The Orville on Fox

[Sindawe]

Robert Picardo played Alara's dad but I couldn't place the woman playing her mother.

That was the Vorta Eris in under deep cover to infiltrate The Union.




   The actress is Molly Hagen, another Star Trek alumni.

I concur with Ben, this episode hit the comedy/drama balance right on the mark.

[RoadKingLarry]

I knew I'd seen her before.

[K Frame]

A little spider heavy for me...

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[K Frame]

Molly Hagen played the empathetic part of the brain in the Fox sitcom Herman's Head.

[K Frame]

Watched the season's penultimate show last night.

Some of it was quite clumsy, but I REALLY liked the concept of the 2 dimensional space bubble how it tied into Flatland.

[Sindawe]

The excursion into a 2D reality was interesting.  The plot line of forcing John LaMarr from his post as Navigator to Chief Engineer  left me rather flat.  They guy was happy in his post, why muck with it?  He also has ZERO experience as an engineer from what I could tell.  Yaphit on the other hand HAS experience as an engineer, even if he is a bit of a jerk.

Some of it was well done.  I did like Issac's comment about "Are we bonding?" after the cat conversation.  As wall as is non-verbal take on LaMarr's defense of Yaphit after the other engineering staff dumped on the guy.

  

[K Frame]

"The plot line of forcing John LaMarr from his post as Navigator to Chief Engineer  left me rather flat."

Yep. That's what I thought was really clumsy. They said he had really high engineering scores at Union Point (I guess their Star Fleet Academy), but that doesn't translate into practical experience.

"I did like Issac's comment about "Are we bonding?" after the cat conversation."

Yeah, I laughed hard at that. The look on the guy's face before they showed Issaic stroking his arm set that joke up REALLY well.

[K Frame]

I watched the episode again, and I picked up on something that I missed.

In all of the Star Trek series physical money has always been something that's not been used in the Federation. You get hints that there is still some form of money still in use, probably for cultures that haven't moved past it. I THINK money is mentioned/used in ST:TOS "A Piece of the Action," which makes sense given that that planet is emulating the 1920s.

In this episode of the Orville they talk about why money is obsolete... matter synthesis technology. Essentially, if you can synthesize pretty much everything you need at the push of a button, you don't need cash to buy things, and reputation is the new "currency."

[Pb]

I watched the episode again, and I picked up on something that I missed.

In all of the Star Trek series physical money has always been something that's not been used in the Federation. You get hints that there is still some form of money still in use, probably for cultures that haven't moved past it. I THINK money is mentioned/used in ST:TOS "A Piece of the Action," which makes sense given that that planet is emulating the 1920s.

In this episode of the Orville they talk about why money is obsolete... matter synthesis technology. Essentially, if you can synthesize pretty much everything you need at the push of a button, you don't need cash to buy things, and reputation is the new "currency."

You would still need money to buy labor, handcrafted goods, energy, antiques, land, intellectual property.... replicators would eliminate "poverty" but many other things would still have value that replicators could not replace.

[K Frame]

Yeah, I thought about that, as well. That's the fly in the ointment of that concept.

[K Frame]

Tonight's the season finale.

I have to admit, I've grown quite fond of The Orville.

[TommyGunn]

Tonight's the season finale.

I have to admit, I've grown quite fond of The Orville.

Yea....me too.   So I went to Amazon.com and ordered the DVD  set of season 1.   I can catch the episode I missed!

[KD5NRH]

You would still need money to buy labor,

This is the recurring flaw; why would anyone choose to be a waitress, for example, if there wasn't some form of payment for it?  I think it's specifically stated somewhere that transporter and replicator technology can handle pretty much any form of cleaning that's needed - even down to a molecular level - so no more janitors, but unless every bar is a holodeck, they're still somehow compensating people for doing one of the least desirable jobs.

Either you have to have some form of monetary system, or you have to disregard basic human freedoms to get those jobs done.

[zxcvbob]

This is the recurring flaw; why would anyone choose to be a waitress, for example, if there wasn't some form of payment for it?  I think it's specifically stated somewhere that transporter and replicator technology can handle pretty much any form of cleaning that's needed - even down to a molecular level - so no more janitors, but unless every bar is a holodeck, they're still somehow compensating people for doing one of the least desirable jobs.

Either you have to have some form of monetary system, or you have to disregard basic human freedoms to get those jobs done.

Or all the shitjobs are performed by robots.  Until the robots become self-aware...

[KD5NRH]

Or all the shitjobs are performed by robots.

