New Series--The Orville

[Grailknight]

Are not something replicators should be providing.  Replicators should not be magic boxes that produce anything you want in unlimited quantities with no costs.  They should require a pool of raw materials that needs to be replenished as well as requiring power to run.  

 

It is not, however necessarily to use transporter technology to get them.  You can always use the "nanotechnology" handwave instead.  

 

Funny, if you check my later post(271), I thought I said the same. Nanotech requires that the proper materials be at hand, the transporter just needs some in computer memory.

[BoloOfEarth]

Furthermore, it has been established in Trek canon that transporters were a development that grew from replicator technology. They are not identical, but they are in the same genealogical line, and it is purely a straw man argument to say that just because they aren't identical technologies that it makes more sense for The Orville to have one but not the other, than it does for The Orville to have both just like Trek. Especially given the immense extent to which The Orville consciously strives to be just like Trek. (Everyone seems to ignore the significance of that last point.)

 

You're right - neither argument makes any more sense than the other.  However, I would like to address the last comment.  Just because The Orville strives to be like Trek, doesn't mean they have to copy everything verbatim.

 

Personally, I think the lack of transporters provides an improvement to the storytelling in The Orville.  Transporter technology is like handing the writers a magic wand to wave away plot complications with a swish-and-flick of the wrist.  And The Orville needs to have *some* significant differences from Trek; otherwise, what's the point in having a new show if it's effectively a carbon copy of the old one?

[Armory]

If we want to get 'logical' about it, transporters should require a receiver.  How are all those atoms being reassembled at range?  So leaving aside the fact that they were created for budgetary reasons, transporters don't really make sense, but replicators do.

 

However, one of my all-time favorite episodes of any Trek series made magic with the ol' transporter accident:  they brought Scotty back!

 

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Yeah, well, I told the Captain I'd have this analysis done in an hour.

Scotty: How long will it really take?

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: An hour!

Scotty: Oh, you didn't tell him how long it would *really* take, did ya?

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Well, of course I did.

Scotty: Oh, laddie. You've got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.

[zslane]

Only if you assume that the way Star Trek did it is the only way to do it.

No, I merely have to assume that copying Star Trek's most well-known and popular tropes is a guiding principle of the show, which it clearly is.

 

Real-world...

Let me stop you right there. Star Trek technology is full of rubber science that defies "real world" scrutiny. It is pointless to use that as a basis for arguing whether something should or shouldn't be in a show like The Orville.

 

[zslane]

Just because The Orville strives to be like Trek, doesn't mean they have to copy everything verbatim.

 

Of course not. But your objection takes my point beyond its intent or the logical boundaries I set for it. I never said The Orville "had to copy" everything verbatim. What I did say, many times, is that I am surprised and puzzled that they chose not to follow the same line of technological development as Trek given the extent to which they copied everything else (almost verbatim) from Trek. There's no mandate to copy, but there is a clear intent to do so anyway, and I'm merely pointing out inconsistencies where I find them.

[sinanju]

Of course not. But your objection takes my point beyond its intent or the logical boundaries I set for it. I never said The Orville "had to copy" everything verbatim. What I did say, many times, is that I am surprised and puzzled that they chose not to follow the same line of technological development as Trek given the extent to which they copied everything else (almost verbatim) from Trek. There's no mandate to copy, but there is a clear intent to do so anyway, and I'm merely pointing out inconsistencies where I find them.

 

If I were given a brief to create a show "like Star Trek, but not exactly," you would find my alterations equally baffling. There are things I would change because I just never liked that aspect of the show, while liking it overall, or because I thought it would be a story problem and could be avoided by leaving out that detail.

 

There's nothing requiring The Orville to employ the transporter trope as well as the replicator. There just isn't.

[zslane]

There's nothing requiring The Orville to employ the transporter trope as well as the replicator. There just isn't.

 

Why do people keep saying this as if I disagree with it? Holy moly.

[Spence]

Why do people keep saying this as if I disagree with it? Holy moly.

Because it's fun

[zslane]

Ha! Fair enough! 

[wcw43921]

10/26--"Majority Rule"

 

Apparently there is a Prime Directive of sorts in effect, because when Mercer requests official permission to rescue one of his crew, he is denied on account of such a mission would expose the fact of intelligent life from other worlds to the populace.  So they have to work within the system to save their crewman, who has committed an offense against society.

 

And that's all I can say without spoilers.  Someone else can do that.

