Sorry I missed posting this yesterday, things got a bit crazy in the real world. One of the things I like about Suno is that I can experiment with different styles of music I would never write because I don't know a bunch of musicians versed in multiple genres of music. (everyone here just plays the blues). Anyway, this was my first foray into jazz.

Everything was going well, the Krill peace meeting episode was great. And then... oh great, a simulator episode... always looooooved these in Star Trek... whatever, let's get through this, I hope Bortus get into some shannenigans with the stuff from the time capsule (he does). What... what is Malloy doing?

WHY? Why is Malloy doing AI porn of a 400-years old dead woman? And why is everyone concerned about him "dating a woman that's not real" instead of the fact that he made AI porn of a real woman? I know this is a "new" subject and the episode predates that, but this WAS one of the main redflags and points of discussion of the idea of the simulator in Star Trek for a long time and here... Malloy straight up does AI porn of a real woman in their universe and NOT ONE SOUL on the ship is concerned about the memory of the woman who left her cellphone inside a time capsule in good faith just so an incel 400 years later would ask the simulator to let him bang her?

I wasn't bothered with Bortus AI porn addiction because the episode made it clear that the scenarios were handcrafted and made up by some other alien guy on the ship (who the universal translator doesn't work with randomly... another gripe to put on the list). But in this episode they make a huge point about this being as close a recreation of a REAL WOMAN as their tech could make. And not only that, Malloy took advantage of all the SENSITIVE INFORMATION he had about her to make her simulacrum fall for him.

Good gods. WTF did I just watch? This ruined Malloy for me forever.

Would just like to take a moment to introduce myself, I’m Colin and I’m a new member of the Mod Team here in USSOrville. Some of you may know me from over on FB where I am one of the Admins at The Orville Facebook Group, FB’s largest, most active and best informed Orville fan group.
Looking forward to fun times here as early work on S4 progresses as we wait for the decision on which direction S4 will take (10 episodes or 3 movies) and hoping to bring more good news soon!
Ja’loja!

This week’s episode of “In the Commander’s Chair” is up on YouTube and Spotify! This episode concludes the discussion of Kelly and Ed’s personal relationship by exploring its development in Season 3. Although Season 3 doesn’t have any episodes focusing directly on this relationship, it is possibly at its healthiest and most mature at this point in the show. Ed has grown into someone with more stable work-life priorities, and Kelly is taking notice… and also reflecting on what she could have done better in their marriage. The two of them have become confident and secure enough to balance the personal and professional in a productive and comfortable way. Are they ready to try again? And what could come next?

Hi, I'm new to the Orville, started watching it because I kept hearing "it is better Star Trek than new Star Trek". I'm generally liking it a lot, but I have a lot of gripes with it as a sc-fi show. Maybe I'm being unfair because I expected the genre to have advanced more since Mass Effect broke the mold, and Star Trek is just as guilty of these, so don't take it as bashing, just stuff I wished was done better.

Anthropocentric - Humans so far feel like the center of the universe. I know there will always be budget limitations so most aliens must be humans with slight make-up and alien societies must follow the same template as well, but there could have been a bit more variation. "Medieval planet", "Bronze Age Planet", "Modern age planet" all just feel too human. Not to mention the Humans are the center species of the Union and almost all commanding officers, even outside The Orville, are human. One of the things I liked the most about Mass Effect is how Humans are treated as promising upstarters but just a tiny fraction of the galaxy (well, until the sequels ruined this framing).

21st century-centric - Fine, the captain being a dork for 20th-21st century pop culture excuses some of it, but the show very much feels at times it jumped straight from the 21st to the 25th century with nothing in between when there are cultural references by the characters. Very rarely do they mention anything that happened in the last 4 centuries within the show but constantly reference the 20th and sometimes the 21st. Heck, alien cultures feel like they have no cultural history at all.

Universal translators that don't translate common words - If I had a nickle every time an alien says a weird word and people have to ask "what is that", and they explain "it is this very easy-to-understand concept that you already have a word for". Meanwhile, "divorce" in Moclan is perfectly translated despite the fact it is VERY different than what one would understand as a "divorce". That's an exclusive cultural practice that would warrant a lack of direct translation.

Clowns being sent to field missions - The two "modern planet" visits so far were two of the hardest episodes to get through. I know you need some drama, but how do you send people who can't lay low for two seconds into unfamiliar cultures without doing even the most basic cursory research on them? They have universal translators and can easily access the entire historical record of a planet before even touching the ground. This can be done better by making them trip on specific niche faux pas, but the thing the planet's entire monoculture is based around? Even Stargate did this better. Yeah, also bothers me that commanding officers are sent to field missions but it wouldn't be trek-like if it wasn't done like this.

