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News Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville

I like the original Alara design better. the eyebrows make her seem more human-like. And the arrow ridges ehre lower on her nose, making her easier on the eyes. The bright red lipstick also gave her more of a feminine appearance (not that that is necessary at all).



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Serveaux said:
If your idea of funny is the stuff that Trek comes up with from time to time, well then god blessed.;)

I'm on record ad nauseam in the TOS forums that I like my Trek straight-up; that's why I didn't mention TOS' "Piece of the Action" or "I, Mudd": not funny. (Albeit not full of incongruous slob-humor from 1967.) But, yeah, both the Tribble eps were humorous (at least on first viewing) and character-driven stuff too. Odo scenes. Some (some!) Data scenes. Maybe the Chaotica schticks from VOY. The purported "funny" eps, I agree, are usually pretty bad.

Weird is good.
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Sometimes. Good weird is good. Paul Simon singing with microtuned instruments about how the Werewolf is Comin' on his last album: That is weird and good. Firefly overall was weird, but good. Orville's humor is just so . . . incongruous and dumb. To this guy. Like what you like. Ima go buy a sod house on Hudson Bay soon where I won't have to interact with contemporary culture that thinks dog-licking-balls or guy-drinking-a-beer-on-shuttlecraft is funny.

Be well, all. Ah woo, the werewolf's a-comin . . .
 
plynch said:
Those were juvenile and incongruous and took me out of the story like most in Orville. Cf. to character-driven humor like in both Tribbles eps, or many scenes with Quark in DS9.

Orville was just . . . weird. I'm supposed to care about or get into the drama of a plot and characters that keeps being interrupted by balls-licking dogs or someone calling someone a bitch on the bridge. Jocularity, jocularity.
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Your comment would make sense if one of the characters had interrupted the Professor on the view screen and yelled "SET A COURSE OUT OF THIS SYSTEM, THERES A DOG LICKING ITS BALLS!" But it was nothing of the kind.

Instead it was just a quip from one co-worker to the other, which is exactly what you could expect from somebody who just saw ball-licking on a screen the size of a living room wall.

That one, and the 'bitch' comment was a way of humanizing the characters for me.

Seemed like a much more genuine dialogue than the stilted speech we're used to from a sci-if show, and I kinda liked it.

Heck, I'm pretty sure that in 400 years when we fly around in space on a daily basis, a cheating exwife might still be called 'a bitch' by her husbands best friend.
 
The collars and color inserts on the uniforms look like some kind of microperforated ultrasuede. Supposedly all this stuff was imported from China.
 
dodge said:
There's no point.
If all they do is just riff on TNG the show will be dead before anyone could file a lawsuit...
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Well, the ratings were pretty good for the series premiere.

And yeah, the show will have to find its own tone, but I don't have a problem if they do that while remaining in a Star Trek-like universe. There seems to be an audience for an optimistic, fun* Star Trek show, and if CBS/Star Trek copyright owners won't give it to us, then this will do quite nicely.


*Fun as in: Let's explore the Universe and space while we tell good stories-fun, not ha-ha-funny-fun.
 
StCoop said:
How is this not being sued to hell? The sets, the costumes, the FX, the music, dear god the music, are all clearly ripped off from Star Trek. Drop the unfunny jokes and you could be watching a lost TNG spin-off series.

They don't even have parody as a defense as they keep giving interviews in which they say they're not a parody.
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The music far and away felt the most similar, but none of it is exact. A copyright on music is not the "feel" of the music. The closest thing would be the sheet music. If this has different notes, it's not violating a copyright. Likewise, no copyrights or trademarks are directly infringed. I think the only real question would be whether it could cause confusion, but that feels like a stretch. It's an homage. But just because it covers well-trodden ground doesn't mean it's interfering with Paramount and CBS's rights on those grounds. It's not any more than Star Wars mirroring Flash Gordon.
 
MarsWeeps said:
Just watched it. I don't see it lasting for more than one season. Attempts at humor were just awful, even for a parody. I liked the security chief, you can flush the rest of the cast down the toilet. I give it 1 out of 5 stars.
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I keep seeing people calling it a parody, but it's not it's a comedy done in a Star Trek style.
plynch said:
Those were juvenile and incongruous and took me out of the story like most in Orville. Cf. to character-driven humor like in both Tribbles eps, or many scenes with Quark in DS9.