[zslane]

It felt like a really soft version of the Prime Directive. After all, they allowed the landing team to go to the planet without a single bit of knowledge or understanding of the people and society they needed to seamlessly integrate into. The complete lack of preparation, and the complications that followed, was about the dumbest thing I've ever seen on a sci-fi show.

 

And while a part of me appreciated the biting social commentary, it occurred to me that 50 years ago this plotline would have made for a chilling Twilight Zone episode, but today it just comes across as satire. Moreover, your average viewer isn't going to realize that the episode was intended as a kind of cautionary tale; they're going to think, "Yeah, that's how our laws should work!"

[Cassandra]

Since their technology was 400 years ahead of the planet couldn't they have just faked the votes? 

 

The difference between this and Star Trek is that the crew is a little dumber.

[zslane]

Yeah, it would have been easier and more efficient to simply filter out downvotes and inject fake upvotes. But that would have removed an opportunity to put a spotlight on how easily manipulated the masses are via social media.

[Spence]

Manipulated? *gasp* You mean social media isn't unbiased truth?

[zslane]

Truth? Hell, most of the time social media doesn't even involve verifiable facts.

 

(BTW, I'm pretty sure "unbiased truth" is a redundancy, which sorta denudes the snark factor a bit there, Spence.)

[bigdamnhero]

OK, I gotta admit the show's growing on me. Once I got over the "So...it's a ST-TNG cover band? But with potty jokes?" factor, it's actually becoming fairly enjoyable. Not great, by any stretch, but entertaining as long as you don't think too hard.

 

I did like last episode's opening scene--Bortus and Klyten were having a domestic squabble, which sounded like Michael Dorn as Worf arguing with himself.  Then Klyten settled in with a big bowl of rocky road ice cream to watch The Sound Of Music, and Bortus emerges from his wardrobe with a look on his face like, "Are you kidding me?"

Yeah, I laughed. Apparently some stereotypes (gay men + show tunes) really do transcend species.

 

I was still too attached to TOS to respect or enjoy TNG, I guess. The lack of military precision/protocol on the bridge was a real sticking point with me.

I enjoyed TNG, but that bugged the hell out of me too. (Not least because I was in the military at the time.) I get the whole "The Federation isn't really a military organization" thing, but TNG went too far in trying to have it both ways. Kirk was a soldier who could play explorer & diplomat, very much like Age Of Sail naval Captains were expected to be. Picard always felt to me like someone had given Jacques Cousteau command of the Navy's flagship. Which would be fine if the writers had shown they understood the difference, but they clearly didn't.

 

Of course, Enterprise-D's crew were models of Prussian discipline compared to the Orville's; but then that's part of the point of the show. (And from the most recent episode: while I never had to explain to my commanding officer why one of my troops had been arrested for publicly dry-humping a statue, some of the things I did have to explain weren't much further out there!)

 

I was never sold on Denise Crosby as the ranking security officer

I thought Crosby was great. (And not just because I had a massive crush on her.) I just hated that the Chief of Security spent most of her time opening hailing frequencies...
 

Moreover, Q struck me as just a poor man's copy of Trelaine (no offense to John Delancy, who is a great actor)

I always assumed Q was from the same species as Trelaine, or was possibly even the same character. I'm still surprised they never explicitly made that connection. I thought Q was okay, but like a lot of TNG's tropes he got overused.

 

The Orville is clearly fantasy with a science fiction coating. Dark Matter storm. Yeah. And axion particles. Uh huh.

I have to disagree. Rubber Science does not equal fantasy. Star Wars is fantasy because it follows fantasy tropes, just substituting blasters & spaceships for swords & horses. Orville follows SF tropes; they just have a lot of questionable technobabble. As has every Trek series. (And nearly every TV/film SF series, for that matter.) It's a semantics point, but I think a significant one.
 

Gene Roddenberry once said that westerns (which were much more popular on tv at the time than they are now) were not about authentic 1870s characters, but about characters with the same values and traits of contemporary viewers. Which is correct. Just like the crew of the TOS Enterprise didn't act like people from two hundred years in the future--they were basically contemporary humans from the 1960s.

 

THAT'S where the jokes are in The Orville. It's people like us--or, at least, people like Seth MacFarlane--plopped into a Trek-style universe. They make the same stupid jokes people now would make. They watch the movies and tv shows we would recognize, even if they call them oldies. It was more jarring at first because you don't expect that from characters in a Star Trek show, but this _isn't_ Star Trek. It's an homage, certainly, but with less refined and genteel characters

Exactly. TOS was very explicitly meant to be "20th Century Humans In Outer Space." (At least before Roddenberry went full-on utopian idealist with TNG.) Orville just takes that idea to its extreme by giving the characters fully-contemporary mannerisms & speech. It bugged me at first, but then I came to think of it like A Knight's Tale. No, medieval peasants didn't do We Will Rock You before jousts, but they had their own similar rituals & traditions that served the same functions.

