Greetings from the Planetary Union!

(Sorry, not sorry for the old yet still valid meme)

I just wanted everyone here to know that !theorville@lemmy.world has been ~~taken over~~ relaunched by me and will become an active community again!

In the name of interplanetary peace, everyone here is invited to sub if you have not already done so and to start posting whatever news/discussion/memes related to The Orville you can think of.

I'm going to add .world's c/startrek and c/tenforward to the links section of our community and I hope you guys do the same.

Happy Arbor Day! (No, seriously, the 25th of April is actually Arbor Day.)

68 comments

Discovery gets more hate then it deserves, but The Orville is certainly more of a Star Trek show. I'm glad I stuck out the rough start (which is on brand for a Star Trek show lol)
- I respectfully disagree, discovery is a truly awful star trek installment. However I respect your opinion.
- Strange new worlds is legit though
  
  SNW is great. It is such a pure distillation of Star Trek
  I don't really like the gorn plotline, but it's the show I recommend as a first for new Trekkies
- Discovery gets more hate then it deserves
  I think the problem is the writers clearly had a show that they wanted and for some bizarre reason they decided that it was also going to be a Star Trek show even though they clearly didn't actually want it to be Star Trek.
  If they just made it its own thing it would have been fine, but all this Star Trek lore kept popping up and then they had to come up with some hand wavy explanation for why their particular vision doesn't fit established canon, and the whole thing just didn't work as a result.
  I would have been totally down for a "magic exists alongside the sci-fi technology" show. There's a lot they could have done with that concept, but then for some reason they kept trying to introduce Klingons into it.
  
  I'm so sick of Klingons.
  
  I'd argue that it was hurt by specifically trying to fit TNG-era Star Trek, or people expecting that of it.
  It would have worked perfectly fine as a TOS/TAS show, since they never really shied away from there being unexplainable magic with the science out in the universe. Witches, wizards, and the devil are all real, and one universe away, so too is actual magic.
  Whereas TNG and post-TNG would always try and hammer that into the work of a godlike entity such as a Q, or some grounded science. Q abilities are the work of highly sophisticated subspace interactions that have yet to be technologically replicated. There are particular neurotransmitters, psychology, and brain structures involved in telepathy, and it's not simple ESP/psionics.
  And people wanted the latter. This is most notable with the cause of the Burn. People hated it because the idea of a child being able to psionically disrupt dilithium galaxy-wide would have been silly in TNG, without them being a child Q, or something like that.
  But as a TOS/TAS plot, it fits in fine. Lazarus briefly caused the entire universe to blink out of existence, and Charlie X, due to the powers bestowed upon him needed to keep him alive, could explode ships either his mind, and would have destroyed the Federation if left unchecked.
  TL;DR: It worked as Trek, but people basically wanted TNG and got TOS.
  
  I find that's a fairly reasonable assesment of 'science' versus 'magic' sensibility, but the main thing for me is that the arc concept due to the modern "binge" sensibilities is rough.
  When Babylon 5 and DS9 did arcs, they did so carefully embedded in generally episodic series (people couldn't "binge", maybe you would tape it if you felt like it, but people weren't always that engaged, so you catered to people that may miss some of your airings). So you had nice, digestable pieces and the underlying big thing plays out a bit at a time sometimes taking over for 2 or 3 episodes, but generally letting other smaller stories take the foreground for the episode.
  But with "binge mentality", there's an inclination for showrunners to go nuts. Picard and Discovery produce a season that is pretty much just one story. The story doesn't have enough meat to really drive that much runtime, but they make the pacing pretty torturous to fill the time. Also, with episodic, if you don't like a particular story/execution, you kind of forget it because there's a whole new story with new execution the next week. When you have a season you don't like, well that's harder to overlook.
  
  but then for some reason they kept trying to introduce Klingons into it.
  Ones with a third different head shape, no less!
  
  Fourth. You forgot about the "Kelvin timeline" Star Trek films.
  
  I remember right before Discovery aired they showed a few behind the scenes pictures and one of them included the Klingon uniforms.
  Me and a lot of other people started saying “Did they steal those from the Abrams movies?”
  
