# 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:** 46
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/901 "2017-10-13T12:29:18Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Or: do they have some beef with macfarlane or something? A critic score of 19% vs audience score of 91% is about as big a disparity as I’ve ever seen. That pretty much seems to be the online fan consensus, MacFarlane is just too lowbrow to be given any sort of latitude. _Orville_ episodes are very reminiscent of _ST:TNG_, which are guilty pleasures at this point – 2 decades after the original showing. Much of Mercer’s hand to hand combat in this episode is very Kirk-like, and _ST:OS_ is considered very hokey – you’re only permitted to like that as nostalgia, you must concede that there is no sci-fi left in those episodes. None. Deny that to your peril. Thus speaketh the reviewers. Only the very best television, that hits all the buttons, all the time, is worth your time. People really hated what MacFarlane did to _ **their** _ Oscars. Now they’re dredging up his Weinstein joke. Are they admitting he got it right? Nope. He’s one of those guys who, “knew about it and didn’t do enough.” “Saw Your Boobs” was just too much of a leaning on the 4th wall for them to accept. Yeah, Jennifer Lawrence was playing along, but others couldn’t stand it. Low brow comedy must never be sanctioned. _ST:Discovery_ is new. Its still finding its feet, and only giving tastes of its eventual direction. Like really good television, say _Breaking Bad_, or _Game of Thrones_, you never know how good it will eventually be. _The Orville_ is just dropping everything bare in rapid fire bursts. The only difference from a sitcomis that you get a plot twist from time to time. See, you can watch an episode of _The Orvill_e here and there, just like _ST:NG_, and still enjoy it. Miss one episode of _ST:Discovery_ or _Walking Dead_ and you’re completely lost. Somehow, reviewers have equated the latter with the “greatest work of television writing ever” and not a plot to command all of your evening time. ---
**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 13, 2017, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/902 "2017-10-13T14:52:14Z")
I’m not a fan of MacFarlane at all. Don’t like most of his stuff. But this is an excellent affectionate parody of Star Trek in the mode of Galaxy Quest. But how many critics are Star Trek fans? It might be a big factor. The audience rating is self selecting I believe, so he is doing great with Seth fans and Star Trek fans. But that is all. \*\*Lucky for him, those are 2 fairly big audiences that can defy the critics and keep this show on the air. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/903 "2017-10-13T15:04:09Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Please specify? 😕 Singing along with “Midnight Special” by CCR recalled the opening with Ackroyd and Brooks doing the same thing. “Want to see something really scary?” ---
**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 13, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/904 "2017-10-13T15:46:12Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I have no idea what that is. I’m not really a Star Trek watcher (though I am familiar with the series in question). A terrible episode with a “boneheadedly dumb” espionage scheme: > **[The Enterprise Incident (episode)](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Enterprise_Incident_(episode))** > > Acting apparently restless and irrational, Captain Kirk inexplicably orders the Enterprise into Romulan space where the ship is quickly captured by the enemy and Kirk held captive aboard their flagship. "Enterprise medical log, stardate 5027.3. Dr.... ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/905 "2017-10-13T17:21:37Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > The leg falling from the ceiling reminded me of an old _Sports Night_ episode, where Felicity Huffman is trying to thaw a Thanksgiving turkey up in the catwalks by the studio lights. At one particularly dramatic moment at the anchor desk, a half-frozen turkey falls from the sky and lands with a thud. Do I really need a cite for this? 🆒 \*…Oh my god they’re turkeys! … They’re falling like sacks of wet cement!.. Les? Les? Les, are you there? Les isn’t there. Thanks for that on-the-spot report, Les. For those of you who’ve just tuned in, the Pinedale Shopping Mall has just been bombed with live turkeys. Film at eleven.\* ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/906 "2017-10-13T17:24:07Z")
A joke about the Krill bible not being available as an E-Book could have been worked in there. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/907 "2017-10-13T18:24:24Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > A terrible episode with a “boneheadedly dumb” espionage scheme: > > [The Enterprise Incident (episode) | Memory Alpha | Fandom](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Enterprise_Incident_(episode)) Actually, when Picard and Data put on makeup and try to pass for Romulans, its almost played humorously. Data behaves as if the soup seller really needs to hear his encyclopedic knowledge of Romulan accents. Pardac calls them out – you guys were in danger of being arrested, you can’t act like Romulans at all. Even surgically altered empath Deanna can’t figure out what to eat at a Romulan dinner table, and they’ve been drinking Romulan ale since a century before. Notice Malloy couldn’t eat the food, you see it, but they don’t focus on it. That’s a nice bit of subtlety. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/908 "2017-10-13T18:32:38Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Also: really shocked that Discovery has had a very positive critical response on rotten tomatoes and Orville had a very negative one. > Clearly they understand trek no better than Abrams, and I’ll remember to ingest a fair amount of salt next time I check their consensus view on something. > > Or: do they have some beef with macfarlane or something? A critic score of 19% vs audience score of 91% is about as big a disparity as I’ve ever seen. My faith is Rotten Tomatoes has been shaken by this. How the crap that is Discovery can be 91% while the fun and pretty good Orville is 19 is just plain wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/909 "2017-10-13T18:43:13Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I have no idea what that is. I’m not really a Star Trek watcher (though I am familiar with the series in question). > > All I know is that sending the Captain and pilot into a Krill destroyer, when none of them really has any idea what the Krill are like, and then while blending in the pilot seems to deliberately want to reveal their cover seems like the absolute dumbest thing possible. What I liked about where The Orville was going was that the humor was what ordinary people may crack jokes about in these type of situations. Trying to blend in as a Krill while making not exactly quiet jokes about their God seems boneheadedly dumb. I agree. I did a lot of cringing during this episode and said, “Shut UP!!” a couple times. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/910 "2017-10-13T18:52:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > My faith is Rotten Tomatoes has been shaken by this. How the crap that is Discovery can be 91% while the fun and pretty good Orville is 19 is just plain wrong. Funny. I just lost my faith in Rotten Tomatoes earlier this week. There was a Cracked story on how the percentages are manipulated, apparently by just one guy: [5 Reasons It's Now Impossible To Tell If A New Movie's Good | Cracked.com](http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-its-now-impossible-to-tell-if-new-movies-good/) EDIT Wait that isn’t the story. Dang. I just read it this week. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/911 "2017-10-13T18:58:53Z")
