The Orville: A better Star Trek than Star Trek

What a ridiculous name for a StarShip.

The Orville.

Instead of going where no man has gone before...Instead of evoking visions of the first flight with the brothers Wright (as in Orville and Wilbur) 

I think of Redenbacher...

You know, the popcorn guy...

...and maybe that's the point.

But somewhere along the way Seth McFarlane managed to do something no Star Trek Series has done in 4 decades.  

In a time when the "official" Star Trek canon has been bastardized into some weird amalgamation of action movie meets Sci-Fi chic peppered with  liberal doses of gratuitous sex and violence for no other reason than they could.

Here comes a parody, a spoof, the comic relief of the genre that somehow managed to get it right.

The Orville while not as straight-laced as Star Trek: The Next Generation or as moody and lifeless as Discovery has more in common with the original series than either of them.

What made the original Star Trek series good was the writing and the chemistry of the actors.  You didn't have to club the viewer over the head with the message.  The drama made sense.  Tension had a reason and didn't have to be manufactured.  You cared about the characters, maybe even shed a tear at their pain.

Tonight while watching The Orville it happened for me.  Yes, it was campy in spots but there were moments every bit as poignant as the the best Star Trek episodes regardless of who sat in the captain's chair.  It touched me like any good Star Trek episode would.  It made me think.  It made me feel.

The Orville works for the same reason Star Trek worked in the 60's.  We can identify with the characters.  We can see ourselves in their trials and tribulations without being forced to.  I think of The Orville as kind of a Next Generation if Picard had a better sense of humor.

It's a funny show but not Family Guy kind of funny.  The laughs aren't forced, they're natural and fit the narrative.  The kind of thing you might say to a friend in a similar situation.

OK the obvious question....

"It's a show about being on a spaceship with alien people 400 years in the future.  How would I EVER be in a similar situation?"

That's the gist of it, it's relatable, recognizable.  Not in the way that Deep Space 9 was in defiling the rose colored glasses of Roddenberry's Star Trek universe by exposing its dark underbelly.  Its rai·son d'ê·tre  to make the future just as ugly as our present.

No, the problem with many of the Star Trek series that came after Kirk and Spock was that they took themselves too seriously.  Somewhere along the line, they forgot that just shoehorning a current event into a Science Fiction context wasn't enough to be relatable to those of us that were watching.

For any work of fiction to succeed it has to meet us half way.  It has to connect us to their world by reaching a hand out to ours. 

I've seen that happen repeatedly on The Orville.

In "Nothing Left on Earth Excepting the Fishes" a title which references "The King and I" we saw multiple story lines intersecting and filling out the narrative.  The most primary of which spoke to finding common ground.  Something very much in the public conscience and something only addressable through a narrative in the current political climate.

It's no surprise, however, with Star Trek heavy hitters like Andre Bormanis and Brannon Braga showing up in the show's credits.  In the previous episode "Home" we even saw a couple of veteran Star Trek actors in Robert Picardo ( the EMH from Voyager ) opposite John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox from Enterprise)

You don't have all of these celebrated Star Trek alumni  jumping onboard The Orville just because they need a paycheck.  They see it too.

Where Discovery is a militant, lifeless shell devoid of passion or reason for being other than just...being, The Orville has managed to bring us back to what good Sci-Fi should be.

It's not an action movie, it's not sexy or gratuitous just for the sake of being so.  It's not trying to make Star Trek into Mission Impossible: Space Camp.

It's good writing, a good story and a dose of humor just where it's needed.  Even if that means poking fun at it's progenitor.  

And the fans love it.

I've had a very positive view of  The Orville since it launched ( pardon the pun ) but this season seems to be raising the bar.

At the end of "....Fishes" there was a poignant scene where Ed ( Seth McFarlane ) sets free a Trill ( the primary antagonist species ) that  betrayed him by appearing as a human and starting a relationship just to lure him into a Trill trap.  As the scene closed and she boarded her shuttle, Billy Joel's "She's always a woman" played the episode out.

I literally felt that moment.  Maybe it was the song....no...not maybe....the song fit the story perfectly.

That's good writing, that's making something completely alien relatable. 

That's why The Orville is a better Star Trek than Star Trek...

