Well, these first two episodes have not really come close to the really good ones from last season (the one where the the Captain and First Officer were a zoo exhibit, or the one where the sky was hidden from the general population of the planet).
I dunno, I really liked them. Gave us time with the characters and some fun sci-fi stuff, plus they clearly got to show off their increased budget.
My inclination is to defend them as well, because I didn’t really find them to be “bad” episodes, but watching clips from last season and with the benefit of hind sight, I think I kind of hated both the episodes from this season.
The first episode was neat but … nothing happened. Unless we are approaching the main story of this series to be the bond between the crew (which I’d rather isn’t the focus - the science and exploration is why I come here) I suppose. The second episode was a lot better thanks to the rescue mission that came from a science expedition. But that was, I mean let’s be honest, that was like 15 total minutes if even. The rest of the show was an incredibly awkward look at holodeck porn addiction, and while it’s an interesting topic that was handled well, it’s again not what I’m tuning in for.
I still look forward to watching them because they evoke a very trek feeling for me, even if it’s bad trek.
I vastly prefer Discovery but I am quite happy to watch both for different reasons.
Oh come on, plenty happened, it was just low-stakes stuff. It was fun to have a “Data’s Day” style “a day on the ship” episode.
Fun for you maybe but fun for the ratings and the future of the show? Not so much. And then they double down with a porn addiction/divorce ( with extreme prejudice ) episode? Once viewers start leaving its hard to recover, even if the show improves down the road. They need to right the ship soon or they will start hemorrhaging fans faster than the second season of Heroes. I really do want The Orville to succeed but if the show does not improve dramatically over the next few episodes, I think that this will be its last season.
The more Orville I see the less Discovery I ever want to see. I’m done with Discovery and it’s pollution of real Star Trek. Orville is the true new Trek!
Okay Debbie Downer, which is now what I’m calling you until the end of time.
Damn right.
At least include the whole sentence for context, @BrianRubin, if you’re going to accuse people of Debbie Downer-ism.
I’m with @rshetts. The first two episodes this season have not been good, and ratings tell us the majority of viewers feel that way. (So does this thread, @BrianRubin being the vocal exception.) If it doesn’t start providing significantly more heroic-space-stuff and much less suburbia-in-space, I can see Fox executives giving it the axe.
Remember how shit the first seasons of Next Generation where? Before the Beard was Grown?
Just calling it as I see it Debbie Delusion. And next time how about you don’t take my words out of context? Hmm? There are qualifiers you left out in building your strawman insult assault.
Yeah, I’m talking my girlfriend through watching the first two seasons of TNG so she doesn’t give up on it before S3. (She’s seen all of DS9/VOY/ENT/TOS, but mostly missed TNG first time around.) There are so many terrible episodes in the first couple of seasons. The worst episodes of Orville never approached “Code of Honor”, “Justice”, or “Angel One.”
Primal Urges was supposed to be a Season 1 episode, so it’s still early to judge S2 content. The ratings+it being on Fox are a worrying combo, though.
As for the comments about Discovery and true Trek…
It looks like S2 is gonna be the fanservice season, so the GAL crowd might want to tune back in.
OH GOOD ONE…actually…that was good well done there.
And geez, I wasn’t trying to take anything out of context, I just quoted the part that affected me. Yeesh.
Excellent 3rd episode.
Another character episode. This should seal the deal with the dropping ratings if rshetts’ theory is correct. But I think the big drop in Episode 1 to 2 was huge because they moved it to a different night, and of course there wasn’t a football game in front of it.
Looks like next week is a Krill episode though, so we’ll see if more people tune in for that.
It was great to see the best actors from Voyager and Enterprise in this episode btw.
Nothing in this that couldn’t have happened on random crime drama show, save for the high gravity. Replace that with some other environmental hazard and there’s no sci-fi to it. Also, how did they not just set the gravity in her quarters higher or have her spend time on the holodecksimulator under high grav for a while? I’m used to plot holes but that just seemed ridiculous.
So, I wouldn’t go so far as “excellent” but I did enjoy this better than either of the first two this season.
Now this I can totally agree with. And Warburton! (Though I didn’t like his character much thus far. If he sticks around, hope he’s written better.)
Certainly the best episode of the second season by far, as it featured arguably the show’s most likeable character in her own story with a window into her background and a challenge to overcome. It felt a lot like a classic ST:TNG episode in a very good way. Then the show proceeded to take this most likeable character who you’re now even more invested in…and remove her from the show.
WTF? Brilliant.
I felt the same way. It was nice to see a show dedicated to one of the few charismatic actors on the show. Then they write her off it (thought that may well have been her call).
I hope they move toward action/ exploration plots now. I really don’t want to spend entire episodes exploring the remaining one-note mediocrities and how they got their personality trait.
Oh jeez, apparently she’s left the show for good. I literally said a few posts back that they should promote her to Captain - she was the best character in the show. This doesn’t bode well I think. I’m calling it now too - I think it’ll be cancelled at the end of this season.
I liked the ability of the show to setup certain expectations and then not go there. When she saw the light, I figured, hey, given what’s happened to her, this is now going to be an episode where she’ll investigate and use her intellect and show her parents and herself that she’s more than just muscle in the military. But they didn’t go that way. When the situation turned, I still expected her to outsmart the bad guys somehow, but no, that didn’t happen either. They’re pretty good at that, playing off what you expect to see, given that you’ve seen so many episodes of Star Trek over the years, and then not showing you that beat, and instead remixing it in a different way.
I kind of wish Voyager and Enterprise had done that. But those two shows always showed me exactly what I expected most of the time.
Huh, I expected to be all gloom and doom after watching everyone pile on poor @BrianRubin for two and a half weeks, but TBH, I kinda dug all three episodes a lot. The first two definitely don’t rise to the level of my favorite eps from last season, but I enjoyed the front three of this on average more than I did the first trio of eps in Season 1 for sure. And obviously the Kitan-focused “Home” was just thoroughly excellent and honestly kind of a tearjerker (that final scene in the shuttle bay felt astoundingly real for me and is the first time in the entire show’s run it felt like MacFarlane in particular has conveyed genuine human emotion–more on that in a sec).
I do still think the show is kinda struggling to figure out exactly how to mesh MacFarlane’s desire for adolescent, on-the-nose comedy with the more heartfelt character moments, gee-whiz scifi spectacle, and pointed critique of real world issues. At this point, the comedy still feels totally disconnected, pointedly less mature than everything else happening around it, and honestly just tired (apart from disliking the style of it, I’ll note that I still feel like the actors for Mercer, LaMarr, and Gordon just repeatedly fall flat and are tepid at best).
But thankfully, since the attempts at humor are so rare, and so often left behind as episodes hit their groove and really get kicking, I’m still able to ignore it, but damn, if this show could actually be genuinely funny even half the time, it’d seriously rival Doctor Who for my favorite scifi series ever.