# The Orville-Seth McFarlane **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 17, 2017, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814 "2017-05-17T03:28:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 40
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/781 "2017-10-07T03:31:09Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > People still can’t seem to get time travel right. She wouldn’t just vanish under any conventional understanding of time travel. She’d be stuck in the past, that’s all. Unless they are going to say no one will remember that this episode happened. Which is equally as bad, but in a different way… I found that confusing too. > [@terentii](#): > > It would be funny if we could see familiar routines done by aliens or Earthers of the future; the “Junior Mints” sequence performed by green slime creatures, f’rinstance. The implication, of course, being that these things are never forgotten or go out of style—they just get endlessly recycled. Hmm, I wonder how they could pull off a **Simpsons** holodeck program. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/782 "2017-10-07T03:33:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I actually thought she looked worse than I’ve ever seen her (including on _Friday Night Lights_, where she was smokin’ hot–two of the hottest babes ever on that show). If this were true (and I don’t believe it was), it’s only because she was standing next to Charlize Theron. :o ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/783 "2017-10-07T03:33:21Z")
Shut up, all yez sticklers. It’s TV. Enjoy it or watch another channel. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/784 "2017-10-07T03:42:30Z")
I concur that it may have been the weakest story line yet, and you could see what was coming a mile away (I mean, who hadn’t call the Kelly-Pria fight by the second commercial break?), and time-travel is _never_ done right in SF, but that said… The good point is that the story (even if somewhat lame) is being told well by the characters, and much more believably (IMHO) than TNG, which often felt…stiff and stuffy. These characters act like people we know (and maybe even don’t care for at times) and that lets them carry on past the bumps in logic. IMHO as always. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/785 "2017-10-07T03:48:19Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I actually thought she looked worse than I’ve ever seen her (including on _Friday Night Lights_, where she was smokin’ hot–two of the hottest babes ever on that show). Too much makeup, and her boobs looked fake. _sigh_ Gorgeous Polack cross. They looked natural, with some plumbing to jack them up. Have a pal who manages boobs for a living, though she tends to aid the over-endowed. And is married. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/786 "2017-10-07T04:16:09Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > People still can’t seem to get time travel right. **She wouldn’t just vanish under any conventional understanding of time travel.** She’d be stuck in the past, that’s all. Unless they are going to say no one will remember that this episode happened. Which is equally as bad, but in a different way. > > Other than that, another awesome episode! Okay, this annoys me. There is no “conventional understanding” of time travel. We have no idea what might or might not happen, and you can find holes in virtually all fictional time travel stories. All I care about is if the show treats time travel _consistently_. They can make up whatever rules they want\*, but then they’re stuck with them. \*And they did have some rules. Mercer actually referred to collapsing a quantum something-or-other by blowing up the wormhole, which made it clear that they could choose any one of the many-worlds quantum states that would result. It was brief, but it was there. And yes, this fucks with the timeline, which is why _the Union doesn’t fuck with the timeline_ - a point Mercer made a few times. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/787 "2017-10-07T04:29:17Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > It would be funny if we could see familiar routines done by aliens or Earthers of the future; the “Junior Mints” sequence performed by green slime creatures, f’rinstance. The implication, of course, being that these things are never forgotten or go out of style—they just get endlessly recycled. There was an off-Broadway play a few years ago that touched on this idea. In _[Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play](http://nypost.com/2013/09/15/play-uses-the-simpsons-to-tell-of-life-in-dystopian-future/),_ the Simpsons episode _Cape Feare_ keeps getting retold over a span of 75 years after a disaster wipes out all forms of electronic entertainment. It explores how people’s memories change over time and how traditions get stated and morph into something all its own. very interesting. mc ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/788 "2017-10-07T05:21:54Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > There was an off-Broadway play a few years ago that touched on this idea. In _[Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play](http://nypost.com/2013/09/15/play-uses-the-simpsons-to-tell-of-life-in-dystopian-future/),_ the Simpsons episode _Cape Feare_ keeps getting retold over a span of 75 years after a disaster wipes out all forms of electronic entertainment. It explores how people’s memories change over time and how traditions get stated and morph into something all its own. very interesting. I’ve seen Mr. Burns live (twice!) and I can vouch that it’s a great piece of theater that really changes the way you think about art and the way it relates to the culture experiencing it. Probably way too deep a subject matter for a workplace-comedy Star Trek knockoff, though. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/789 "2017-10-07T12:10:48Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > What, you never heard of Rebo and Zooty? Zooty. . . Zoot zoot! ---