  Wouldn’t that be 5 then?
  TOS
  ST: VI
  TNG
  ST: Kelvin Timeline
  ST: Discovery
  
  Interesting point! Had to look up some screenshots, but it does look like they were maybe trying to "bridge the gap" between the TOS and TNG-era Klingon look in that film, which I am going to be watching again after this meeting in order to verify.
  Even if it's an intentional transitory look, I'll agree that it's still unique, and therefore counts. Great call.
  
  I'd say there are up to 8 designs, depending on how much you want to nitpick:
  TOS: Smooth. Unnaturally smooth.
  TMP: Single column ridge with hair on either side. Behind the scenes the concept was that the spinal column continued up from the back all around the head.
  TSFS: Ridges cover the forehead, are wider and flatter, and have a continuous hairline behind them. Female Klingons have substantially less pronounced ridges.
  TUC: Chang has those same less pronounced ridges. Maybe it's not a male/female thing. Or maybe Chang is trans?
  TNG: Those less pronounced ridges are gone. Male and female Klingons both get roughly the same degree of lumpyness.
  Kelvin: Ridges look flatter and more pleated. I don't think we see any hair, but it's been a while.
  Disco: Coneheads, quadruple nostrils, and no hair.
  Disco S2: Partial retcon as the Klingons start growing their hair in and the heads appear less conical.
  Picard/SNW: Fully revert to the TNG era look. Doesn't count since it isn't a new design.
  
  Enterprise also had slightly different looking Klingons and IIRC addressed why (a genetic disorder or disease IIRC)
  
  In Enterprise, they made an augment virus that went wrong, and to avoid going the way of the Illyrians, they made a cure, that basically turned them human/into the TOS Klingons.
  
  This is starting to feel a bit too nuanced.
  
  Yeah, like I say, it's pretty nitpicky. I'd probably collapse everything from TSFS to Kelvin into one, if I were being more lax. I don't find the Kelvin design to be all that different from what came before, but I do find TMP to be really distinct in comparison. But I know some people who seem to be the exact opposite on that, so 🤷
  
  Yeah, how dare those artists do their jobs! I can’t stand this sentiment. Times and technology change, and so designs can change because of that. Yes they ham fisted an explanation witht the ENT arc. But like, should we go back to the racist Asian caricature based look? People who can’t separate the stories from the fact that their real productions that have to actually exist in reality don’t deserve Star Trek.
  
  You can change costumes and makeup without completely changing unnecessary parts.
  Klingons went from being established as clearly mammalian and very hairy to a completely different reptilian-in-appearance species (also with an entirely different culture but let's ignore that), then back to mammalian.
  They also made significant changes to Andorians. The hair, facial structure, skin tones, and antennae changed, but they were still clearly Andorians, so nobody cared. If they made them red with yellow hair and a rhino horn instead of antennae then it would be rightly ridiculed.
  The assertion that if you're against what early DIS did to Klingons then you're a racist who wants Asian caricatures is absolutely insane. What are you smoking?
  
  The designs chosen for alien characters are based on the limitations and of the technology of their time, not just creative wants. You know why Klingons were so hairy up till disco? Because wigs were cheaper and look better on camera than full body prosthetics did. Remember the fish heads?
  But now they have a lot better prosthetic technology so let’s reinterpret the designs for this new show. We can maintain the characteristics from the text but we can also change the things we did because they were more practical then.
  But then we get to your last paragraph and you completely lose me. How you made that jump from what I said is just, bravo. 👏🏻 that’s some fancy gymnastics right there. Again, people who can’t understand that stories produced in live action actually have to exist in reality and make choices for practical and not just creative reasons are absolutely insufferable.
  
  You know why Klingons were so hairy up till disco? Because wigs were cheaper and look better on camera than full body prosthetics did.
  That is complete bullshit. Klingons were never designed to be reptilian. There have been reptilian races shown in Trek long before DIS.
  Klingon design settled on how they look throughout the 80s, 90s, and 2000s because that's what they wanted them to look like. They're a hairy, mammalian species.
  But now they have a lot better prosthetic technology so let’s reinterpret the designs for this new show.
  You can reinterpret without throwing away everything and making a clearly entirely different species. Like going from mammals to reptilians. And again don't try to bullshit is into thinking making a reptilian species was impossible until 2017.
  But then we get to your last paragraph and you completely lose me. How you made that jump from what I said is just, bravo
  That's exactly what you said. Your mental gymnastics is insane.
  Again, people who can’t understand that stories produced in live action actually have to exist in reality and make choices for practical and not just creative reasons are absolutely insufferable.
  Jfc, there's an insufferable person here and it's certainly not me. You are the one who doesn't understand.
  Stop with this stupidity and mental gymnastics. It's not impossible to make Klingons mammalian, because we've already done it for decades, and we again do it now.
  Why are you lying by saying that the change was done for a "practical" reasons and that mammalian costume design "doesn't exist in reality"?
  
