MyriVerse's case, if he'll keep his viewers around long enough to find that point in the first place.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2019, 08:42:42 PM by Tahquitz »
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Tenzhi

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #18 on: January 14, 2019, 01:51:18 AM »
Humans do have everything worked out about themselves.

No.  Not even close.  We will always be discovering new things about our biology and the things that affect it.  And there will always be new things cropping up that affect us, particularly if we were able to effectively explore the galaxy.  And that's just biologically speaking.  There's also the cultural differences that would almost certainly become more divergent as we spread across the vast distances of space - and again, that's just among ourselves.  No, it's utterly daft to think we'd have everything worked out about various alien species.  Mind you, it might be even more ridiculous to think we'd be able to collectively get past our xenophobic tendencies to work with a variety of aliens in the first place.
When you insult someone by calling them a "pig" or a "dog" you aren't maligning pigs and dogs everywhere.  The same is true of any term used as an insult.

Tenzhi

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Re: The Orville Season 2
« Reply #19 on: January 18, 2019, 02:26:43 PM »
That episode was very predictable and familiar, but not bad.  It steered back towards sci-fi, not focusing nearly as much on the "comedy" elements.
When you insult someone by calling them a "pig" or a "dog" you aren't maligning pigs and dogs everywhere.  The same is true of any term used as an insult.