**Author:** ![Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uosdwis_R.Dewoh)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/790 "2017-10-07T12:15:07Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > There was an off-Broadway play a few years ago that touched on this idea. In _[Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play](http://nypost.com/2013/09/15/play-uses-the-simpsons-to-tell-of-life-in-dystopian-future/),_ the Simpsons episode _Cape Feare_ keeps getting retold over a span of 75 years after a disaster wipes out all forms of electronic entertainment. It explores how people’s memories change over time and how traditions get stated and morph into something all its own. very interesting. > > mc There’s a pretty forgettable post-apocalypse movie, with Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey, Reign of Fire that has a scene where adults recreate Star Wars for a bunch of children. The adults are playing out the “Luke, I am your father” moment and kids react with surprise and delight. It’s a really cute scene that deserved a better movie. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/791 "2017-10-07T12:43:12Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > What, you never heard of Rebo and Zooty? Huh. I missed your reference to R & Z (sorry about that) and managed to make the same kind of comment independently (great minds!) ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/792 "2017-10-07T13:07:08Z")
I think that was the weakest episode so far. Hate the time travel angle but overall still entertaining. The setup for the leg dropping out of the overhead worked on me. I couldn’t help cracking up over it. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/793 "2017-10-07T13:35:21Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > That actually seems surprisingly true to _Trek_, which frequently portrayed its twenty-fourth century characters as being obsessed with twentieth-century culture. From Picard’s love of “Dixon Hill,” pulp detective, to the way everyone on Deep Space Nine liked to hang out in a 60s-style Vegas nightclub listening to a Rat Pack-ish lounge singer, to Tom Paris’s using an old sci-fi movie serial as the basis of his holodeck program, people’s appreciation of popular entertainment pretty much stops about 400 years before they were born. No one must ever forget. All music styles beyond instrumental Jazz completely stopped in next -Gen cultural history. That is it. Only that far, and no further\*. Classic rick and roll, pop, proto punk, punk, post punk, hard rock, all are artistically worthless. All musical styles stops where Will needs to play his trombone. Well, heavy metal does exist, as a hallmark of that barbaric culture that adopted that human. But is completely unknown to Picard and Dr. Crusher. Never existed. Completely stopped. Point is, that is also peculiar. \*And they’ll pay for having gone this far. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/794 "2017-10-07T13:39:18Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > The setup for the leg dropping out of the overhead worked on me. I couldn’t help cracking up over it. I must have missed something. I got it was Molloy’s leg, and that Isaac had hidden it in the ceiling, but why did he put it in Priya’s room? Just turned out that way? And why did it choose to fall at that particular moment? Did someone do something to trigger it? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/795 "2017-10-07T13:41:38Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > When B5 had Penn and Teller playing the comedy duo “Rebo and Zooty” they played with this idea - almost everyone on the show was very familiar with their act and its catchphrases, but they were (realistically) opaque to the 20th century audience. Sure. But within the necessities of _this_ plot – especially because it was an extremely important plot point – the audience needed to understand the reference immediately. _Seinfeld_ meant that you didn’t have to explain the show they were watching, whereas something made up would just confuse the issue. > [@](#): > > By the way, what’s the deal with everyone’s prejudice about mining company’s record-keeping practices? I think the idea that there’s constant turnover and they may hire people off the books. Since they’re probably a long way from any central authority, they can play fast-and-loose with regulations and not bother keeping up the paperwork. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/796 "2017-10-07T13:45:34Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > No one must ever forget. All music styles beyond instrumental Jazz completely stopped in next -Gen cultural history. That is it. And in _ **Voyager** _, too. Haven’t seen enough of _ **DS9** _ to comment. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/797 "2017-10-07T13:47:55Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > Zooty. . . Zoot zoot! “And I am Zoot. Just Zoot.” :o ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/798 "2017-10-07T13:56:59Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Sure. But within the necessities of _this_ plot – especially because it was an extremely important plot point – the audience needed to understand the reference immediately. _Seinfeld_ meant that you didn’t have to explain the show they were watching, whereas something made up would just confuse the issue. Has no one caught the similarity between Isaac having his consciousness transferred into the ship’s computer and Picard experiencing the same thing in “Lonely Among Us”? Even the resolution was the same: “Does the Captain want a Junior Mint?” and “‘P’ for Picard.” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/799 "2017-10-07T14:08:26Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Sure. But within the necessities of _this_ plot – especially because it was an extremely important plot point – the audience needed to understand the reference immediately. _Seinfeld_ meant that you didn’t have to explain the show they were watching, whereas something made up would just confuse the issue. I wonder if people 400 years from now will find \*\*\*Seinfeld \*\*\*(or any other TV sitcom) amusing. I know we still laugh at Shakespeare’s comedies, but still… 😕 I’ve been watching reruns of _ **Bewitched** _, _ **The Partridge Family** _, and \*\*\*MTM \*\*\*in the afternoon lately. Of the three, the first one holds up the best (they’re all early episodes, with Dick York and the original Mrs Kravitz). ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/800 "2017-10-07T14:49:38Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I must have missed something. I got it was Molloy’s leg, and that Isaac had hidden it in the ceiling, but why did he put it in Priya’s room? Just turned out that way? And why did it choose to fall at that particular moment? Did someone do something to trigger it? 😕 **It was not Logical!** **It a stupid sight gag** and it just happened to work for me at least. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814.md?page=39) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814.md?page=41)