I finished watching The Orville, it was a masterpiece from the hands of Seth Macfarlane.
Here, they showed some exchange between admirals and the main ensemble cast quite often, but watching these certain scenes made me compare them to Star Trek admirals. I personally think all admirals in The Orville are great captains who got promoted to the rank of admiral as opposed to Star Trek admirals who are just dumb politicians where our main cast captains keep dealing with their nonsense.
Of course, there are a few reasonable and competent admirals we’ve seen throughout the franchise, but most of them I’ve seen reflect real-world politicians that never even had sat on a captain’s seat.
Yeah, they borrowed a lot from Trek lore, but thankfully they seem to have left the “badmiral” trope in the cutting room with the transporters. Both of which I appreciate they omitted.
The first time I watched through The Orville, every time one of the admirals was on screen, I was like, “What’s your angle?” and just generally distrustful. Even Victor Garber, you might ask? Especially Victor Garber.
If you think transporters are bullshit, wait until you hear about subspace.
Indeed, this is one of the areas where Star Trek has consistently fallen short of its “Utopian future” ideal. I understand that it’s often done for storytelling purposes, but Orville shows how that’s an unnecessary shortcut - it’s still possible to write compelling stories and have the hero be a hero even if his superior officers are actually competent and in his corner.
Competent admirals don’t make for exciting stories though. We don’t see toilets often in TV either, not because they don’t exist, but because we only see toilets when they relate to the story. Admirals in Star Trek are like Chekhov’s gun, we don’t see them unless they’re necessary for the story. Boring competent level headed not traitorous Admirals are just rarely necessary for good story telling unless they happen to be the protagonist dealing with drama elsewhere.
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in contrast to the usual phallic ship designs in sci-fi and IRL?
If your dick looks like any ship in Trek, you should have your nacelles examined by a doctor.
Cochrane’s Phoenix, Romulan Warbirds, Klingon Birds Of Prey, most Vulcan ships, Species 8472 ships, all freighters, etc