I'm liking Palaki's Commander Grayson more and more, as time has gone on.

She reminds me of some leads and bosses I've had in the past that were confident enough in their own skills and status that they didn't do the usual me-me-me "stand on underlings shoulders" corporate ladder-climbing political stuff and instead put a lot of their time and energy into boosting and supporting other people. Those are the kinds of folks that are a dream to work with.

One of my leads in-particular went to bat for me multiple times for promotions, accreditations, etc. That, plus the fact that she was whip-smart and a very successful leader who rarely steered us wrong, meant that I would have walked over hot coals and eaten my own foot if it meant making a release date on-time for her.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Friday, December 01, 2017 - 04:13 pm: Edit

*watches new ep*

As a practical joke, it was pretty meh.

Seen better.

Done worse.

> : )

Did like the pseudo-explanation for how they exist without 'money'......more than what TNG ever did.

Still think they got paid in bananas....

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, December 01, 2017 - 04:40 pm: Edit

Honestly, I pretty much ignored that statement as nonsense. If it were true, then as I noted previously the "humans" in the show are not "humans."

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, December 10, 2017 - 04:09 am: Edit

So there's the finale for the Orville for season 1.

Pretty solid episode, IMHO. I mean, sure, both Voyager and DS9 have done pretty much the exact same story, but it still works. And 'copy a Star Trek story' isn't exactly new for the show, anyway. (Have they ever NOT done that?)

Anyway - series already renewed for a season 2, apparently pretty strong ratings in the desired demo, so we'll see where it goes next fall!

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Sunday, December 10, 2017 - 09:54 pm: Edit

I really hope they dump Brannon Bragga as a writer/producer before the second season. That will immediately reduce the Voyager/Enterprise sameness, as he and Rick Berman were the source of the "spacial anomaly of the week"/"shuttle-accident separates character-X" plotline malaise that afflicted both of the shows they had control over.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Monday, December 11, 2017 - 12:38 am: Edit

^^

What Will said. Was not happy when I saw B&B were involved in the show. Unfortunately, without them onboard its very probable the show would never have been greenlit, so you take the bad with the good. I can just hear them crying that there are no teleporters on The Orville.....so far, anyway.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Monday, December 11, 2017 - 01:40 am: Edit

There is no Berman involved in The Orville. Brannon Braga is but he has worked for MacFarlane previously on Cosmos and was credited for keeping that series on schedule and budget.

I found Braga's episodes more tolerable with The Orville than what he did about 20 years ago. Maybe he learned how to be a better writer or maybe the other writers on staff manage to improve Braga's scripts by focusing on how characters react to weird stuff instead of just having weird stuff happen.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Monday, December 11, 2017 - 02:12 pm: Edit

^^

What Richard said.

Braga might be a very effective producer but is a hack writer. Richard's observation of "focusing on how characters react to weird stuff instead of just having weird stuff happen" is soooooo perfect in describing the fundamental problem with so much bad tv writing.

So far, the Orville has done their best (and best comedy) when some characters are seriously reacting to something weird and deciding how to deal with it and other characters stumble into it and have a non sequitur comedic reaction.

The guys and Bortus showing up to the sim-room for a pistol duel in full regalia, while the Doctor and security chief were dealing with her frustration at having frozen during the fire was a great example. Some serious drama, well-done, punctuated with some non-involved comedy. Not having the the characters being serious suddenly crack-wise.

Later that same episode they did break my own "rule" above though, with Issac's reaction to Kelly's offhand conference room remark that her proposal might just be her talking out of her ... His in-character naive reaction made my wife spit her drink all over her tablet she laughed so hard.

They don't land everything they try, but that joke was worth 10 duds (and 5 poorly placed ones).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, December 11, 2017 - 02:27 pm: Edit

And yet having characters in full regalia for something in the simulator was something used several times in "Deep Space Nine" (at least) and not something new.

Part of what bothers me about the show on some levels is the lack of inter-species knowledge.

Ignoring the "blue alien," how many of you would drink a concoction of an alien species with absolutely no idea of what it might do to your own biology in other than a truly desperate survival situation? And yet the captain drank Bortas's offering.

How could Bortus be a senior officer and apparently have no concept of the differences between his biology and that of the puny and delicate humans he is associating with. It is not like earlier episodes have not showcased the major difference in his biological constitution and literally had himself mention how different it is from say Grimes's ability to consume things.

The utter cluelessness of the various species about each other is worse than anything we encountered in even original series Trek (where it must be admitted that as episodes went on more and more abilities were discovered about Spock).

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Monday, December 11, 2017 - 03:46 pm: Edit

Drinking odd things may come from having absolute faith in the ability of the sickbay equipment to undo any stupid decisions you've made. As long as it doesn't kill you before you can get into the pod, the cellular regeneration gear will fix it.

Injuries and poisonings are annoying and painful -at least until the drugs kick in - but no one really stresses over getting hurt and their self-preservation instincts are bit rusty. (This could be part of a fairly brutal attitude towards practical jokes. "It grew back, didn't it?")

