No, it's "no to trademark theft."
The partisans seem to have trouble with that specific.
News Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville
- Thread starter Kai "the spy"
- Start date
The partisans seem to have trouble with that specific.
Wow! That was much better then I thought it would be based on the reviews! I think I might be looking forward to the Inhumans now!
My wife, my son, and I just finished watching the premiere. All three of us had the same reaction.
That was much better than we expected. An excellent mix of humor and heart. It's like TNG, only everyone is a real person.
I don't know what show all those critics were watching. This was a wonderful debut, I'm just so impressed with how they struck the perfect tone.
I like super-strong girl, serious guy, and the new Trip and Reed guys (I'll learn their names eventually).
All the of us give it an A.
That was much better than we expected. An excellent mix of humor and heart. It's like TNG, only everyone is a real person.
I don't know what show all those critics were watching. This was a wonderful debut, I'm just so impressed with how they struck the perfect tone.
I like super-strong girl, serious guy, and the new Trip and Reed guys (I'll learn their names eventually).
All the of us give it an A.
Gotta admit, I was worried that Orville would riff on Galaxy Quest and have an accident on launch. I'm really glad they didn't.
Wow, you can tell that much from one line?! Amazing!
I wasn't as nuts about this after the first episode as many of you seem to be but I do recommend checking out Seth's twitter from time to time. Lots of cool details and he really does seem to be invested in it.
https://twitter.com/SethMacFarlane
https://twitter.com/SethMacFarlane
I liked the soft joke with the spacesuited worker you always see in spacedock porn scenes interrupting them.
What time is it where you are?
The Krill, in appearance, remind me of tge Jem'Hadar.
Take out the spikes and lighten the color, and you have the Krill.
I really enjoyed this. I am definitely sticking around.
Take out the spikes and lighten the color, and you have the Krill.
I really enjoyed this. I am definitely sticking around.
Just started watching it again. I really like Justin the ogre. I hope we see him again somehow.
Isn't being a special one a cliche at this point. I mean you had Starbucks who was special, Kira from Orphan Black who was special, Peter from Gaurdians who is special, Clara and now The recent companion from doctor who are special. What happened to the regular humans or people.
I appreciate this show having someone drinking soda on the bridge. Most space travel I would think is really boring.
I liked it. Still not sure if Seth McFarlane is "leading man" material, but its his show so he gets to cast himself. Will be watching the show.
After the mediocre reviews from critics my expectations had dropped significantly, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the pilot. I think the reviewers were too hung up on MacFarland's previous comedic body of work and were expecting nonstop rather in-your-face attempts at humor instead of the relatively low key stuff (with the exception of a couple dick and balls jokes) we did end up getting. Given the way the network misleadingly promoted this show almost entirely as a comedy in trailers and TV spots despite MacFarland's comments to the contrary in interviews, it's understandable why some critics were confused by the final product, though.
But I'm fine with the mix of drama, action, and humor as it stands now, since it defies simple categorization and keeps a nice mix of genres and tonal shifts that keep your attention going. There was one scene with the scientist who created the time device on the planet being rapidly aged till death that I found genuinely shocking and gruesome and was not expecting at all given the tone of the episode up until that point, so it keeps you on your toes. I also found the end resolution to taking out the enemy ship with an instant Redwood one of the most novel and cool things I've seen in a scifi show in a long time.
The action scenes were fairly well done, though it's going to be hard to take the Krill seriously as (I'm assuming) recurring antagonists when they're even worse shots than drunken Stormtroopers with glaucoma. There was a point where the crew inexplicably decided to run through the fountains in front of the building (slowing them down significantly) and the aliens couldn't hit them from about twenty feet away with rifles while the Captain and Ex-O were picking them off with pistols. The helmsman's rapid rotation around the Krill ship to avoid enemy fire was pretty nifty, though, and well done FX-wise. Very Defiant-esque.