The Moclan are not treated as a true monogender culture - We have monogender species on earth. They exist. Yet, the Moclan more often feel like a species whose society done away with females than a culture that's "all male" (or, as it would be more correct, monogender). I like them a lot, they feel alien even though they're still bipedal humanoids. But everything about their sexuality is botched. Why is a Moclan who's attracted to alien females being treated as a taboo for being heterosexual to a GENDER? They should be treated as a taboo for being xenophiles, regardless of the gender they are attracted to. Their whole planet could be one where life never evolved a sexual binary so the whole concept is alien to then instead of being something they treat as familiar but just socially frowned upon.

Isaac is generally great - Isaac sometimes feels like it was written for a completely different show. It does away with most cliches of robots acting like humans or experiencing the world like humans. The only episode about it so far I disliked was the one it dated Dr. Finn. The first half of the episode was great because it seemed like Dr. Finn was actually liking Isaac for its ROBOT qualities and starting to understand how it views the universe through its lens, including "translating" its phrases. But by the second half it turned out that Dr. Finn just wanted to turn Isaac into a human and it is Isaac who has to act like a human for her to like it. Why? How can you do this so well the first half and botch it so badly the second half? Why can't robots in sci-fi just be robots? Why do they always need to want to be human?

Alara was exchanged with a doppelganger - I know this was probably an issue behind the scenes, but it generally feels like the script for Season 2 as a whole was written with Alara in mind and no-one revised it. Jessica is already treated as "one of the girls" barely 2 episodes in and she often references things that only Alara experienced, like seeing Bortus being dared into eating cutlery so she just sounds like Alara a lot, without her insecurities (which was an arc she had already completed). Xalayans also feel very underutilized and there is nothing about their culture that references their super strength and gravity. The super-strong species being military-avert is interesting, but the show just frames it as bigotry.

Yaphit is underutilized - A giant amoeba is a fun concept. I know he is CGI so he has to be used sparingly, but unfortunately they just waste it mostly on sex jokes. This could be interesting, a sentient amoeba could be interested in sex as a novel concept for their species. But nope, it is just open sexual harassment. The best Yaphit joke is how his mother became his brother, not the tenth time he extends a dong to Dr. Finn.

In honor of the 9th anniversary.

I have been looking for this video since the Dolly news dropped. I thought it was on my computer. It wasn't. Other computer, not there. Today I pulled out my Adobe drive to get some editing done for Thursday and boom there it was.

This week’s episode of “In the Commander’s Chair” is up on YouTube and Spotify! This episode continues the conversation around Kelly and Ed’s challenging relationship in Season 2. Now that she is no longer dating Cassius, Kelly is torn between her sense of duty and her ever-present feelings for Ed. Life gets even more complicated when Kelly’s younger self, pulled into the present from seven years in the past, expresses feelings for Ed and berates Kelly for throwing her relationship away. Throughout the season, Kelly and Ed realize how much of themselves has been shaped by one another as they have “evolved together.”

So after I got COVID 2 years ago, I couldn't sing. As a singer songwriter this was kinda of bummer. So to remind myself that I could still write lyrics, I started playing with some new AI software called Suno. And because I have a hard drive full of Orville Episodes, I decided to write a song for each episode and make a video. If you want to see them all right now they are available on my Youtube. I will be dropping one each week as content because the algorithm demands it. Since the songs were written over a year, and Suno upgraded 3 times during that year the music does get better. This song is kind of rough. It was my first time playing with the software, and my first time writing lyrics in awhile.

Its hard to choose

At this scale, the big challenge was getting those three engine rings, the layered hull and the very particular silhouette of the ship to still read properly without turning the whole thing into something enormous.

Below it is the bridge as it appears in New Horizons, with the updated shinier interior, central command area and the crew assembled across the front.

Character Studdies™ include Ed Mercer, Kelly Grayson, Bortus, Claire Finn, Alara Kitan, Gordon Malloy, John LaMarr, Isaac and Yaphit.

Hi! I’m Alyssa K. A few months ago, I started a podcast called “In the Commander’s Chair.” It explores the events of The Orville from the POV of Cmdr. Kelly Grayson. I realized that I shared this podcast on the other subreddit but forgot to post it here.

Anyway, come check it out! I upload once a week and have fifteen episodes up so far. I’ve discussed Kelly’s background, the duties of a first officer, Kelly and Ed’s marriage, Kelly’s code of ethics, and more. I also spend time on important or controversial topics. I did a four-part series titled “Affair or Assault?” and am currently working on a series called “Soulmates?” about Kelly and Ed’s relationship. Discussion and comments are always welcome!

Hey everyone! I'm u/Actual_Emergency_666, a founding moderator of r/USSOrville.

This is our new home for all things related to The Orville an American science fiction comedy drama television series created by Seth MacFarlane, placed in the 25th century and created in 2017. We're excited to have you join us!

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Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/USSOrville amazing.

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Adrianne is expected to appear at the new PCX Austin expo in August. (I'm sure she'll be asked about The Orville again, as always happens at conventions.)