One thing that bugs me about such shows is that their culture seems to be largely stuck on stuff created in or before the early 21st century.
I understand why. You can have them play Billie Joel, but you can’t really hire songwriters and musicians to create 23rd century music, or writers and actors for 24th century video entertainment, but it still bugs me somewhat.
Did you notice that Isaac listed Claire’s favorite movie as one created in 2035? An ancient classic to her, but still in our future. I thought that was a nice touch.
My theory here is that one you have Sim rooms, film & music culture stops advancing. Why make a film if you can direct the computer to make a personalized movie that you are the protagonist in?
Huh. I’ve always associated it with Singin’ in the Rain. 
We already saw Bortus hiring someone to program a holodeck scenario. So he wasn’t able to simply direct the computer to create the characters and the scene.
Yes, because he had worn out all his porn fantasy ideas and wanted more.
Exactly the point. Just because the holodeck has infinite potential doesn’t mean you’ve exhausted the need for creativity.
Otherwise Bortus could have told the computer to “make the best possible stuff” and it would have happened. He needed to seek out somebody with the creative talent to make what he wanted.
Which if of course how we got Moriarty on TNG. The computer was told to make a villain who could confound even Data, and so it just sort of spawned a supergenius AI.
Still, no need for movies, per se.
FWIW, mold and other water-borne pathogens were a constant problem on the Mir space station (and presumably are on the ISS as well, though I’d imagine the technology for controlling them is much more advanced).
Ships with high humidity would require extremely sophisticated environmental control systems to ensure crew safety, especially since very nasty bugs (e.g., Legionnaires’ Disease) can grow even in simple air conditioners.
Maybe because the originals are more highly regarded than the crappy reboots and “reimaginings” that followed.
Sure, but this is 400 years from now. Clearly they have abundant and cheap energy aboard the ship, and very sophisticated environmental controls.
I imagine that the crew of the Orville worrying about mold or Legionnaire’s Disease from something like Isaac’s rain stunt is about like us worrying about whether or not our everyday clocks are accurate enough for marine navigation.
We wouldn’t recognize something being from the 22nd or 23rd centuries unless we were told, which takes up time and makes for dumb conversation. “This is the kind of couch in style during the 22nd century, Bortus.”
I mention Legionnaires’ Disease because it’s a good example of how deadly something unexpected can be. No amount of sophisticated technology can ensure 100% safety. There will always be things that come in from left field.
That would be good for another first contact story. A common childhood disease from a new planet is deadly to humans, or becomes deadly to every one after it meets a common Terran bacteria.
Isn’t that just The War of the Worlds, though? Aliens come, destroy continents, but succumb to our bacteria. Roll credits.
Boy meets girl, conflict, boy gets girl back, roll credits.
:dubious:
… Or the “1492” scenario: Terrans import deadly pathogens that have the potential to wipe out the other planet’s indigenous species. Is their technology advanced enough to arrest the pandemic? Probably not.
Air conditioning is actually a good example of a lurking menace. Originally developed to fight malaria (as it was understood in the 1800s), it gave rise to a deadly disease of its own in the 1970s. Technology gone awry.
Pathogens mutate and evolve. Where the next one is coming from, we can’t predict. That’s why all known potential causes should be eliminated from a closed environment (insofar as is possible).
Flickchart tangent:
[spoiler]
Yeah, I have ruminated on this before. Choosing between serious dramas and comedies is what I usually think about, but your dilemma is even more stark.
And a lot of people have a serious distinction between “my favorite movie” and “the movie I think is the best”. I sort of vaguely have an idea of what they mean, but I don’t worry about that too much. If it’s about what serious scholars will think is the best, they can go read the Sight & Sound poll or something. I consider myself a cinephile, but I disagree with other cinephiles on some films (I dislike “Raging Bull”, for instance).
My main criterion for making those choices is something roughly akin to being charged with film preservation in the event of an approaching apocalypse. The big meteor strike is coming, and I’m going with my family down to a bunker where we are going to preserve human civilization, and I can only bring one of the two movies that are pitted against each other, so which do I choose?
Yet this isn’t quite accurate either, because in that case I probably bring “Raging Bull” over some other movies I like better, because I know it is considered significant by so many film buffs. I guess it’s a measure of which movie I’d rather have the opportunity personally to rewatch? Although that doesn’t quite capture it either, because in general I’m not a big fan of rewatching things, way less than most people I know. So it’s almost like I’m curating a collection of X number of movies for myself, but a self that has had my mind wiped of the two movies in question. Which would I want to have the opportunity to watch for the first time, vs. it disappearing from the universe? Does that make sense?[/spoiler]
Good point–I like that too. And, sure: you could probably cobble together a “decent” orchestra from ship’s crew. But while I admittedly may be biased because my aunt is a professional violinist, I don’t think the experience of attending a performance of “decent” amateurs compares to that of seeing real professionals.
Yeah, people in the comments on Jammer’s review site have been complaining for a while that all the pop culture references just happen to be to stuff that already exists in the early 21st century. So that seemed almost to be a response to the griping, although they still need a reference from the 22nd or 23rd century.
That just initiated a thought- I’d like to see more time spent on just what the routine of a ship like the *Orville *is composed of. I mean, are they out there doing exploration, are they out doing routine patrols in Union space, are they more or less independent, or are they part of a specific command/flotilla, etc…?
How often do they come into spacedock/port? Are they somewhat cut off from Union media/news/etc… while “in space”? (best I could come up with for the equivalent of “at sea”)
Basically if they’re spending relatively long times out without much contact/down time, it makes sense that the Union command would do stuff like this and rotate a symphony or theater troupe or whatever through the ships in a sector. But if they put into spacedock every couple of weeks or so, it would make more sense to have the symphony put in a longer stint at the spacedock and let anyone who wants to see them do so when in port.
I agree though, that the homegrown orchestra idea sounds a lot more like what military units desperate for entertainment did when far from home than what you’d think a (currently) at peace navy like the Union’s would do. I mean, if you read the old WWII tales, doing home-brewed plays and what-not was usually more in the realm of POW camps and long-deployed units that had little contact with the rear areas.
I wouldn’t say the union is at peace - the show has not done a very good job giving us the scale of the Krill threat. On one hand, the Orville is rarely on war orders and doesn’t seem like a warship at war. On the other hand, they had an episode where if the Orville hadn’t intervened, the Krill would’ve wiped out an entire Union colony.
So, maybe the Krill are just a minor threat who mostly just skirmish with the Union and maybe attack colonies on the fringes, but aren’t an existential threat to the Union. Or maybe the plot to destroy the colony was a major escalation - but then where is the Union’s war-footing focus after that? Or maybe the Krill are a major threat, and the Orville is a warship, and it’s just nonsensical that they’re doing these routine exploration missions and supply runs instead of being part of a war fleet. I don’t think they’ve thought it through at all in the show. Which is why we get a mix of episodes where the krill are a huge threat and dominate the Union’s attention, and then 8 other episodes where the Krill aren’t a factor at all and the Orville isn’t doing anything relating to war.
I’m not saying the Krill has to dominate the series like, say, the last few seasons of DS9 were dominated by war. But they could simply have the Orville encounter strange things while on a war patrol, or go to some colony where they’ve lost contact and suspect it might be Krill but it turns out to be whatever the sci-fi story is that week. At least that’d give us the sense of how the Orville relates to the Union.
It’d be good to get some clarification.