The Orville first review
- Thread starter Ensign Ogahd Ahmganadai
- Start date
I liked it better than Farpoint. Best Trek pilot yet
Actually all the Trek pilots were better but that is okay. It was still fun and the clips for the next episode look awesome. Could this show go from fun and diverting to actually being great like "Family Guy?" I can't wait to see that infamous episode 3. Seeing as how wrong the critics seem to have been I really wonder what is going to happen. My gut feeling is the episode proably has some kind of sex joke and people got angry because they wanted platitudes instead.
Jason
Finally had a chance to sit down and watch episode one.
As pilots go it's not the best nor the worst I've seen, some chuckle-worthy moments, a decent enough plot, wasn't quite the comedic tone I was expecting but also does show that it can do some good character moments in the mix as well. The sets are very reminiscent of TNG, the ships/stations and alien races look great, and there's some solid casting to enjoy watching.
Will definitely be seeing if I can catch more episodes as they're released. Whatever issues it might have might work themselves out over the first season, just like most other shows.
As pilots go it's not the best nor the worst I've seen, some chuckle-worthy moments, a decent enough plot, wasn't quite the comedic tone I was expecting but also does show that it can do some good character moments in the mix as well. The sets are very reminiscent of TNG, the ships/stations and alien races look great, and there's some solid casting to enjoy watching.
Will definitely be seeing if I can catch more episodes as they're released. Whatever issues it might have might work themselves out over the first season, just like most other shows.
I've seen the first 3 episodes and I really like it. The first episode had some very funny trek parody moments--like the scene where the scientist's beagle is licking its balls during a conversation with the captain. Considering the fact that Archer's Porthos never put a paw wrong (hell, Porthos was played by a female beagle), I found that very amusing. And the holo program with the friendly ogre...! (You Win!)
Oh, and the second episode with its take off of The Cage! Too funny.
And I found the 3rd episode to be very thought provoking, and I'm glad they didn't go for the easy "happy ending."
I guess I just like parody.
Oh, and the second episode with its take off of The Cage! Too funny.
And I found the 3rd episode to be very thought provoking, and I'm glad they didn't go for the easy "happy ending."
I guess I just like parody.
I've enjoyed what I've seen so far of it (I've only seen some of his films and not his tv shows).
I can't get over how much I am enjoying this show. It absolutely is a love letter to TNG, played completely straight but with some modern (often hilarious) humor mixed in. It deserves a subforum here 
To TNG? You don't think it more closely matched TOS (For The World Is Hallow And I have Touched The Sky) Or (The Menagerie - well, The Cage)?
But I do like it and don't feel bad it's a rip off, but a new take, modern, lighter (they are less serious about most things) and it's quite watchable. I think most Trek fans would like it instead of being offended by it.
Ah, I guess that one episode might compare to the TNG episode, The Outcast.
But I do like it and don't feel bad it's a rip off, but a new take, modern, lighter (they are less serious about most things) and it's quite watchable. I think most Trek fans would like it instead of being offended by it.
Ah, I guess that one episode might compare to the TNG episode, The Outcast.
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Forbes calls it like it is!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottm...show-fans-have-been-waiting-for/#b9efd376da84
Great read.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottm...show-fans-have-been-waiting-for/#b9efd376da84
Great read.
I've seen three episodes, and Orville has definitely tapped into something fundamental to what Star Trek was always supposed to be. I'm enthusiastically waiting to see the next episode -- which is something I haven't said about "real" Star Trek since the middle of TNG's run.
4th episode was quite good. Enjoy 
5th episode. Not as good as the 4th, IMO, but a wealth of new and interesting information.
Pria.
Read Full Review (Included spoilers)
Pria.
Read Full Review (Included spoilers)
ECV-197. I wonder what that stands for. Something, something vessel? Exploratory something vessel?
The Orville apparently has a crew of 300. Good to know.
A comet diving directly into the sun instead of orbiting it - a "sun diver" – a term Kelly used that Kitan should probably know but doesn't is then likened by Kelly to a Kamikaze, a term Kitan almost certainly shouldn't know (but does?). Or maybe she just didn't ask, thinking to look it up later.
