The Orville

[Reddish Mage]

Spoiler: New Dimensions

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Also, it'll cause all KINDS of professional difficulties if Captain Mercer and Commander Grayson get back together. Just sayin'.

Spoiler: Old Problem

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Given the mood of the show, I’m sure they have no problems going there if they ever work out their differences (or the right pheromones manage to get aboard). I think this would be perfect for the show. Right now the rapport between the two is strained and I think they’ve exhausted what’s funny about the relationship. The show can’t just play it straight as exes that work together. This show is overdue for a badly-done take on workplace sex scandals.

[BannedInSchool]

Warning: The title of this latest episode (2017-12-07) is spoilery, so maybe avoiding reading it will add some surprise.

[Reddish Mage]

Spoiler: Latest Episode

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So they get together one night, change the destiny of an entire planet's civilization, and decide that they are better off apart so they can be professional. I am disappointed they didn't do more with the romance. Not to say I think the Mercer/Grayson dynamic is going to remain stable.

I also noticed a lack of too many jokes once the story picked up steam. Most of them occurred early on, with Captain Mercer showing us again and again how extremely awkward he can be.

As a serious show, the plots are just low-brow versions of classic Star Trek plots, executed in a very breezy manner. This one was also quite predictable. The show shines in episodes where the character's unique flaws determine the contours of the entire episode. Like the one on the Doctor Finn's kids ("into the fold"), or Alara ("Firestorm"), or even the last episode with LaMarr. Orveille is at its best when the unique dysfunctions and talents of the crew contribute to the story itself.

Getting hungover and blundering into becoming God doesn't count.

[MikelaC1]

Spoiler: Latest episode

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If you reverse engineer this planets time line back, it rapidly becomes untenable.

[Pex]

Seth McFarlane's anti-religion bias shines through. I let the one liner crack in the Krill spy episode go. For this episode I saw where they were going, but it was ok. It combined the Picard as god episode of Star Trek The Next Generation with the accelerated planet of time of Voyager. I was enjoying the episode for the episode's sake. It was all fine and dandy. However, when they got to the "Catholic" Pope they crossed the line. It was no longer just a tv show. They broke the fourth wall in an insulting way. I stopped watching. This one incident won't make me stop watching The Orville, but it has its first strike.

Obligatory: I am not Catholic.

[Renegade Paladin]

Seth McFarlane's anti-religion bias shines through. I let the one liner crack in the Krill spy episode go. For this episode I saw where they were going, but it was ok. It combined the Picard as god episode of Star Trek The Next Generation with the accelerated planet of time of Voyager. I was enjoying the episode for the episode's sake. It was all fine and dandy. However, when they got to the "Catholic" Pope they crossed the line. It was no longer just a tv show. They broke the fourth wall in an insulting way. I stopped watching. This one incident won't make me stop watching The Orville, but it has its first strike.

Obligatory: I am not Catholic.

Well, for your edification:

Spoiler

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The "Pope" decided to repudiate the religion, but before he could, the "cardinal" assassinated him. The planet continued as before, and the world came out in the 21st century with religion in public school debates and coverage of sectarian strife in their Middle East analogue on their television signals. They decided to leave Isaac behind on the planet to try for a second fix because he doesn't age, and the episode ends with his return by a culture on technological par with or slightly ahead of the Union.

[Reddish Mage]

I can't help but notice that Christianity drawn on whenever a sci-fi, or even fantasy, show or book wants to show religion (with the exception of some very vaguely defined paganism). Whether its the aesthetics, the tenants of the religion, history, iconography, whatever. That includes such classics as Planet of the Apes. Even the Krill ceremony was set up in a space with a raised space in back, pews in front, and a big book on a dais to read. It goes back to at least Asimov's works and probably further. Your offense may be a valid expression of your feelings of the material, but I would like to point out Orville is hardly a novel offender of the genre.

[Renegade Paladin]

I suspect because it's what most of the target audience will readily be able to recognize as general religious trappings. After all, most sci-fi is written for an American audience.

[Pex]

I'm well aware The Orville is not the first to engage in anti-religion bigotry. Star Trek that's not The Original Series is a major offender. At least in Star Trek there was no contempt. (Ok, Janeway contempted.) Vedec/Kai Wynn was a Villain who used religion as her weapon. The religion itself was respected. Seth McFarlane wrote this episode. I blame him rather than the concept of The Orville.

I give beautiful contrast to Bayblon 5. There's a science fiction show that had great respect for religion, including Earth. How they showed Earth's dominant religion, namely a representative line of all of them, was brilliant. Ivanova sitting Shiva (Judaism) was also well done.

In another instance, I think it was in an episode of The Outer Limits reboot about an exploration vessel visiting a planet whose star had gone nova. There were remnants of a civilization that perished. A priest was among the crew, and he needed to be consoled. Based on calculations, the light of the nova had reached Earth at the time of the birth of Jesus. Namely, the light in the sky the Wise Men saw was the nova. The priest was upset that his faith started at the cost of this alien civilization. Faith won out at the thought of the Righteousness of the civilization to have played their important role.

[thompur]

I'm well aware The Orville is not the first to engage in anti-religion bigotry. Star Trek that's not The Original Series is a major offender. At least in Star Trek there was no contempt. (Ok, Janeway contempted.) Vedec/Kai Wynn was a Villain who used religion as her weapon. The religion itself was respected. Seth McFarlane wrote this episode. I blame him rather than the concept of The Orville.