  We’re clearly experiencing two different realities here and this just isn’t gonna work. Sorry, have a good one.
  
  Agreed. It's a decent action scifi show that is hurt by trying to fit the IP. It did do some interesting things with the mirror universe, and some of the latter season parts where it takes nonsensical one off TOS concepts and completely seriously says "that's canon, let's build a plot point on it" were entertaining, if not good.
  But it just doesn't get Star Trek and it says something that I tell people getting in to the shows not to watch it.
- It got the hate it deserved
- Now I'm thinking I should give it another try.
  I gave Discovery half a season, I have the Orville 2 or 3 episodes and while it was funny it didn't really click for me. I just lost interest after a few episodes.
  
  I found the first three eps "okay" ish. Something to watch.
  Then ep 4 landed and oh shit we got trek here boys. Then you got Pria, Krill is still my go to introduction ep because it starts with a crewmember being dared to eat a cactus but ends on a damning note about cycles of violence. Keeps going from there, ep 4 (If the stars should appear) is the growing of the beard.
  
  The best way that I found to think about The Orville is that Seth MacFarlane had to shoe-horn jokes into the first few episodes to satisfy the execs who expected him to make a comedy and then gradually that tapers off to become a really solid Star Trek-type show (that still has humor, but it’s more organic, workplace type humor).
  
  Yeah, it follows a lot of the "futuristic parallels to modern day issues" that we saw with ToS and TNG, while at the same time adding in humor that ranges from tongue-in-cheek to outright raunchy. I can't imagine a TNG episode that would address "holodeck sex addiction" but Orville actually manages to do a pretty good job of stradding seriousness of that issue along with humor.
  For the more serious stuff: imagine an alliance when it's discovered that one of the members has done (and is still doing) some stuff that's pretty strongly against the morals of the rest. If called on it they threaten to pull out. While all are in the middle of a war for survival. And they're also one of the biggest weapons suppliers
  That's pretty close to some issues today while also being years old.
  
  The Orville is a weird show. It hews very closely to the format and production design of 90s Trek (including a lot of budget-conscious decisions), and many of the creatives have a Star Trek background going back that far. Frankly, I think a lot of the scripts were from the TNG slush pile. It's clearly a love letter to those shows.
  However, it's also clearly Seth MacFarlane's love letter. He gets to be the captain. His friends and lovers get to play major parts despite sometimes not really having the acting chops for it. The characters are all obsessed with the cultural touchstones of white American Gen-X'ers. In the early going, the Family-Guy/Ted/etc. sense of humor is front and center, and while that gets much better, it never fully goes away. One can also just about imagine 20-something Seth and his buddies screaming at the TV that there is no moral ambiguity in a given ST episode and that Jean Luc needs to just pick a side.
  In some ways, it can be pretty rough, but then, mostly because it is such an earnest homage, it's greater than the sum of its parts. I never fell in love with it the way many have, but after wading through the first few episodes and getting a feel for what it was and wasn't, I grew fond of it. I'd say it's worth watching, but you don't have to apologize for not fully buying in. TBH, I feel fairly similar levels of tempered fondness for Disco, though for very different reasons.
  
  wjrii hit the nail on the head. If you categorically don't like the vibe it might not be for you. Like any true Trek show it takes time to find its feet. The plot is coarse and hamfisted (as a trans person, the trans allegory episode was hard to get through) but eventually turns around to be a good example of scifi for contemporary social commentary. The humour (both quality and balance) improves but it doesn't stop being a Seth MacFarlane show. I value its earnesty, but it's pretty far down the list for my suggested "Star Trek" viewing order.

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