[Spence]

Truth? Hell, most of the time social media doesn't even involve verifiable facts.

 

(BTW, I'm pretty sure "unbiased truth" is a redundancy, which sorta denudes the snark factor a bit there, Spence.)

 

[slikmar]

Actually, I thought they did make the Q and Trelaine specific at one point, specifically when they had the trial of another of the race, who wanted to die. I believed they mentioned Trelaine in that episode and the other 2s reaction (who were both known for being "wild" by their species standard) was to roll their eyes or something.

[zslane]

Trelane is not a member of the Q according to any canonical source. There are numerous nigh-omnipotent races in Trek lore that aren't related to the Q (e.g., Organians, Thesians, Metrons, etc.). There's no compelling reason to lump Trelane in with the Q apart from him being impetuous and mercurial like John DeLancie's portrayal of Q.

[wcw43921]

Not to mention that most of Trelane's abilities came from advanced technology--which by the time of TNG the Federation has surpassed.  (Replicators can make a turkey that actually tastes like a turkey--something Trelane's machinery could not do.)

[Iuz the Evil]

Trelane couldn't replicate the flavor because he knew about the appearance of human society but not the substance (per Spock). Whatever that means.

 

He may well have had the ability to produce the taste, but apparently didn't have the data.

[Spence]

For me Q was TNG's personal Time-travel filler.

 

Or when the writers just didn't have any good ideas for a story they would toss in Time-Travel or in TNG's case Q. 

 

In anime we call it filler......

[Hermit]

Well, maybe it is because I'm old enough, but Majority Rule actually gave me a few chills. Mob  Justice never really is no matter what form the mob takes. I do like that McFarlane is willing to let others take the lead.

 

And yes, Lamar was a bit asinine but then, he did say in the first episode he was a jerk

[zslane]

And yes, Lamar was a bit asinine but then, he did say in the first episode he was a jerk

 

Ultimately we can't blame Lamar for being Lamar. But we can blame Mercer for a] putting Lamar on the extraction team, and b] not prepping the team properly for a clandestine first contact operation.

 

The comedy side of the show wants to have its laughs even at the cost of court-martialable miscarriages of leadership and horrific lapses in judgment, while the drama side of the show wants you take it seriously enough for the social commentary to sink in and spread some insight. They need to do a better of job of keeping the former from completely undermining the latter.

[Spence]

Ultimately we can't blame Lamar for being Lamar. But we can blame Mercer for a] putting Lamar on the extraction team, and b] not prepping the team properly for a clandestine first contact operation.

 

The comedy side of the show wants to have its laughs even at the cost of court-martialable miscarriages of leadership and horrific lapses in judgment, while the drama side of the show wants you take it seriously enough for the social commentary to sink in and spread some insight. They need to do a better of job of keeping the former from completely undermining the latter.

 

Not untrue, but I would rather have lite comedy over yet another "we will fix you" social commentary.   Social commentary is fine and generally good, but in measure.   Back in the day most shows were entertainment and a few injected well written social commentary with skill and finesse.  These days far to many shows think they are crusaders and hammer away with 2x4's to the forehead while completely forgetting the "entertainment" part.  Too much of a thing eliminates its usefulness.

 

Just like charity.  I used, yes I said "used to",  give to local charities and one with a larger reach all the time.  But since they started pestering me AT EVERY SINGLE REGISTER IN EVERY SINGLE FRAGGING STORE, I no longer do.  I mean I can't even buy a pack of toilet paper without the machine asking if I want to donate to something and giving me choices in $5 amounts.   It is to the point that I actually find myself getting angry.  I am not rich, but I am doing all right.  If I was married with kids it would be another story, but being 55 and having been a workaholic for most of my adult life, my income is now comfortable.  But being constantly badgered at every F'ing turn for "Just $5" is really really irritating....

 

Sorry for the rant.  Or maybe not that sorry.  But I am getting really tired of being constantly badgered by clueless morons (not any of you on these boards, but in general) not just for money but how to think.  Really really irritating.....

 

These boards used to be one of the few places, providing you avoid the NGD, to just have conversation.