@Invidia said:

Missed about the first 25 min of it ...

But when he told the computer to "DELETE GREGG", one immediately thought of CAPTAIN JANEWAY from ST VOYAGER, because she also fell in love with a HOLOGRAPHIC character and told the computer to DELETE the female that character was involved with.

It was also interesting how Gordon RATIONALIZED and claimed it wasn't ODD that he's DATING this girl because she use to be a REAL GIRL.

As if her being DEAD for 400 YEARS didn't matter, and that made it perfectly ok and NORMAL that he's head over heels IN LOVE with her.

What part was TUVOK playing??? How strange it is that he shows up in THE ORVILLE when Gordon's dating a character that he falls for like JANEWAY did before in VOYAGER.

He played a character called Dr. Sherman, who was overseeing the transfer of the time capsule & its contents.

Gordon just seems to be the clingy type of guy. But there probably isn't a lot opportunity for dating, etc. on the ship for the main characters unless TPTB add more characters, which means more money, etc.

@bratface said:

Any thoughts? I knew from the very start that Gordon was going to fall for the girl (they should have gone another way, Gordon was too obvious). And Bortus & Klyden getting hooked on the cigarettes was also the obvious choice. It was cool seeing Tim Russ (Tuvok) again, I'd like to see him as a regular. The girl who played Laura (Leighton Meester), she looked so familiar but since I didn't watch GG & couldn't remember her name, although I have seen her in a couple of episodes of 'Single Parents'.

Any other thoughts?

I know Leighton Meester from "Surface" a few years back and "Making History" more recently.

I thought the texts/calls didn't make sense, but "The Orville" doesn't seem to be the sort of show that thinks too far beyond, "The writers need it to happen."

The song in the bar was really familiar, and then I placed it: Prince Lir sings it to Amalthea in "The Last Unicorn" (possibly some echoes of the plot were in the ep). Leighton Meester and Scott Grimes did a better job than Jeff Bridges and Mia Farrow, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSaP3tpeL44

@M. LeMarchand said:

@bratface said:

Any thoughts? I knew from the very start that Gordon was going to fall for the girl (they should have gone another way, Gordon was too obvious). And Bortus & Klyden getting hooked on the cigarettes was also the obvious choice. It was cool seeing Tim Russ (Tuvok) again, I'd like to see him as a regular. The girl who played Laura (Leighton Meester), she looked so familiar but since I didn't watch GG & couldn't remember her name, although I have seen her in a couple of episodes of 'Single Parents'.

Any other thoughts?

I know Leighton Meester from "Surface" a few years back and "Making History" more recently.

I thought the texts/calls didn't make sense, but "The Orville" doesn't seem to be the sort of show that thinks too far beyond, "The writers need it to happen."

The song in the bar was really familiar, and then I placed it: Prince Lir sings it to Amalthea in "The Last Unicorn" (possibly some echoes of the plot were in the ep). Leighton Meester and Scott Grimes did a better job than Jeff Bridges and Mia Farrow, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSaP3tpeL44

The texts from her phone kind of make sense. They were able to access the phone & download all the info, but how Gordon was able to text her with a replicated phone is puzzling. But I'm not a scientist & I usually don't dissect shows that are fiction. I just prefer to go with the flow.

What surprised me the most was that song when Gordon first activates the simulation and is in the apartment with people having sort of a party, that song is already 5 years old. Wow.

But the idea of creating that whole situation and all the other people, just from messages and stuff in a phone, well, forget it. But it was just a fun episode.

I also think they should have done what TNG did, for example, in "The Neutral Zone," where they tracked down the woman's descendants. That might have happened anyway, later, but it would have made an interesting mention within the episode.

Yes, but presumably the descendants of Laura may have been interested to see video of her. It probably happened anyway, later, thanks to "Tuvok" or someone else working on the time capsule project. It just could have been another dramatic element somehow. For example, Gordon might have wanted to be involved with that because of HIS interest in Laura.

Well he didn't REALLY have sex with HER. It was just a simulation.

And it's not like she disappeared or something, after putting the phone in the time capsule. She wasn't actually taken into the future. Again, that was just the simulation. But even if she didn't stay with Greg(g) and have kids with HIM, there's a good chance she had kids with SOMEONE.

Sounds like you're trying to justify something...

But anyway.

The percentage of "women" age FIFTEEN to 44 that haven't YET have children, is growing? Which is supposed to prove what, exactly? A drop in the SINGLE-MOTHER TEEN PREGNANCY RATE - a GOOD thing! - could easily account for that! I hope you can see why that's bogus for some kind of deep social projection. Some time ago I read about a "study" showing that "women" spend "most of their life" without a "spouse" or whatever. Among the various BS specifications going into that "statistic" was counting "women" as young as TWELVE or something, and that women who HAD BEEN married but became WIDOWS - which means that "until death do us part" actually happened! - were counted basically the same as WOMEN WHO HAD NEVER MARRIED AT ALL!!! (And that part is especially bogus since "everyone knows" women tend to outlive men/their husbands. Which means the people who cooked up those "statistics" knew it too!)

Back in high school, in an advanced math class we read an excellent book called "How To Lie With Statistics." It's still available, I suggest you get a copy.

You clearly don't understand statistics as much as you probably think you do, and perhaps not at all.

What you don't appear to understand is how flawed those "stats" are. Whether that's because you're just ignorant of how they work, or if you choose to believe them because they support a position you already have, is unknown.

Just for starters, how many year are there between 15 and 44?

But you're basing those arguments/claims on statistics that I've already shown can be and often are manipulated into worthlessness.

Or, as I said before, you already BELIEVE those claims, and then any cooked up "stats" that come along which agree, you promote as gospel truth.

