Although an actor, Peter Macon, is credited with playing the 'Moclan' character (looks like a robot with blue lights for eyes on an otherwise featureless head) the voice sounds suspiciously like Brent Spiner as 'Data'. I take it that was purposely done. Overall impression - it's not funny or clever, although I have the impression the people involved think it is. I suspect the only reason this made it beyond the pilot was MacFarlane's influence with the network.
Yeah, let's set a show 400 years in the future and then invent and alter the language so that it's barely intelligible to today's audience, just in an attempt to be realistic. Now THAT'S entertainment! That notion is akin to the fact that aliens on other planets speak English and that they should be speaking a totally alien/foreign tongue. Then none of the characters could interact without translators - boy, that would be some fun, eh?
actually - language might just go stagnant - languages used to evolve because people were isolated from each other and new dialects would spring up - now that we are all wired together .... and just talking like all the other people we hear in various media - as oppposed to our parents or whatever - it becomes homogenized - so maybe people will just continue to sound the same - or - worst case - a lot dumber like in Idiocracy...
I'm with you. I hoped this would be better. When Seth disappeared in episode #2 I actually felt relief and it struck me that this is not salvageable for him. It may have had a better chance if they had left him as a casualty and moved on. Knowing that he would be rescued, I deleted it from my list of shows to record, and finished watching S1E2. I'm done.
Am I the only person that has They Might Be Giants, Someone Keeps Moving My Chair stuck in my head after reading this? I'll have to listen to Flood this morning to fix it.
Peter Macon plays Bortus, who is a Worf clone and quite funny. Actually, his egg laying thing was funny, if not hilarious. Mark Jackson plays Isaac the robot, whose voice to me sounds like Ensign Vorik from Voyager. The real Trek connection is Penny Johnson who plays Dr Finn here (and Kasidy Yates on DS9). Like the first ep, it was passable, but generally bland. Halston Sage as Alara is very cute and I thought had a good story arc , if unoriginal.
I agree with this clone thing, but the one thing I feel like this show managed that others haven't is the "How would people *really* behave in that situation?" element of it, which has my attention and has me enjoying the show so far. I will readily concede that assuming we'll continue to talk/act as we do now 400 years in the future is a leap, but comfort with suspension of disbelief is pretty much a given if you're watching the show at all. YES. THIS. I was watching the show last night and was like "What is the deal with that mane?" Although the line "I want eggs now" had me in hysterics for some stupid reason, so I might be willing to forgive quite a lot.
I'll give it another watch on Thursday in its regular timeslot and then we'll see. The second episode's story was a bit too derivative of STAR TREK's original pilot, "The Cage", from its false/illusion people to its zoo trappings. If it continues to be a show with individual hour-long adventures each week, then I'll watch whenever I can. If it turns into a long story-arc, then I might drop out. I don't want to be locked into HAVING to watch it EVERY week.
in one of the recent commercials - they tagged it as " a new adventure every week" - which is a direct response to the Trek series being a serial story-arc ....
Wasn't that basically what they did with the distant-future/post-apocalyptic segment in Cloud Atlas? Been awhile since I've seen that movie, but I remember actually thinking it was a nice touch to sort of portray how language would have evolved to the point of almost being unrecognizable.
It seems like anyone who misses "The Next Generation" would find this show entertaining. And you know Cueball is gonna show up at some time.
Just watched the third episode with my 17 year old son. We both thought it was the best so far with some laugh out loud humor and a deeper more thought provoking story. I told him afterword that it was one of the better Star Trek episodes I've seen in quite some time. To me it would hold up story wise with some of the better Next Gen stories. An alien race that makes us question our own beliefs and convictions, now that is Star Trek at it's best.
I agree, it was really good and it had some real bite. The story was a kind of refit of the excellent TNG episode The Outcast, but still, I liked the direction the show took. Some good gags too.
I wonder how MacFarlane will take it if this gets cancelled at the end of the season. It will be one of the now several shows that Fox scrapped that he had a significant hand in making.
I don't see how the show could stand up to any Star Trek lawsuits. I think it might see it's demise because of that.
MacFarlane stepped up his acting as well, as did many of the supporting players. I also liked that they avoided the obvious feel good ending and ended on an edgier note.
Yup, just like in The Outcast. I really doubt it. They're not using any Trek branding or Trek characters/species. It's a parody, of sorts, just like Space Balls was of Star Wars.
I am sad to admit you're absolutely right -- this episode actually had moments that I thought were interesting. I think it was still heavy-handed and had silly, ham-fisted acting (and a lotta lame jokes), but the idea of a world where they would impose a specific sex on every baby was an eye-opening problem. I would firmly be in the camp that says, "this race of beings gets to make their choice -- we're not involved, it's not our thing." Culture is wildly different all over the world, between races and between species, and I don't see that changing. I'll give them this: it was a complex problem without a simple system and they talked out both sides of the argument fairly well. And maybe 10% stupider than the previous show.
