The Orville- My One Big Issue

[Umbran]

no one really complained when it was aired. That's all revisionist history.

Did I *say* they got a lot of complaints? No. So, I am revising nothing.

In TV of the time, you have the campy old Batman TV show, the Spider Man cartoon, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Get Smart, the Andy Griffith Show, My Three Sons - all "family television". Nobody gets seriously hurt, you don't get much controversy around the content.

And you also have The Prisoner, Mission Impossible, Ironside, The Fugitive - not so much "family TV". I suggest Trek has more in common with the latter than the former. People don't just get shot and die on Trek, they get outright disintegrated on screen, there's monsters who put suckers on your face and suck your life out of you.

I'm suggesting that TOS was not guaranteed to rest comfortably alongside Batman and My Three Sons where you could sit your 8-year-old in front of it without worry about the content. It is tame by comparison to today's adult programming, but it wasn't particularly tame when it first aired.

A little different than a show about p*** addiction, with explicit depictions of said addiction.

The episode includes the addiction (reflecting both Barkley and LaForge's holodeck issues from 30-ish years ago), but it is really *about* marital difficulties between partners who have some major issues between them.

The term "explicit" has several meanings. There is nothing seen in that episode that gives broadcast sensors pause, or that can't be seen in a music video that parents probably haven't blocked on Youtube.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Deset Gled]

...and yet, while I thought this was a good episode of the Orville, it was not necessarily the most enjoyable family watch ever. Two years earlier, and it could have been very, very bad.

But maybe that's just me. Does anyone else have thoughts on this?

I think I have to go with "it's you". Thinking the Orville should be a "family watch" because it's a TNG parody is just as silly as thinking Family Guy or South Park should be family shows because they're cartoons. If anything, I've been surprised with how tame the show has been so far.

Also, on the subject of sci-fi pushing the limits, I would also point out that parody always pushes things further. Just because the source material is family friendly should not in any way imply that the parody version is. There are a lot of sex jokes in Spaceballs. Airplane! is raunchier than any disaster movie. Austin Power is in-your-face with everything James Bond is subtle about. Any parody of TNG worth watching should make it painfully honest that the holodeck, like so much technology from VCRs to the internet, is driven by porn. It would be dishonest to not go there.

From your description, though, it sounds like you're aware of this. Reading between the lines a little, the problem isn't the show, its that you want to share the show with your kids. Unfortunately, they might not be quite old enough for it yet. That's totally understandable. I'm having that problem with video games right now. The only recommendation I can give is to wait. Your kids will get older, the show will still be there.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Umbran]

I apologize if you thought I was putting words in your mouth, but this is one of those common canards (like "Play it again, Sam") that is used despite the fact that it didn't exist. In the perpetuation of heroic Star Trek lore, the interracial kiss was a BIG DEAL, when in fact, despite mild pushback from the TV executives, it received no real pushback and almost nothing but praise.

You seem to be very stuck on how public complaints are the measure. If that's to be the measure, then we need to be even handed about it. Comparing "TOS didn't get major complaints" to "I felt uncomfortable" is not apples-to-apples. What episodes of The Orville have received major public backlash that tell us that this show is less family friendly than TOS?

So ... I guess we will agree to disagree on the nature of what is explicit.

We are talking about media, in which the industry has some agreed upon definitions of the term, is all I mean. They didn't have to bleep any of the language, nor fuzz out images, is what I mean.

Did they state clearly what was going on? Yes. Did that get the FCC on them? No.

But the main competitor in its timeslot the first season was Bewitched, in its second season it competed with Gomer Pyle, USMC.

I dunno if that's a great measure, because I don't know how often networks were choosing to specifically match-up head-to-head in time slots. If you're putting up Gomer Pyle, maybe they'd try to compete directly for the same viewers, or maybe they'd put up a show that appeals to people who aren't interested in Gomer. That's why I listed a bunch of shows, regardless of time slot, to demonstrate the breadth of content, to illustrate what was really "family" content at the time. I am suggesting that Trek was *way* more intellectual and nuanced than most of the real "family" shows of the time.

If you didn't notice it, then maybe it was just particular to us?

Everyone has their own level of comfort with various imagery and topics, and all of them are okay. But I figure your, or my, individual reactions aren't the telling point.

I though we were talking about the appeal more broadly - specifically, was Trek in the day really "family" content, and how much *less* family-oriented is the Orville, for the audiences of today.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Ryujin]

At time that "Plato's Stepchildren" first aired I was living in an area of Toronto, in which my school picture looked like "children of the United Nations." The only other white kid in my class had arrived in Canada after his family had escaped from Czechoslovakia in a stolen single-engined plane. Anecdotally speaking, of course, it was a big deal.

 

[Umbran]

I apologize if you thought I was putting words in your mouth, but this is one of those common canards (like "Play it again, Sam") that is used despite the fact that it didn't exist. In the perpetuation of heroic Star Trek lore, the interracial kiss was a BIG DEAL, when in fact, despite mild pushback from the TV executives, it received no real pushback and almost nothing but praise.

You seem to be very stuck on how public complaints are the measure. If that's to be the measure, then we need to be even handed about it. Comparing "TOS didn't get major complaints" to "I felt uncomfortable" is not apples-to-apples. What episodes of The Orville have received major public backlash that tell us that this show is less family friendly than TOS?

So ... I guess we will agree to disagree on the nature of what is explicit.

We are talking about media, in which the industry has some agreed upon definitions of the term, is all I mean. They didn't have to bleep any of the language, nor fuzz out images, is what I mean.

Did they state clearly what was going on? Yes. Did that get the FCC on them? No.

But the main competitor in its timeslot the first season was Bewitched, in its second season it competed with Gomer Pyle, USMC.

I dunno if that's a great measure, because I don't know how often networks were choosing to specifically match-up head-to-head in time slots. If you're putting up Gomer Pyle, maybe they'd try to compete directly for the same viewers, or maybe they'd put up a show that appeals to people who aren't interested in Gomer. That's why I listed a bunch of shows, regardless of time slot, to demonstrate the breadth of content, to illustrate what was really "family" content at the time. I am suggesting that Trek was *way* more intellectual and nuanced than most of the real "family" shows of the time.

If you didn't notice it, then maybe it was just particular to us?

Everyone has their own level of comfort with various imagery and topics, and all of them are okay. But I figure your, or my, individual reactions aren't the telling point. We are anecdotes, not data, so to speak.

I thought we were talking about the appeal more broadly - specifically, was Trek in the day really "family" content, and how much *less* family-oriented is the Orville, for the audiences of today.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I grew up on ToS reruns in the 1970s, and IMHO, it was the next scariest show on TV after The Twilight Zone[/I reruns, Night Gallery, and Kolshack: Night Stalker.. But I was into it- well, ALL of those- so it didn’t matter.