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Incompetent First Contact
Feb. 5th, 2019 08:42 amI've been a fan of Fox's new SF series The Orville since it came out. Having said that, "a fan" does not mean "thinks show is perfect." And it's not. The case in point is whenever our heroes have a first contact situation. As discussed with spoilers by Camestros Felapton, the most recent episode had a very flawed first contact.
The story started out promising enough. A humanoid-because-of-budget-reasons society sends out a radio message asking "is anybody out there?" The crew of the Orville receive that message and determine it's a first contact. They are very pleased with that fact, and happy to answer the question.
Things go reasonably well until after the first commercial break. Then they don't, which is what has to happen in a first contact story. That's when the story goes off the rails.
Camestros blames the writers and I agree. Simply put, the writers aren't really science fiction writers. They haven't thought through their world, both in general and in this particular case. It shows. For Camestros, this whole show is a "tribute" (AKA "cover") band for Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'm not sure if I agree or disagree.
The story started out promising enough. A humanoid-because-of-budget-reasons society sends out a radio message asking "is anybody out there?" The crew of the Orville receive that message and determine it's a first contact. They are very pleased with that fact, and happy to answer the question.
Things go reasonably well until after the first commercial break. Then they don't, which is what has to happen in a first contact story. That's when the story goes off the rails.
Camestros blames the writers and I agree. Simply put, the writers aren't really science fiction writers. They haven't thought through their world, both in general and in this particular case. It shows. For Camestros, this whole show is a "tribute" (AKA "cover") band for Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'm not sure if I agree or disagree.