Orville was just . . . weird. I'm supposed to care about or get into the drama of a plot and characters that keeps being interrupted by balls-licking dogs or someone calling someone a bitch on the bridge. Jocularity, jocularity.
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plynch said:
Sometimes. Good weird is good. Paul Simon singing with microtuned instruments about how the Werewolf is Comin' on his last album: That is weird and good. Firefly overall was weird, but good. Orville's humor is just so . . . incongruous and dumb. To this guy. Like what you like. Ima go buy a sod house on Hudson Bay soon where I won't have to interact with contemporary culture that thinks dog-licking-balls or guy-drinking-a-beer-on-shuttlecraft is funny.

Be well, all. Ah woo, the werewolf's a-comin . . .
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I'm sorry, but if you don't like the kind of humor in The Orville, then why the hell were you watching a Seth McFarlane show? I know they were talking about how it wasn't as much of a straight comedy as most of McFarlane's stuff, but it's still pretty damn clear from the commercials what kind of humor is in the show.
Seth McFarlane and his style of humor is also pretty well known at this point, so I would anybody who pays even the slightest amount of attention to the media would know who he is and what he does.
 
Watching this again, I get such a kick out of Epsilon 2 - how everything is so amazing and wonderful and researchers are "brilliant" and discovering things That will "change the galaxy" - it's all so gosh-wow and played both as silly and earnest at the same time.

They've really captured something.

And God, I love the run-and-shoot. I don't know why I love it so. :D
 
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What type of guns are they using?

Seth got hit in the shoulder and his arm did not fall off, melt, explode or evaporate.

They seemed like energy weapons, but their guns could just be using energy as a propellant to fire solid projectiles.
 
Serveaux said:
McFarlane's politics are pretty much on display in Family Guy.

Which has nothing at all to do with this:

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CorporalClegg said:
That's a pretty epic GN couch.
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Seth is just a pure entertainer, and he holds his own in that group really well. I think people/critics/whoever focus too much on the low-brow humor and simply decide not to like him. He's given a pretty wide berth because of his success. I wonder how many people are just jealous?


Serveaux said:
Xelayan.

I notice that in many of the publicity images for the show, Kitan has eyebrows. In the pilot she does not. Wonder if that changes later or the large format stills of the characters were preliminary.

View attachment 2997
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The first image, for one looks blatantly photoshopped, and secondly has a completely different nose (the real one is wider and upturned). Is that even the same actress?
 
Serveaux said:
Watching this again, I get such a kick out of Epsilon 2 - how everything is so amazing and wonderful and researchers are "brilliant" and discovering things That will "change the galaxy" - it's all so gosh-wow and played both as silly and earnest at the same time.

They've really captured something.

And God, I love the run-and-shoot. I don't know why I love it so. :D
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I'm recording it again tonight.

Looking forward to it.

The run and shoot was pretty bad, though...

:lol:
 
I'm surprised -- I liked it more than I thought I would. I thought it played like a live-action Family Guy/Futurama Trek-themed episode. It was off-putting, but I kind of liked that. I knew it wasn't going to replace Trek for Trekkies, like some on here were saying, but I was afraid it would fall flat after 15 minutes, the bloated detour of a powerful Hollywood Trekkie. It still might, but it's casually enjoyable and can see it lasting a full season, at least.

The TNG cues were a real delight. I miss that show. I wouldn't take all of that seriously in a Trek series today...well, that is, the exaggerate versions of the cues -- the production design is purposely broad and cheesy, a la Galaxy Quest -- but I appreciated that someone else appreciated that stuff from the show. I jumped when they came back from commercial and the Orville flew by to TNG-like music. Dated, but wonderful.

Some things I liked better than where Trek went. The view screen/skylight were fantastic and way better than the E-E's -- a step backward from what people liked from the series. A tactical problem, you say? Yeah, yeah...transparent duranium, additional deflector shields, whatever -- if that were really an issue, the bridge would be in the middle of the saucer instead of a delicate cherry on top.

It had issues -- people don't get hit when they're shooting point-blank at each other, in the open, for a while -- but it was fun over dinner.
 
Serveaux said:
I notice that in many of the publicity images for the show, Kitan has eyebrows. In the pilot she does not. Wonder if that changes later or the large format stills of the characters were preliminary.
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We get one good shot of her in the season preview trailer and she has eyebrows, so that seems to be her final look. The earlier suggestion that they decided or were told to make her more attractive seems likely.
 
Captain of the USS Averof said:
And do they use/have money in PUF?
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When the Krill arrived, a character lamented that probably they wouldn't "be out by 5:00 today" (obviously they can't change shift during a crisis).

So the obvious questions are:
  • is there a overtime bonus?
  • is there a "battle" bonus?
  • will the next shift bridge crew do a "full" shift? Will they be paid in full?
I'm sure that there will be an episode where they have to discuss these matters with the crew union...
 
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