That would be a valid point if the show ever presented itself as classy. Unlike much of Star Trek, it does not pretend to be somehow more evolved and enlightened than other TV shows. At the very least, it doesn't trumpet that fact to high heaven for all to hear. Instead, the show picks human moments to relay a message, and it seems to be working for a lot of people. I love Star Trek, but I find just as much humanity and heart, if not more, in Orville.
But I wasn't referring to the episode, I was referring you you replying to what I said and making a joke about inserting one's cock through a hole in a wall and having it sucked by presumably a stranger and that if I had followed you there, I would have enjoyed myself. Hence the classy comment.
Maybe you would have, who knows? You did watch the episode, right? You do know the scene to which I was referring?
And I didn't find that funny in the slightest, but then again, I don't go in for crass American humour very often.
Well, it's not even that. Sometimes a good, crass joke hits the spot. I don't like this idea that low brow has to mean low intelligence, or that it is for the hoi polloi. Whether or not you're making that assertion directly is of no issue here, merely that crass humor is often seen as undesirable, unenlightened, lacking in intelligence, and it just isn't true. Hell, the people who read and understand Shakespeare know damned full well that the man loved a good fuck joke. While we're at it, Mozart was a fan of scatological humor. One does not have to believe the earth is flat or that Bud light is actual beer in order to enjoy a good dick joke. Again, not saying that you specifically were touting this, only that your post does follow that same pattern of being above low brow humor. It reminds me of the people who say that if you swear it means you have a poor vocabulary. Regardless of my perspicacity, sometimes it's just nice to say "fuck" a lot.
To (needlessly) repeat myself: Which means I do like it sometimes (although I can't think of any examples other than the American Pie films right this minute), but I prefer my comedy to be just a tad darker and not aimed at the lowest common denominator which that joke and your running with it seems to me. Chalk it up to a cultural difference.
Everything on the Orville was great this week. Maybe I'm just a kicker for this kind of humor, but these jokes feel natural to me and not "Out of the blue". These characters are developed in such a way where 8 episodes in you know their personalities and you laugh with them during the casual conversations because that's just the way these people are. The stuff with Claire was great too, but I was annoyed by the boys to really be into it. I did love Claire and Issac's character development, especially with Claire being a single mom and chose that independence. It reminded me of Sisko and Jake in DS9 and how that relationship developed and I honestly wish we had more of that on TV.
And I'm sure if you really felt it wasn't, you'd justify why it's not. I just did not find that joke funny, I didn't find it funny in the context of the episode and nor did I find your response to my not enjoying the episode funny either. Remember, humour, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I don't have to justify anything to you, but I just named two people from two vastly different cultures that found "low brow" humor to be their raison d'etre. Don't make this a culture thing, because it isn't. It's an individual preference, nothing more. So? You tried to make this into some kind of argument that "American" humor is crass and low brow, and it was intended as insulting. If you don't like it, fine, but it doesn't excuse the condescension towards people who do.
I can enjoy lowbrow humor but the 'Gloryhole' joke was unearned, in my opinion. This is the first episode of Orville which felt to me like it had real 'human' moments, because it's the first episode that kept the jokes in funny scenes and didn't interject them inappropriately into emotional scenes. I also want to call out what I'm liking now about Isaac. He's kind of like if Data didn't want to be human. It has always felt a little overly flattering to me that the machine would want to learn how to be more like me, the audience. Star Trek is telling me not only that there are other things in the universe that can think on the level I can, they all love people like me and want to be more like me. And anything that doesn't want to be like me is an evil bastard who wants to kill me. Isaac neither wants to kill me nor does he want to be like me, and it's refreshing.
Ah yes, you decided to use the Bard, one of the greatest writers the world has known, but to fully experience his writings, you don't read what he said (although in Secondary School I read A Midsummers Nights Dream (which has a particularly subtle and infamous dick joke concerning Bottom) and Macbeth) but to watch it, be immersed in it and to fully experience it that way which I have done watching films and at the Globe in London. But anyway. you seriously think that growing up in the American Mid-West is the same as growing up the English South-West? Growing up in reasonably poor location and family is the same as growing up in a reasonably affluent location and family? Or the big one, growing up in a location where you worry about not being able to afford to see a doctor and get a prescription compared with ringing a doctor first thing in the morning and getting a prescription that day for all the many hundreds of pounds worth of medication one needs free of charge? That's not even going into the difference in the types of Television programmes we're exposed to, or the political systems and the relationship of the state and church or the education system of both countries. So yes, it might be down to my own personal tastes, but then again, those individual tastes have been influenced by my upbringing and the exposures I've had, same as your's have influenced you.- Or to put it more simply, our cultures growing up. Not in the slightest, you're the one putting quotes around American, not I, nor am I being condescending (and I certainly didn't say all American humour was crass, I found Arrested Development and Parks and Recreation (to name two programmes) hysterical when I watched them) I literally said one word to your particularly crap joke. I was going to leave it there, but then you decided to write dozens, if not hundreds of words in reply. As I said, I enjoy many forms of humour, but whether it's crass American (given that Orville is written by Americans, made by Americans and Broadcast on American television, it fits the bill of being crass American Humour), British (for example, even though I think Rick Myle was brilliant, I can't stand Bottom) or some other form, that is not (normally) my cup of tea. For the most part I prefer my humour to be dark and twisted and often, suitable. Just to sum things up though, I found the episode of Orville not particularly good (it felt like leftover and recooked Voyager, which given who wrote it and directed it, makes sense why it felt like that), and as for the Glory Hole joke (and the episode in general) I understand (and accept) that others will have a difference of opinion, often counter what to I think. If we all had the same opinion about everything, life would be as boring as this conversation has become for me.