For it trying to be silly, it comes across as being a much deeper show than Star Trek: Discovery.
THE ORVILLE - S1, E6: "KRILL"
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For it trying to be silly, it comes across as being a much deeper show than Star Trek: Discovery.
The 'audience' is made up of older Trekfans who are full of themselves and Brown-25 and who believe that Star Trek is supposed to stay the same way it always has been in order to suit them and only them, and nobody else (and these are the people who were always complaining on and off-line about how boring and crappy Voyager and Enterprise were while praising Deep Space Nine to the high heavens-forgetting that DS9's a lot like Discovery!)
Both the dissatisfied critics of The Orville and the dissatisfied viewers of Star Trek: Discovery can kiss my black butt.
The people I know who preferred DS9 to Voyager and Enterprise (not just myself) like Discovery. The people who thought TNG was the bestest Trek ever seem to lean towards The Orville.
^^And I liked DS9, TNG and later series Ent but like Orville much better than Dsc.
Anyway, another good ep. I was very entertained. Couldn't get enough of the car rental humor- after the 2nd one, I was looking out for it. Didn't disappoint.
I'm really going to feel starved between series 1 and (presumed) series 2. I'll probably have watched the first series 3 or 4 times by then. Hope next series is longer.
Anyway, another good ep. I was very entertained. Couldn't get enough of the car rental humor- after the 2nd one, I was looking out for it. Didn't disappoint.
I'm really going to feel starved between series 1 and (presumed) series 2. I'll probably have watched the first series 3 or 4 times by then. Hope next series is longer.
Exactly, it's like adding chocolate chips or chocolate syrup to chocolate ice cream versus adding chocolate chips or chocolate syrup to vanilla ice cream. Chocolate on top of chocolate is too much chocolate taste! Chocolate on vanilla is better. The contrast is what makes it all more interesting.
Show producers see the enthusiastic reaction from fans when an upbeat show ends on a grim note, and the producers figure it might be good to do a series based entirely on a grim dark storyline. But constant grimness and darkness gets old and dreary really quick - especially against the blackness of space.
I liked the initial episodes of Space: Above and Beyond, but then it was just so continually grim that I got tired of the unending grimness (and all the teen/young-adult angst).
(Btw, did anyone notice that the guy who played Col. McQueen from S:AaB was in Episode 4 of The Orville, as the leader of the Reformers?)
It has silly moments, but it isn't a silly show, not by a long shot.
This reference has nothing to do with Islam...
Just like Christianity. Mercer literally made the obvious book of Genesis joke in that very scene.
No, they see owning everything as their divine right. The attacking part is apparently just a logical consequence.
Like, say, Crusaders?
You know churches have had bells for centuries, right?
Didn't notice anything on the walls, but the script in the book looked absolutely nothing like arabic. Arabic is curvy, flowing, often hard to tell one letter from another, and surprisingly small in height. This script was pointy, filled much more space and had very clear spaces between letters.
Muslims cheer allahu akbar at a football game, even when their team is losing. It's an all purpose phrase that literally is used for all purposes. Meanwhile, chanting glory to god, the king, etc, has never been exclusive to islam.
Only in the sense that 'Adele Dazeem' is 'similar to' Idina Menzel.
Which is not a muslim belief... Otherwise, how could they possibly ever accept converts?
It does not. Not even a litte bit.
Ah, but Krill begins with the letter K, just like the Ku Klux Klan, which, as we all know, is totally irrelevant because this is a completely ridiculous argument to begin with.
There are plenty of less than admirable christian churches still out there that do still wear ceremonial robes. Though in this instance I agree, that's one piece of evidence that it isn't aimed directly and exclusively at american christian fundamentalism. It is, rather, aimed primarily at religion in general, with the strongest hints pointing towards historical european religions (ie, colonialism), in general.
Still not unique to Islam.
Well that proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Krill are definitely Seth's fictional condemnation of the Predator.
It's the Parallel Cultural Development episode - 21st century Earth, with a few little tweaks.
We were due for one.
I think that the current conflict with Islamic terrorists is the "elephant in the room" - ie. the reason behind The Orville making a commentary on religious holy war. Crusaders, etc fought in the name of their God many centuries ago, not today. Islamic holy warriors fight in the name of their God today, and meanwhile The Orville seems to be trying to provoke thought about serious contemporary issues for today's audiences. Hey, everyone from Chaucer to Shakespeare has done social commentary on the issues of their day.
Fine, he's tried to camouflage things somewhat - that's what scifi and storytelling allow you to do.
The reboot of BSG did the same thing. The "Cylons" were able to infiltrate humanity by conveniently looking like everyone else - and they were able to do suicide attacks, and had a deep belief in God (not a feature of the original show). You can't tell me that that all of that was just a coincidence, especially since that show came in the years following 9/11.
I don't see why we should feel offended by these comparisons. The Orville does show some nuance in the Krill - we see the children are innately curious about humans, etc, but are taught to kill and devalue others. We also see a morally tenuous ending, whereby Mercer is told that he's just created a new generation of enemies who will hate him. So it's not as if everything's presented in an absolutely black-and-white manner. The episode abetted reflection and introspection.
except suicide bombings/attacks had been in use long before BSG or the events of 9/11 - but as they didn't impact the west too much (the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka where the main practitioners) they generally didn't get much coverage in the media.
