4 ms·

Gave up halfway through the second episode. Has so much changed since then? Did they fire the entire writing staff? Was MacFarlane visited by magical elves who

Gave up halfway through the second episode. Has so much changed since then? Did they fire the entire writing staff? Was MacFarlane visited by magical elves who bestowed upon him the ability to act just a little bit? Is there a new joke other than "get this! the first officer is his ex-wife!" which they apparently came up with while high and thought it was funny enough to carry an entire series?

rdruxn 9y ago
It has gotten significantly better and a number of episodes have honest, Trekkian approaches to moral dilemmas.
- Waterluvian 9y ago
  It feels like they realised that their original plan for a show wasn't working and very intentionally began to pivot.
  - foobarbecue 9y ago
    i.e. it's not a comedy any more?
    - Jtsummers 9y ago
      The early episodes seemed equal parts comedy and science fiction. The later episodes have turned into science fiction with some comedy. The antagonism between the captain and commander about the relationship was mostly toned down until an episode where it was actually appropriate.
    - JBlue42 9y ago
      It was sold as a comedy but never seemed to attempt it. It's a pretty direct Trek rip-off but HAS gotten significantly better since the first few episodes. Not part of the great television trend, just moved from 2/5 to 3/5 in approach and quality.
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    Or they started off with something that was easier to sell to TV execs and then pivoted to what they actually wanted to make after a few episodes.
foobarbecue 9y ago
Me too. Well, I finished the second episode and vowed not to give it a third chance unless someone I trusted put a lot of effort into convincing me. It seemed like they set out to parody Star Trek but instead they just made an inferior copy of it. In those two episodes I remember about five "ughs" and one laugh.
- curtis 9y ago
  Despite the silly (terrible?) humor, it is clearly not intended to be a parody. "Inferior copy" is more accurate, but having seen 11 episodes now, I'd say that it's only a little bit inferior, not a lot. It seems that the people involved really loved Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Keep in mind that Star Trek TNG was pretty spotty the first season, itself.) If the humor is just not your thing, then you made the right call to abandon it in the second episode. On the other hand, the third episode seems to be the first one that people really liked. That one really felt like a TNG episode and the plot had a couple of surprises in it that I think made the story better. It was also kind of heavy-handed, but then none of the Star Trek series were known for subtlety.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  As someone who was in a similar situation: - I'd skip episode 3. Maybe come back to it later. It's the episode that nearly put me off the series. I think 4 is a fairer episode to judge it by. - It's not a parody of Star Trek and it's not meant to be one. It's more like Seth MacFarlane really wanted to run a Star Trek show and couldn't, so made something about as close as he could while still appeasing the networks with some crude humour thrown in. It's not as good as TNG but it's definitely an okay Star Trek at this point. They've toned down the stupid humour and premises from where it started.
FLUX-YOU 9y ago
It's becoming a pretty boring source of conflict between the two characters. They should really move away from the dialog potshots/jokes they take at each other, as well as the reconciliation scenes. Seth apparently had to work really hard to get his own The Next Generation show. They wouldn't give him Star Trek, so he had to go write his own. So it's likely to have been played safely. I do hope they get a bit more serious in the second season. Army pranks in space won't last that long either, I don't think.
ademup 9y ago
That's very unfortunate. I consider E3 'About a Girl' to be absolutely top notch. At least as good as any TNG episode.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  Odd, that was the episode that just about made me drop the series. The crew of the Orville was driven by emotion, barely took any time to consider the aliens' point of view, didn't seek any evidence for either side's position and argued their point primarily with logical fallacies ("look, these problems don't exist in other species, so clearly they can't exist in yours"). I don't think this episode could have worked in TNG because the episode would boil down to: "Picard: What evidence do you have to support your beliefs?" "Aliens: Uhh, why do we need evidence, clearly it is this way?" "Picard: Let's find some evidence" It had its upsides for sure but it's definitely not comparable to TNG.
  - ademup 9y ago
    (spoiler alert!) The premise IS an emotional one. The entire construct of the episode is to find a place where logic doesn't rule the day(gender issues are, today, far from solved). Indeed, The Orville crew LOST the fight in the end, so... Your point is solidly made, and the episode agreed with you. In what way is that not freek'n awesome?
    - Veratyr 9y ago
      My main problem is that, driven by emotion, the crew attempted to make a _logical_ argument, substantially based on fallacy ("these other species don't have this attribute you claim you have, so you mustn't either"). Their ultimate argument was, in the end, a pretty solid one, based on real evidence, however they didn't seem to bother looking for evidence until the very end, when all other avenues were exhausted. It wasn't a rational way to behave and I don't think this would have ever happened in TNG (did it? An episode doesn't come to mind). In TNG, Data would also have found the whole thing very confusing and grounded the crew somewhat. Isaac was notably absent in this episode. The ending was interesting and I think this episode could have been _much_ better if the rest of it was handled better but the irrational behaviour of the crew was so bad it broke the suspension of disbelief for me. I may be naïve to think I can do better but I'd do it something like this: - Crew asks, in a great deal of detail, what exactly the aliens believe the problem is and why they believe it's there - Aliens respond with their concerns and that they are primarily based on custom/legend and there is no modern evidence - Crew asks if it would be possible to gather evidence - Aliens say no - Crew tries to justify their search for evidence with the arguments presented in the episode as it was originally written - Aliens rightly point out that those arguments are invalid, continue to say no - Crew gathers evidence on their own, sneaking around and maybe getting in a bit of diplomatic trouble - Crew finds evidence, makes argument - Argument is overruled, episode keeps its nice ending

rdruxn 9y ago

It has gotten significantly better and a number of episodes have honest, Trekkian approaches to moral dilemmas.

