The Orville [SPOILERS WITHIN]

Indeed. The shows involve a futuristic faster than light starship, and set in space. They diverge wildly from there.

So you’re just going to pretend the Orville isn’t TNG 2.0?

By ‘throwback’ I’m pretty sure she is referring to the TNG era of Trek.

And I do compare Orville to TNG almost every episode. Almost every episode has some TNG correlate.

Not surprising since McFarlane is friendly with the TNG crew and they’ve all made appearances on Family Guy. Patrick Stewart voices a major character on American Dad. That’s obviously one of his favorite shows.

Whereas Matt Groening definitely seems like more of a TOS fan. Thinking of that Futurama episode which parodied TOS and featured nearly the whole voice cast.

The homage is not necessarily a bad thing. I definitely get enjoyment out of this show... but it does make me nostalgic for old Trek and I wish the TNG movies hadn’t mostly sucked. Nemesis was a crappy way to go out.

Except for "Welshie".

I could whine and cry that every assembly-line burger joint since McDonald's is a McDonald's "knockoff", or I could be grateful there are more burger joints to pick from.
I choose the latter.

I liked the last ep, but I really wonder what the ending means for next episode.

Third option, you could be happy you don't have to eat your hamburgers at McDonalds. I choose that.

Seriously, those are vile.

Just realized there's another random bit of information about the Union fleet that we can glean from this episode.

In the U.S. Navy, an officer has to serve at least three years as a lieutenant to be eligible for promotion to lieutenant commander, and at least three years as a lieutenant commander to be eligible for promotion to commander. But DoppelKelly, who is a lieutenant, seems disappointed to discover she's not a captain seven years in the future. This tells us that a faster promotion rate than the U.S. Navy is at least legally possible in the Union fleet.

How would Kirk as a 33-year old Captain stack up? I think these shows always give some wiggle room for the "hotshots" like Kirk, Riker, etc (though Riker chose not to take the quick route and get some prestige under his belt, so he could get a decent first command rather than an Oberth/Miranda/backwater duty Excelsior).

Looks like the U.S. Navy time-in-grade requirements for a captain are two years as ensign, two years as lieutenant j.g., three as lieutenant, three as lieutenant commander, and three as commander ... for a total of 13, but the Navy also requires between 21 and 23 years of total service. So even if Starfleet's time-in-grade requirements are similar, they must at least have a looser total service requirement in order for Kirk to be a captain at 33.

Riker's career suggests that if Starfleet has time-in-grade requirements in the 24th century they are shorter than our current ones, since he's a lieutenant on the Potemkin in 2361 ("Second Chances") and a commander by 2364 ("Encounter at Farpoint").

And another big reason both shows are compared to each other are because everyone knows that McFarlane is a big Star Trek fan and Orville is homage to Star Trek.

So again comparing Orville and Discovery is valid.

I think Starfleet is more meritocratic than rule bound in that if you can show the skills to be a Captain (or higher rank) they will promote you to the position. You still have to put in some time of course as you're not coming out of the academy right to a captains chair (or higher rank) but the time frames that you have to be X for so many years are probably a bit looser than the US Navy.

Yes, but Nova is saying Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. are nothing alike so we shouldn’t be comparing them.

Also, bear in mind that the master of a vessel is called “Captain” regardless of the rank. Tho both Kirk and Mercer are actual Captains.

No goddamnit that's EXACTLY what I'm saying it IS.

Interestingly...

TNG was approximately 20 years after TOS.

Same basic premise. But different eras. Different cultural landscape, different television landscape.

And Discovery is about 30 years on from TNG!

So I think it would be safe to call this part of the third era of Star Trek.

I'd lump Discovery in with the Abrams movies in this new era.

Is it fair to compare shows from different eras?

Orville is tricky because it debuted in the same year as Discovery but it is very intentionally a throwback to an older era.

In terms of storytelling, even nuBSG is more advanced... but that's not what McFarlane is going for.

So I can see both sides of this argument.

I think it just comes down to what each of us enjoys more. It's going to be subjective. Do you prefer the more advanced/modern storytelling or do you prefer the simpler, less dark stand alone stuff?

Do you like Mercer better or Burnham better? I guess it just comes down to your own personal tastes.

I don't think there is an objective way to say one show is better than the other.

I think pitting them against each other is silly.
There's a segment of fandom that loves to do that with everything.
I think that's stifling.
I don't pick Marvel over DC or vice versa.
I don't pick Thrones over Rings or vice versa.
I don't pick Trek over Wars or vice versa.

To me, "brand loyalty", in fandom is like saying "you can have hamburgers, or pizza, but you whatever you pick, you cant have the other one, forever!
No, muthafucka, I'm having pizza and burgers.
And burritos, and fried chicken, and haddock filet, and pork chops, and crab rangoon.

re: Time in grade:
I think the truer truth is that the writers never even thought of things like that, and have no clue how things work in the real Navy.

Well, the real navy would of course never allow Gordon anywhere near the flight controls, regardless of his donkey-hugging prowess. Or any of the other characters we see drinking on the job.

I agree with all of this but my argument is that I enjoy both of them a lot, see some things I quibble with on both, and don't see that it's necessary at all to pit them against each other as "this is a better way to do it than that" or whatever.

Like I alluded to before. I really enjoy Daredevil, and Supergirl, and Doom Patrol, and The Tick...and I feel no need to get into a deep discussion about who does superhero shoes the best.

Okay, cool teaser. (Think maybe it would be a good idea to put a "close door" button next to the shuttle door, instead of just on the flight control panel?)

Good not great Season Two finale. Visually very stunning but the entire alternate timeline stuff driving the plot would be no surprise to almost any science fiction fan over the last 30 years.

