The Orville Review

Welcome to Future Imperfect. I'm your host, Admiral

Phillips, and joining me in this endeavor into

the stars is Alex and Aaron Paulier. Hello, hello.

Hi there. Oh, we both talk at the same time.

Hi. Hi, everybody. And this week, unfortunately,

he got sucked into a black hole somewhere is

Mike the Birdman Dodd. He'll be back next week,

though, because we'll send a probe to find him.

This week we're covering The Orville. So some

of us have seen it as it's progressed and some

of us had the fortunate ability to blitz it all

at once and get all of the stories instead of

having to watch the trickle down from cable television.

So I guess without further ado, let me get into

the description of the show. And it's an American

sci -fi comedy drama written, created, starring

Seth MacFarlane as the captain, Ed Mercer, of

the Planetary Union, which is basically United

Federation of Planets, in the 25th century, which,

again, they went to the 25th century before Trek

even broke out of the 24th. And it's heavily

inspired by the original Star Trek, as well as

the next generation. And fortunately enough,

we have many, many Star Trek cast and crew who

continue to either show up as guest stars or

directors or writers, producers on this program.

So what are your guys' thoughts on it just from

the get -go? You want me to go first, then? Sure.

When I saw the preview for it, I was like, oh.

comedy Star Trek, like right away I was like,

is it going to be pure comedy even before seeing

it? And I thought, I'll give it a go. The special

effects look good. I had heard that Seth MacFarlane

was like a huge, huge Trekkie. And then for years

sort of wanted to do something with it, but his

contract with Fox wouldn't allow. And I guess

he finally got enough clout at Fox to go, I'm

making my own Star Trek. And they said, Okay,

here's the check, because you've made a ridiculous

amount of money for your cheap animation for

years. So true. I'll let Aaron go before I give

my thoughts on it. My general thoughts on the

show? I liked it a lot and disliked it just a

tiny bit, but for weird reasons. That's my overall

summary. When I first saw the trailers for it,

I was like, oh, great, you know, great, a comedy

Star Trek. They're going to be making fun of

it or the comedy is going to be silly. And I'd

say that as I watched it on its first run on

television, I think I was kind of justified in

my thought about the comedy being a little silly.

But the show wasn't making fun of Star Trek by

any means. So I don't know. My general opinion

is a big thumbs up. See I when I first saw the

the notifications that it was coming is I was

like, oh great it's a Seth MacFarlane show and

I was considering, you know family guy and American

dad and all these other animated series which

were kind of lowbrow Funny but lowbrow and I

I was like, I don't know how this is going to

turn out but I'm gonna watch it just because

it kind of gave me that that vibe of Star Trek

in Galaxy quest And being that I was a fan of

pretty much any of the space travel and this

type of genre of sci -fi, I was like, okay, I'll

give it a shot. And I saw Fox was doing it, which

I was a little leery of because typically Fox

programs don't last long, whether they're good

or not. And so... Was a little apprehensive of

jumping on board, but once I did I was quite

happy with the result that they came up with

Through the characters that I would say the first

two to three episodes are a little rough because

it feels very Family guy esque. Yeah, but beyond

that it actually grows itself out rather nicely

Into that episodic television that we got with

the original Star Trek and the next generation

So maybe I should go into like a little more

detail on my likes and dislikes of the of the

series overall I'd say like season one is okay

The the comedy was pretty grating in the first

few episodes But it continually got better and

I can say for certain that none of the episodes

really stood out to me as being like teeth grinding

or anything like that My only complaint with

the series in season one and two overall was

that, yeah, the comedy could be a little amateurish

at times or forced, but it was mainly that it

was in an uncanny valley with Star Trek. And

my love of Star Trek was so high that it felt

weird watching it. And then later on, that kind

of morphed in season two into being more of like

a sick feeling. And this sounds awful, but like

feeling a little sick that this isn't Star Trek

because this is doing such a such a great job

compared to Star Trek Discovery or Star Trek

Picard and actually being Star Trek. And that's

a compliment. I'm complimenting the show, but

it still made me feel weird. That makes sense.

Yeah, I mean, I can definitely relate to that

because it has. It definitely can. You can tell

it's been inspired heavily by Star Trek and Seth

MacFarlane is an Uber fan of it, considering

he was also in Enterprise, albeit briefly, and

he shot that short film when he was in high school,

pretending that they were on the enterprise and

going through a black hole. There's like a short

clip of it floating around on YouTube somewhere,

but. But yeah, I mean, it's so good that it deserves

to be among the Star Trek lineup, but obviously,

for other reasons, it can't be. I would have

loved to have seen what Seth MacFarlane could

have done with Star Trek had he been given the

reins instead of what we got. Oh, I would have

loved it too. Absolutely love to see that. So

what are some of the standout episodes that you

you honestly thought were? Almost Star Trek worthy

and in what they brought to the table and what

the the Thoughts that were provoked while watching

it. Oh I can I can name a few well I'd say most

of my standout episodes are also in season 2

and Standout in both ways like there's an episode

that really ticked me off in season 2 but like

There's episodes that are great. And I think

Primal Urges, where there's the planet being

torn apart by its star. Well, yeah, the science

is utter garbage in it. It feels very Star Trek.

And I was I was down with it. I was engaged in

it because I actually really liked the storyline

going on. I really liked it. I also I also loved

I love all the episodes that basically dealt

with Isaac and Claire developing the relationship.