These stupid estimates to the nearest second always annoy me, like "The comet will break up in 7 minutes 23 seconds." To me that doesn't sound smart so much like they have data they really shouldn't or couldn't, or are retaining more significant digits than they really should.
Gorden is using an external alarm clock, like a phone, maybe – rather than a shipboard computer or internal system. It may even be their communicators, so they carry and use those a lot and don't rely as much on built in com systems. But they have both.
They can easily regenerate limbs. I was impressed.
Bortus made me laugh.
Yaphit oozes around the conduits, so he's handy. He isn't always that funny, though. And the chief engineer even less so.
Gorden's jokes aren't particularly funny this time – like we have to rescue her since she's so beautiful, and there's some techno babble in there that seems off, but I really hated the bad physics when the shuttle was easily on its way out, but goes a little farther away from the star and suddenly the sun's gravity became too much for them (when it would have been weaker there farther away). I suppose that might make sense if the engine's suddenly failed, but that's not what they said.
Jar of pickles is reused, and so damn soon, and the special effect is bad and unlikely. I hate how she crumples solid metal sheets or blocks like it was wet tissue paper just because she grew up in a high gravity environment. She's isn't a little stronger, she's Superman strong, and Issac is apparently stronger than she is. Mind you, using that strength to rip out the alien device controlling the ship didn't seem to occur to them, so that seemed odd.
Dysonium is a naturally occurring fuel source. Whatever that is.
The Orville is Dysonium powered and has a quantum drive capable of exceeding 10 light-years per hour. That is MUCH MUCH faster than most any ship in Star Trek. Voyager could have gotten home in a little more than ¾'s of a year at that speed. In TOS terms, it might be around Warp 45.
Anyway, the Orville (which isn't even their top line ship) could get across the 120,000 light year wide Milky Way galaxy in just one and one third years. Impressive. Therefore, they can probably go anywhere or be anywhere in the galaxy they want for any story without too much trouble. They could even go to the Andromeda Galaxy in about 30 years, but I'll assume the Planetary Union is just in this one galaxy.
Unfortunately, this is also a problem for standard plot stuff. For example, their communication systems are damaged and the nearest base is 5 days away. Where the frack are they that the nearest base is 1,200 light years away? I guess inhabitable planets are much farther apart than in the Trek Universe. That may be fine. At that speed, if they averaged 5 days apart, you could still squeeze 100 civilizations in a straight line course from one end of the galaxy to the other, and that's just in one dimension. In 3D, with billions of stars to choose from, there could be hundreds or thousands of civilizations to keep them occupied for the series. If they remain consistent in this way, we won't know for a while yet. But wow, that is one darn fast ship.
The Orville has a sublight drive, too. What is that? Impulse engines? I wonder what dumping "all power" into that drive accomplishes. Well, they seem to "jump" almost like teleporting, but apparently it has a rate – 10 LY/hour, but when they get there, they move around on their sublight drive, I would guess. That may be a good thing.
Issac (the robot-like life form) recharges and is unaware of his surroundings while doing that. His "eyes" are not really eyes, but just decoration - though they do go out when he is shut down. It doesn't say how often he recharges, but to make the story work, it almost would have to be daily.
Speaking of decoration, Captain Mercer has an oval image of a bookcase/nick-knack shelf behind his desk (an image?) It seems a little weird to me, so I wonder if it is more than a fixed image, like maybe he can pick it like a screen saver, so it could be any static image, or maybe even a mobile one, like an aquarium with fish. The current image included a model of the Orville, and a Slinky, as well as many books and a few other items.
They have a Holo-Deck, of sorts – an Environmental Simulator. It might be quite limited, perhaps only showing distant 3D images and nothing one can really interact with. We'll probably learn more about it later.
Kelly is fairly dishonest in this episode – lying to Kitan about not noticing the captain's goo goo eyes toward Pria (leading to Kitan's formal reprimand, though she later admits to noticing it to her ex) but lying to her captain about her apparent jealousy and ultimately making him apologize to her and claiming to have no fault and having been nothing but professional. Again, she walks over this captain. It makes him look weak - again.