I give beautiful contrast to Bayblon 5. There's a science fiction show that had great respect for religion, including Earth. How they showed Earth's dominant religion, namely a representative line of all of them, was brilliant. Ivanova sitting Shiva (Judaism) was also well done.

In another instance, I think it was in an episode of The Outer Limits reboot about an exploration vessel visiting a planet whose star had gone nova. There were remnants of a civilization that perished. A priest was among the crew, and he needed to be consoled. Based on calculations, the light of the nova had reached Earth at the time of the birth of Jesus. Namely, the light in the sky the Wise Men saw was the nova. The priest was upset that his faith started at the cost of this alien civilization. Faith won out at the thought of the Righteousness of the civilization to have played their important role.

That was based on a short story by Larry Niven entitled "The Star". I remember watching that episode. I later read the story and was impressed by how "faithful" the show was to the book.

[akma]

I can't help but notice that Christianity drawn on whenever a sci-fi, or even fantasy, show or book wants to show religion (with the exception of some very vaguely defined paganism).

Are you sure it's an international thing? All the examples you listed were from north America. Off the top of my head I can think of a few anime examples, and some counter examples, and only one example which can be considered as showing a religion like christianity as "the religion of evil". I can't think of examples for this from my country, but I barely watch local shows and there aren't much scifi and fantasy being made locally.

I guess it's easy to use christianity as it is a widely known religion that it is considered okay to attack. If another religion was used the creators would seem more like bigots, and the audience might not be as familiar with the religion.

EDIT, since I actually entered this thread to talk about the Orville and not christianity:
This show seems to like very clear paths. Religion is always the same way, civilizations go through the same phases of development, the crew always make the right moral choice (at least in the Moclan episode there was a discussion about it, but all of the crew choose the same way). There is a very clear "way of everything", it goes further then religion is evil.

(I skipped the majority rule and half of Cupid's dagger, I hope they don't contradict my point)

[Reddish Mage]

Are you sure it's an international thing? All the examples you listed were from north America. Off the top of my head I can think of a few anime examples, and some counter examples, and only one example which can be considered as showing a religion like christianity as "the religion of evil". I can't think of examples for this from my country, but I barely watch local shows and there aren't much scifi and fantasy being made locally.

I guess it's easy to use christianity as it is a widely known religion that it is considered okay to attack. If another religion was used the creators would seem more like bigots, and the audience might not be as familiar with the religion.

Watch more anime, its a fairly common theme to use Christian themes and pin them on villains. Basically, the numbered Final Fantasy from at least VI on (and tactics of course) inverts a lot of Christian themes.

Then again, I'm not sure how many people notice that there are Jewish Kabbalistic diagrams getting thrown up all the time as well...its not a coincidence that the Final Fantasy villains name is "Sephiroth" and they are all these magic orbs...garr.

So, its not exclusively Christian, but there is a tendency to appropriate religion for sci-fi and fantasy themes. That tendency is not just American. Chronicles of Narnia was written by a British guy.

I wouldn't say there's any one depiction to religion either. There is this post-enlgihtenment theme that religion is primitive floating around Sci-Fi, but sometimes its aimed specifically at extremism, and Sci-Fi and fantasy in general capture religion as a basic human (or intelligent life) activity.

This show seems to like very clear paths. Religion is always the same way, civilizations go through the same phases of development, the crew always make the right moral choice (at least in the Moclan episode there was a discussion about it, but all of the crew choose the same way). There is a very clear "way of everything", it goes further then religion is evil.

(I skipped the majority rule and half of Cupid's dagger, I hope they don't contradict my point)

They don't. Orville is not deep, it doesn't give multiple perspectives, its attitudes are pretty black and white.

Not that it is going for "religion as evil" at best it was "religion is born from primitive ignorance and at a certain stage of development is used as a way to maintain a particular power structure." Really Orville didn't differ much from any of the previous Star Trek episodes that dealt with similar themes here. This story could have used the crew of any Enterprise and it would not have been out of place.

[Knaight]

So, its not exclusively Christian, but there is a tendency to appropriate religion for sci-fi and fantasy themes. That tendency is not just American. Chronicles of Narnia was written by a British guy.

Narnia is a terrible example here - it's not appropriating religion for fantasy themes, it's appropriating fantasy themes to write Christian propaganda. There's a reason that things like plot coherence will get bent to ridiculous extremes to make a theological point where theological points don't get bent to ridiculous extremes to make the plot work.

[Reddish Mage]

Narnia is a terrible example here - it's not appropriating religion for fantasy themes, it's appropriating fantasy themes to write Christian propaganda. There's a reason that things like plot coherence will get bent to ridiculous extremes to make a theological point where theological points don't get bent to ridiculous extremes to make the plot work.

I agree, Narnia has no place among works casually appropriating religion. Narnia did it very deliberately with a well-thought out plan in place by someone who studied Christianity and thought about these things all his life.

Still the point has been made, religion is generically appropriated to make points in sci-fi and fantasy and its hardly exclusive to any one show, franchise, or country.

[Zalabim]

Narnia, for me, is still in the 'what do you mean it's religious?' folder, even after people have tried pointing out the "obvious" allegories. This can either be an examination on "obvious" or on "allegories" as a literary device, but that's apparently just me.