I saw a lot of parallels with what happened with

Data. I thought they were taking it in a really

interesting direction and then leading into the

two part mid -season episodes where it turns

out Isaac's species is basically the evil bad

guys and they're wanting to kill all biological

life. fantastic, very Star Trek, and well worth

watching. Yeah, I totally agree on those points,

too. There were a few episodes that also kind

of stood out to me, and one of them was in, I

want to say season... I want to say season one,

maybe? Maybe, might have it wrong. No, no, it's

in season one, Majority Rule. the episode where

they're heading to a culture similar to 21st

century earth looking for two anthropologists

and Lamar is arrested for doing the inappropriate

public behavior and that's where they have the

voting the up vote down vote and then they basically

lobotomize everybody and it kind of it's very

reminiscent of Twitter Which is, I think, the

inspiration for this because the more you do

something that people deem not okay, the more

it spreads like wildfire and everybody's like,

look at this dick, you know, blah, blah, blah,

you know, and it just creates this false, even

if it wasn't meant with malice, it's like those

tweets that come back 10 years ago and come back

and bite you now. It's the same kind of messaging

with the way that they do the voting in this.

And so I thought it was really interesting that

they tackled that in that way. And then in season

two, I liked the lasting impressions one where

they had the time capsule. That was such a great

episode. It kind of reminded me of something

that you would probably see in Voyager, because

they had a lot of stuff where it would touch

on things from the past, or even TNG had some

episodes like that with finding the cryo -frozen

individuals that got brought on the Enterprise

or the old space shuttle. So it was kind of funny

seeing this time capsule from 2015 and then they're

looking at the cell phone like, what's this,

you know? And Gordon, of course, uploads it to

the ship's computer and has a simulation and

starts having like this almost Barclay like life

in the simulator, you know, the holodeck, basically.

And it was really interesting watching that play

out. You know, albeit there were some humorous

elements to it, but it felt very Star Trek in

that. It felt very it felt very real in some

ways and This is it's the that was the only episode

that I can actually say I had a little tear in

my eye Mm -hmm because it was I don't know for

whatever reason him connecting with somebody

that he actually never really knew couldn't really

ever be with Except through you know, the simulation

and still somehow developing this relationship

with her and who she was and having this weird

connection to the past. I don't know. It hit

me. It hit me in the feels. And I had a tear

in my eye. I won't. I'm not ashamed to say it.

It was a really good episode. It almost felt

like it. The closest thing to that, like the

emotions it brings up, we're watching the short

trek recently. Was it Calypso? That's the one

where it shows the relationship building between

the the stranded guy and the ship's AI Yeah similar

feel I'm like Why couldn't the Star Trek be like

this? Watching it. I went. Oh, yeah, you're right.

It feels probably most like a Voyager episode

Or or an episode from season 2 of TNG Yeah That

exactly something like that Thinking about other

episodes in particular. I liked a lot of elements

of different episodes But you guys have touched

on the ones that are probably the strongest they

have some decent B plot lines I will say one

thing Fox did the standard thing Fox usually

does and they aired some of the episodes out

of order I can't remember if it was season one

or season two But they introduced a character

before they were supposed to be introduced I

think it was season two because they had the

other character replace Alera. Yeah, but it wasn't

just that. Oh, it was the character, the sleeper

krill agent that was on the crew. This guy's

a human. She's in the first episode of season

two, but she doesn't get introduced to like episode

three. Something like that. Let me look here.

Not to mention, actually, there's more stuff

here. Looking at the production codes is a telltale

sign too. A couple episodes from season two were

actually produced for season one. Yeah, Primal

Urges was season one. So, yeah. They did the

same box thing. Now the benefit of this now is

that they're on Hulu so they can kind of do whatever

they want Yeah, and I believe they've been put

in the correct order there Yeah, and it is on

the correct order there Because I rewatched them

in order a while ago and The nice thing about

them going to Hulu instead of being on Fox is

not only do they not have to conform to the the

38 to 42 minute time span for for cable purposes

but they're also able to have more freedom with

it. The quote from the show was saying that Hulu

allows them more freedom, Seth runs the show,

we take the ideas where it takes us. talk about

the show and write it, how we write it and produce

it. And this is what Hulu allows us is once it's

produced, we don't have to be worried about length.

So there will be a variety of lengths. It allows

us to have some stuff in that we would have had

to cut if we were on a network. I just hope they

don't use this as an excuse to start swearing.

We get enough of that in Discovery and Star Trek.

Yeah. So both of them, actually. Like, yeah,

there's plenty there that's not needed. Other

people might be afraid, like, oh, he's gonna,

you know, delve into his family guy, ask, no,

no, no. It's quite clear the vision he wanted

for the show. I have a, I just get this feeling

that season one had a lot of the family guy style

humor put in because Fox wanted it, or that's

how he sold it to Fox. You know, he always wanted

to make a hardcore Star Trek show. And they were

like, well, you're the funny man. you know, our

audience doesn't care about the brain, they only

care about laughing. Which is why some of the

episodes, although they might have a lot of the

brain in the heart of Star Trek in them, they'll

have some of those funny moments, you know, like

in the, um, the lasting impressions episode,

which Seth MacFarlane wrote, um, he has the mock

lens where they have a nicotine addiction and

then they all start smoking. And that's a great,

that's actually one of the few where the comedy

actually works quite well. where they're hiding

the smokes from each other. I loved that episode,

too. I thought that was really good humor. And

most of the time, the humor in the show, unless

it's dry, the dry humor, when it's kind of like

a little more upfront, I normally am not a...

I won't say I hate it, but I'm not a fan of it.

But that was really well done. We discussed a

little off here before we started the computer

virus from porn episode. And you get a sticker,

you're like, that's kind of a... They came up

with that, obviously, at a roundtable, what would

be a funny episode. But I did laugh at the reaction

when other people were going into the hologram

and being like, this is what your fantasy is?

