The Orville-Seth McFarlane

That was the first thing I noticed. Feels odd somehow. :confused:

But then, ***Enterprise ***got along fairly well without them too.

I thought it was OK, and I’m willing to give it a shot especially since, unlike the new Star Trek show, I don’t need to pay extra to watch it. (There are way too many streaming services out there, and way too many television programs.) Plus the trailers for the new Star Trek series suggest that it’s going to very serious and pretentious. Even if this show wasn’t a laugh-a-minute comedy, at least it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

I wouldn’t have imagined someone framing this as a positive.

OTOH, transporters are a setup for humor.

Like here (scroll down):

“Here—let me help you pull yourself together!” :smiley:

In the can. In Hollywood, they say it’s in the can. :cool:

Wife and I caught this last night, she really enjoyed it. Me, not so much. I was confused - I kept thinking, “is this a comedy or a drama?” Still not sure of the show’s identity - is it supposed to a comedic version of Star Trek?

I started to write that, but then I wrote ‘tins’ somehow figuring it had to be plural. The CGI takes a while to add, and Wikipedia already has the directors and guest stars named by episode. If the ratings are awful, and Simpsons and Family Guy reruns are way better for revenue, then Fox can kill it and we all wait for streaming or Netflix (do people still do that? Or Redbox? Somthin’ like that?) Otherwise, we get to see all the visions they had for Seth MacFarlane’s acting, where this ex-wife storyline is going to go, what secrets each bridge crewmember has, which jokes will just fall flat, and which will be "A-ha, Clever.)

Here’s an aside: Remember the Next Gen episode, where Q sent everyone into a Robin Hood reality? I was watching it at college, and everyone went “Aw. Copying the new Kevin Coster movie just out now.” And I believed them. Which is silly. The episode had to have been written a year and half before, filmed a year before, then the CGI phasers added in. Someone in this thread will soon say --“Ah, see, they improved that character, just like I said they had to, Fox must have laid down the law” And that’s a – Nope, not until next season statement.

Tuna comes in tins. :smiley:

Watched it without seeing any previews, so had no pre-conceptions about it. my thoughts:

  • It’s trying to combine comedy (at times slipping into farce) with a solid dramatic story. Last SF I remember doing that was a movie called “Ice Pirates” (anybody old enough to remember that film?). It’s a tough act to do, and some of the jokes weren’t funny and seemed out of place (the XO/ex-wife jokes wore out in the second act)

  • The story moved at a very fast pace and I wonder if they’ll be able to do some character development in the later episodes without getting too silly.

  • Just my own complaint (which includes almost all spaceship adventures). Somehow the Navies and ships and captains of the future have somehow forgot how ships are really run, something we’ve been working at since Salamis.

I’ll probably watch it next week, but the jury is still out.

That point wasn’t particularly positive or negative. It had to do with the structure and the fact that it’s at least as much an attempt at serious homage as at comedy, which many of the reviewers seem to see as a negative.

But I did like A Million Ways to Die in the West. I’m a sucker for Charlize. :slight_smile:

(Who will eventually appear in the series, probably just in one episode.)

Not interesting to the average run of viewer. TNG did it fairly well, though, as far as the way Picard and others exercised authority.

I honestly am not sure what to think of this. It wasn’t awful, but lord, it wasn’t great either. I think the script needed more polishing – parts of it were just clumsy as hell, and I’m not 100% sure of the casting/crew composition. My favorite part of the pilot was the scene where Ed runs through the jello creature. And, while telegraphed from a long ways off, the way they fought off the alien ship was rather amusing.

I guess I’ll give it time to find its stride. Although it’s not on a network that’s known for letting that happen.

Gil Gerrard and Mary Crosby? :dubious: :confused:

Wasn’t it the first movie to use lots of CGI, way back in '78 or '79?

Except that Fox would probably do more for Seth MacFarlane, given his success on the network, than they would for any other random show runner.

I’m sure a lot of it was just establishing the universe, but they seemed to spend a lot of time with swelling orchestral scores while showing scenery.

Oh, and that porthole on the roof of the bridge seems like a real bad idea.

The first shot of the original pilot of Star Trek is literally the camera going through a window in the ceiling of the bridge like that :slight_smile:

Isn’t that from the first TOS pilot?

dammit!

Robert Urich, along with Mary Crosby, actually. And, believe it or not, from 1984.

Wow, that late? I remember it coming out soon after the original Star Wars, but I guess Mary was at the height of her fame in '84, after her role as Sue Ellen’s sister on Dallas.

I never did get around to seeing the movie, but I remember the advertisements for it, and her starring along with some guy on a current TV show of medium-level popularity.