The Orville

[Zor]

This show is still ironing out the bugs. To be honest it has less of them than TNG did in it's first season.

Zor

[Galvatron]

Season one of TNG was unadulterated Roddenberry, IIRC. No wonder it was awful.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

This episode was pretty interesting. Krill society features religious indoctrination from an exceptionally young age; but their ships come with a commissar priest aboard who seems to enjoy great latitude, in terms of the power he wields.

The protagonists won because the ship's lighting was, apparently, designed to safely (the light fixtures and the circuits that powered them seemed just fine afterwards) ramp up in intensity by at least three whole orders of magnitude (from ~4% of Earth's solar insolation to a level that causes sunburn in thirty seconds.) That's rather like having your bedroom night-light be able to ramp up to "outdoor generator-powered light tower" intensity without exploding. That, combined with the fact that Krill ships are apparently designed to operate just fine with a couple of poorly-trained crew aboard caused me to wonder if Krill ships were designed to allow the commissar priest to hide in a closet, murder the entire crew, and take control if some manner of heresy were to break out.

Other things I wondered about ... did the Union tell Captain Mercer everything when ordering him to infiltrate the Krill destroyer? It seems rather convenient that their disguise-tech happens to operate at a frequency where it accepts interference from the prototype Krill bomb. We know the Union is desperately short on ships (the Orville frequently suffers from "the only ship in the sector" syndrome, in spite of it being a lightly-armed explorer and thus ill-suited to handle any sort of real emergency,) and apparently keen to risk people whom they've written off.

Overall the show is very competent TV sci-fi, and I'm actually a bit sad that its relatively poor ratings are making it less and less likely to be picked up for a second season.

[JI_Joe84]

I was very actively restraining my self from throwing very big heavy things at my tv every time Malloy goofed off, its as if he was trying to get fought.
Also did not see Seth or other primary characters spending that much screen time in full head mask / make-up. Not that often you see that kind of departure from the norm.
Either its not that expensive or they are pulling out all the stops to make a good trek show.
I agree the tone of this episode should have been more serious and not any thing funny. I mean there could be ways to squeeze in some comedy there but who the he'll cracks jokes while on an enemy ship / sneaking around and if cought , well we saw what they do to humans.

[Galvatron]

Did anyone else notice the line of dialogue stating that the Orville is capable of traveling ten light years per hour a few episodes back?

[Batman]

So? It's not like that's exceptionally fast

[Galvatron]

I thought it was a refreshingly straightforward piece of technical information though.

[Rogue 9]

Also did not see Seth or other primary characters spending that much screen time in full head mask / make-up. Not that often you see that kind of departure from the norm.
Either its not that expensive or they are pulling out all the stops to make a good trek show.

It wasn't unheard of in Trek.

[Galvatron]

And apparently it's a lot faster than Star Trek ships...

The Orville. Here's how fast it is compared to ships in the Star Trek universe

[Batman]

Trek Warp speeds are all over the place. News at 11. TOS E-Nil could easily match and exceed that and VOY was 'we have to keep this up indefinitely'

[Burak Gazan]

Did anyone else notice the line of dialogue stating that the Orville is capable of traveling ten light years per hour a few episodes back?

87,600C
Yeah, it's not too shabby

[Galvatron]

Trek Warp speeds are all over the place. News at 11. TOS E-Nil could easily match and exceed that and VOY was 'we have to keep this up indefinitely'

You seem irritated. Are you okay? I realize that Trek has more warp scales than you have Batmobiles, but I didn't mean to touch a nerve.

[Batman]

'Irritated' is too strong a word but the 'Trek Warp speed is slow because of TNG. HA!' does get boring after a while, though I'll admit at least there it was marginally consistent.

[Galvatron]

I recently saw an episode of Voyager in which Janeway had a good laugh about how slow the TOS-era ships were compared to her own. I think it was the Excelsior episode.

[Abacus]

I'm personally loving the series and am liking it more than the new Discovery.

[Q99]

Just starting on the first ep- I could do with fewer of the jokes, especially some of the snipes at the ex, but the Planetary Union feels like the Federation, ship designs are solid enough, I dig the Krill makeup and armor, and the dilemma and tech-of-the-week is pretty solid stuff.

Also I like the idea that they can just give crew alien powers like super strength. That kind of thing is fun.

[tezunegari]

Just starting on the first ep- I could do with fewer of the jokes, especially some of the snipes at the ex, but the Planetary Union feels like the Federation, ship designs are solid enough, I dig the Krill makeup and armor, and the dilemma and tech-of-the-week is pretty solid stuff.

Also I like the idea that they can just give crew alien powers like super strength. That kind of thing is fun.

Where did they give alien powers to someone?

The only characters with superstrength are aliens. Bortas is Moklan, a single-sex race (a deconstruction of single-sex races looking like hot women) and Alara Kitain is Xelayan from a heavy-gravity world.

[Batman]

Um-aliens having powers is, like, them giving alien powers to aliens?

[tezunegari]

Um-aliens having powers is, like, them giving alien powers to aliens?

Ah, possibly a misunderstanding on my part.

I read Q99's post as "a crewmember received alien powers" instead of "the writers created a character with superstrength and it's not forgotten but integral part of the characters interaction".
(Mercer asking Alara to open "the pickle jar" for him in at aleast 2 episodes, Alara's romantic problems)

In Star Trek Data, Vulcans and Klingons were supposed to be far stronger than humans but that was never shown in everyday life.

[Burak Gazan]

That bit is becoming a thing for Capt Ed and Alara. And it's not badly done

[Batman]

In everyday life you generally don't need superstrength and whenever it would have come in handy, Data exhibited it. The Klingons are a bit harder because they get their asses kicked by pretty much every recurring character but I rationalize this as them not being all THAT far stronger than humans. Same for Vulcans. Call it 2-3 times average human, tops. Alara is like 'Call Superman, tell him we're good'

[Burak Gazan]

They have played it nicely so far; and she's not invulnerable - being a heavy worlder did save her life when she got shot, but she bleeds like the rest of us. It has screwed up her dating with normal humans though. As Gordy put it, the guy was intimidated by his girlfriend being able to bench press him with one hand I donno, myself...

[Batman]

The thing is you CAN'T have superstrength (at least on that level) without some level of invulnerability. You punch something that hard and your bones will shatter so you at least need a) stronger bones and b) WAY stronger muscles. If that translates into stronger resilience in the rest of the body I don't feel qualified to comment.

And I like the way they're doing the 'jar of pickles' thing (though I think it might get repetitive after a while). He knows she's far stronger than him and has no problem with that nor asking her to use that superior strength when needed

[Q99]

For alien powers in prior shows, Data sometimes got to use strength, sometimes reflexes and speed, and sometimes durability and so on. Spock had minor alien powers, not so much just his strength, but nerve pinch and mind meld.

Of course, the biggest crewmember alien power in Star Trek is Odo and his shapeshifting, which was both major and used all the time, kinda like Alara.

Futurama's commentary noted with Kif that him being an alien allowed them to throw in a super power when the plot required (in his case, climbing on walls/ceilings).

[TimothyC]

Wow, Malloy giving that Krill kid the location of Earth is going to come back and bite them later.

I hope.