And just the sheer amount of embarrassment on

his end, it was kind of funny. I do not wish

to speak of it. Yes, I do not wish to speak of

it. I do not wish to speak of it. And he's like,

don't go in there. It's like, just don't go in

there. They walk in, they're like, what the?

hell is going on? It's like, we're here. We're

here to pleasure you. Oh, okay. No, thanks. It

wasn't like it seemed like that would be very

out of, you know, out of the ballpark for a simulation.

Let's be honest to me. I was like, wow, that's,

that's out of the ordinary. Really? It was kind

of tape, but I mean, and obviously it like, but

the whole idea was the, even though that was

the joke, the core of it was about the breakdown

of communication and a relationship. So they

didn't just do it for the gag. It wasn't just

a family guy one -off gag There was a reason

behind it and yes, it was it was comical and

kind of stupid You know, it's like oh you got

it's a porn virus. Okay, ha ha ha but That is

something where you'd have to think about that.

I always wondered even as a kid What would happen

if the holodeck got like and you know an advertising

I got like a Windows web browser virus and they

kind of I'll bet you that's the kind of thing

where Seth was like, he had been thinking about

that probably too for like 20 years. What would

happen if that happened? And when I first watched

that episode, I honestly thought that there'd

start being pop -ups on all the control panels

in the bridge, which would have been hilarious.

And that would have been funny, yeah. Well that,

and I love that the one guy on the ship where

he gets the porn from, he's like, also tries

to sell him drugs. He's like, no, I'm okay, man.

Just the porn. So that's kind of, I never thought

that you could get Norm MacDonald to be on a

Star Trek show and have him be one of the more

interesting characters. Well, yeah, because he's

just a big gelatinous blob. Yeah, who is his

standard Norm MacDonald sarcastic self, but then

ends up being one of the most useful people on

the crew. Oh, I know, like being able to jump

in the computer system or down the throat of

Isaac or... into the tubes, the Jeffreys tubes

that aren't Jeffreys tubes, because they're actually

small and useful. Well, yeah, I was like, why

would they want him on the team? Oh, he can quite

literally get where no man can go. You know,

it would be very useful to have him on a ship

because you can make the ship more airtight with

him on there. Also, for kid actors on a TV show,

those kids aren't half bad. No, usually you cringe

any time there's kids on TV. These kids aren't

half bad. They're not a Wesley Crusher. Yeah.

And it's interesting, like I said, with the B

plots, they're basically doing what if Data ended

up having a family on the show. And they handled

it pretty well. They've had multiple episodes

dealing with the emotional attachment. Like,

is it real? Is it not real? Does it matter if

it's real? The kids, you know, showing how the

kids can get attached very quickly because they're

not thinking too deeply about it. And then...

they're obviously leading into having more issues

with them in the future. I thought it was pretty

well handled there. You've got your standard

Star Trek tropes where you got your Klingons,

you got your this, you got your that, and that's

sort of always going to happen. There's going

to be comparisons to any other show that comes

out like that. But what gets me is it's just

the lighting, the way people move, the way people

walk on set, the way the doors move, just the...

The speed at which people move and the camera

pans is so Star Trek that it's unnerving. Oh,

I know. And even Jonathan Frakes, when he was

shooting, they were asking him what the difference

was between the Orville and Discovery. And he

says, well, the Orville is very much, you know,

that that style like what the next generation

had. And, you know, very TV budgety looking,

but a totally different feel and a lot of lighter

tone. And Discovery is more feature film more

serious more dark more you know just a lot more

money dumped into it basically and but for all

the money they dumped into it looks worse it

does it does look worse yeah we were talking

about that right before the the cast as well

dark and shiny doesn't mean good well the the

uh their equivalent of the federation versus

the borg battle they had in season two had special

effects that looked better than what we thought

was a crazy battle in Discovery Season 2. Because

you can make out everything that's happening

on screen. It's not all like little specks of

things flying around. Well, the funny thing was,

is I watched the best of both worlds, Part 1

and 2, and then I watched First Contact, and

then I watched all of the Dominion War huge battles,

and you have a multitude of different starships

of various configurations. clearly seen either

in various states of zipping by on the screen

or blowing up and They did it with you know,

pretty much practical effects. I mean having

a lot of that stuff there I mean it was a small

percentage of the budget. Yeah And they were

doing like very primitive digital or analog in

tape manipulation That sort of stuff or putting

cells on top of it, you know, very creative ways

And and then how they do it in uh discovery it's

like oh there's a lot of things happening on

the screen but you know what they're just copied

and pasted the exact same asset so it doesn't

have to render as much oh i know and i i was

i was sickened by seeing that in in discovery

um watching all those different uh even in pacard

they had the same problem it was well pacard

was just literally copied and pasted the exact

same ship just hey let's shrink them down to

make them look like they're farther away i'm

pretty sure i ran yeah i know in our picard review

that they weren't even i went back and i went

back and watched it they did such a poor job

that they didn't even get the perspective right

they quite literally just dragged and dropped

the ship to shrink it they didn't place it farther

away in space to make it look farther away and

also it was like it was like they got the physics

right in in like Babylon 5 in 1993, 1994, and

they couldn't get it right in Picard with like

10, 15 times the budget. None of those Starfleet

vessels in that last episode of Picard, they

weren't even fully rendered. Like the 3D models

were really basic 3D models. They didn't have

window big chunks. They didn't do any ray tracing,

any texture mapping. It was almost like a video

game from 2005. There was no Starfleet pennants,

no registry numbers, no names, nothing like that.

It was all dark like Discovery. There was none

of that bright look. Don't be surprised if when

the Blu -ray comes out, if we magically have

a re -rendered scene. Because they know that

the only people that are going to buy the show

are the super fans. And the super fans are pissed.

