Pattern Ghost

I kind of expected the black costume with such a dire, dour and grim name as Hope. Wait. Never mind.

Just finished episode 3. I think MacFarlane just proved he has no science fiction writing chops with this one.* On the plus side, it seems like the characters are starting to take shape a little, and despite its flaw, the episode was whatchable. I think it'll be pretty decent once (or if) the writers find their comfort zone. *Nothing to do with the subject matter, just the utter failure to follow ideas to any kind of conclusion. He fails at the 'what if?' game, essentially. I think I picked up that term from an essay by or about Philip K. Dick. He left a lot of potential on the floor with this one.

It's not the heart that concerns me so much as the execution. I like humor that arises from the story or characters naturally more than I do a bunch of one liners strung together. I've only seen him execute the latter on Family Guy. I'm not familiar with Ted, so can't comment there.

I'm kind of hoping the same thing, that the show will find its groove. I'm not too confident in MacFarlane to get there, but think his intent is good.

The cast has stressed that it's a loving homage rather than a parody in several interviews. I had an article quoting some of those that I was going to link, but lost the tab. I couldn't find anything about Paramount's view on the show, have you? As far as I can tell, it seems to be a non-issue. All that aside, I don't see why a parody can't be a homage. It seems like people are assuming a parody has to be an attack on the original. The Orville's take seems to be in finding humor in how average people would react to a lot of the Trek standbys, like the holo deck, the replicator, etc. That's commentary, but not necessarily mean-spirited. No reason the show can't be both, although the mix does lean more heavily toward homage than parody, making the humor (both parody and non-parody driven) seem awkward. I think the main problem with the show is tonal: MacFarlane doesn't seem to be capable of doing subtle, story-driven humor.

Legal definition of parody, from some random online legal dictionary: That's just a very general definition. But it's one the show has met several times per episode. Parody as a fair use exemption is a bit more complicated, but the commercial nature of the work along with its timing putting it in competition with the original IP may make the question of whether it's a parody a moot point. I think if they run afoul of Paramount it will be in that fourth standard if Paramount views it as direct competition for their market. From Columbia University: Since there hasn't been any news of a lawsuit, I'm going to assume that they've ticked enough of those four checkboxes to satisfy Paramount's lawyers. Parody certainly factors into the first one. While I wouldn't say the intent of the show is to be a parody, it seems like they're adding just enough parody elements into their lighter version of ST to skirt copyright law. I think it may be part of the problem with the overall tone of the show being inconsistent. Much of the humor in general seems to be tacked on.

I think I read something about the pilot being free, but I'm not sure.

It's possible my cranky factor is high today. If that's the case, apologies to DasBroot.

Redacted. I may have been wrong about the intent of DasBroot's post. Thanks to Old Man for pointing it out.

The 7.1 earthquake that hit near Mexico City has claimed over 200 lives. 225 was the last official count given, about four hours ago. They're still digging through rubble, so that number's bound to go up.

Bautista has a bit more act-y part in the new Blade Runner sequel thing. He's in this clip:

His acting's fine, though.

Wonder Woman's official height has been anywhere from 5'8" to 5'11" to 6' even, to . . . whatever the heck the writers/artists/editors feel like. Comics aren't exactly a bastion of consistency.

Heads up if you use Avast's CCleaner: http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/09/avast-distributes-malware.html

Just finished the second episode. It was also OK-ish. Regarding the "Sir"-ing of female officers: They were slinging them all over the place, so looks like they're just copying the Trek thing after all.

I'm going to guess the latter.

A little levity. I ran across this when looking at Tick stuff on YouTube. I was going to put it in the random video thread, but decided to drop it here due to it being a Trump gag. This is a short one, Serafinowicz has more on his channel.

It meets the legal requirements for parody and the plain old dictionary definition of parody. Which is all it needs to do to borrow so liberally from ST.

The parody was there in the form of plenty of commentaries on Trek tropes, it was just more low key than we might expect from Seth McFarlane. He seems to be aiming for more of a light adventure feel vs. sitcom.

Really just one spot. They parked half in the handicap spot and half in the no-parking area next to it for unloading.

Or defeat a cow and cook it up to eat with some spirits, thus heralding in the age of agriculture!

They're both good, but take different approaches, so it'd be hard to say if one was better than the other. The new one has good acting all around, good writing, catches The Tick vibe perfectly IMO, and has decent production values. I wasn't expecting to like a non-Warburton Tick, but I do. The current actor does a great job.

Same here, though the new guy, whose name I can't spell or remember, does a good job IMO.

See? I was right. You knew right away.

Good thing that The Tick isn't on TV, then, because it's FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR better than Powerless ever was. Just finished the first half of season one on Amazon Prime. If you haven't seen it, then you might want to see it. Our tastes differ a bit, but the show's pretty consistent from the first episode on, so you should be able to tell pretty fast if you're going to like it.