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The Orville has humor scenes where humans try to defuse a tense situation by making jokes. I have been in tense situations, and my internal laugh track is the first thing I start tossing out as a defense.
News Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville
- Thread starter Kai "the spy"
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Defusing tension with humor is fine, and something shows like Buffy and movies like Galaxy Quest did very well. But bridge officers making dick jokes and gossiping and acting like a bunch of frat boys makes it awfully hard to believe these are people serving on a real ship in some distant utopian future. Or that they are people we should actually care about.
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I disagree. We're used to the Star Trek universe where everyone has become far too refined to make simple jokes. Hell, people don't even get drunk in the future. They just waive off the effects because it's synthehol. In short, as much as I love post TOS Star Trek, they managed to suck out much of the humanity in the humans. I swear to god, my last words in a fight would be "well fuck me sideways."
Unlike Star Trek (most of it), they aren't selling it as a Utopian future, just a future. A future that still has humans behaving like humans.
^^^
That sums up my feelings toward TNG 24th century era Star trek in once sentence better then anything I've written since I started trying to express my view about TNG Star Trek.
Oh, I find these characters so much easier to believe and to care about than the character's in the post-TOS Trek shows...
I sure as Hell have no more use for Roddenberry's shallow "utopia."
I noticed something on the second viewing of episode three: they use "comscanners" the size of a smartphone that combine the communicator and tricorder.
Which has been the obvious innovation for ten years but Trek has never gotten right.
I sure as Hell have no more use for Roddenberry's shallow "utopia."
I noticed something on the second viewing of episode three: they use "comscanners" the size of a smartphone that combine the communicator and tricorder.
Which has been the obvious innovation for ten years but Trek has never gotten right.
I think a few real world military veterans here have said such banter is not usual among sailors, soldiers and Marines. And I know it happens where I work. I feel thinking it doesn't or won't in the future is unrealistic, Utopian or not.
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Thanks!
It's something that has been nagging at me for a while. Hell, in The Neutral Zone, the crew was utterly insufferable when compared to the 20th century humans. Here we have human beings who have been displaced by centuries, and they're treated like inconveniences. Yeah, the Enterprise is dealing with a mystery, but when has that ever been an excuse for humans in dire need of help to be treated so poorly? That it was season one doesn't matter. We're being shown a utopian future, and from what I could see, it's only utopian for the people living in it. For anyone from this century, it would likely be a nightmare.
I think one of the things I love about the Abrams films is that they have the same visceral nature as TOS. There wasn't just pseudo-intellectual, condescending harrumphing, people got drunk, people got fucked, but shit got done.
Sweet shit, the dick jokes and gossip are there to add colour to the show and makes things entertaining. This show is not meant to be a documentary detailing life aboard an exploratory starship in the distant future as accurately as possible. It's meant to be enjoyable, for fun. That being said, we're only three episodes in to this show and most of the cast is already fleshed out and made more relatable than the majority of 24th century Trek characters were after seven years and 170ish episodes.
Besides, bridge banter is no stranger to any of the Star Treks. A lot of TOS episodes usually end with Kirk and McCoy making disparaging remarks about Spock publicly, and the rest of the bridge officers joining in with a laugh. In TNG we had Picard and Riker discussing horses, Data making jokes in an official briefing about an officer getting killed, Riker telling stories to impress the female bridge officers, and Worf complaining about how he doesn't like bathing. On DS9 in Ops on the station we had everyone taking five while Kira tried a new brew of coffee and O'Brien bringing his baby to work. On the Defiant, Sisko, Dax and O'Brien make jokes about Worf smelling like lilac, while O'Brien, Bashir and Garak recite poetry during a battle. On Voyager, Tom Paris frequently makes smartass comments, Harry Kim lounged around playing his clarinet while in command of the bridge. On Enterprise, we had a Starfleet admiral divert a Vulcan ship just to relay sports scores to Archer. But then, none of these are about dicks, so I guess that makes it okay by your logic, right?
You know what, Star Trek could use more dicks.
Airmen, too.
My late father, the USAF Master Sergeant, is rolling in his grave.Airmen, too.
So far, I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying the Orville. The serious parts of the show are actually pretty sci-fi, and while the humor for me tends to fall flat (mixing of genres), I haven't gone through an episode yet without at least one chuckle.
I honestly think that if this show ditched the humor and went all out serious--it would be pretty damn good.
It really is a shame Discovery is on a limited platform. I'm not paying to see it after tomorrow, and this show certainly fills my sci-fi needs for now.
I honestly think that if this show ditched the humor and went all out serious--it would be pretty damn good.
It really is a shame Discovery is on a limited platform. I'm not paying to see it after tomorrow, and this show certainly fills my sci-fi needs for now.
The term "com-scan" was used in dialog in The Empire Strikes Back. According to Wookieepedia, it means an integrated communication/sensor system. That's pre-TNG.
I love your post overall, but this point stood out to me because I think this is were TOS and TNG differ. The nature of humanity became more and more distant from contemporary humanity, and it made it difficult to connect with the main characters. Abrams' Trek definitely brought a spark of life, and potential flaws to the characters.Thanks!
I think one of the things I love about the Abrams films is that they have the same visceral nature as TOS. There wasn't just pseudo-intellectual, condescending harrumphing, people got drunk, people got fucked, but shit got done.
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Yep. I watch these shows for entertainment. I'm not Jane Goodall, working to study an elusive, mystifying ape society beyond my ken. If I can't relate in some way, then what am I getting from the show? I think that's one of the reasons why the folks behind Trek keep going back in time to the TOS era, because that's where we are still relatably human. Some people want us to go further into the future, but how do you relate to problems and human issues that no longer exist 400-500 years into the future? Hey, let's drink synthehol, play poker with fake chips, and have harmless conversation verging on mediocre jokes no one finds funny even now in the 21st century. Woo!
I'd definitely agree with that. I think they're getting a good handle on it. I've enjoyed it a great deal.
It's definitely fair to compare. I like both shows but IMO the humor is more clever in Red Dwarf. YMMV. That's not to say that I don't enjoy The Orville. I've particularly enjoyed the 2nd and 3rd episodes.
Yeah, I've never been a big fan of comedy comparisons, especially with such a big age gap.
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You can be the thimble.Loved the Monopoly scene.
I want the car too