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News Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville

I'm reading a lot of the posts here about sexism, female leads, and tv and tokenism and this and that and I think some people are really missing the point on sexism and female representation.

Yes two of the more interesting characters on the show are women, which is fantastic. I would say the same thing about Voyager, DS9 and TNG, I'd also say the same about Firefly, or BAB5 or NuBSG,

but I think a lot of these roles are being dismissed because of some idea of typical archetypes of female characters. I have a small issue with that notion as A.) I simply don't see it that way and B.) so what?

Let's take Tilly for example, I think it's easy to brush her character off as some typical less than confident woman with high hopes, but the fact of the matter is, that woman exists, That is a person who exists in many walks of life who can probably watch that character and relate to that character. Same thing with characters like Major Kira, or Zoe Washburn or Grayson. I think some people think that a female lead can't be a "real representation" unless it represents women in a particular way or of a particular type which is kind of a sad way to look at it because I think many of these characters do represent a particular type of person.

The Orville isn't breaking any new ground in this regard, strong female lead characters in space exploring Sci Fi has been doing this for a while, a good while. And that isn't a knock against Orville, it's just in support of the idea that many of these shows have already been doing this which is ultimately a good thing.

What I think makes Orville more the forward thinking is the representation of the issues it's representing. But Orville is pretty on par with female characters with a good couple / few decades of other lead Sci-Fi. I certainly don't see any tokenism.
 
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I think the stuff with Yaphit needs to be dialed-back/dropped. Seeing him regularly hitting on the doctor is kind of getting annoying.

Yeah, one boner joke for a blob is good enough for me.

I think we need more jokes about him being squished, or leaving slippery residue behind, he could add some real slapstick to it
 
I like Yaphit hitting on the doctor jokes. But I'd like to know more about his biology and intelligence, what's his nervous system like..
 
I like Yaphit hitting on the doctor jokes. But I'd like to know more about his biology and intelligence, what's his nervous system like..

That's very sophisticated of you. It shows a desire to flex your imagination.

I'd rather some more jokes with people tripping over him, maybe a house cat gets stuck in him, maybe he gets used as a fly paper of sorts.....
 
https://www.spoilertv.com/2017/10/the-orville-episode-110-firestorm-press.html

Robert Picardo as Alara's dad. I mean his character's name is Ildis Kitan. It goes with the assumption.

Molly Hagan, who was the psychic Vorta in that one S2 episode of DS9, is presumably Alara's mum.
Robert Picardo being mentioned I can see - but to mention an extra who had one appearance (as an extra) and is still working in the business, yeah, no,
 
"Extra" - a term no longer used - meant something specific in casting. Hagen was not an extra in any sense whatever. She was guest cast.

Know what you're talking about.
 
They're called "extras" colloquially, I suppose - old habits - but the SEG was absorbed into SAG in the early 90s and they're now referred to as "featured background performers."

Molly Hagan played a character written in the script, Eris, who had substantial dialogue and participation in the story. These people are called "actors."
 
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.
 
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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.

And six original cast movies. :techman:
 
Based on photos from next week it looks as if Dr. Finn's new hair style this week as a member of the landing team is a permanent change in look.

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