The main story seems flawed since Pria lured them off course in the first place, and to the dark matter area where they would have died – if not for her distress call, they wouldn't have been anywhere near there, so she changed the past, it seems to me. Thus, her reason for being there makes no sense. And I doubt dark matter would interact so strongly with normal matter, so I think the science is off. Regardless of that, or the fact their torpedoes can collapse a wormhole, which seems unlikely, the Orville's survival in that timeline might eliminate Pria's future existence and not just preclude her from having a reason to come into the past. Yet they remember the incident, and I suspect the teleport device the captain confiscated remains tucked away in his desk drawer, despite the way Pria vanished as if she had never come back into the past. It should have vanished with her, and the memory of her, too. But I'm betting the memory of her remains, and so, too, will the teleport tech remain, and sooner or later Captain Mercer is going to use it in a story. Why else put it in his desk drawer? Though he did claim "they" aren't the sort to take it apart and try to reverse engineer it - it could still be used without doing that.
I've seen the idea of traveling into the past to rescue or collect people, who historically died at some event, but I don't recall any Trek episode too similar to this, so this may be the most original/non-Trek-like idea they have used yet. But they did use Amelia Earhart, and so did Trek, but it's different.
I still like the series, but this episode wasn't as good as the last, IMO. However, it was filled to the brim with new facts and interesting tidbits about the Orville Universe.
Also, they showed a clip of the show, Seinfeld, which is apparently part of their past. Seinfeld sometimes mentioned Star Trek (a fictional show, so in a way, we may infer the fictional show Star Trek is also part of the past in the Orville Universe and part of its pop culture. It seems strange, of course, they are watching things that old, let alone while on duty and on the bridge, but that's just part of humor and less serious nature of the show. But wow, those guys must have little to do for long periods of time on that ship.
Seth might make direct references and jokes about Trek in the Orville episodes, but I suspect he'll avoid the more direct references as hitting too close to home.
The Orville apparently has a crew of 300. Good to know.
A comet diving directly into the sun instead of orbiting it - a "sun diver" – a term Kelly used that Kitan should probably know but doesn't is then likened by Kelly to a Kamikaze, a term Kitan almost certainly shouldn't know (but does?). Or maybe she just didn't ask, thinking to look it up later.
These stupid estimates to the nearest second always annoy me, like "The comet will break up in 7 minutes 23 seconds." To me that doesn't sound smart so much like they have data they really shouldn't or couldn't, or are retaining more significant digits than they really should.
Gorden is using an external alarm clock, like a phone, maybe – rather than a shipboard computer or internal system. It may even be their communicators, so they carry and use those a lot and don't rely as much on built in com systems. But they have both.
They can easily regenerate limbs. I was impressed.
Bortus made me laugh.
Yaphit oozes around the conduits, so he's handy. He isn't always that funny, though. And the chief engineer even less so.
Gorden's jokes aren't particularly funny this time – like we have to rescue her since she's so beautiful, and there's some techno babble in there that seems off, but I really hated the bad physics when the shuttle was easily on its way out, but goes a little farther away from the star and suddenly the sun's gravity became too much for them (when it would have been weaker there farther away). I suppose that might make sense if the engine's suddenly failed, but that's not what they said.
Jar of pickles is reused, and so damn soon, and the special effect is bad and unlikely. I hate how she crumples solid metal sheets or blocks like it was wet tissue paper just because she grew up in a high gravity environment. She's isn't a little stronger, she's Superman strong, and Issac is apparently stronger than she is. Mind you, using that strength to rip out the alien device controlling the ship didn't seem to occur to them, so that seemed odd.
Dysonium is a naturally occurring fuel source. Whatever that is.
The Orville is Dysonium powered and has a quantum drive capable of exceeding 10 light-years per hour. That is MUCH MUCH faster than most any ship in Star Trek. Voyager could have gotten home in a little more than ¾'s of a year at that speed. In TOS terms, it might be around Warp 45.