I’m warming up to the Orville. I’ve long been a fan of Family Guy, but I knew if they tried to make this “Family Guy in Space” it’d bomb. They seem to be keeping a semi-serious foundation for the show, with random (but appropriate) humor. I’ll keep watching. ---
**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 13, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/912 "2017-10-13T19:08:04Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > Actually, when Picard and Data put on makeup and try to pass for Romulans, its almost played humorously. Data behaves as if the soup seller really needs to hear his encyclopedic knowledge of Romulan accents. Pardac calls them out – you guys were in danger of being arrested, you can’t act like Romulans at all. Even surgically altered empath Deanna can’t figure out what to eat at a Romulan dinner table, and they’ve been drinking Romulan ale since a century before. Is that in the two-parter with Spock? (“Unification,” I think it was called.) Saw that once, back in 2001. Humans trying to pass for Romulans is just plain silly, no matter which iteration it was. ---
**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 13, 2017, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/913 "2017-10-13T19:17:48Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > A joke about the Krill bible not being available as an E-Book could have been worked in there. Actually, I got the feeling they were going more for the Koran, and the Krill were being equated with Islamic fundamentalists (what with the decapitation and all). I also thought the warning to the Union at the end (“Yes, that may have been your duty, but the children will hate you once they realize what you’ve done!”) was also appropriate to the present day. I had a hard time believing there would only be one copy of a book that important on board the Krill ship. There should have been a copy in every bedstand in every crew cabin, just like Gideon Bibles. Mercer and Malloy could have just stolen a copy, rather than go through the whole _ **Mission: Impossible** _ thing of photographing every goddamned page! Once they had their photographs, how the hell were they supposed to escape? The whole mission was about as well thought-out as Kirk’s assignment to steal the Romulan cloaking device in “The \*Enterprise \*Incident.” ---
**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 13, 2017, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/914 "2017-10-13T19:25:33Z")
I agree with most of the above that the ‘infiltration’ act was not the strongest plot and the carrying-on by the navigator while on-board the Krill ship was some of the worst dialogue they’ve had (hint: don’t try TOO hard for a laugh), and yet… It did show an alien race that had a wildly different mindset that most aliens, and what the eventual relationship between the Union and Krill turns out to be is going to be …interesting. And the matter-of-fact mention by a character we were starting to like of a horrible massacre and later on the final denouncement, were well-handled and food for thought. It’s more space opera than SF, but they are doing it pretty well, they are keeping the story moving, and they provide some food for thought in most of the episodes so far. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/915 "2017-10-13T19:31:46Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Is that in the two-parter with Spock? (“Unification,” I think it was called.) Saw that once, back in 2001. > > Humans trying to pass for Romulans is just plain silly, no matter which iteration it was. nevermind how it kind of fell back to the “everyone on an alien world dresses the same” trope. ---
**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 13, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/916 "2017-10-13T19:36:10Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#): > > It did show an alien race that had a wildly different mindset that most aliens, and what the eventual relationship between the Union and Krill turns out to be is going to be …interesting. And the matter-of-fact mention by a character we were starting to like of a horrible massacre and later on the final denouncement, were well-handled and food for thought. It was also obvious at the end that she now hated the Union more than ever. I do hope \*\*most \*\*aliens have a wildly different mindset than the Krill in real life. Unfortunately, there’s nothing so far to indicate they do. Hawking is probably right in saying it’s not cool to advertise our presence. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/917 "2017-10-13T20:07:11Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > nevermind how it kind of fell back to the “everyone on an alien world dresses the same” trope. China in the 60s and 70s. ---
**Author:** ![Reluctant\_A](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@Reluctant\_A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reluctant_A)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/918 "2017-10-13T20:08:20Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > I’m not a fan of MacFarlane at all. Don’t like most of his stuff. But this is an excellent affectionate parody of Star Trek in the mode of Galaxy Quest. But how many critics are Star Trek fans? It might be a big factor. The audience rating is self selecting I believe, so he is doing great with Seth fans and Star Trek fans. But that is all… I appear to be part of a minority of people who enjoy _The Orville_, but are otherwise ambivalent to both Seth McFarlane and _Star Trek_. ---
**Author:** ![Scoobysnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Scoobysnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scoobysnax)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/919 "2017-10-13T20:19:00Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > “That’s a brand new leg!” Didn’t he lose is right leg in the previous episode? He was stabbed in his left. I wouldn’t put it past them to purposefully mess up the continuity. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814/920 "2017-10-13T20:25:06Z")
> [@Scoobysnax](#): > > Didn’t he lose is right leg in the previous episode? He was stabbed in his left. I wouldn’t put it past them to purposefully mess up the continuity. It was the left leg - but it was cut off below the knee - here he was stabbed in the mid -thigh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814.md?page=45) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-orville-seth-mcfarlane/786814.md?page=47)