Time was constrained, so I'm sure it will be revisited, but it felt a little odd to drop the exposition about the Kaylon robot guy's speciesist superiority complex and then not have it be demonstrated in any significant way, or not give him much to do period. He said he would be the best officer on the ship and then didn't really do anything besides repeat what's on the computer screen, TOS Uhura and Gwen DeMarco-style. Unless that's ultimately going to be the joke, that these are a race of machines who think they're vastly superior to all biological lifeforms but it turns out they're kind of below average when you actually get them in a mixed crew setting.
They didn't get a lot to do, but I have a feeling the burgeoning friendship between the helmsman and navigator should prove to be a tight bond and deliver a lot of laughs. Ironically, the biggest laugh of the night for me was the holographic fighting simulator ogre who was a super-supportive buddy and talked about them "feeling blessed" to get this new space assignment right before being decapitated. That had me laughing out loud.
It was nice to see Penny Johnson Jerald again after DS9, 24, and Castle and I hope she gets a lot of screen time as the skeptical but warm doctor who goes where she feels her skills will be most needed. Halston Sage's Alara was pretty neat, playing essentially Golden Age Superman (powers-wise) in the body of a tiny early twenty-something. Though I do wonder if her being so strong and capable will force them to constantly find reasons to have her be off the bridge or away from the rest of the crew should one of them need to be put in danger or kidnapped. They did it in the pilot by having her jump away to prep the shuttle while the rest stayed behind to fight. I hope they don't always have her leave the scene or have to introduce more and more powerful enemies so that she can be Worf-syndromed.
I actually liked Mercer and his ex-O's banter once they got past the initial bitterness between them, and I hope they can keep a professional relationship on the bridge even if they remain tense off-duty. I hope the quips about her cheating don't go back to being a regular thing again, since they seemed to come to something of an understanding at the end of the episode. The reviews made it sound like it came up in more than just the pilot. I've got no problem with them still having residual bitterness and awkward tension, I just think it would be something of a step backwards if they constantly fell back on making fun of her cheating over and over again after he asked her to remain aboard.
The production design was excellent. I really like the organic shape of the Orville, though the shuttlecraft doesn't really do anything for me. The two space stations shown were really well done and the futuristic New York City was pretty cool, and it was nice to see One World Trade Center in there among the skyscrapers viewed from the Brooklyn Bridge. The Krill warship had standard bad guy ship written all over it, but it was still pretty cool, as were the shuttles.
So, all in all, I'd give the show a pleasantly surprised "B+" grade. There's plenty of room for improvement, but I definitely enjoyed myself and look forward to seeing more.
But I'm fine with the mix of drama, action, and humor as it stands now, since it defies simple categorization and keeps a nice mix of genres and tonal shifts that keep your attention going. There was one scene with the scientist who created the time device on the planet being rapidly aged till death that I found genuinely shocking and gruesome and was not expecting at all given the tone of the episode up until that point, so it keeps you on your toes. I also found the end resolution to taking out the enemy ship with an instant Redwood one of the most novel and cool things I've seen in a scifi show in a long time.
The action scenes were fairly well done, though it's going to be hard to take the Krill seriously as (I'm assuming) recurring antagonists when they're even worse shots than drunken Stormtroopers with glaucoma. There was a point where the crew inexplicably decided to run through the fountains in front of the building (slowing them down significantly) and the aliens couldn't hit them from about twenty feet away with rifles while the Captain and Ex-O were picking them off with pistols. The helmsman's rapid rotation around the Krill ship to avoid enemy fire was pretty nifty, though, and well done FX-wise. Very Defiant-esque.
Time was constrained, so I'm sure it will be revisited, but it felt a little odd to drop the exposition about the Kaylon robot guy's speciesist superiority complex and then not have it be demonstrated in any significant way, or not give him much to do period. He said he would be the best officer on the ship and then didn't really do anything besides repeat what's on the computer screen, TOS Uhura and Gwen DeMarco-style. Unless that's ultimately going to be the joke, that these are a race of machines who think they're vastly superior to all biological lifeforms but it turns out they're kind of below average when you actually get them in a mixed crew setting.