Anyway, the Orville (which isn't even their top line ship) could get across the 120,000 light year wide Milky Way galaxy in just one and one third years. Impressive. Therefore, they can probably go anywhere or be anywhere in the galaxy they want for any story without too much trouble. They could even go to the Andromeda Galaxy in about 30 years, but I'll assume the Planetary Union is just in this one galaxy.
Unfortunately, this is also a problem for standard plot stuff. For example, their communication systems are damaged and the nearest base is 5 days away. Where the frack are they that the nearest base is 1,200 light years away? I guess inhabitable planets are much farther apart than in the Trek Universe. That may be fine. At that speed, if they averaged 5 days apart, you could still squeeze 100 civilizations in a straight line course from one end of the galaxy to the other, and that's just in one dimension. In 3D, with billions of stars to choose from, there could be hundreds or thousands of civilizations to keep them occupied for the series. If they remain consistent in this way, we won't know for a while yet. But wow, that is one darn fast ship.
The Orville has a sublight drive, too. What is that? Impulse engines? I wonder what dumping "all power" into that drive accomplishes. Well, they seem to "jump" almost like teleporting, but apparently it has a rate – 10 LY/hour, but when they get there, they move around on their sublight drive, I would guess. That may be a good thing.
Issac (the robot-like life form) recharges and is unaware of his surroundings while doing that. His "eyes" are not really eyes, but just decoration - though they do go out when he is shut down. It doesn't say how often he recharges, but to make the story work, it almost would have to be daily.
Speaking of decoration, Captain Mercer has an oval image of a bookcase/nick-knack shelf behind his desk (an image?) It seems a little weird to me, so I wonder if it is more than a fixed image, like maybe he can pick it like a screen saver, so it could be any static image, or maybe even a mobile one, like an aquarium with fish. The current image included a model of the Orville, and a Slinky, as well as many books and a few other items.
They have a Holo-Deck, of sorts – an Environmental Simulator. It might be quite limited, perhaps only showing distant 3D images and nothing one can really interact with. We'll probably learn more about it later.
Kelly is fairly dishonest in this episode – lying to Kitan about not noticing the captain's goo goo eyes toward Pria (leading to Kitan's formal reprimand, though she later admits to noticing it to her ex) but lying to her captain about her apparent jealousy and ultimately making him apologize to her and claiming to have no fault and having been nothing but professional. Again, she walks over this captain. It makes him look weak - again.
The main story seems flawed since Pria lured them off course in the first place, and to the dark matter area where they would have died – if not for her distress call, they wouldn't have been anywhere near there, so she changed the past, it seems to me. Thus, her reason for being there makes no sense. And I doubt dark matter would interact so strongly with normal matter, so I think the science is off. Regardless of that, or the fact their torpedoes can collapse a wormhole, which seems unlikely, the Orville's survival in that timeline might eliminate Pria's future existence and not just preclude her from having a reason to come into the past. Yet they remember the incident, and I suspect the teleport device the captain confiscated remains tucked away in his desk drawer, despite the way Pria vanished as if she had never come back into the past. It should have vanished with her, and the memory of her, too. But I'm betting the memory of her remains, and so, too, will the teleport tech remain, and sooner or later Captain Mercer is going to use it in a story. Why else put it in his desk drawer? Though he did claim "they" aren't the sort to take it apart and try to reverse engineer it - it could still be used without doing that.
I've seen the idea of traveling into the past to rescue or collect people, who historically died at some event, but I don't recall any Trek episode too similar to this, so this may be the most original/non-Trek-like idea they have used yet. But they did use Amelia Earhart, and so did Trek, but it's different.
I still like the series, but this episode wasn't as good as the last, IMO. However, it was filled to the brim with new facts and interesting tidbits about the Orville Universe.
Also, they showed a clip of the show, Seinfeld, which is apparently part of their past. Seinfeld sometimes mentioned Star Trek (a fictional show, so in a way, we may infer the fictional show Star Trek is also part of the past in the Orville Universe and part of its pop culture. It seems strange, of course, they are watching things that old, let alone while on duty and on the bridge, but that's just part of humor and less serious nature of the show. But wow, those guys must have little to do for long periods of time on that ship.