Pretty much whereas in this one. Yeah during

that battle. There's a lot of the ships are replicated

and copied, but there's a few varieties there's

also a lot of the individual fighter jets that

pop up and then they have The krill show up there's

enough variety and it's not just Randomized movements

from a computer program showing but make the

drones look like they're going in all different

directions Every single scene every single shot

had meaning. Oh, yeah Which is to tell of a true

writer director producer yeah, I'm very interested

to see what the comparison of the the the storyboards

are for discovery and for For the Orville, I'm

willing to bet one has a lot more detailed instructions

than the other Well the fact that they have a

writers room for any of the Star Trek series

and yet they still can't get basic continuity

or information correct or personas or any of

that or can't connect the dots between episode

one and whatever episode they end on with character

personalities such as like the whole seven of

nine scene in the end of Picard or you know the

captain and things like that. It speaks volumes

of how much effort that they put in. They're

like, oh, it's kind of fluid. We just kind of

do, you know, whereas I have a feeling Seth MacFarlane

is like, look, this is the guidebook. This is

what I want to do. You stay within the parameters

with your story and we're good. You know, yeah,

he openly admitted they made a series Bible for

the show. And I thought that I don't feel like

any Trek series has no, no, not since Enterprise.

Like they if you look at the first episode of

the Orville, uh written by Seth MacFarlane famously

directed by John Favreau between Marvel gigs

which you know you get a big movie director to

do it sure but he's also somebody who's had a

lot more hits than he's had misses so it doesn't

feel like he would have taken up the offer to

do it if he didn't think it was going to be good

based on the script well and then we and then

we had Robert Duncan McNeil from Voyager Tom

Paris and and then Brandon Braga the executive

producer of the show and then you have you have

Jonathan Frakes in there too and and directed

by it keeps doing it other James L Conway who

had directed episodes of Enterprise, Deep Space

Nine, Voyager, Next Generation so you've got

those let me see other people it's season two

is pretty much the same people although there's

a few others added in there as well Marina Sirtis

makes a guest star appearance on in season 2

Who does? Marina Sirtis. Oh, yeah, so does Robert

Picardo John Billingsley Jason Alexander Patrick

Warburton Bruce Willis Tim Ross Tony Todd I mean

they got a pretty you know bang up amount of

high -profile people in there not only from Trek,

but just in in general And, you know, if you

look at it, the last couple episodes, we talked

off air that you weren't a big fan of the Marin.

But the episode before that, Sanctuary, was dealing

with one of the B plots that had been happening

earlier on in the show with the Moklins saying

that they were a single gendered race when the

reality was they were doing forceful genetic

surgeries on people. And this was... An explosion

of that where you found out hey, there's There's

you know, an entire resistance group of the female

gendered people and how do they deal with it?

You know Part of me I was okay with that episode

Yeah, no, I'm saying this the kind of stuff they're

doing on here is not what you're getting in Star

Trek at all Yeah, you're not getting the philosophical

questions No, I feel like with Star Trek the

the thing that they're trying to do in the modern

tracks are instead of doing the philosophical

episodes like what we used to get in all of the

other ones you know the moral dilemmas you know

even like when uh cisco was trying to get the

the romulans into the dominion war and there

was that whole episode where he's talking to

the camera recording his log and recites the

the kind of dirty hand he had to play in it and

garrick involved i mean those type of dilemmas

you don't get anything that rich in Any of the

new star tracks and i feel like with the orville

you do And the new star tracks it's more or less

let's put something in here because we're trying

to make a headline and because we're trying to

be woke with it instead of Does it make sense

with the story? You know where the orville and

star trek even the old star trek It still touches

on things that are still relevant today Yeah,

yeah 100 they're they're chasing they're chasing

the 10 second the 24 hour headline like like

10 seconds of fame for 24 hours on, you know,

a news website, whereas they should be chasing

the audience. And they're not the audience. It's

long term. Yeah. They should be chasing the cultural

heritage that Star Trek has always had this long

-term decades long idea that Star Trek is there

to make you think and not to just be pretty explosions

on the screen. And let's fill it with a thousand

shuttlecraft pouring out of enterprises ass.

Yeah. And when I think about this too, when it

comes to marketing, uh, cross, you know, cross

media platforms, which show would do better if

they made a toy line right now? The Orville or

Orville would. Yeah. toys. If they made a video

game, if they made a book series, what kids are

going to read or want or want to watch or what

parents are going to let their kids watch Star

Trek. There's never been a time where my parents

when I was a kid would have said, you know, we

can't you can't watch Star Trek. They would say,

oh, you're watching that Star Trek show again.

Why are you watching that? Like if they thought

that I maybe wasn't going to understand it, you

know, some of the more complex things, but I

still watched it. But I feel like with the new

shows ever since the movies have come out and

they feel like they have to go You know, it's

like the show now has to be 50 % Abrams, uh,

universe movies, 50 % Battlestar Galactica and

edgy as all hell. And I feel like my parents

wouldn't have let me watch it now if I was like

seven or eight years old, you know, watching.

And I totally agree with you. My parents would

never have let me watch Star Trek if this was

the case. Now the old stuff, yeah, they, we used

to watch it when it was new coming out on Sunday

nights. Like that was, that was like a every

week ritual. I grew up. watching reruns of the

original series with my parents. Hey, one of

my first memories is actually sitting in a drive

thru theater watching the motion picture. That

tells you my age, right? Like I remember barely

sitting in a drive thru with my parents. Like

I was like two and a half or something like that.

