Build Date: Sat Mar 7 14:20:13 2026 UTC
EVERYTHING IS BETTER IN THE ASS. Cocaine, wine, coffee, nitrous (supposedly quite dangerous), sushi, "Little Mermaid" DVDs, cat food, Forth: EVERYTHING is better if you put it in your ass. Everything!
-- The Mighty Silverback
Eavesdropping on Geeks: 'Star Trek: Discovery' vs 'The Orville'
2017-10-19 16:40:36
If you broke into Pigdog's top sekrit headquarters, spying on their mysterious mix of weird science and old-skool geekiness, you'd overhear this conversation:
Feeling left out, and wanting to get back to talking about Star Trek, El Destino brought the conversation to an abrupt halt by blurting out:
El Destino: So it anyone actually watching Star Trek: Discovery? Or maybe a better question is, have you gone to the trouble of registering for CBS's super-sekrit premium site to watch more than just that first free episode? Or did you just stream it on your favorite pirate site?Splicer: The first two episodes left me pretty cold. The third episode gave me hope I hadn't had before.
Thom 'Starky' Stark: We're four episodes in - and, like V'ger and Deep Throat 9, Discovery takes itself WAY too seriously.
El Destino: I finally watched the first episode last night. It looks expensive. Best-looking Klingons ever! (And people whizzing through space with a jetpack...) Er, but ol' man Destino says he misses William Shatner. That epic playfulness, camaraderie, hope... Maybe I just wish this new crew liked each other more.
Thom 'Starky' Stark: The actual new crew - which you don't meet until episode 3 - is worse. And the captain is a straight-up asshole.
It's just Berman, all the way down ...
Lenny Tuberose:: Has anyone given The Orville a watch? I assumed it was going to be all fart jokes but it seems like they are shooting for genuine science fiction.
'Tricky' Rick Moen: The Orville is weirdly wonderful. Basically, it's Next-Gen with the serial numbers filed off, and a mild ongoing dose of rollicking McFarlane humour. The most recent-but-one had a guest appearance by Charlize Theron, who was really good (though you kept wanting her to do the Atomic Blonde apocalyptic-fight thing). You keep thinking the show ought to make up its mind whether it wants to be comedy or drama, and eventually realise "Well, OK, I _guess_ it can be both at the same time."
Who knew that TNG fanfic would work in the 2010s? It's a sincere and loving tribute to/pastiche of the Picard show, plus fairly mild ribald humour and lots of pop-culture jokes. One online commenter said "ST:TNG with an Office overlay." They also lift from TOS, as in the recent ep that was a straight-out copy of the TOS episode "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky".
Jonathan Frakes and Brannon Braga are involved in making it, and so its seems like Old Home Week for Next-Gen people.
Lenny Tuberose:: That's sort of how I feel about it too. It's clearly lovingly derived from the Star Trek sensibility, but instead of coming off as hacky it's kind of endearing. (It leaves the impression that McFarlane is a genuine Star Trek fan and The Orville is more an homage than a ripoff). The episode about the baby sex change thing was actually rock solid science fiction writing -- messy complex issue and no happy ending. It's clearly not the wacky parody I expected, but there is enough humor that it doesn't seem to take itself too seriously.
Thom 'Starky' Stark: We've watched every episode but the most recent one - and it's in the queue for this weekend.
The critics uniformly panned it for not knowing what it wants to be when it grows up. I can't say they're entirely wrong about that, but the record shows that Seth MacFarlane's shows usually take a season or so to find their groove. That was certainly true of Family Guy, and equally true of American Dad. So I expect The Orville to steadily improve as it goes along.
In the meantime, despite the jokeyness that pretty much goes with the MacFarlane territory, The Orville as it stands isn't half bad. The standing jokes ("Open this pickle jar for me.") work, the plots, for the most part, also work (the Moculan baby gender reassignment episode notwithstanding), and the sets, costumes, and effects are all industry-standard grade for a 21st century TV science fiction series. The casting works (Norm Macdonald as Yaphit, the gelatinous cube, is hilarious) and the characters are distinct and well-realized.
El Destino: Hey, did you know William Shatner and Adam West finally reunited in cartoon Batman heaven?
This concludes today's episode of Eavesdropping on Geeks.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Crossroads are real and The Blues is a place; The enduring myth of Robert Johnson (More...)
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
A Treatise Prepared for the Gallup Organization on the Symbolism of the Scarab
Well dahlings, the response to my new tarot column has been quite overwhelming. I got three whole pieces of mail requesting my arcane insight. One asked why blogs suck so much, and one was a completely incomprehensible tale of bears shitting random numbers in the woods — I am fairly certain it was a cryptographic allegory. Howsomever, only ONE of the inquiries was accompanied by a crisp ten-dollar bill, and so it's the Gallup Organization that will this week reap the benefit of my wicked pack of cards. (More...)
This week: another fine spocktail from the beverage researchers at SMRL! Drink it in peace, because WE DID THE RESEARCH! (More...)
Pigdog dispatched special correspondent Ratsnatcher for a holiday reconnaissance of America's frozen hell. After ten days of silence, our shortwave radio cackled with Ratsnatcher's static-filled transmission. (More...)
The Walken / Country Bear Conspiracy
As has been recently reported in the PDJ, Christopher Walken, evil s00per villain extraordinaire, will be appearing next month in Disney's newest release, The Country Bear Movie. Always playing some wicked and very disturbed badass in movies like Sleepy Hollow, Illuminata, The Prophecy I, II, III, Pulp Fiction, Batman Returns, The Milagro Beanfield War, A View to a Kill, The Dogs of War, Heaven's Gate, and The Deer Hunter, Walken is unsuprisingly a big favorite in the PDJ news room. (More...)
So I was walking around the Tenderloin looking for stray twenty-dollar-bills that might have fallen into gutters, and I was thinking, as I often do, about my mother. (More...)
Skunk School -- Learn Why Not To Keep Skunks As Pets
There is an alarming trend in pet purchasing habits this fall. People inspired by the WWII film, "Life is Beautiful" -- the one with that annoying Italian guy -- are buying descented skunks by the millions. (More...)