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, December 11, 2017 - 05:02 pm: Edit

Steve Zamboni:

Even with access today to painkilling drugs that can fool your mind into thinking there is no pain, people are adverse to pain unless they are simply masochistic. (You can make an argument that the masochists are the sane ones and the desires of the majority not to be in pain makes them the crazy ones. For me, personally, pain is something to be avoided, and endured only if absolutely necessary for some very, very, good reason. Of course I am also something of a "control freak" in that I do not care if other people drink as long as they do not endanger others, but dislike any loss of mental control of my own persona associated with drinking so much that I never acquired a "taste" for any such beverage.)

So I guess you are saying all members of the Orville (at least, perhaps not crew serving on other ships) are masochists?

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, December 11, 2017 - 05:09 pm: Edit

Personally, I have decided I don't like The Orville. I won't follow it for season 2.

It just really rubs me the wrong way for several different reasons, and there's plenty of other entertainment out there for my limited viewing time...

One big problem is the absolutely ridiculous, "optional when convenient" and "outcome dependent" attitude towards command structure at all levels in what is supposed to be a military organization. If the show were purely a comedy and poked fun at that, maybe I could swallow it - but it's not.

It's got other problems too, but I won't discuss them as I would violate BBS rules.

Moving along...

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Monday, December 11, 2017 - 06:52 pm: Edit

Not masochistic, just able to differentiate between pain and discomfort. Getting stabbed hurts, but then the painkillers or neural cutouts kick in and someone waves a magic wand over it. It's nowhere near the stress that comes from something major like a hangover.

The Captain wasn't concerned about a drink monster taking up residence in his gut; he worried that it was going to him the trots. One is a five-minute stop by sickbay to get zapped, the other is an inconvenient and annoying night in the bathroom.

He's also willing to deal with having an untreated wound for the day rather than risk the embarrassment of someone seeing him getting it fixed. Their first reaction to someone being injured seems to be amusement, not concern, so I think their society has become used to having those magic wands around. Between replicators and regenerators, the material world just isn't something they need to pay too much attention to.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - 06:35 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

One big problem is the absolutely ridiculous, "optional when convenient" and "outcome dependent" attitude towards command structure at all levels in what is supposed to be a military organization. If the show were purely a comedy and poked fun at that, maybe I could swallow it - but it's not.

---

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 04:49 am: Edit

The Orville has a much longer way to go before it hits the Absolute Stupidity levels that TNG managed to achieve......

I'll enjoy it until then...if then ever comes.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 10:59 am: Edit

Picard was not too much of a maverick except in the movies where for some reason he stopped being a modern version of Plato's philosopher kind of character and became a badass 'plays by his own rules' action hero. In the show most of the time when Picard made the big decisions that could mess with the big picture it was implied that there was no time to consult with command.

Sisko was the one I thought should have been busted down to Ensign multiple times. He defied explicit orders with deep political ramifications, engaged in an unauthorized diplomatic deception to bring another power into a war, intentionally passed classified intelligence data acquired about an ally to an enemy power, used borrowed technology in violation of an agreement for an unauthorized rescue mission into a warzone in violation of a treaty, and probably other stuff I am forgetting. Don't get me wrong. I like the character and usually the Federation and Starfleet were intentionally written as idiotic to let him play maverick but still....I would not trust him to run a garbage scow.

I also could never figure out why when the station became the key military chokepoint in a projected and all but inevitable war that they did not replace him with an admiral with a fleet on station. They could have kept him on the show as the station commander due to his religious status but why did Starfleet do nothing about the threat beyond sending a single ship?

Janeway should have been tried for treason for assisting the Borg (the Federation's greatest enemy) in a war with a third power they were losing.

Kirk was nuts. One TOS novel had what I thought was a tongue in cheek reference to his disobedience. Kirk found out about a problem on the Klingon-Romulan border. He sent a report to Starfleet and then charged in. At the end of the novel after he has solved the problem he gets a response and hopes it is orders to investigate. Of course it includes carefully worded instructions that allow him to do what he did. I like to think that was an inside joke.

By Starfleet standards Picard is a model of conformity but that is not saying much.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 11:36 am: Edit

Communications in Star Trek is plot dependent, and it's worth noting that with a communications delay or unreliable communications it's perfectly reasonable for the senior officer on station to make the call on lots of stuff we'd defer to command.

Consider a famous case where they actually had limited real time communications available: The battle of Copenhagen. Parker signaled withdraw, and told his flag captain: "If he is in condition to continue the action, he will disregard it; if he is not, it will be an excuse for his retreat and no blame can be imputed to him." Nelson told his flag captain: "I only have one eye — I have the right to be blind sometimes."

In this case an order was given and ignored, and they both indicated to their flag captain that some orders could be ignored at times. The Royal Navy used far harsher discipline than we do, or than Star Trek does. Yet they not only tolerated disobeying an order from a superior officer, but actually expected it at times.