But barely remember it, right? I remember watching

all those next gen episodes in deep space nine

with my parents. And then when I moved out, you

know, I was still watching Voyager. And I'll

be honest, I do foster care. I have a foster

kid with me in my house right now. I would not

let her watch Picard just because of his recovery.

Well, very specific. Discovery, you can maybe

get why if the kids are older, but Picard has

a certain level of cruelty in some episodes where

it's downright like it's the kind of thing you

would have expected in a spinoff show where the

spinoff show was made you know, mature audiences

only. Yeah, and I could not let her watch Picard

because there's, you know, there's the torture

scene in it with Echeb, you know, things like

things like that, where there's no way that this

would have ever happened in Star Trek growing

up, that this this is not something that should

be there for a thoughtful TV show that will bring

the family together and then. have everyone think

and talk about it afterwards, you know, hey,

this is not the same show that had Laksana Troy

crying about a person that she had just met wanting

to go back to his planet and die because he just

turned 60. And then he's decided to stay but

his planet refuses to understand, you know, that

episode of Next Gen, where you're thinking about,

wow, this is this is an allegory of assisted

suicide. And I mean, it's a deep episode, man.

I just watched that today and I cried. Like,

it's a deep episode, but nah, we're just gonna

pull people's eyes out and torture them and then

have... For no reason. If they had an entire

season up where things are going and things are

going and then in the, you know, season finale,

the cliffhanger is they're captured and this

happens at the end and you're like, oh my God.

You might go, okay, it's been building to it.

You've built it. But there was no connection

other than we're going to sadistically murder

any character you liked from the past. So, so

in a roundabout way, what I'm trying to say is

thank you, Seth MacFarlane, for giving me Star

Trek that I can actually watch with a kid and

feel comfortable enough to not have to be constantly

on the stop button waiting for something awful

to happen that might trigger trauma or something.

Yeah. And the sex jokes and crass. the whatever

humor and sex jokes that are in there are nothing

worse than what you see in a regular sitcom now.

So it's not like it's over the top. Like they

didn't they don't go way more like the most they

go where it's like, oh, maybe some kids wouldn't

get it or shouldn't or you might not want to

watch with your kids is when was it Rob Lowe's

character? Yeah, when he walks in on him and

he basically blows a load on himself of his own

whatever gooey as you're like, oh, That's gross.

But and kids might not get it or you might not

feel comfortable with them. But other than that,

there's like it's like one joke in the entire

thing. Every bit of Star Trek has been, oh, that's

not OK. Well, and this is the funny thing, it

is discovery and the Orville came out around

the same time. And we were talking about this

off air to the the average tomato like the rotten

tomatoes. Now, granted, I don't put any weight

into this because I just watch shows. I don't

really care what they have to say. But I still

find it funny when things line up a certain way.

Discovery, now mind you, when it came out originally,

it had about a 90 something percent average tomato

reader, you know, fresh. It was 100 % when the

first episode premiered. Yeah. And the average

audience score is 42 % now. And it's the, for

the, uh, the, the, you know, whether they enjoyed

it, the, the critic tomato meter is at 83 % now.

The funny thing is, is looking at the Orville,

The average tomato meter, which that was like

12 or 14 % or something. They announced it was

the lowest Fox review for a premiere ever. Yeah,

and it's 65 % now, which is probably because

it's season two, but the average audience score

is 94%, which still beats Discovery and it beats

Picard because Picard has an 87 % tomato meter

fresh and 58 % uh, average audience score, which

just goes to show you that something that FireLane

is doing something right with the Orville. I'm

shocked. You've got the finger on the pulse of

what people want and it felt like people were

claiming, oh, that reviewers were paid to review

bomb or, or, or praise. There might be some of

that. There might be some tampering, but it almost,

it really started to show that there's a big

disconnect in between. You know, I'm wondering

if there's an issue with like if every reviewer

that received a pre -screening of it or press

screenings, if they're all reviewing it the same

way, you're not having enough diversity in the

entire media pool. Obviously, if everybody's

thinking the same way and they're writing the

exact same thing, but the audience is disconnected,

then there's a problem. You're not having people

working in the media that are representing the

people. I'm shocked that the Picard audience

score is that high. I know that there are people

out there that like it. But it's not not anywhere

close to that what I'm thinking most of the most

of those reviewers are skewing young I Mean younger

than us that work for these sites now a lot of

traditional journalists are gone So I'm wondering

if that's a factor Like they're thinking it's

cool, but they never grew up watching it Which

could be the case the the funny thing is is the

Picard I would I enjoyed Picard for what it was

in a sense like because it's continuing But I

was not happy with the product that we got out

of it Whereas discovery season one I absolutely

loathed season one and I was like well I'll give

season two a shot because they introduced the

enterprise and pike at the end of the season

finale and I was like well we haven't seen him

and I was curious and I wanted to see how that

turned out and then I was happy about season

two of discovery because it had pike in it and

that was literally the only reason i watched

the show well here if you look at season one

of the orville currently has a 31 tomato meter

yeah season two has 100 and you're telling me

that at the time everybody that reviewed the

first three episodes because that was what was

available we're saying that the show was doomed

uh that it was terrible and it should be taken

off the air These exact same people season two

are now giving it a hundred percent So Nothing's

really changed. They toned down some of the comedy

that was probably being forced upon them by Fox

initially But they didn't dramatically change

tones But it's better Yeah, it's better. It's

better. It is different than season one season

one is is way more humor. Like you said, yeah

They probably were able to tone it down from

what Fox wanted but it is different and it's

different in a good way. But I've noticed that

whatever happened to accountability though you'd

think the reviewers would go back and and you

know make a statement saying I've read some of

the reviews for season two they make no mention

that they didn't like season one at all. It's

just like here's the funny thing the uh the top

critics for for the Orville overall give it a

15 percent Rotten and when they add the other

critics it gets up to 65 percent for the for

the average Which I find funny to be honest I'll

say this to the music is better in the show then

pretty much anything else on TV right now Yeah,

it's great yeah, I received or I have seasons

one soundtrack on CD and If you popped it in,

you would immediately go, is that Star Trek?