Seth might make direct references and jokes about Trek in the Orville episodes, but I suspect he'll avoid the more direct references as hitting too close to home.
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Krill
Read Full Review (Included spoilers)
Tid Bits I missed or failed to mention before in this or earlier episodes:
They have tractor beams.
They made a reference to Star Wars. The doc said she would be Kitan's Obi-Wan. Lt. Alara Kitan didn't know who or what that was.
The Tech for Transporters or Teleporters exists, but the Union doesn't have them. Some more technologically advanced races have them, however, and Captain Mercer did confiscate future Pria's device, so it's likely to be used at some point.
Captain Mercer has already asked Kitan to help him with this "jar of pickles" three times - each for a stuck door. It'll probably be a thing. At least once he quipped he had first loosened it for her.
They mentioned "subspace" as in some sort of signal, so subspace is a thing there.
It's a running joke how Lt. Gordon Malloy is the best helmsman around, but his vocabulary is limited, he doesn't know many bigger words, even if they seem common enough to me, and he is generally ignorant of a great many things. This doesn't seem to bother him in the least.
They made reference to the sitcom, Friends.
20th and 21st century pop culture seems more popular than anything from their own modern era, I guess.
I guess others have to post here first for me to continue, lest I post too often in a row (unless the "reasonable" amount of time between posts is about a week, then it might be fine - but if so, a MOD should say so here since it's vague).
Read Full Review (Included spoilers)
The technologically advanced and hostile race, the Krill, seem to have embraced more strongly their religious roots as they advanced technologically (unlike most technologically advanced races that rely on religious beliefs less and less as they advance, so Admiral Ozawa says, or something to that effect).
So the Krill apparently feel anything they do is justified since their God, Avis, had given them permission to do as they will to all other lesser species (anyone who is not of the faith, I guess).
The Orville gets the best of a tactically superior/larger Krill ship through some complex maneuvers and surprise multi missile strike, and the Krill ship blows up. However, a lone shuttle (empty) survived the explosion and was thrown clear. They take it, thinking to reverse engineer it (I assume) though Admiral Ozawa has a different plan. They use holo tech emitters to disguise the Captain and Lt. Malloy as Krill (seems pretty unlikely, again if nothing else than they aren't natives and probably couldn't speak the language well enough) but it's played for a lot of laughs, too, so I guess it's O.K., and they are to get in and copy the Krill holy book, which might provide the knowledge they need to deal with them. O.K.
They take the shuttle into Krill territory, meet up with a large war ship, dock, and ingratiate themselves with the crew as survivors from the other Krill ship Mercer had destroyed earlier. Just lucky to be home. They go to some religious service on board that has the priest stabbing a dead human head repeatedly with a knife (the locals seem to love that, though it makes the guys feel ill) and later they visit a schoolroom (a bunch of Krill children being taught humans are soulless, godless, or whatever). Mercer learns this ship is going to deploy a new weapon to destroy over 100,000 human farmers on a settlement, so he has to stop the ship, but he doesn't want to kill the children.
In the end he manages to do all this (kill the crew, save the Krill children and their teacher), get the book, and the warship too. Massive victory if you ask me. The children are sent home, but the teacher remains a prisoner? I'm not sure why. She wants to know why Mercer didn't kill the children and he says they were not his enemy. She tells him considering what he just did, they sure as shit will be in the future. I say big deal. Considering what she was teaching them, they would have been anyway.
So with the ship, the tech, and the holy book, the Planetary Union is now much further ahead in the Union/Krill war.
TECH NOTES:
The have replicators superior to Federation tech - they can even replicate a living plant (a cactus).
Bortus can eat most anything and the guys find that hilarious as they make him eat the cactus, the napkin, a glass, etc. John compared him to Matter-Eater Lad.
I liked the episode, however implausible much of it was, and the topic of religious justification to do anything you wish to others of differing beliefs or most anything else is examined.
Avis Car Rental
So the Krill apparently feel anything they do is justified since their God, Avis, had given them permission to do as they will to all other lesser species (anyone who is not of the faith, I guess).
