The Orville: Primal Urges (no spoilers)

[cellio]

All of the humans in The Orville seem to have a shared fascination with late-20th-century American pop culture, which is pretty lame for a show set in the 25th century. I mean, do you and your coworkers all share an interest in one specific historical period several centuries ago? Unlikely.

Until last night's episode I didn't realize it ran deeper. (Maybe it was a subtle clue!) Their ideas about computer security also run to the late 20th century. shudder

Sheesh. First I wanted to yell at the officer who did the moral equivalent of plugging in a USB device of unknown origin labelled "free porn!". Then I really wanted to yell at the ship's IT department for what came next.

Kids, don't learn security practices from those guys. Just don't.

(So far the new season is at "eh, wait and see". It's nice to see followup on that one controversy from season one and I realize that all episodes can't be "Majority Rule"- or "Mad Idolatry"-quality, but I was hoping for a stronger start.)

I've avoided spoilers in this post, but if you're on your own for comments.

Comments

[siderea]

I mean, do you and your coworkers all share an interest in one specific historical period several centuries ago? Unlikely.

AHAHAHAHA, AHAHAHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAH AHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHA *gasp* AHA HAHAHA *wheeze* AHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[cellio]

If you're thinking SCA, I did say specific -- not "the middle ages" but "these 30 years in France" or the like. I suppose if you work in a specialized history department you might, but that's an outlier.

[siderea]

All it takes is one historically-congruent household all getting one another jobs in the same IT department.

The question is whether the characters on this show are historical recreationists.

[cellio]

True, friends sometimes end up clustering at companies. This seems to be broader than just one department, though maybe it's just the bridge crew and not all their underlings too. (I'll try to pay more attention.) But yeah, we haven't seen much evidence of them being historical recreationists, either. I think the writers are just falling back on the stuff *they* know and not thinking too much about the next 400 years.

[jducoeur]

I have to point out that the SCA's broad-tent approach is the exception rather than the rule. For example, up here in Boston, it is *totally normal* for substantial numbers of people to be obsessed with a very small and specific time period -- the Rev War re-enactors are pretty numerous and conspicuous. And like all other geekeries, they tend to drag their friends in, so they cluster.

There are many other examples, ranging from civil war to viking groups...

[cellio]

Oh, that's a good point. Other groups are way more focused than we are.

I don't know how much "recruit your friends" lets you work with like-minded people in the military, but I can see it for other workplaces. And maybe the military; I don't know one way or the other, especially a few centuries in the future.

[kyleri]

I mean, you don't even get that when all your coworkers are SCAdians.

[cellio]

Right! My SCA friends have interests spanning hundreds of years, maybe even a millennium. Also, many locations.

[minoanmiss]

Future people interested in our time period (or the time period of the youth of the writer) is a really, really tired trope that I wish writers would get past. I only write fanfic but even so when I was writing Star Trek fanfic I tried to make my few historical references be to anywhere besides the here and now.