Or you'd go, no, no, wait, that's Stargate. And

you'd be like, no, that's neither. But it sounds

like both. So they've done a good job there.

The sound design, I'm waiting. I want them to

put out the show on, like, it's got a DVD release

for season one, but no Blu -ray for season one

or two at all. Who puts out a DVD of a show,

but no Blu -ray in this day and age? Like so

if you get it on DVD, it's lower quality than

watching it streaming Wow So Thanks, yeah, thanks

Fox Yeah, yet they'll put out like the seventh

edition of Firefly And it's like Firefly I get

that's a great show but I bought it when it was

$70 on blu -ray and now you every like year There's

like here's a new Firefly edition for ten bucks

Why don't you put out the shows that people are

currently watching? I think it's funny that the

Orville has a 75 piece orchestra for the music,

which is very reminiscent of the original Star

Trek's. Thank you Seth McFarland. I will say

that again. Yes, exactly. And I'm very interested

in seeing where season three goes because of

the freedom. I don't think he's going to do too

much to screw it up. I don't know if he wants

to go. I think the fear is that he might go truly

serialized and that's going to be bad for them.

They need to keep this, you know, monster of

the week, you know, have have an A plot that's

different every week and have a B plot that runs

through. That's what has always worked for long

form sci fi shows. Well, it's for all the Star

Trek shows. And there's rumors that the Strange

New Worlds is going to take that effect, too.

I'd hope if they're going to I'd hope so because

you know, look at any of the shows that have

run In the in like genre television longer than

a couple seasons. You got your Star Trek's You've

got like well Babylon five didn't count because

that was five seasons written out before it started

But you've got your Star Trek's you've got your

stargates You've even got like supernatural any

of those kind of shows where they get like, you

know, 10 15 seasons in some cases They're smart.

They have monster of the week and then a, you

know, a BNC plot that run throughout the season.

That's how you get people hooked. And it feels

like everybody after Battlestar Galactica came

out went, well, no, we can just make it one long

arc. Yeah, but you have to like, you forget that

half the people that wrote, you know, half the

people that wrote Battlestar were people that

left Deep Space Nine. And, you know, it was Ron

Ward assembled the writer's room and went, let's

just sort of continue what we were doing with

the last few seasons of Deep Space Nine and make

a completely serialized show. And that was cool.

But everybody went, let's copy that because it

got a lot of press. They, they went to the UN,

they did speeches. They, they were considered

one of the best TV shows the last 20 years. And

it's like everybody, including Star Trek, tries

to copy that model. And it's like for binge worthy

TV in quotes, right? Mm -hmm. It's like yeah,

I don't have to have a serialized show to binge

watch I can have a bunch of random episodes because

you know what I will watch more episodes of the

Twilight Zone and the outer limits than I will

of Current Star Trek why because I can pick an

episode at random Anytime I want and get a completely

different story, and that's what I do with the

old Star Trek shows Yeah Mean I'm happy to watch

the old Star Trek shows over the new ones just

because I don't want to be depressed all the

time exactly That's what I watch what people's

eyes getting ripped out. Yeah, I Don't know.

I like the things that that that Stroke the the

mental part of my brain that I don't have to

I mean it's a philosophical thing where I get

to think about it but I also don't necessarily

have to fully pay attention either because it's

touching on, you know, basic human concepts.

Like, it's not... Like, it's like Isaac is having

to basically go camping with the boys, those

sorts of episodes, because they can tell a larger

part of the story while you can go, these are

some of the beats they're going to touch on,

but we're going to get some character growth

throughout this. Oh yeah, totally. And then every

once in a while you have a fun, you know, multi

-part episode where a bunch of aliens want to

destroy the whole human race and you got to stop

them, which is always great. But it feels like

what modern sci -fi is doing nowadays is one,

they're either doing it really cheap, which is

garbage, but when they're making their shows,

they're taking, for instance, the two to three

episodes of the AI race trying to kill all biotics.

And they're going, those three episodes, let's

stretch that out to 12. And that's the whole

show. And you're like, Oh God. And then they

got to fill it with crap when it's like, no,

that's like, that's like set up in one episode.

And then they have a two -parter later on that

does the whole thing. And then they'll leave

a thread for later on. Uh, like that's how traditional

TV was written. Like, I don't know what happened.

Like, is it that writers are not learning how

to write television anymore? Like, are they just

not learning from anybody? I cannot believe that

that's the case. I can't because it doesn't take

a lot of effort to write. I'm not saying that

it's easy to write television. What I'm saying

is that it's easy to write all your ideas down

on a piece of paper. to say A leads to B leads

to C leads to D. Now let's write some good dialogue.

Let's write some, uh, good stage direction. And,

and yeah, you need some help with that. That's

great. That's what a writer's room is for. So

I cannot believe that writers in general, because,

Hey, have I ever written for television? Of course

not. I haven't, but I've written for Star Trek.