Patience...

Things happen in their own time
 
What we all need...

Just a little patience.

For all our efforts

Let me start with this...

Regardless of the popularity of my TWIT posts this isn't one of them although the message may resonate with that subject matter.

A few days ago it was very cold here.  Uncharacteristically cold for the part of the country I live in.  As such anything below 30F makes the local news for days.  

It was night and I went out on my back porch to have a smoke break.  I'm a bit of a neat freak so I don't smoke in the house, car or anywhere else enclosed.  I suppose I suffer for my vices for the sake of my compulsions.

As I stood there in the dark, feeling the chill of the night air permeating all 4 layers of my vain attempts to ignore the cold I heard a strange sound.

There's a pool in the back yard and at night I'm not used to hearing anything related to it except for the sound of the pump.  This night something was different.

I heard what could only be the sound of something thrashing about in the water.  Of course I had to see what it was.

Let me preface my actions with this; I've had stray animals from the feline and feathered variety end up in the pool on multiple occasions.  I can't count how many birds and kittens I've saved from a watery grave.  

I have a respect for living things.  Especially those that don't know any better and end up in peril from a world dominated by man-made hazards nature never prepared them for.

I flipped on the back lights and found a small bird flapping hopelessly near the deep end of the pool.  I knew the water was near freezing being only slightly warmer than the air above it.

I retrieved my leaf net and scooped the little bird out placing him gently on one of the benches near the house.  No longer in danger of drowning and out of sight and easy reach of any of the neighborhood cats, I felt he was safe.

The night air was cutting though and the little bird was wet.  I retrieved a small towel and picked him up briefly to get most of the water off of him.  He let out a soft squawk in protest but gave no further resistance.  

Satisfied that I'd at least gotten him mostly dry without traumatizing him too badly I let him be.  It was below freezing and while I wanted to bring the bird in the house to warm up a bit I could tell it would just traumatize him more so I did the next best thing and made him a little lean-to kind of structure out of an old stiff terry cloth mop head I'd found in a closet.  

I put it over him and he nestled into one side and after a short while went to sleep.

I checked on him throughout the night and in the morning I was happy to find that he had gone.  As in flew away BTW not lifeless on the pavement or a cat's dinner. 

It felt good that maybe I had a hand in saving the little bird.  Left in the pool he wouldn't have lasted much longer and I can't help but think that my discovery of his predicament was no accident.

To do a kindness to the helpless is never in vain but there was another lesson in store for me...

Tonight I walked out on my back porch again and while the air was still cold, it didn't bite quite as much as the night I found that little bird flapping helplessly in the water.

I noticed that against the dim moonlight reflecting on the pool was something out of place.  I'd thought it was just some leaves until I flipped on the lights just as I'd did that night.

If you've guessed that I found the same little bird again you're right but this time I was too late to save him.

He hung in the water lifeless but stoic with wings firm against his tiny body with head held erect as if defying his sad end.

It struck me.

I hadn't saved him at all only delayed what was an inevitable end.

I may have facilitated another day of life but the lesson hadn't been learned.  There he was in the same predicament but this time nobody to save him.

It brought to mind something that I'd been thinking about.  Not so much an epiphany as an affirmation of belief.

That as hard as we may try to influence the fate of others it is ultimately up to them.  Free will is the cornerstone of many belief and societal systems.  That we can do as we please even to our own detriment.  

Sometimes a gift isn't accepted.  Living things have free will regardless of whether we agree with it or not.  

If our moral compass is wrong it's up to us to discover it.  Nobody else can set it right.  

That little bird chose to fly back into the pool.  I can't know the reason but the choice to fly into oblivion was his regardless of my efforts.

We can't truly know the mind of another we can only guess.  

We can't really know if we've had a positive influence on someone else just because of the act of trying to help them.  We can only observe what they do with what we've offered.

It's up to them and only them to use or even ignore the gift.

I won't stop trying to help where I can but in the end I know that all I can do is offer an opinion, an option.  You have to make the decision of how you bear your own crosses and quell your own demons.  Your path is your own.

I'd have liked the little bird to survive but it wasn't my choice.  I'd done what I could do for him.  It was up to him what came next.

Just as it's up to you what you do next.