They didn't get a lot to do, but I have a feeling the burgeoning friendship between the helmsman and navigator should prove to be a tight bond and deliver a lot of laughs. Ironically, the biggest laugh of the night for me was the holographic fighting simulator ogre who was a super-supportive buddy and talked about them "feeling blessed" to get this new space assignment right before being decapitated. That had me laughing out loud.
It was nice to see Penny Johnson Jerald again after DS9, 24, and Castle and I hope she gets a lot of screen time as the skeptical but warm doctor who goes where she feels her skills will be most needed. Halston Sage's Alara was pretty neat, playing essentially Golden Age Superman (powers-wise) in the body of a tiny early twenty-something. Though I do wonder if her being so strong and capable will force them to constantly find reasons to have her be off the bridge or away from the rest of the crew should one of them need to be put in danger or kidnapped. They did it in the pilot by having her jump away to prep the shuttle while the rest stayed behind to fight. I hope they don't always have her leave the scene or have to introduce more and more powerful enemies so that she can be Worf-syndromed.
I actually liked Mercer and his ex-O's banter once they got past the initial bitterness between them, and I hope they can keep a professional relationship on the bridge even if they remain tense off-duty. I hope the quips about her cheating don't go back to being a regular thing again, since they seemed to come to something of an understanding at the end of the episode. The reviews made it sound like it came up in more than just the pilot. I've got no problem with them still having residual bitterness and awkward tension, I just think it would be something of a step backwards if they constantly fell back on making fun of her cheating over and over again after he asked her to remain aboard.
The production design was excellent. I really like the organic shape of the Orville, though the shuttlecraft doesn't really do anything for me. The two space stations shown were really well done and the futuristic New York City was pretty cool, and it was nice to see One World Trade Center in there among the skyscrapers viewed from the Brooklyn Bridge. The Krill warship had standard bad guy ship written all over it, but it was still pretty cool, as were the shuttles.
So, all in all, I'd give the show a pleasantly surprised "B+" grade. There's plenty of room for improvement, but I definitely enjoyed myself and look forward to seeing more.
For better or worse, rightly or wrongly, I decided to give this a pass as soon as I saw the name Brannon Braga attached to the credits.
I say as soon as the ratings are published and there's a day's name that ends in 'y'.
It seemed to me that the jokes were halfhearted, as if what they really wanted to do was the Trek homage, but felt obligated to include the humor because of MacFarlane's reputation. It really would have been much improved without the marble and beer jokes, although I did get a kick out of them dragging the alien captain into their bickering. But where did that tree get all the nutrients and stuff it would have needed to grow so huge-- spending a hundred years on the deck of an alien warship should have left it a withered little sprout.
I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen Seth MacFarlane in anything, so I came with no expectations, but he seemed fine to me (awkward humor aside). The entire cast, in fact, I found to be very good, and probably the strongest component of the show. I loved the ship (including that stairway, which brought a touch of Seaview to the Enterprise), both inside and outside-- that's a nice distinctive design. And I loved the tactic of buzzing around the much bigger ship like an annoying housefly.
I'll keep watching for a while, at least. It's a Space Opera, it doesn't look like it was filmed in a factory basement, it's episodic, it has likeable characters-- all the things that I liked about Star Trek. If they can just minimize the forced humor, it might amount to something.
I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen Seth MacFarlane in anything, so I came with no expectations, but he seemed fine to me (awkward humor aside). The entire cast, in fact, I found to be very good, and probably the strongest component of the show. I loved the ship (including that stairway, which brought a touch of Seaview to the Enterprise), both inside and outside-- that's a nice distinctive design. And I loved the tactic of buzzing around the much bigger ship like an annoying housefly.
I'll keep watching for a while, at least. It's a Space Opera, it doesn't look like it was filmed in a factory basement, it's episodic, it has likeable characters-- all the things that I liked about Star Trek. If they can just minimize the forced humor, it might amount to something.
They set it up earlier by talking about how it was engineered to thrive in literally any environment.