A veritable judgement of Solomon.
I’m happy to see the Union being willing to break away from the stodginess of United States Navy naming conventions.
I’ve personally always kind of liked the Royal Navy ones, especially the ones where a particular class of ship has a themed set of names. For example, the Type 21 frigates all started with “A”- Antelope, Ardent, Arrow, etc… And the Leander class were all named after classical/mythological figures - Cleopatra, Ariadne, Euryalus, etc…
Nowadays it seems to be that the Navy names ships more or less according to the conventions, but will just name ships after people willy-nilly for political reasons- WTF do we have a “USS Daniel Inouye”? The guy was a senator and and *Army *officer. Or a ballistic missile submarine named after a Senator while the rest are named after states?
I would imagine the Planetary Union would be more in the line of the RN, with a LOT of ships to name, probably in big classes as well. I’d imagine that a lot of ships are named after positive traits in various Union member languages- there might be the USS Perseverance and the USS <whatever “endurance” is in Mochlan>.
Just wait until the Orville rendezvouses with the Shippy McShipface. You might be singing a different tune…
Not to mention the USS Dick.
Of course, then you wind up with ships like the Gay Bruiser and Cockchafer.
The comment upthread about the show being a Macfarlane vanity project really rings true.
It occurred to me earlier that the show is probably a good look at what would’ve happened if they gave a Next Gen TV show to Shatner, and he starred in it.
I agree that, even with the current scripts, the show would be better with someone else as Ed Mercer. You can do goofy crew members all day long but the show can’t decide whether or not we’re supposed to take the **captain **seriously and Macfarlane comes across as goofy even when playing it straight.
Pretty sure those would be submarines…
I binged on The Orville over the last week and my nitpicks have mostly been covered here, except for one. In All the World is Birthday Cake I was surprised that it hadn’t become a cultural taboo to refrain from sex at the beginning of the gestational period that would result in a Giliac birth. For instance, it takes 9-10 months for human gestation, so if we want to avoid a Taurus birth, it would become taboo to have sex in July/August/September. However, that would assume that the culture understood that sex = babies, or that even though their species looked similar to human they breed the same way we do.
The culture was able to transmit messages to interstellar space, of course they understand sex = babies.
I don’t think anything in the episode contradicted a societal practice of avoiding getting pregnant in that time period. Maybe they cut down their pregnancy rate in that month by 99.5%, but you still get failed contraception and just plain irresponsible people, so it’s plausible that we could see a pregnant woman getting a c-section. Or maybe they predicted a baby would be pre-mature anyway, but within the time period of the geliac, and so decided to give it an even earlier c-section. Or maybe their biology is different and they have variable and unpredictable gestation periods.
So it could in fact be self fulfilling. Those who cannot manage to avoid becoming pregnant at a time most likely to result in an undesirable birthdate are likely either of poor impulse control or dumb or something. Some of that passes on …
I think a lot of that is because traditionally, a ship’s captain, especially on shows like Star Trek, are NOT figures of fun. They’re typically very dominant, or at least have oodles of command presence.
Ed Mercer is not that way- he’s clearly a competent guy doing a good job, but he’s not pulling off the captain-as-father role, either because the character’s not supposed to do that explicitly, or because it’s more an unforeseen consequence of having the show tread a weird path between being a comedy and a serious sci-fi show.
I see a lot of this kind of criticism, not just here but over at Jammer’s site. But there is also a smaller but solid contingent of us that strenuously takes the opposite view: that McFarlane is actually perfect for the role (which he wrote for himself, LOL) and is doing a great job.
I love this!
New episode: A little bit of TOS “Court Martial” and a lot of TNG “The Outcast”. And once again “Orville” surpasses the source material.
For a story that had a fair amount of plot twists, I was strangely able to figure out every one of them one entire act before each happened.
Carefully avoiding spoilers here - I’d like them to take the B plot and develop it with the dark and scary things that the situation could easily degenerate into.
Thought the main story was fairly well executed; yes, some of the plot turns were predictable, but I found the ending still (surprisingly) powerful and affecting.
A lot more serious and a lot less goofball humor than the last ep, but there were still a few good bits:
Talla: This has to be the weirdest thing that ever happened on this ship.
Malloy and Lamarr: recite the events of season 1
I understand this view but part of the problem really is that the show can’t decide what the captain is supposed to be: authority figure to be taken seriously, “competent guy” getting on with the job, or class clown. Some of that is down to the comedy/sci-fi show dichotomy and some of it is Macfarlane himself.
And writing one’s own part doesn’t mean it will work. For example, I’m a big fan of Bill Murray’s vanity project “The Razor’s Edge” but deeply wish he hadn’t starred in it. I like Macfarlane - heck, I may well be the only person who liked “A Million Ways to Die in the West” - but until the character settles down the show is always going to seem uneven.
There wasn’t a single surprise in the whole thing, honestly, but it was really well executed, and that’s what’s important.
Cap’n Ed does remind me of a couple of bosses I’ve had. Especially the ones who own their own companies. They’re trying to be “just regular guys” and “The Captain” at the same time. They’re socially awkward, but have to interact with a wide range of personalities. And they end up a bit of a joke…