Jay G.

It's worse than that. Seth hosted an extra on the TNG Season 3 Blu-ray set called "Inside The Writer's Room."

He shows an encyclopedic knowledge of the show and a huge love of it.

Seth clearly pitched it to FOX as a comedy, as that's his wheelhouse, but he clearly wants to recreate TNG.

General Zod

I'm OK with that. Really. Star Trek has been off the screen far too long and there's still plenty to tell. I always looked at this as another Starfleet vessel with a different crew. Yeah it's Union instead of Starfleet but otherwise.. pretty much the same.

I enjoyed the lighter take on it all though.. until this week.

robin2099

Transgender politics was definitely there. Whether it was about talking about letting them decide, loving them no matter what, and some other parts it was there. Like I said, when Star Trek did it in the 60's it was a different time and TV was a powerful way to get a message out. Today we are exposed to politics in TV shows, Facebook posts, Twitter posts, Google updates, 24 hour news networks, newspapers it just never ends. When I watch TV now, I just want to be entertained, and not hear about some writers political belief because he thinks it makes him important.

I do have a legit question though. Like I said, I'm not a Trekkie. The only Star Trek exposure I have is the new movies(which I do like) but never watched the series, DS9, TNG or any of them and I don't see why a fan would want to watch this? It just comes across as such a bad want to be clone that I don't understand why a Star Trek fan would watch it. Even worse, it seems like it doesn't know what it wants to be. You feel like Fox wants comedy, but Seth wants it to be serious.

General Zod

For me, as a life long Trekkie, there's a lot about this that appeals to me. First off it's lighter than the Star Trek series so the characters can be a zany as they want and it's not going to be "out of character" for anyone. If they had a dancing bad guy on the holodeck of TNG everyone would wonder what that was even doing in the show. Even Joe Piscapo's appearance in TNG was restrained.

I also like that it's not Star Trek so it's not stuck in some canon that it has to work within the restraints of. Trek has been worked over to death and something like it that can start anew is very appealing to me.

DeadLamb

a lot of people, myself included, just grew up with star trek being the only real space themed show around in all it's different forms over the decades. So that results in a ton of casual like fans who enjoy trek like stuff but are not fanatics about the purity of the story lines or whatever.

plus how many spin off, films, and films of spins off have been made over the years? What's one more on that HUGE pile of shows that have made? Only this time we get a humor twist to it. Star Trek is the "Law and Order" of Sci Fi shows, what's one more of the same basic theme?

Jason

Fine. Paramount has no interest in doing it right. Someone else might as well do it. Maybe he can adapt Axanar to the Orville-verse.

Caught the second half of Thursday night's episode. I think will start describing this to people as Star Trek without the stick up its ass.

Abob Teff

^ I like Jason's description!

This episode could have been a bit more ... well, a bit more anything. The humor was really toned down, which may be appropriate for the subject matter. I just wish they had hit the subject matter a little harder -- the Orville crew never really reconciled their imposition of beliefs with what happened.

I was confused like Josh-da-man ... we were told the Moclans are a single-gender species, but they aren't. Females exist, they just don't have a role in reproduction. But that then begs the question: in the Moclan species is "female" actually a gender or just a physical mutation/deformity?

General Zod

Well at the beginning they said girls are born only every 75 years or so. I'm not sure how old Klyden is or the lady in the cave. I suppose Klyden could be 75 and the lady in the cave 150. Who knows. But it sure seems like it happens more often than we are led to believe.

Red Dog

Agreed and agreed.

This felt like a TNG episode had TNG not started until now.

It worked for me.

As for comedy, I think some people forget how great S2 of TOS was - with several dopey comedic episodes - that are fan favorites. Look at it this way - if A Piece of the Action never existed, and they basically did that word for word in this series, it would probably fit in nicely.

Maybe McFarlane is trying to find that middle ground between TOS and TNG. We'll see.

Josh-da-man

Maybe the Moclans are the ultimate MGOTW species, where, at some point in the past, they have genetically engineered the males to be able to asexually reproduce/lay eggs and then carried out a pogrom to eliminate the entire female gender from their species through gender reassignment.

It does seem rather dodgy that they claim there is only one female born every 75 years, but we have three in this episode. Could be a conspiracy.

whotony

I really like the show.

i hope it continues to be interesting and they can up the quality of the f/x.

As for the woman in the cave I was a little confused about that part.
Early in the ep the Moclan 2nd Officer, forget his name, quoted a poem.
Then later during the trial they mentioned a poet by name, was that the same person who wrote the poem that was quoted and was this supposed to be the woman who was living in the cave?

General Zod

Yes exactly. To show how one of the worlds greatest poets was actually a woman. Although.. she could have made up the fact that it was her. Obviously nobody had actually seen the famous author since she was hiding out in a cave.

tanman

3 episodes in and I am really loving this show. I like that it's more than just a straight parody of Star Trek which is what I was expecting. The productions values are pretty decent it's visually appealing and the music really reminds me of TNG Star Trek/Epcot music. That kind of futuristic hopeful sound. I don't know if I just miss TV Star Trek that much but it pulls just enough of it to have lots of potential while also removing a lot of the baggage that 50 years of Star Trek can have.

They just have to find the right balance between humor and seriousness. I hope it does well enough to at least have a full season.

Eric F

Holy shit. If Ursala K. Le Guin gets wind of this latest episode she's going to sue the hell out of FOX. Complete rip-off of The Left Hand of Darkness. I know MacFarlane loves his classic sci-fi but that was pretty damn blatant.

RichC2

This show is cheap looking disposable fluff, but it's enjoyable enough time filler even if it's nothing great. Ill keep watching it in spurts.

hdnmickey

Loved that latest episode. Perfect blending of a comedy and a plot that delivers a worthy message. And it ended differently than I was expecting. When they gave that percentage stat about the number of females born I figured they were going to prove that the number was secretly far higher and the government was behind the cover-up. That essentially 30-50% of the "jury" was actually born female. Based on the husband's confession and backstory, the switch so complete that even the converted cannot tell they had the operation. But thesecret female folk hero things works too.

mphtrilogy

I like this show a lot more than the new Star Trek...

Noonan

Nitpick here but if that one officer (can't remember her name) is so strong due to different gravity on their home planet, how does that effect them not getting hurt as well? Took a punch from the Moclan dude without flinching. How does gravity effect that?

Hope the show catches its stride; could end up being very enjoyable.

randian

It doesn't, and she shouldn't have knocked him back into the wall, she should have crushed his chest.

Giantrobo

It's straight out of Superman Comics. I'm guessing she is dense like Superman.

Yep. It's like when they allow Superman to punch humans. Really? A being that can lift cars, tanks, and ships can hit a human and not splatter them? I'm guessing a LOT of pulling punches is going on here.

Why So Blu?

Surprising that folks can't see that she pulled her punch.

milo bloom

Seth just out-Trekked Star Trek here. As someone said above, this is splitting the difference between TOS and TNG that both series only occasionally hit upon.

I'm only slightly enjoying Discovery but I'm really looking forward to more Orville.

bunkaroo

Also enjoying the show. I don't really care if it's a total ripoff and not trying to be goofy - I just like watching it.

Supermallet

Five minutes of this feels more like Star Trek than eighty minutes of Discovery.

RichC2

While it isn't a comedy, it doesn't have any sort of super serious overtone running through it which is beneficial for a show like this.