Now: There's all kinds of stuff that makes Copenhagen a special case. All particular cases are special. But I've heard that a Prussian Court Martial verdict once included, "We didn't make you an officer to obey orders, we made you an officer to win battles" while convicting someone for following an order they had reason to know wasn't the best course of action.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 02:02 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

I guess I read it a bit differently. How many times in TNG Trek did Picard do worse than Mercer does, and the Admiralty is all 'well it worked out, so commendations all around!'

Here, it's more consistently 'no, I don't care, don't do that again or you are scrubbing latrines, and YES we are putting this on your record'

Granted, it's a bit more TOS than TNG, in that you get the sense there is quite a bit more than the captain SHOULD be reporting up to command, but doesn't...but nothing really coming off ridiculously out of place.

---

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 02:08 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

In this case an order was given and ignored, and they both indicated to their flag captain that some orders could be ignored at times. The Royal Navy used far harsher discipline than we do, or than Star Trek does. Yet they not only tolerated disobeying an order from a superior officer, but actually expected it at times.

---

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 02:31 pm: Edit

The truth is that military systems break down, and fail, if orders are not followed. Junior officers in a chain of command have to assume that those giving them their orders understand the overall larger picture.

The system is not perfect (no system is) as was more than adequately demonstrated in World War I. (Although even then the picture of the stupidity of superior officers is often overstated. The hunt for a solution to the stalemate was continuous all through the war, which is why the tank appeared, and why even more primitive means of warfare such as minesaps reappeared, and why even squads of riflemen became sort of "all arms" units rather than purely riflemen.) The failure to fully learn the lessons of World War I is why the French leadership failed so badly at the start of World War II, and perhaps why the American Army so badly bungled the Hurtgen forest operation (which made World War appear not quite as bad in comparison).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 04:23 pm: Edit

As an example, you could take that time when SVC was running a "Die in Place" scenario, and I as a Company Team Commander found myself with no option (if the primary mission was to have any chance of successful accomplishment in the face of my own previous failure) but to order one of the platoons under my command to, quite literally, "die in place."

SVC thought literally at that moment that I was just being mean or rejecting the tactical advice of the officer in charge of that platoon. But it was a game, so we could freeze things and I could explain that, tactically, if that platoon pulled back in response to that attack at that point, the whole position would have been lost, the entire company team destroyed, either dead or prisoners of the enemy, the mission (holding a choke point in a pass) failed.

There was a plan in place if parts of the position became non-viable, i.e., a "final redoubt" that the company team could occupy to continue to deny the enemy free passage through the pass.

The problem was that to pull the elements of the company team into the final redoubt was going to take time, a precious and absolutely necessary 10 minutes, and if we did not have that 10 minutes, it was over. So that platoon had to stand where it was, and literally be annihilated, so that the rest of the company team could reach the redoubt.

You cannot take the time to explain that to another officer over the radio when the action is happening. You have to give the order based on your overall view of things as the commander, and move on to the next set of orders that are needed to execute the plan (in this case pull the rest of the company team into the redoubt).

The officer in charge of the platoon has to execute the order, trusting that the fact you are giving it means you are already aware of what is going on and that the order is correct.

Hollywood in its depiction of junior officers getting orders over a radio, or by messenger, from obviously disinterested and unaffected superiors simply does not grasp that the system only works if the junior officers trust that the senior officers are making the best choices they can, and the senior officers are trusting the junior officers to carry out the orders as best they can.

In the case of my order, if the officer in charge of that platoon had decided that I was wrong and pulled the platoon out on his own initiative, or if his men fled the position (deserted) on their own initiative, the whole position would have been lost.

I wish I could express that need for trust and discipline both up and down the command chain better and more clearly. And, yes, I am aware of plenty of cases where senior officers were wrong, but also aware of cases where junior officers thought the senior officers were wrong that also led to disaster.

But as I have noted before, one of the horrors of combat leadership is that mistakes are paid for, and sometimes redeemed, in the only specie that matters on the battlefield: Blood.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 05:19 pm: Edit

You must understand Hollywood. A officer that always obeys commands is boring. Hollywood wants the bad boy hero that does what he/she wants and disobeys the rules because the rules of course are wrong. What fun is a hero that always does what the boss says.. Sigh that is Hollywood.

It is not real but it is what they believe.

By John Williams (Johndw) on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 10:33 pm: Edit

Loved the first season of The Orville, I think for the most part they struck a nice balance of comedy without it overshadowing the drama and character development. Can't wait for season 2, 8/10.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - 12:53 am: Edit

So, it's been just under a week since The World of The Orville went on sale. Has anyone here taken a look at it, or perhaps might have it on their interest list?

I would be curious to see if a similar book might appear next year, with equivalent material from season 2. Or, for that matter, if there might be some sort of "in-universe" volume, with more details on the Union, the Krill, and other aspects of the star-faring galactic community.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 23, 2018 - 05:58 pm: Edit

A new trailer has been posted for season 2 of The Orville.