The Orville [SPOILERS WITHIN]

I always understood Star Trek transporters to basically operate like a combination fax machine and shredder. Your data is sent to the receiving transporter and reassembled while you are simultaneously destroyed. Even with the idea of the matter itself somehow moving through space (rather than just a copy) you're still being ripped apart.

Thankfully The Orville hasn't bothered with transporters. TOS created the idea to save budget and time to get the cast down to a planet quicker. Now that science fiction TV has evolved, it's not really needed. Some stories end up being helped out by the need to use shuttles, rather than resolving plot tensions instantly by waving a wand and beaming up.

Yep. The other thing with the transporter from a plot perspective is the "bad guys" always had to somehow take it out of the equation or Kirk would just whip out the communicator and yell "Scotty! Save my ass!" and suddenly there's no danger any more.

The thing is while Gene Roddenberry himself talked about the saving money and eliminating the scenes of "getting in and out of shuttles" I never understood the reasoning. IIRC the original shuttlecraft was funded by AMT model company in exchange for the rights to sell models of it. But Desilu still had to pay for the permanent Transporter Room set and the "shimmer out/shimmer in" transporter effects. Also, you eliminate much of the "getting in and out of shuttles" problems with simple writing. For many episodes and scenes you didn't really need to show how members of the Enterprise crew arrived on planet/station/ship or departed from one.
Enterprise enters orbit, Kirk and chosen members of landing party are shown exiting the bridge turbo life and/or walking down a corridor, cut away to the Enterprise in orbit, then cut to the planet with the landing party entering the scene where the story unfolds. No one really cares how they got there.

Ironically, after the full sized shuttlecraft prop was built it was sometimes used to save money itself. In "Journey to Babel" Sarek and Amanda arrived on the Enterprise using a shuttle instead of a transporter because the production staff found it was cheaper to just use the Hangar Deck set, shuttlecraft prop and existing stock footage than paying for more transporter effects for the actors.

Someone here has a copy of David Gerrolds "The World of Star Trek"- good book by the way.

Nerd cred to you, Dayton, for getting that reference.

space: Inside That Spectacular Space Battle in 'The Orville'.
https://www-space-com.cdn.ampprojec...ide-the-orville-spectacular-space-battle.html

Good article. I liked how the Kaylon spheres would often simply spin around on their axis in order to direct fire at Union ships attacking from behind. I've seen documentaries that in a real space battle this would be a common maneuver.

Also I'll note that more than once Union ships were destroyed by Kaylon ships simply ramming then. Apparently in suicide attacks.

The Orville is getting a comic book. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/foxs-orville-flies-comics-july-1192981

Tonights episode was pretty good. Good to see Malloy getting a serious story rather than being used mostly for juvenile humor.

The fact that the Orville was sent to deal with the Krill -- Mercer in the span of two seasons has gone from a washed up depressive who barely got a ship, to effectively the Union's flagship commander.

Well, given it was Kelly Grayson who got the Krill to come to Earth's assistance and turned the tide of battle against the Kaylon in the previous episode it makes sense that the Union would send the Orville to sign this "pre treaty" with the Krill.

I'm gonna say I thought Mercer was way too cool, collected and capable during that battle. Given his character, I'd have liked to see him just a little rattled and indecisive. It would have been more realistic, IMHO. YMMV. TGIF.

Not sure - the backstory to Ed is that he WAS a very capable and promising officer who just went off the rails after his marriage fell apart. Even in the first episode he's cool under fire from the Krill. I think he's pretty professional outside of social interactions.

If Ed had not gone off the rails he'd probably be a Captain of a much larger ship. He's obviously had a long career.

Orville was only given to him because they lacked captains and Kelly was lobbying hard for him.

Of course that makes you wonder why they didn't have anyone who was worthy of being promoted from XO to Captain.

And if those nerds had invested half that time in developing clean, renewable energy sources, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.

Fucking geeks.

Hate to get off topic but there is no "miracle energy" that is clean & renewable while also being powerful and reliable. No free lunch. Given we're talking about Star Trek, how would you (and most people) react to the prospect of antimatter power plants scattered around the world?

I'd rather have fusion plants. They don't explode.

Actually antimatter power plants wouldn't explode either. At least not the way you think. As Robert L. Forward put it in the book "Mirror Matter", the uncontrolled release of antimatter while it releases tremendous energy it is mainly in the form of very high energy particles that would not interact much with ordinary matter. It would be more "poof" than "boom".

Am I the only one who thought Orrin looked like a young Larry Linville? When I saw his daughter, I was like, "Did that chick crawl out of a TV?"

My only real issue with the episode was when Malloy went out the back of the shuttle. One, there's no way he'd be able to push himself away from the shuttle fast enough to get outside the fireball radius. Two, there's nothing to make shockwaves in a vacuum.

You know I've always thought it might be cool if the transporters as we've seen them in Star Trek were eliminated from a future Star Trek series. Say that it was discovered that long term uses of transporters causes a hideously lethal disease to afflict people. Like "Transporter Divergence Syndrome" or something like that. People who have used the transporter too much over the years begin slowly and painfully disintegrating for good.

That said it might be very cool to see future Starfleet ships with huge shuttle bays and all kinds of different shuttles for various situations crammed into them. Shuttlepods, shuttlecraft, aquashuttles, runabouts, drop ships, specialized shuttles like the scout from Nemesis or Tom Paris's Delta Flyer. Shuttles specially designed to put someone aboard (or take someone off) ships or space stations that are sealed against entry or exit.

Might offer some really new dramatic possibilities.

Humour. It is a difficult concept.

You've basically described the BSG reboot series. Ship to ship shuttles, recon ships, fighter ships, etc. did indeed add to the drama.

Matter / Anti-Matter annihilation reactions produce a ton of gamma rays (and in higher energy reactions, some other various particles). So, "would not interact much with ordinary matter" is quite wrong.

At the least, everyone in Engineering should be green and muscular.

Just caught up on the last three episodes. That two-parter was great. The visuals for this series continue to impress.

The most recent one was good, but something of a letdown after the 2-parter.

I love that the container that was used for the explosive blood appeared to be one of those things that shoots through the tubes at a bank's drive-through teller. Lots of other cool real world props in that room off main engineering.

And there's no way for him to know it, but Seth MacFarlane should be proud of his show if for no other reason than a group of Trek fans on an obscure message board talk about his production with as much interest as they discuss actual Trek series.

I did catch a goof in the first part of the two-parter, though. The blue lens covering the light on Isaac's arm was loose when he was standing next to Claire in her quarters, before he collapsed.



Before and after that shot:

You're late. Everyone already knew that.

I didn’t see it mentioned in the thread.

Holy shit! The song in this episode!
It's straight from Last Unicorn!