The problem is you can't really "know" any of those things, because they're based on statistics that are not necessarily trustworthy, often coming from places with an agenda which they then try to support by coming up with "statistics" which can be made to support the claim they already made for political reasons or whatever, by selecting a range of ages or a span of years or other parameters that produces the results they wanted.

Comparing similar numbers between different countries or populations has some value depending on certain factors. But even there, the parameters used certainly affect the outcome. For example, if you want to show for a political reason that AIDS is a big problem, you get your "stats" from California or Bangladesh, not Utah. Or you can even do a larger survey - "western states" maybe - comfortable in the knowledge that the much larger population of California is going to produce your desired results regardless of the much lower population of Utah.

For another example, several years ago the "stats" for highway traffic deaths declined rather sharply. Was it because of increased road safety features? The 55mph speed limit? No, it was because the definition of "traffic deaths" changed from people who died within something like 5 or 7 or 10 days of the incident, to only those who died within 2 or 3 or 5 days or some other smaller range. But people who favored the 55mph speed limit for other reasons (political affiliation, fundraising...) could - and did - jump on the "stats" as "proof" that "55 saves lives" or whatever other cause they were supporting for reasons other than actual results.

@Invidia said:

People now in their early 20s are two and a half times as likely to be abstinent as Gen Xers were at that age; 15 percent report having had no sex since they reached adulthood.

According to who? Maybe Planned Parenthood, which was started by eugenicist and Hitler supporter Margaret Sanger? Oh, no, THEY wouldn't have an agenda!

About 60 percent of adults under age 35 now live without a spouse or a partner. One in three adults in this age range live with their parents, making that the most common living arrangement

Define "adult." As mentioned previously, some "studies" claim "adults" being as young as TWELVE. Would the fact that one third of people ages TWELVE to 35 live with their parents, surprise you?

Also, WHERE is this? It's certainly to be expected that arrested-development people in various liberal enclaves would be like that. But that doesn't make it widespread, or that if it's "increasing," that indicates a big nationwide problem. What it would tend to show is the increasing failure of liberalism.

I was told it might be a consequence of the hookup culture, of crushing economic pressures, of surging anxiety rates, of psychological frailty, of widespread antidepressant use, of streaming television, of environmental estrogens leaked by plastics, of dropping testosterone levels, of digital porn, of the vibrator’s golden age, of dating apps, of option paralysis, of helicopter parents, of careerism, of smartphones, of the news cycle, of information overload generally, of sleep deprivation, of obesity. Name a modern blight, and someone, somewhere, is ready to blame it for messing with the modern libido.

All of those things come especially with liberalism. So you'd expect to see a lot of that in large-population centers which are mostly liberal. And that's what outfits like the New York Times like to write about, what places like Planned Parenthood like to study...

What's CLEAR ENOUGH is the FEMALE from THE ORVILLE who lived in 2015 also lived at a time when HAVING KIDS or WANTING to have them was on the DECLINE.

There are still plenty of people having kids. Enough so that shirkers can get away with it. Much of Europe has serious problems in those areas, but Europe is also far more liberal/leftist/socialist.

@Knixon

there's a good chance she had kids with SOMEONE

Thus also making the FALSE CLAIM and ASSUMPTION put forth that she'd have HAD THEM with SOMEONE an UNVALID ONE to have made.

That depends a lot on where she lived, what her parents were like, etc. Again, it's hardly a widespread national problem. The time capsule came from the northern part of New York, north of Albany they said. That's not quite the hotbed of leftism that NYC is, so even if she stayed right there and didn't relocate to someplace less loony, she's less likely to remain childless than someone who stays in the middle of NYC their whole life. Especially someone who spends their whole life thinking they're entitled to a generous salary for creating memes on facebook, or whatever.

What I find on Saratoga Springs is that is has a population under 30,000. And in the show she seemed pretty optimistic about life and the future. Not having kids is something for pessimists. And for self-centered narcissists, of course.

Nope, you're missing it all completely. In large part, it seems, by thinking you know what I'm thinking, when all you should really do is pay attention to what I'm WRITING.

And just for starters, what makes you assume that when Laura fears not being remembered, that could somehow ONLY mean that she didn't want to have kids? That doesn't seem very egalitarian or feminist or whatever. She was an aspiring MUSICIAN! And I don't think most parents figure that the way they'll be REMEMBERED - for HUNDREDS of years to come? - is through their CHILDREN.

You assume too much of "experts." Mark Twain said an expert is just "an ordinary fellow from another town." The assumed meaning is that you don't know enough about them to understand that their "expertise" might be largely illusory.

Also, if Laura wasn't interested in a relationship, what was Greg doing there?

From an "encyclopedia" of The Orville:

By her own account, Laura dated a number of men who were "losers" that left her "pretty cynical" until she met Greg in the year 2006. "He was passionate and intelligent and funny," a simulated version of her later told Gordon. "And I fell for him almost immediately."

During their time together, Greg encouraged Laura's personal development. When they first met, she was shy and afraid to perform music in public, and it was Greg who encouraged her to perform the guitar and sing in public.

After a while, Laura grew disenchanted. Greg was unemployed and "irresponsible," and the two broke up shortly thereafter. However, one week before Laura donated her phone to the time capsule, Laura and Greg reconnected and renewed their relationship.

A record of their renewed relationship was saved in the phone messages, and Laura told Trisha that she could see herself marrying Greg.

People in/from small towns (such as Laura) are more likely to have children than people in (crowded) big cities, and conservative/religious people are more likely to have children than liberal/non-religious people. Averages only tell about a larger population, they don't reveal much about smaller groups within that population. You could even say the "average" of a male and a female is no gender at all, which is ridiculous.