Waterluvian 9y ago
It feels like they realised that their original plan for a show wasn't working and very intentionally began to pivot.
- foobarbecue 9y ago
  i.e. it's not a comedy any more?
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    The early episodes seemed equal parts comedy and science fiction. The later episodes have turned into science fiction with some comedy. The antagonism between the captain and commander about the relationship was mostly toned down until an episode where it was actually appropriate.
  - JBlue42 9y ago
    It was sold as a comedy but never seemed to attempt it. It's a pretty direct Trek rip-off but HAS gotten significantly better since the first few episodes. Not part of the great television trend, just moved from 2/5 to 3/5 in approach and quality.
- TheCoelacanth 9y ago
  Or they started off with something that was easier to sell to TV execs and then pivoted to what they actually wanted to make after a few episodes.

foobarbecue 9y ago

Me too. Well, I finished the second episode and vowed not to give it a third chance unless someone I trusted put a lot of effort into convincing me. It seemed like they set out to parody Star Trek but instead they just made an inferior copy of it. In those two episodes I remember about five "ughs" and one laugh.

curtis 9y ago
Despite the silly (terrible?) humor, it is clearly not intended to be a parody. "Inferior copy" is more accurate, but having seen 11 episodes now, I'd say that it's only a little bit inferior, not a lot. It seems that the people involved really loved Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Keep in mind that Star Trek TNG was pretty spotty the first season, itself.) If the humor is just not your thing, then you made the right call to abandon it in the second episode. On the other hand, the third episode seems to be the first one that people really liked. That one really felt like a TNG episode and the plot had a couple of surprises in it that I think made the story better. It was also kind of heavy-handed, but then none of the Star Trek series were known for subtlety.
Veratyr 9y ago
As someone who was in a similar situation: - I'd skip episode 3. Maybe come back to it later. It's the episode that nearly put me off the series. I think 4 is a fairer episode to judge it by. - It's not a parody of Star Trek and it's not meant to be one. It's more like Seth MacFarlane really wanted to run a Star Trek show and couldn't, so made something about as close as he could while still appeasing the networks with some crude humour thrown in. It's not as good as TNG but it's definitely an okay Star Trek at this point. They've toned down the stupid humour and premises from where it started.

FLUX-YOU 9y ago

It's becoming a pretty boring source of conflict between the two characters. They should really move away from the dialog potshots/jokes they take at each other, as well as the reconciliation scenes. Seth apparently had to work really hard to get his own The Next Generation show. They wouldn't give him Star Trek, so he had to go write his own. So it's likely to have been played safely. I do hope they get a bit more serious in the second season. Army pranks in space won't last that long either, I don't think.

ademup 9y ago

That's very unfortunate. I consider E3 'About a Girl' to be absolutely top notch. At least as good as any TNG episode.

Veratyr 9y ago
Odd, that was the episode that just about made me drop the series. The crew of the Orville was driven by emotion, barely took any time to consider the aliens' point of view, didn't seek any evidence for either side's position and argued their point primarily with logical fallacies ("look, these problems don't exist in other species, so clearly they can't exist in yours"). I don't think this episode could have worked in TNG because the episode would boil down to: "Picard: What evidence do you have to support your beliefs?" "Aliens: Uhh, why do we need evidence, clearly it is this way?" "Picard: Let's find some evidence" It had its upsides for sure but it's definitely not comparable to TNG.
- ademup 9y ago
  (spoiler alert!) The premise IS an emotional one. The entire construct of the episode is to find a place where logic doesn't rule the day(gender issues are, today, far from solved). Indeed, The Orville crew LOST the fight in the end, so... Your point is solidly made, and the episode agreed with you. In what way is that not freek'n awesome?
  - Veratyr 9y ago
    My main problem is that, driven by emotion, the crew attempted to make a _logical_ argument, substantially based on fallacy ("these other species don't have this attribute you claim you have, so you mustn't either"). Their ultimate argument was, in the end, a pretty solid one, based on real evidence, however they didn't seem to bother looking for evidence until the very end, when all other avenues were exhausted. It wasn't a rational way to behave and I don't think this would have ever happened in TNG (did it? An episode doesn't come to mind). In TNG, Data would also have found the whole thing very confusing and grounded the crew somewhat. Isaac was notably absent in this episode. The ending was interesting and I think this episode could have been _much_ better if the rest of it was handled better but the irrational behaviour of the crew was so bad it broke the suspension of disbelief for me. I may be naïve to think I can do better but I'd do it something like this: - Crew asks, in a great deal of detail, what exactly the aliens believe the problem is and why they believe it's there - Aliens respond with their concerns and that they are primarily based on custom/legend and there is no modern evidence - Crew asks if it would be possible to gather evidence - Aliens say no - Crew tries to justify their search for evidence with the arguments presented in the episode as it was originally written - Aliens rightly point out that those arguments are invalid, continue to say no - Crew gathers evidence on their own, sneaking around and maybe getting in a bit of diplomatic trouble - Crew finds evidence, makes argument - Argument is overruled, episode keeps its nice ending