Should also be remembered the Cylons weren't the only ones to use suicide attakcs (they used two - Doral aboard Galactica and one the Sixes aboard Cloud 9), but Duck's attack on the graduation class in New Caprica. An attack that a) not only killed Cylons but also the humans seen as collaborates - much in the way the French resistance had no hesitation in taking out those who collaborated with the Germans.
I wouldn’t say it’s a deep show. I would say it’s a very “natural” show.
1) Of course any writer can do commentary on current social issues, but it does not follow that every story must be such commentary.
2) Terrorism is not the only aspect of religion that is currently controversial.
3) Calling terrorism an 'elephant in the room' that no one will talk about is factually ridiculous, especially in terms of Hollywood. The subject has been talked to death, dissected, autopsied, frankensteined and talked to death again.
4) Saying that Seth wrote this story about Islamic terrorists but 'tried to camouflage things somewhat' is like saying that God created elephants on the blueprint of anteaters, but tried to camouflage things somewhat. Yes, there are some similarities, but there are significantly more differences. The Krill aren't even terrorists in the first place, for god's sake. They're an evil empire that matches the good guys ship for ship.
I've already made my point that the Krill and their religion are not mere stand-ins for Islamist terrorists or extreme Christian fundamentalists, even though there is plenty of correlation that can be made. That's what good writing is about: making the story relevant to the real world, not just some outright model of the real world with the costumes changed. The same story would have found different correlates 50 years ago, and will find them 50 years hence.
Some folks here are saying the story was anti-religion. We were told the Krill are exceptions to a general rule that adherence to religion usually declines with advances in technology. (That general rule applies to today's world as well.) We weren't told there was no significant religion in the Union's culture, nor was any general anti-religious point made here. The "message" (if you want to label it so) is that blind adherence to religious or moral beliefs in the face of evidence (or ethical logic) to the contrary can be dangerous.
Some folks here are saying the story was anti-religion. We were told the Krill are exceptions to a general rule that adherence to religion usually declines with advances in technology. (That general rule applies to today's world as well.) We weren't told there was no significant religion in the Union's culture, nor was any general anti-religious point made here. The "message" (if you want to label it so) is that blind adherence to religious or moral beliefs in the face of evidence (or ethical logic) to the contrary can be dangerous.
They don't have to be stand-ins, but the issue of Islamic terrorism is what's front and center for religious violence today, and so I think that's a key part of what's motivating the commentary in this episode. But sure, the allegory can extend beyond Islamist violence.
And that's why, if they're not impacting the West too much, they wouldn't prompt the commentary. But 9/11 certainly did affect the West, and thus certainly did prompt a lot of commentary, including through fiction. We seem to be talking past each other - you're primarily fretting over whether Muslims should be blamed for terrorism (ie. "Tamils did it first"), while I'm mainly looking at what's motivating the commentary by The Orville. Your reference to Tamil Tigers seems rather oddly picked, since Japanese Kamikaze are a much better known example of suicide attacks which occurred much earlier.
In one of the earliest episodes - I think there was one where Starbuck has to torture somebody for info - they did have a suicide bombing then. There was also the use of the Resurrection ship so that Cylons could come back from the dead after sacrificing their lives.
No, I mean for this Krill episode, current events could easily be a key motivator, because shows are more likely to talk about stuff that's relevant to today's audiences than about stuff that obscurely happened a thousand years ago.
I'm saying that current suicide attacks that are going on in the world today would be a more likely motivator of the current TV fictional commentaries on religious holy war than some mere history lesson from a thousand years ago. The methods and tactics aren't what's being commented upon - technically, Mercer and Malloy carried out the sneak attack amid the Krill, rather than the other way around - but the motivation of mindless religious dogma is being commented upon.
Given the reference to Jehovah's Witnesses a few weeks back, it would seem like Earth religions are still around to some degree.
Then again, there will always be annoying door-to-door salesman.
I wonder if the Jehovah's Witnesses are still going, "Okay, THIS time we're sure!" in the 25th century?
Krill are not anything specific, they're all religious fundamentalists.
I like the episode. I like that it gave the heroes genuine moral dilemmas, even if a bit forced. That's been the story of Orville though I guess. Real moral dilemmas expressed in a way that's a bit forced.
I wouldn't call Orville 'thoughtful'. They address thoughtful topics but in a very generic way. They address serious topics on the same level of seriousness that Enterprise addressed AIDS or TNG addressed environmentalism or the IRA.
The ending of this episode was the same as "...Maybe peace begins...with one child putting down one gun."
I like the episode. I like that it gave the heroes genuine moral dilemmas, even if a bit forced. That's been the story of Orville though I guess. Real moral dilemmas expressed in a way that's a bit forced.
I wouldn't call Orville 'thoughtful'. They address thoughtful topics but in a very generic way. They address serious topics on the same level of seriousness that Enterprise addressed AIDS or TNG addressed environmentalism or the IRA.
The ending of this episode was the same as "...Maybe peace begins...with one child putting down one gun."
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