The Orville gets the best of a tactically superior/larger Krill ship through some complex maneuvers and surprise multi missile strike, and the Krill ship blows up. However, a lone shuttle (empty) survived the explosion and was thrown clear. They take it, thinking to reverse engineer it (I assume) though Admiral Ozawa has a different plan. They use holo tech emitters to disguise the Captain and Lt. Malloy as Krill (seems pretty unlikely, again if nothing else than they aren't natives and probably couldn't speak the language well enough) but it's played for a lot of laughs, too, so I guess it's O.K., and they are to get in and copy the Krill holy book, which might provide the knowledge they need to deal with them. O.K.
They take the shuttle into Krill territory, meet up with a large war ship, dock, and ingratiate themselves with the crew as survivors from the other Krill ship Mercer had destroyed earlier. Just lucky to be home. They go to some religious service on board that has the priest stabbing a dead human head repeatedly with a knife (the locals seem to love that, though it makes the guys feel ill) and later they visit a schoolroom (a bunch of Krill children being taught humans are soulless, godless, or whatever). Mercer learns this ship is going to deploy a new weapon to destroy over 100,000 human farmers on a settlement, so he has to stop the ship, but he doesn't want to kill the children.
In the end he manages to do all this (kill the crew, save the Krill children and their teacher), get the book, and the warship too. Massive victory if you ask me. The children are sent home, but the teacher remains a prisoner? I'm not sure why. She wants to know why Mercer didn't kill the children and he says they were not his enemy. She tells him considering what he just did, they sure as shit will be in the future. I say big deal. Considering what she was teaching them, they would have been anyway.
So with the ship, the tech, and the holy book, the Planetary Union is now much further ahead in the Union/Krill war.
TECH NOTES:
The have replicators superior to Federation tech - they can even replicate a living plant (a cactus).
Bortus can eat most anything and the guys find that hilarious as they make him eat the cactus, the napkin, a glass, etc. John compared him to Matter-Eater Lad.
I liked the episode, however implausible much of it was, and the topic of religious justification to do anything you wish to others of differing beliefs or most anything else is examined.
Avis Car Rental
Tid Bits I missed or failed to mention before in this or earlier episodes:
They have tractor beams.
They made a reference to Star Wars. The doc said she would be Kitan's Obi-Wan. Lt. Alara Kitan didn't know who or what that was.
The Tech for Transporters or Teleporters exists, but the Union doesn't have them. Some more technologically advanced races have them, however, and Captain Mercer did confiscate future Pria's device, so it's likely to be used at some point.
Captain Mercer has already asked Kitan to help him with this "jar of pickles" three times - each for a stuck door. It'll probably be a thing. At least once he quipped he had first loosened it for her.
They mentioned "subspace" as in some sort of signal, so subspace is a thing there.
It's a running joke how Lt. Gordon Malloy is the best helmsman around, but his vocabulary is limited, he doesn't know many bigger words, even if they seem common enough to me, and he is generally ignorant of a great many things. This doesn't seem to bother him in the least.
They made reference to the sitcom, Friends.
20th and 21st century pop culture seems more popular than anything from their own modern era, I guess.
I guess others have to post here first for me to continue, lest I post too often in a row (unless the "reasonable" amount of time between posts is about a week, then it might be fine - but if so, a MOD should say so here since it's vague).
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They replayed the first episode last night and I'm so glad they did. I'd forgotten some of the things that made me chuckle the first time around--the dog licking its balls, the Odo-like character (all sentient goo all the time!) hugging the donkey... And really, can you even imagine Kirk admitting that someone else had a better line than he did?("You've got wood!")
There are so many things I like--even, dare I say, love?--about this show. I hope it's around a loooong time.
There are so many things I like--even, dare I say, love?--about this show. I hope it's around a loooong time.
I liked the 3rd episode... It dealt with changing the sex of a baby from an all male race. It was actually a really good show. Though the humor isn't that funny, there are good jokes in the show.
I watched like the third episode and it was pretty funny. I liked it.
Why?
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