For general “what if the Federation were the bad guys,” people might like Farscape.
Of course most of you probably knew that already.
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'Twas a good show for the most part. It never really caught on for me since I only found Scorpius an engaging enough character. But it definitely did the best job of dirtying up the space opera genre that I’ve seen.
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I think that “that’s the joke” - it’s a commentary upon current events, but also unfortunately a symptom of them. So if not done with a lot of insight and sensitivity will fail as commentary and become self-parody.
I agree about the unfortunate name contrast, I would love a series actually about discovery rather than war and foolish space drama. But I’ll give it a chance.
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if that’s so, then would that hbo confederate show would fall into the same bin. ( pun points for british english? )
battlestar ( now there’s a name with truth in advertising ) tried to incorporate some of the themes of terrorism and american power. it never went too deep: more of a reflection than an exploration – but, as far as i remember, it wasn’t trotting out questionable tropes from the get go.
the hero who breaks all the rules, who’s ready and willing to fight, to fire first because everyone else is too naive? ugh just ugh.
i don’t feel like the theme of the show so far is commentary. i think this is about defining how ( american ) heroes should act.
and i don’t think it stacks up well.
and i expect you to tell us how it goes 
me, i’m over shows with racist overtones, shoot’em up do-gooders, and separately, shows about white men behaving badly ( sopranos, mad men, breaking bad, etc. ) – but, that’s what makes different people different.
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I don’t think you’re the only one. Remember how Confessions of a Shopaholic was released with a resounding thud just after the 2008 crisis hit? The “I love shopping” trope has never fully recovered. It’s sort of the same thing now with the two tropes you mentioned. Their time has gone, but I don’t think show runners/TV execs/TV writers have quite realised that yet.
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I like how on The Orville they acknowledge that teleportation is on a whole different level out of proportion to the rest of the technology on the show.
I don’t like how time travel seems to operate by the same rules as in Looper but whatever.
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it’s always a good time for MST3K
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Popular theory about Discovery is that it’s actually about Section 31. Since I’ve not watched it yet I’m not sure, but the scenes I’ve seen suggest the captain is at least a little bit evil.
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I’ve watched the first one, and that seems plausible.
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She was too good for Odo
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This week’s Orville was pretty good. The humor is settling down more toward the precedents from TNG, lots of teasing the big alien who never smiles and the robot who doesn’t understand stuff.
There are still a lot of pop-culture references to the twentieth century, but it’s really not any more absurd than all the aliens speaking English.
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Someone did indeed say “Star Trek.”
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I’ve been a casual fan of Trek all my life, grew up with TOS in re-runs, TNG came out when I was in high school, and I watched some of DS9. My movie viewership is spotty but I’ve ended up seeing a lot on TV if only in parts. I did see IV in the theater, though.
So I was curious about The Orville even though I soured on McFarland’s humor after a few seasons of Family Guy. But, I thought Galaxy Quest was awesome so I figured a parody idea would make a good show, too. I kept forgetting about the time-slot until a few weeks ago. Luckily, my first ep was the one with Charlize Theron, which the internet is telling me was the best one so far. It was actually funny and I was surprised that the plot was solid. Seeing Theron was a pleasant surprise, I had no idea she would be in it (she didn’t have to work very hard to out-act the rest of the cast, nothing against them, but it was nice.) The episode was the best I could have hoped for in terms of a parody that also tells a story worthy of its source.
Next week ended up being a re-run of the first ep, so I got to see what I missed, but, being a first ep, it was kinda dull. A few of the jokes landed, I guess. Then the other day was the “Reddit” episode. I was disappointed because it wasn’t very funny, but the idea was worth exploring, so that much was OK. Even so, I felt the pacing was uneven and the telling was sort of hamfisted.
Here’s hoping for more like my first viewing.
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I Tivo’d the first half-dozen episodes of Orville and finally got around to watching a few of them last week. I gave it my usual 3-episode try, but it fell flat for me. It seems like it can’t decide if its parody or straight sci-fi, it brings in all of the moralizing that can be so tedious in the Star Trek series, and the only levity it brings is, ironically, mildly offensive humor. I literally stopped the episode where the blob character shows off his erection to the doctor and said “that’s enough.” I won’t be coming back for that show.
On the other hand, I’ve been desperate to watch Discovery, but not desperate enough to buy in to CBS’s stupid pay wall. I guess I’ll just wait three years until the series is cancelled and it shows up on Netflix. Stupid CBS; way to kill the golden goose.
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