The Orville Season Two - Thoughts?

Orius · Jan 25, 2019

Announce a first contact and the whole ship celebrates. There's something we've never seen in Trek. In Trek, they all celebrate first contact like Vulcans. But then, Trek never talked about another favorite activity, stellar cartography, like this either:

[video=youtube_share;Jg658eHR3Oc]https://youtu.be/Jg658eHR3Oc[/video]

So a whole world run by astrology. That's a plot that hasn't been overused so far. Though I'm surprised it took the crew a month to figure things out about the CONSTELLATION OF DEATH. It never occurred to Ed to point out that the stars aren't going to look the same from other worlds, and thus the signs that allegedly rule Regor II don't exist on other worlds. Hell, the planet's other hemisphere probably shouldn't have the same signs. For that matter, the stars don't remain in the same place forever; the Sun doesn't occupy the same place it did in the zodiac when Western astrology was first developed, and this planet has had their system longer. They haven't noticed how the stars move especially with their tracking satellites? But then, they think astrology works instead of being the pseudoscience it actually is, so their methodologies are probably all suspect.

Nutation · Jan 25, 2019

I never bought the claim in the Star Trek universe that the Federation had evolved beyond money, and I don't buy it here. (Have we heard of this before on The Orville?) Replicator technology makes most resource shortages disappear, but it's still damned efficient to have a means of tracking the exchange of value.

Orius said:
It never occurred to Ed to point out that the stars aren't going to look the same from other worlds, and thus the signs that allegedly rule Regor II don't exist on other worlds. Hell, the planet's other hemisphere probably shouldn't have the same signs. For that matter, the stars don't remain in the same place forever; the Sun doesn't occupy the same place it did in the zodiac when Western astrology was first developed, and this planet has had their system longer. They haven't noticed how the stars move especially with their tracking satellites? But then, they think astrology works instead of being the pseudoscience it actually is, so their methodologies are probably all suspect.

I generally like the idea of this plot; I agree that it is little-tilled soil. The Union has presumably done several first contacts, so "the book" should advise each captain to talk to a society on its own terms. Mercer would never do such a thing, of course, otherwise 10% of the audience and 50% of the writers wouldn't understand. And so we get 30 days of stonewalling. The eventual solution was plausible enough.

I presume that the lightsail we saw was really placed farther out in the star system so that its position was essentially the same from everywhere on the planet. I also presume that Isaac hacked the astrometric satellites so that they produced consistent info.

I also presume that if birth dates are critically important and you have a pregnant woman in your prison that you watch her carefully. You at least notice when she suddenly deflates before one of your inspections. Not really important to the plot, though.

I did like the cartoon dance.

Morrus · Jan 25, 2019

Great episode. Though it always bugs me when people refer to their own planet in the “Sol 3” format. We call our planet Earth, but they called theirs “Rigor 2”.

This was a solid TNG episode. This is the stuff I like in Orville. Less fart jokes, more good storytelling.

Ryujin · Jan 25, 2019

Nutation said:
I never bought the claim in the Star Trek universe that the Federation had evolved beyond money, and I don't buy it here. (Have we heard of this before on The Orville?) Replicator technology makes most resource shortages disappear, but it's still damned efficient to have a means of tracking the exchange of value.

I generally like the idea of this plot; I agree that it is little-tilled soil. The Union has presumably done several first contacts, so "the book" should advise each captain to talk to a society on its own terms. Mercer would never do such a thing, of course, otherwise 10% of the audience and 50% of the writers wouldn't understand. And so we get 30 days of stonewalling. The eventual solution was plausible enough.

I presume that the lightsail we saw was really placed farther out in the star system so that its position was essentially the same from everywhere on the planet. I also presume that Isaac hacked the astrometric satellites so that they produced consistent info.

I also presume that if birth dates are critically important and you have a pregnant woman in your prison that you watch her carefully. You at least notice when she suddenly deflates before one of your inspections. Not really important to the plot, though.

I did like the cartoon dance.

I would think that if they've been doing astrology for as many thousands of years indicated, it would have grown to encompass all the 'signs' that are visible around the planet. As they had developed a world government and astrology was so ingrained in their basic belief structure, it would have had to.

The light sail thing seemed like a typical Star Trek style technological hole in the plot. You can hack satellites to report incorrect telemetry, however, simple visual observation is capable of determining approximate distance to an astronomical object. We knew how far out Jupiter was long before we had computers or satellites, after all.

Doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the hell out of it though

Ryujin · Jan 25, 2019

Morrus said:
Great episode. Though it always bugs me when people refer to their own planet in the “Sol 3” format. We call our planet Earth, but they called theirs “Rigor 2”.

This was a solid TNG episode. This is the stuff I like in Orville. Less fart jokes, more good storytelling.

All that it was missing, was Wesley destroying a garden

Morrus · Jan 25, 2019

They’re a very suggestible species, luckily. There’s *nothing* that can change human closely held beliefs. We’d probably try to shoot the star for challenging our position.

Aeson · Jan 25, 2019

Ted Danson had to like that gig. "Put this on. Sit behind the desk. Speak two sentences. Profit." Hell he could have filmed that one from home in his boxers.

It did bother me they locked Kelly and Bortus up. Kick them off world. Send some of the other "bad" ones with them. They're your problem now. I wonder what sign the warden was born under.

Richards · Jan 26, 2019

Also, how many of the local aliens did Kelly and Bortus kill during their attempted jailbreak? (And those were guns with bullets, not phasers set on stun.) It seemed like around a dozen, at least. So even if the "look, the missing star's back now" trick worked and those born under that sign are no longer automatically suspect, I would think the fact that these two alien prisoners actually killed a dozen people might be kind of worth remembering.

And I agree, the dancing birthday cartoon at the end was the best part of the entire episode. That was laugh-out-loud funny!

Johnathan

Kaodi · Jan 26, 2019

My PVR somehow skipped The Orville this week (I checked, it is supposed to record next week) so I thought maybe the show had skipped a week. Now I am wroth to find out it didn't.

Maxperson · Jan 26, 2019

Nutation said:
I never bought the claim in the Star Trek universe that the Federation had evolved beyond money, and I don't buy it here. (Have we heard of this before on The Orville?) Replicator technology makes most resource shortages disappear, but it's still damned efficient to have a means of tracking the exchange of value.

Yeah. I remember it being said in at least one other episode. Last season I think.

The Orville Season Two - Thoughts?

Orius

Legend

Nutation

Explorer

Morrus

Well, that was fun

Ryujin

Legend

Ryujin

Legend

Morrus

Well, that was fun

Aeson

I learned nerd for this.

Richards

Legend

Kaodi

Hero

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

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