I know what to do. Right. It's, it's not like

it's rocket science. Then it's gotta be, you

got a few bad eggs. you know, in charge that

are hiring their cronies that just don't know

what they're doing. It's, it's to me, the problem

is on the production side. Yeah. Like, like,

like you got executive producers and, and, and

show runners that are hiring the wrong people

and then hiring yes men and women that are like,

yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't have any independent

thought. They're not, or they're presenting their

thoughts being shot down. And then because for

self preservation, they're not just saying, screw

this, I'm leaving the show. Because I feel like

some of the stuff that's happened on Star Trek

in the last three years, had you had any of the

writers rooms from the 90s or even early 2000s

in there working, and then somebody from high

up said, this is what you were doing this season,

you would have had an exodus of people. They

wouldn't have just been like, fine, I'll get

money writing something else. And it just feels

like that's why I'm always so mad at the Kurtzman

and anybody that comes from the bad robot school

of terrible, terrible production. To me, it's

all production side. And if I met them in person,

I'm not afraid. I would say, you're terrible

at making television. You make money, but you

don't make compelling television. So, I know

it's kind of an hijack. I know we're talking

a lot about Star Trek because it's so intertwined.

You can't talk about the Orville without talking

about Star Trek. Here's the thing. Would you

guys like the show more or less if Star Trek

had not come back and this is just what came

up by itself independently? I'd like it more.

I'd like Orville far more. Oh yeah, totally.

Well, to follow that up, would you have, if this

came out, you know, let's say we, we had those

movies, the Star Trek movies, and then they were

like, we're dumb. We're not making any television.

And then the Orville comes out. Would you not

have gone, man, I wish Star Trek would come back

because they could do this without the comedy.

I would also say that I would say, man, I wish

Star Trek would come back because they could

have done something like this. And then like,

interestingly enough, what if this had come out?

Season one and then we got season one of Discovery

while season two of this was airing. What would

you have said then? I Well season one of discovery

probably wouldn't have been made the way it was

Exactly. I I'm almost I'm almost mad that this

didn't come out earlier. I Wish it would have

it might have saved us all a lot of pain like

if this had come out circa 2015 Like and we were

and we were in like season four now, you know

Let's say they took a bit of a break between

certain seasons. I It would have been amazing.

Although I don't think it would have lasted I

feel like it can only have come out during this

big explosion of streaming networks because you

know Fox would have canceled this anyway after

season two because it wasn't like they expect

every one of their shows to get 15 million viewers

like they could get 25 years ago, even though

Realistically regular broadcast TV numbers are

never gonna be anywhere near that anymore Unless

you put on, you know, Young Sheldon or some other

direct garbage that bottom feeders can watch.

And yes, I don't care if somebody gets mad at

me for saying that. They're the dumbest shows

on the planet. Well, I stopped watching. I stopped

watching. I stopped watching that show. I can't

even remember that. I can't even spit out the

name right now of the original show. Big Bang

Theory? You mean everybody point and laugh when

we press a button to make people laugh? Yeah,

it was mean -spirited. It was making fun of geek

culture rather than laughing with geek culture.

See, I put two shows side by side, Big Bang Theory

and then Community. Community laughing along

with... Yeah, and it required a little more.

Here's the thing. Big Bang Theory requires zero

knowledge of the culture to laugh because the

laugh track tells you when to laugh. Yeah. And

then not only does the laugh track tell you when

to laugh, it's let's laugh at someone who is

on the autism spectrum because they're different.

That was the whole joke. And even his friends

are, let's make fun of our friend. He's brilliant,

but let's make fun of him because he doesn't

think like normal people think. And it's like

that. You know, when the season first started,

the first couple of seasons, it was even more

overt that way. And then it just became your

standard 80s garbage. Let's have a bunch of catchphrases

that will just press a button and do a laugh

track too. I was surprised when they zoomed out

and showed that there's actual live crowds there.

And I'm thinking, do they pick the live crowds

from, you know, whoever has the lowest IQ in

the room, they get to go into the room and watch?

Because anybody trying to watch that show live,

it would be even less funny. Like and that's

the sad thing and then you watch community and

I can understand some people like my parents

like my mom doesn't get a lot of Comedy that's

more subtle or like and she does not like she

doesn't like laugh track She hates that stuff

anyway, but it's not necessarily her type of

comedy But she could see how it would be funny.

My dad's seen that show and loved it thought

it was hilarious you watch community and community

is is nerdy comedy written by nerdy people for

an intelligent audience where they don't talk

down to you and if they're talking down to you

it's to make fun of other shows that talk down

to you. Yeah and so tying that back into Orville.

Orville's not talking down to you as a viewer.

trying to make you feel bad about not being quote

unquote woke or not making you feel bad because

you think a certain way or don't think a certain

way. Orville's just there to have fun and present

situations just like old Star Trek did to make

you think and not force something into you. Yeah.

And there's a big difference there too. When

you watch Discovery and the current Picard and

stuff, the new generation of Star Trek is we're

going to present you with horrible decisions.

And you're going to automatically make the worst

decision possible because it's what's right to

you and how you feel in the moment when you're

doing it. Whereas discovery or sorry, whereas

the Orville is here's our moral dilemma. We're

going to spend 30 minutes trying to decide what

decision we can make, realize that there is no

good decision, make the decision we can make

based on our moral choices and probably still

get it wrong. Which is, you know, it's teaching

you that in life. There are sometimes situations

where there's no win, or you have to pick the

lesser of two evils, or you pick a bad decision,

you have to deal with the consequences. With

Discovery, these people make their horrible decisions,

and they're rewarded for it. Because, you know,

we're pushing this agenda that this character

has to always be right, and they're gonna always

do right, even when it's quite clear that what

they're doing is wrong. The entire show is about

a war criminal. And... People are okay with that.

I Mean, I'm not but like, you know, I mean like

she basically starts a war And they're okay with

them. They're they're okay with that and it's

like, oh it's because she has PTSD, you know

Yeah, okay deal with it and get help for it It's

also it's also the show that allows, you know

an emperor from the mirror universe who is clearly

also a fascist dictator to just run free around

and basic federation. Yeah, or also the whole

premise of having their AI go crazy and take

over and want to destroy everybody. It's from

a time when in like it's this isn't like we didn't

have enterprise or there hadn't been anything

showing the past or previous time before Kirk.