Except that we actually see human waitresses several times in TOS, TNG and several movies, even on Earth.  (Obviously Ferengi establishments don't count since they have a replicator-resistant currency system.)  Even though it's a job that would be easily done by a transporter and replicator, apparently the human touch of having your beer brought out by a real woman (don't recall seeing a waiter outside of a formal banquet) is worth something.

And, as was mentioned, even if you can terraform planets, you can't just replicate the piece of land you want where you want it.  Clearly some people (Picard's family comes to mind) have far more land (and in a much more desirable location) than could simply be a fair allocation to every Earth resident.  Was all property ownership simply frozen except through inheritance when there ceased to be a monetary system to provide for purchase?  It's hard to imagine any physical good one could carry enough of to pay for even an acre of land that isn't essentially currency itself.  (Precious metals, gems, etc.)  Trading labor for any significant amount of land directly would be near impossible for anyone short of a talented surgeon specializing in something particularly critical.

[K Frame]

Watched the finale last night. I have to admit, the show REALLY matured over this season.

[Sindawe]

I enjoyed this weeks 'season finale'*.  I could see where it was going when the mention was made of not letting the natives see you, and in my view was handled well.  Harkened back to "Who Watches the Watchers" and "Blink of An Eye" in the official ST series. 

I really liked the last appearance of the planets inhabitants when they teleported to the bridge of the Orville to the amazement of the crew.  The choice of their clothing looked like nod to the way the Krytonians were depicted in the 70s version of Superman.

* When did a season become 12 episodes?  I know SciFi did something like that back in the early 00s when they broke up programs like Farscape into spring and autumn groupings, but the parts still classify as ONE season.

[Ben]

* When did a season become 12 episodes?  I know SciFi did something like that back in the early 00s when they broke up programs like Farscape into spring and autumn groupings, but the parts still classify as ONE season.

It's a ridiculous trend that's been going on for a while now. Many series are down to ten episodes. I blame the Brits. Before you know it, our series will be down to six episodes, like theirs are.

[RocketMan]

I think the trend to shorter seasons with fewer episodes is driven more by cost.  It's increasingly expensive to create these shows, so Hollyweird makes fewer episodes to keep costs down.

[TommyGunn]

I think the trend to shorter seasons with fewer episodes is driven more by cost.  It's increasingly expensive to create these shows, so Hollyweird makes fewer episodes to keep costs down.

Back in the 1960s   a tv series would normally run 33 episodes  + -  per season,  with summer reruns consisting of a selection of some of the higher rating episodes.   Since that time the number has dwindled.   26  became a norm,  as it's half of 52.
Now it's about 22 episodes per season.

[KD5NRH]

Back in the 1960s   a tv series would normally run 33 episodes  + -  per season,  with summer reruns consisting of a selection of some of the higher rating episodes.   Since that time the number has dwindled.   26  became a norm,  as it's half of 52.
Now it's about 22 episodes per season.

Then figure up the difference in actual runtime between a 1960-1980 half hour or full hour show and a current one.  Somewhere around here I've got some old shows with commercials left out that run 26:00 to 26:30.  I timed a show a couple weeks ago and got 16 minutes of the actual show in half an hour.

[Ben]

Then figure up the difference in actual runtime between a 1960-1980 half hour or full hour show and a current one.  Somewhere around here I've got some old shows with commercials left out that run 26:00 to 26:30.  I timed a show a couple weeks ago and got 16 minutes of the actual show in half an hour.

Watching on Roku, I see all times minus commercials. Most modern 30min shows are 21min runtime, 60min shows are 42min runtime. Something like Star Trek TOS runs IIRC ~53min.

I will give credit to Netfilx and Amazon in that even if they are only doing ten episode series, the runtime is usually 29min/59min respectively. Some episodes of a series might run a few minutes less, or even run 32min/65min or so.

[RocketMan]

Back in my TV engineer days, circa 1979-80, IIRC hour long programs had 48 minutes of program time with 12 minutes set aside for commercials and PSAs.

[KD5NRH]

Back in my TV engineer days, circa 1979-80, IIRC hour long programs had 48 minutes of program time with 12 minutes set aside for commercials and PSAs.

And a good chunk of that was off both ends to allow for more commercials between shows, as opposed to the currently popular couple minutes of content, then a 30-60 second commercial break, then if it's a documentary, a full minute or more of recap before new content.

[Ben]

And a good chunk of that was off both ends to allow for more commercials between shows, as opposed to the currently popular couple minutes of content, then a 30-60 second commercial break, then if it's a documentary, a full minute or more of recap before new content.

The Walking Dead is a great example of "five minutes of content, three minutes of commercials" after the first ten minutes of each episode. If I didn't have a DVR with FF, there's no way I could watch that in realtime.