Not a bad episode, but not a great one either.

Spoiler

I'm surprised there's no existential questioning of their reality now, how do they know they're out of it "for real" now? And I'm not overly fond of the idea of a Q-like race in the Orville

 

Interestingly enough, locally The Orville airs on a channel called Paramount Network. Right between The Prodigy and (another) repeat of season 3 of Discovery. And with having watched episode 2 yesterday, we're not that far behind for a change.

I disliked both as well and then I remembered: in a large part The Orville is a hommage to ST and not a serious SF show.

Sending out the senior officers on a mission into unknown space, not wearing protective gear, not taking simple quarantaine measures...it's all classics Star Trek stuff. In any other show, including Star Trek, this would annoy me. But with The Orville...I interpret it as intentionally poking fun at this kind of stupidity.

 

And the 4th episode was pretty well written, we have a enemy return again and Ed gets one hell of a surprise.

Spoiler

He's a daddy and the kid's half Kril. As you'll recall Ed dated the Enemy last season

That appears to have ramifications this season

Yeah the events of this episode will likely come up again in multiple ways over the season.

 

This season is shaping up to be not funny at all. Last ep was boring and serious, like they were trying to be exactly like ST. What happened to all the goofy shit?

I mean, there's a lot of goofy shit, but it's not funny goofy, just sad goofy. I watched the first two seasons for a funny parody of ST, I don't want a carbon copy of it.

 

Ooh, what sticky wickets we have now.

 

Just finished with ep 3.
Ep 2 was like “WTF!”. 3 was shaping up to be just as much… but redeemed itself at the end.

 

The Union fleet seemed to take a beating as they had done in the Kaylon battle, I wonder if this is the beginning of a military coup to strengthen them in response to the Kaylon and Krill nationalism or will lead to them opening diplomatic relations to the Krill's enemy from the last episode Teleya appeared in.

 

"The Expanding Helix Manoeuvre."

Spoiler

Between their use of elaborate video simulations of political rivals oppressing their people and the psychological torture of creating a vivid simulation of an aborted child to antagonise the would-be parents I have to wonder how much deceit and misinformation is baked into Krill society.

~L~

 

I dunno, man. This last episode isn't really what I'm wanting out of the Orville. I know Trek has always had political commentary weaved throughout, but it's always been a fairly subtle, general political commentary, not directed towards any individuals or trying to spell out specific, current-day dogmas. The whole election cycle wasn't just heavy-handed, but ham-fisted douchebag level writing. It felt like a Disney level of "subtle" "message" being delivered. And while I'm fine having that there, I really thought a comedy show could spend more time making me laugh, and less time making me question why I need to watch a reenactment of something I've been sick of hearing about for six plus years now with extra drama-lamas for great justice.

I'm not giving up yet, but I hope to dorg they decide to give us a funny episode or two soon. It's like we're watching similar characters in an entirely different show from before. While they COULD be serious back then, it was tempered with funny. This is just drama, sads, drama, oh and here's all that news you're trying to distract yourself from by watching sci-fi, with a little window dressing to not even try to disguise it.

Orville season one and two: Best new Trek of the modern age.
Orville season three: Hey guys, we know you wanted funny, but we can be topical too! Right guys? Guys? Hello?

Even some of the tone of the show feels more Star Wars than Star Trek to me at this point. Not that I mind blending the roots together here or there, but do it in a fun way. I really don't want to give up on this show. We need more good sci-fi. I just hope they remember that you can be political AND topical while not being blatant shit-heels about it. For example, the episode they previously had about the social media score controlling an entire society was both funny AND topical, without being ham-fisted and feeling icky. Hold that episode and this one up against one another and there's a pretty stark difference in tone.

I came away from this one a little bummed. Disappoint.

 

I agree, there is absolutely no obfuscation of the real-world politics being discussed here. I'm choosing to think about it as a launchpad for story elements that could be paid off in interesting ways later.

But, if worst comes to the worst, I can accept that the writers have an axe to grind with the politics of the day and are just too fed up to be subtle.

Meanwhile, it looks like the show designers put plenty of money and effort into the capitol city of Krill.
And I am looking forward to more episodes spent on Blacktron II.  



~L~

 

I'm thinking Macfarlane is afraid this might be the last season and is trying to show how good a scifi show it can be hoping that gets him another season. Dude is a huge Trek fan and he is basically living his childhood dreams making this show.

 

Well, if he keeps doing this it will alienate audiences for his rather expensive show. I’ll walk, just like I have Star Wars, Star Trek. This stuff ain’t crucial to my survival. Worst case scenario, I save a couple bucks a month from Hulu.

 

I dunno, I'm kinda liking the more serious tone, without being quite as humorless as similar shows (or most of what Star Trek's had on offer lately). As to the subject matter, I'm of a mind that sci-fi has a strong tradition of using a futuristic motif to discuss contemporary issues, I don't have any issue with that.

One thing that does surprise me is some of the more "horror themed" visuals from some of the episodes in what I see as a family friendly network show. I don't take issue with that, I love scary stuff, and hell, back in the 80's they were marketing Freddy Krueger to school kids FFS, but it does surprise me in the contemporary context. But then, I'm sure kids are watching Stranger Things, and that's really been channeling the 80's horror lately.

 

Why The Orville Needed To Adopt Serious Storytelling, According To Scott Grimes

If this is what he wants to do, more power to him; especially in this era of corporate meddling that ruins what creators intend. It may alienate some people, but if he's doing something with a purpose, I'll stay with it.

 

I'll stay with it to a point.

Serious can be entertaining. I just really liked the original concept. Even the first few episodes, while funny, had a serious underlying story. I have real issues with those that think serious stories have to be straight-laced, and think that funny situations can't be part of a serious story. I thought the first season, and even most of the second season, balanced those two sides of the coin very well.

And when it comes down to it, if they want to change the tone of the show, that's cool. I'd probably even stay with it, provided they don't hamfist more current day situations into it the way they did that election cycle. That was cringe on top of cringe. It felt less like art, and more like, "Look at this rehashed garbage!"

 

Serious can be fine- as long as it's smart.
Unlike the 2nd episode.
And the 3rd episode wasn't far behind.

 

I'm probably in the minority (like always), but I like the tone change the show has taken and I'm kind of glad that they lightened up on the American Pie "did you see that dog licking his balls?" toilet humor. Dick and fart jokes can only take you so far. I understand that it started out as a satire of Star Trek with a Family Guy twist, but I'm liking the more serious direction the show is taking with a few well-timed jokes thrown in.

In the first few episodes, I thought some of the jokes were funny, but other skits kind of took the silliness a bit too far. With this New Horizons season, Orville has started tackling controversial topics like politics and prejudice, and it's fairly easy to see some of the real-world parallels, especially with Seth's left-leaning tendencies. I just hope it doesn't go too far down that path and detract from the show.

It took a season and a half for me to finally not see Brian Griffin's face when Ed speaks... and my God! Anne Winters is GORGEOUS!!! Loving the addition of her character.

 

Absolutely loving this season. Episode 4 is 100% what I want from this show. And it still had plenty of humor (*Isaac walks in wearing mustache and ten gallon hat* “Well, that was fun while it lasted.”)

No love lost from me. I think I appreciate the show more than ever.

 

Considering how powerful they have shown Moclins are in past episodes, I don't see how Kelly was able to over power Klyden. That just seems like bad writing.

Well we all knew they were coming back to this eventually considering they had a trial over it in a previous episode. (Gotta say though Moclins age fast)

Spoiler

And Klyden finally left Bortus

 

We finally hear Bortus singing.

Spoiler

And so long Klyden, you weren't a likeable character anyway.