Holy fuck, you guys! That entire episode was loaded with nods to what's gone before and none of you mentioned them? The listening post planet was a nod to ESB, as was the whole ice moon sequence, and the flight through the debris/asteroid field, we got a nod to Interstellar with the black hole (and possibly Voyager), not to mention that Ed mimics Kirk in TWoK when he moves forward in his seat on the Orville, as well as the fact that when the Orville leaves the trench the music is clearly echoing the sequence where the Enterprise escapes the Reliant blowing up (and I'm skipping the various nods to music from ESB that have happened in the episode). Shitsnacks, am I the only one who noticed the nod to Scotty blowing the dust off a bottle when Ed did it? Also, didja not notice that the music playing as the doc laid down on the table was the dramatic fight music from TOS Trek? I was disappointed that Ed didn't turn to Kelly and say, "For luck!" when he went to kiss her.

And huge fucking flaw in the premise of the episode. If their goal is to send Claire back in time so that she can inject Kelly with a compound which will allow the mindwipe to work, they don't need to get the compound before they send Claire back. They can send her back long enough to make the compound and then slip into Kelly's apartment while she's asleep. Also, Adrianne Palicki needs to have that thing between her eyebrows removed.

Finally all caught up. I seem to be stuck in binge watching mode.

Episode with time capsule, Lasting Impressions, was the most boring of all the episodes in either season but the cigarette B-plot was hilarious.

I liked Sanctuary but I feel there should have been some more fallout from the fact that a Union and Moclan ship were fighting each other. It is nice to see that even on Moclan that the movement towards females is far greater than it looks. For a while I thought it might just be Bortus and maybe one or two others but to see they essentially have an underground railroad thing going on means that the Moclan's might soon be facing change whether they like it or not. The Dolly Parton thing was a little silly but than I realized that in real life if we ever meet aliens they could latch on to things like Dolly and misinterpret things.

In Tomorrow x3, I was surprised they would even think of letting Issac still work on a possible time machine. The episode was good. It was pretty much a ship in the bottle episode. Liked the maneuver in the ice field.

Road Not Taken, excellent episode. Tuckerfan you missed one: When Yapphit stuck his, well himself, out the hole in the door was a homage to Return of the Jedi and Jabba's palace.

Oh and you missed the homage to Firefly when Gordon talked about the scavengers cutting off Gordon's and Mercer's skin and wearing it like a suit. "If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing – and if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order." - Zoe

Seems that Issac ripping off the head of big bad gave the Kaylon's an idea and now they are flying head drones.

Liked the shot of Earth.

"And huge fucking flaw in the premise of the episode. If their goal is to send Claire back in time so that she can inject Kelly with a compound which will allow the mindwipe to work, they don't need to get the compound before they send Claire back. They can send her back long enough to make the compound and then slip into Kelly's apartment while she's asleep."

You don't want to risk it though.

What if you send Claire back a week and she goes to a medlab to get the stuff. What if she than trips and falls down the stairs in the building and breaks her neck? Now they are screwed.

You also don't want to risk Claire by accident changing the timeline. It would be hilarious if it turns out that it's not Kelly that changes the timeline but Claire does. Claire witnessing an accident saves the one person in the universe whose supposed to die or else the Kaylon win.



It's also a matter of making sure Claire gets to the right location in time. Since we know that the time thing was partially caused by Kelly thinking of the day after her first date with Mercer it makes sense for Claire to also think of the moment to get to the right moment in time.

So it's far safer to have Claire bring her equipment and drugs with her than it is for her to go get it after going back in time.

"Also, Adrianne Palicki needs to have that thing between her eyebrows removed."

It does stand out a lot.

Also just saw on reddit that the wear our skin thing could be the Vidiians from Voyager. The ones who stole organs and skin.

I'm rewatching "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow." Did we know before this episode that Kelly's background is as a science officer?

I didn’t not think so.

Yeah, caught that, but forgot to mention it.

Missed that.

And Ed's comment "Don't Panic" was clearly a nod to HGTTG that I missed the first time around.

But Isaac didn't do that in this timeline. And we know this because Isaac's body wasn't on the Orville when it went down. So that means when they went to Kaylon, they never talked the Kaylons into reassembling Isaac.

This is the same false premise as Ed's argument that you don't go back in time to kill Hitler, because something worse might happen. You know what will happen if you don't kill Hitler, and while you might not know what happens if you do kill him, this isn't any different than your normal life. You try to be a decent person, of course, but you don't know what the results of your actions will be. Maybe because you inadvertently cut someone off in traffic, that becomes the thing which inspires them to become a serial killer. Or maybe you don't vote because you see no way that your preferred candidate could lose, only later to discover that lots of other people felt the same way, and now there's an assgasket in office.

They were just as screwed before, though. It's not like the Kaylon's hadn't already wiped out half the galaxy and were in the process of wiping the rest of it out. All that's really changed is they have one less way to fix the problem.

Claire could also use that time to tell her then-self (because she'd be more likely to believe her than anyone else would) the important stuff about the Kaylons. Even if she couldn't prevent Isaac from sending them the message that leads to them going all slaughtery on people, at least some of the folks in the Union wouldn't be caught off-guard when it happened. I mean, all Claire's got to do when she shows up in Kelly's apartment is to tell Kelly, "You and Ed need to hook up, otherwise the Kaylon will wipe everyone out."

I'm assuming that if the food replicators can make food, they can also make the proteins that Kelly's brain doesn't. You might need medical credentials for it to do that, but Claire's got them or would know someone on Earth who does. Getting into Kelly's apartment might be a problem, but then again, the other Kelly could give Claire the code to the door.

Especially in the closeup shots.

Or the GELFs from Red Dwarf. Though they preferred using human skin to make beanbag chairs.

I just have to interject that I love Adrianne Palicki's boobs.