"The Orville". A Seth McFarlane Space Adventure on Fox

[Treadwell]

I'm kind of tired of the modern arc trend anyway.

 

[Strikerkc]

"monster of the week" can be pretty rewarding too

 

[knightdriver2001]

I wish they would break away from all these relationship episodes. Every episode is the same thing lately. First season was great. This one really drags out with the same content every week. The Alara episode was the only decent one. Hope it picks up a bit. The episodes don't stink by any means but all we seem to get is a bunch of lonely crew members with drinking problems. LOL

 

[Riceball]

"monster of the week" can be pretty rewarding too

Esp. when they do it the way they've been doing it on The Orville where there's no reset button. So while there may be no overall story arc to each season, they don't forget what happens in previous episodes either.

 

[Laspector]

There doesn't need to be an overall arc. What was the overall arc of ST:OS? What was the overall arc of Next Gen? The two best Trek series ever. Seth has already said this series is episodic and just about "idea of the week" with the possibility of occasional two parters.

I like it that way.

 

[Strikerkc]

Yea, the closest next gen seemed to get to "arc" was recurring, off ship, characters. The "half tasha yar romulan" (or whatever the heck she was supposed to be), a few of her lackeys, Spock, Q, Lore, Dianna's Mother, and villains doing new things ("why are the borg on a snow planet now? Hmm, the Romulans have sued for peace? uhg, not another Ferengi ship.").

all stuff Orville has shown it's planning to do.

 

[Cephus]

There doesn't have to be an overall arc for the whole series, but right now, the show seems to be spinning its wheels, not actually going anywhere. They've talked about the Krill war, we've seen them once or twice, but why not expand that into something ongoing? You can still have the stand-alone episodes, but you'll still be moving the overall story in some direction.

 

[robn1]

That seems to be what they're doing. We've seen the Krill in three or four episodes across two seasons, like I said arcs take time to form. TNG and DS9 had their arcs, but they spent the first two or three seasons establishing the characters and the world first.

 

[Richard Baker]

Most shows these days seemed to always have to have a big story arc- I am fine with stand alone shows which have some continuity between them. 'The Orville' is world building and when you think about it a lot has happened already. I am rewatching the shows from the very beginning (just watched the second episode last night) and the show has really evolved from then.
I think one mistake Star Trek Enterprise made was starting off with the Temporal War story arc- we had a bunch of stuff happening before we even got to know the characters.

 

[Axlotl]

Just the two episodes they've done with the Krill so far has me excited to see where they go with it.
There's your arc and world building right there. How's THAT gonna play out?

 

[Laspector]

I don't want this show to get into some big long story arc. That's what I liked about the OS and Next Gen. I can just pick any episode and watch it and enjoy it. I don't have to watch the preceding 15 episodes to know what is going on.

 

[AJTaliesen]

I don't want this show to get into some big long story arc. That's what I liked about the OS and Next Gen. I can just pick any episode and watch it and enjoy it. I don't have to watch the preceding 15 episodes to know what is going on.

Agreed. I like arcs when you actually have a story to tell. It works amazingly well for Game of Thrones.

Unfortunately, the popularity of shows like that has convinced networks that ONLY shows like that can work, and that stand alone episodes are dead. It's nice to see stand alones return. For one thing: the long running arc is often garbage when it's not planned out and just is the writers rambling on to fill whatever length they get renewed for.

 

[zapwizard]

"This has to be the strangest thing to happen on this ship, right?" That scene was golden.

Glad to see I am not the only one who noticed that there has been a bit to much of the relationship episodes. Perhaps this is just them fleshing out all the various character relationships, and hopefully it doesn't become "Friends, In Space!"

The graphics and makeup budget seems to be increased this season, so hopefully that means more stories involving space battle. After all they are "the military".

 

[Strikerkc]

shoot, they've even set up the initial ideas of "How the hell can we stay allied with Maklus?", which I expect is something we'll see come to at least some sort of larger head at some point.

 

[Richard Baker]

I stopped watching the X-Files wen the series went into it's massive conspiracy arc- someone would say something and everyone would exchange meaningful looks and I had no clue was to why that statement was important (felt more stupid than entertained).

'The Orville' does seem to be quietly setting a number of things into place for future stories further down the line.

EDIT
The Mr Potatohead joke is an excellent example

 

[G W Zipper]

My wife tolerates my love of Star Trek (-ish) shows, but doesn't watch every episode of the Orville like I do. I shared the robot love episode with her though, and she loved it. She wouldn't have been able to jump in quite so easily were there a big story are. I'm a fan of episodic stories, if they make sense to be such.

 

[Laspector]

I just hope this show doesn't get caught up too completely in the "let's discuss social issues disguised as science fiction" scenario. I love the show but every episode doesn't have to comment on society.

God forbid this show turns in that Supergirl ********.

 

[Richard Baker]

Something occurred to me when I was posting in another forum.
Parts of the episode could be a big setup for a future conflict with the Moclans. It was said it was hard to imagine how Earth and Moclan could even get along with so much fundamental differences between their civilizations. The Moclans just re-engineered the Orville's shielding with one of the changes tripping security protocol- I wonder if they installed a back door override which might be used later...

 

[Treadwell]

Yeah, and what was the deal with that torpedo?

 

[Strikerkc]

I just hope this show doesn't get caught up too completely in the "let's discuss social issues disguised as science fiction" scenario. I love the show but every episode doesn't have to comment on society.

God forbid this show turns in that Supergirl ********.

I doubt it. especially as a show that's from the creator of Family Guy. the crude shall continue, even if tempered by discussion topics

... I wonder if they installed a back door override which might be used later...

Doubtful, That seemed more like just a good set up for why they had the engineer on the ship, and to help illustrate how/why differences in culture were overlooked/ignored/not researched in early Union/Moclan alliance... they are good at what they do, and while they require very severe obedience from their own, they don't seem to be in the mood to get the rest of the galaxy to act the same way (just to never interfere with their way). But then you start having shared spaces aboard ships, family units trying to follow Moclan ways in places that aren't Moclan, it's showing the strain of things that could come.

Yeah, and what was the deal with that torpedo?

Sometimes a knife is just a knife, and sometimes a torpedo is just an excuse to have the joke "Didn't I say no torpedoes? Yea, I was right there when you said it. No torpedoes."

and back to them just being really good at what they do. The moclans likely test that shield upgrade on their own ships with torpedoes, cause they know it works, so, freaking torpedoes away!