But you're telling me that this giant federation

didn't see this happening? You know, they didn't

see that they were being taken over They didn't

see Like ten years in the future when dice when

when daystrom actually comes up with the multitronic

computer in Star Trek Where it actually has a

little bit of a personality and it's his personality

and it actually ends up, you know Killing a Starfleet

crew and all that that was a big deal like my

god. This is such a huge advancement Yeah, and

it's it's the case of writers trying to throw

modern sci -fi stuff into a property that they

should be thinking of if we're going to make

the show in the past we have to think like the

writers would have thought in the 60s if the

show takes place at the same time as the show

from the 60s the sci -fi tropes need to be the

sci -fi tropes from the 60s because otherwise

it doesn't fit with the rest of your canon i

mean they'll screw that up in strange new worlds

oh yeah Which is which is fine, I guess I'll

watch it because I like watching train wrecks

and Pike that's yeah, I mean I love pike too.

I that was the best part of a freaking discovery

season, too But they're just going to ruin it

yeah, yeah, I mean they're either gonna ruin

it or or One can hope maybe they cancel the show

and they give him a movie I mean they could but

I feel like that they would be better off doing

a series. Yeah, I wonder if there's any animosity

between CBS and the the largely CBS Star Trek

Production team writers and directors that are

working on the Orville Like I don't think there's

been any issues with Jonathan Frakes because

he's jumped back and forth to direct an episode

here and there But I guess because he's sort

of untouchable. You can't just not have him in

it but I'm wondering if some of the writers are

kind of blackballed from ever going over to do

stuff on the Star Trek side, at least until some

studio executives change. I think that the writers

might not be okay, but I know that they're okay

with bringing certain actors as long as they

play into the whatever they're trying to tell

with Picard. I'm pretty sure that Brandon Braga...

is not going to be welcome back at CBS for a

while. Yeah, because that's somebody really high

up. Well, unless they get rid of. Or, you know,

Kurtzman. So, so I guess since we're talking

about Star Trek so much is that Orville is fantastic

because it does everything that is Star Trek,

that it does everything that Star Trek is not

doing anymore. And if you liked Star Trek, go

to Orville. You're going to enjoy it. That's

the reason why we're bitching about Star Trek

now is because we have something that is Star

Trek. It just doesn't have the label on it. Yeah.

And if you want something that's a little more

serious or darker in tone, why don't you just

watch The Lost in Space on Netflix? I haven't

seen season two yet, but I really enjoyed season

one. And that has the tone and look and feel

and the production budget that I would have figured

they were trying to go for with Discovery. Season

two was pretty good, I thought. So do you think

that we might start seeing some more shows pop

up in this similar vein? Like, you've gone on

and talked about how much you love The Expanse,

and that's sort of one extreme, but as far as

the flagship family, sort of family -friendly,

but not... kid, you know, kiddie type show that

we get with the Orville. Do you think there's

going to be more shows to pop up like this? Or

is this sort of an anomaly in today's age? I

think it's an anomaly. To me, it's an anomaly

because I don't see a lot of. I just can't see

a lot of shows doing what Orville is doing properly

and still trying to hit every demographic that

most producers would want. Because yeah, there

was like a golden era of space sci -fi shows

where you had, you know, at least one Star Trek

property on the air. You had Farscape on, you

had Stargate, you had Andromeda even. What was

the other one? Star Hunter was on. You had about

five to 10 different sci -fi space flavors that

were available all within like 1999 to 2004.

Do you think we're gonna hit that again? Like

where we hit that peak because it was all thanks

to Star Trek and maybe a little bit I'm sure

that we will at some point. I don't think it's

gonna be anytime soon So do we have any news

Steve you said on when season 3 is coming Well,

they're saying that it's supposed to come this

summer they got or maybe even this fall because

they got delayed because of kovat, but No, I

just had the news that they have more freedom

by being on Hulu as opposed to being on standard

television. Yeah. So I mean, fingers crossed

that they don't use that as a platform to go

way out of bounds. I don't think they will, but

I think that they might use it to delve deeper

into some of these social issues that they weren't,

or they were teetering on the edge of before.

I just hope they don't go with pandering in one

direction or another, and they don't go like

too bloody or anything. But it might mean we

end up with episodes. Like, I didn't know until

I got the Blu -rays that TNG's Measure of a Man

had an original 58 -minute cut that, you know,

they had to cut down for TV. Back then, they

still had, I think it was 46 or 47 minutes is

what they used to get on syndicated TV. So that

director's cut, you can only get on the Blu -ray.

I don't even think it was ever released on the

DVD versions. And there's a lot more character

pieces, a lot more stuff that really goes into

it. And this might provide them the platform

where, hey, this episode's 42 minutes because

it has a complete story. This episode is a little

more philosophical, so we need 55 minutes. I

just hope that that's the kind of route they

go with. Yeah, I agree. Agreed. So I think that

about rounds this episode out of future imperfect.

So, where can the good people get a hold of you

if they so choose? Well, I'm on Facebook, Aaron

Paulier on Facebook. And for me, you can hit

me up. I'm basically running everything over

at This Week in Geek for me and Michael over

there. So it's thisweekingeek .net, the website.

Facebook's This Week in Geek. Hit us up on Twitter

at This Week in Geek. Feedback at thisweekingeek

.net. Any of those and I'll be able to find you.

And of course, you can get ahold of me on the

Twitter's at scp21. So until next time, live

long and prosper.