is this getting renewed or is it in trouble? I hear conflicting reports.
Still only seen the pilot, wanna see more!!
The ratings so far:
episode --- live + SD --- live + 3 --- live + 7
1 --- 2.71 / 8.558 mio ----
3.5 / 11.3 mio ------------------------------- after 35 days:
3.9 / 14.5 million
2 --- 2.17 / 6.631 mio ----
2.8 / 8.415 mio ---
3.1 / 9.054 mio
3 --- 1.10 / 4.053 mio
4 --- 1.05 / 3.698 mio -------------- ? -------------
2.1 / 6.811 mio
5 --- 0.91 / 3.431 mio -------------- ? -------------
2.1 / 6.786 mio
6 --- 0.99 / 3.371 mio ----
1.9 / ? mio ----------
2.1 / 6.692 mio
And
here is the most recent renew/cancel index. Looks good so far.
I don't mind sexism for the sake of humour. I mind the casual sexism of not having enough women in the show and making the ones you do show in gender stereotypical roles. Having a couple of token high profile characters does not hit the mark in modern sci-fi.
I am also still waiting for a scifi show with space ships in which 50 % or more characters are female. The Orville doesn't fit the bill. But it is at least not worse than other space based scifi shows I can think off. It is actually even better than some including DIS. 3 out of 8 main characters are female. That is a higher percentage than DIS with its 2 women out of 6. Not to mention that at least The Orville didn't break any promises. DIS on the other hand promoted their allegedly "diverse" cast for months before the premiere and then delivered nothing like it. Their lonely two female main characters are even at the bottom of the picking order on board of the Discovery with one having no rank and the other being only a cadet. Contrast that with Grayson, Kitan and Finn. The first officer, the chief of security and 4th highest officer on board and the CMO. I also don't think that any of those jobs are stereotypical female. They are also definitely not token characters. We are only 6 episodes in and they all got already some development especially Grayson and Kitan. I think I know already more about them than about Uhura and Sulu after watching all three seasons of TOS.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the Bechdel test is a steaming pile of shit. A female dominated movie like Gravity actually fails the test while a movie that is otherwise sexist garbage can pass the test just by having a ten minute scene in which two female characters talk about shoes. Why this continuously gets held up as the gauge of sexual equality I'll never understand.
It is mentioned so often because the test is super, super easy to past and still tons of movies don't pass it. When you look at the list
here it is really crazy how many movies fail each year. Gravity might be the only movie there who failed it who is not bad from a feminist point of view. But one rare exception doesn't make the test as a whole worthless.
Of course that doesn't mean that movies which past it aren't treating their female characters crap. Often they have also way too little of them in the first place. This test really isn't saying that a movie which pasts the Bechdel test can't be sexist like hell. It just points to a big general problem in the movie business. It is more than telling that there isn't a male version of the Bechdel test. And why is that so? Because likely close to 0 % of all movies ever made would have failed such a test. The Bechdel test really shouldn't exist, but not because it is bad, but because practically all movies should past it and there should be no point to it just like there is no point to a male version of the test.