# The Orville Season Two - Thoughts?



## Richards

Tonight was the premiere of the second season of "The Orville."  What did everyone think?

I thought it was pretty good.  I was glad to see Alara return, as I had heard rumors that she wouldn't be back this season and I really like her character.

I totally called the reason for Capt Mercer's sudden shuttle run, right before what I had guessed played out on screen.

And for "limited commercial interruption," they sure showed a lot of commercials!  I guess they had the same number of breaks but not as many commercials in each break.  It still seemed like we were going to commercial every 5 minutes or so, though.

It's moving to Thursdays after this initial Sunday premiere.

Johnathan


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## Ryujin

I very much enjoyed it. I think that they held off for 20 minutes before each of the first two commercial breaks. Same here on the shuttle flight 

Alara was supposed to disappear somewhere around mid-season, based on the rumours.


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## Orius

Not bad.  I'm just glad to see it back.


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## Cergorach

After the first four minutes I think the episode should be called "taking the piss..." ;-)


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## Rabulias

I heard this episode was actually filmed with season 1, to be the season 1 ender, but they held it back to kickoff season 2. If that's right, Alara's presence in this episode is not strong evidence. :-/


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## Richards

Did anybody else notice Jason Alexander has joined the cast?  He's the rhino-headed bartender.  I recognized his voice at once, but it took me a moment to recall just whose voice it was.  And then I realized it was George Costanza's (his character from _Seinfeld_) voice coming out of the rhino-alien's mouth.  And sure enough, there was Jason Alexander's name in the opening credits.

Johnathan


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## Zardnaar

I liked it. Loved season 1.


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## Ryujin

Richards said:


> Did anybody else notice Jason Alexander has joined the cast?  He's the rhino-headed bartender.  I recognized his voice at once, but it took me a moment to recall just whose voice it was.  And then I realized it was George Costanza's (his character from _Seinfeld_) voice coming out of the rhino-alien's mouth.  And sure enough, there was Jason Alexander's name in the opening credits.
> 
> Johnathan




I completely missed that. Good catch


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## Jester David

I KNEW I recognised that voice, but couldn't place it!! 

That was a decent episode. It was quiet and simple, focused on the characters and their relationships more than drama or space action. Which was a nice change of pace for a science fiction show, and works with the series.


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## Aeson

Anyone else see the doctor and Isaac hooking up in the future? He already seems like a substitute father to her boys. She seems to be developing an attachment to him.

Jason Alexander is just a guest star I think. Maybe a recurring role like Norm McDonald or Bortis's mate.


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## Ryujin

Remember that the next episode goes back to whatever the normal timeslot is for your area, not Sunday. For me (Ontario, Canada) that's Thursday Jan. 3rd @ 8:00pm.


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## Dannyalcatraz

It was a good #1 episode.  A trickle of new characters made a splash.  The plotline interweaving had a nice, natural flow to it.

Not to shower it with too much praise, but I’d posit with a start like this, 2019’s season will be golden.


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## Legatus Legionis

.


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## Richards

And now we have two Bortis-centric episodes in a row.  Odd.

Johnathan


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## Orius

Well, tonight's episode was fairly twisted.  Moclans just keep getting weirder and weirder.  Maybe it's just me, but there's something about Bortas and Klyden arguing in their deep monotone voices whenever they have marital problems that I find unintentionally hilarious.  And I knew as soon as that pizza turned into goop there was a porn virus lurking about.

And when the episode wasn't wallowing in juvenile humor, there was that pretty good B-plot about the doomed people on the dying world.  It's breathtaking how this show can hit so high and so low in the same episode.

Something that occured to me last episode is just how interesting alien designs on this show gets.  Sure, Alara goes for the fairly standard rubber forehead, but there's a lot of creativity otherwise.


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## Ryujin

Orius said:


> Well, tonight's episode was fairly twisted.  Moclans just keep getting weirder and weirder.  Maybe it's just me, but there's something about Bortas and Klyden arguing in their deep monotone voices whenever they have marital problems that I find unintentionally hilarious.  And I knew as soon as that pizza turned into goop there was a porn virus lurking about.
> 
> And when the episode wasn't wallowing in juvenile humor, there was that pretty good B-plot about the doomed people on the dying world.  It's breathtaking how this show can hit so high and so low in the same episode.
> 
> Something that occured to me last episode is just how interesting alien designs on this show gets.  Sure, Alara goes for the fairly standard rubber forehead, but there's a lot of creativity otherwise.




I don't think that it's unintentional


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## Umbran

Rabulias said:


> I heard this episode was actually filmed with season 1, to be the season 1 ender, but they held it back to kickoff season 2. If that's right, Alara's presence in this episode is not strong evidence. :-/




IMDB still thinks she's part of upcoming episodes well into the season.  Not that IMDB is a system of record, though, so we shall see.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Re: alien designs

Yeah, it’s gratifying that they haven’t fallen completely into the humans with prosthetic makeup cul-de-sac.  Some, obvious CGI.  Others are people in suits- the porn supplier would have been at home in _Star Wars _ or _The Fifth Element.  _Maybe we’ll see some puppets along the way.

Regardless, it’s giving the show a better overall visual texture than is typical in American sci-fi..._especially_ on TV shows.


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## Aeson

It still surprises me my mom watches the show. I thought it would be too crude for her. I could only guess what my dad would have thought of it. I think Primal Urges would have been the final straw for him if he made it this far. I enjoyed the episode. I watched it while my mom was in another room. She wanted to know what had me laughing so much. Yes, Bortus and Klayden's marriage woes tickles me. Here are these hulking  men with deep voices bickering. Chad Coleman has shown some range The Walking Dead, The Expanse, The Orville.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Like many of the better sci-fi stories, _The Orville_ touches on societal issues with just enough remove to do so safely.  Bortus & Klayten are analogous to gay marriages, but because they’re _aliens_, it doesn’t generate the backlash it could with a TV show set in Oklahoma City 2019.  See also porn addiction, female genital mutilation/gender reassignment surgery, etc.

IMHO, they do it well, without stereotypes.  They’re just a married couple in love...with real issues.


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## Aeson

Hasn't been part of Seth MacFarlane's work from the beginning? The Family Guy has touched on a number topics others may have stayed away from.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Yes, but that show is waaaaay more over the top, and seldom mixes comedic and the dramatic- or even tragic- as effectively as this show.


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## Umbran

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Yes, but that show is waaaaay more over the top, and seldom mixes comedic and the dramatic- or even tragic- as effectively as this show.




I haven't watched the most recent episode yet.

I have to say, I feel strange liking this show.  In general, i have not been a fan of Seth McFarlane's comedy.  It has always seemed too crude and juvenile, and in the past to me it seemed to have sexist leanings that put me off.

But then he goes and gets the new Cosmos made....

And he comes up with The Orville... while there's still a lot of crude humor, I am okay with that, because there's otherwise a lot more balance.  Either someone (maybe Brannon Braga*) has some mitigating influence, or the dude has just *learned* some things.  I don't actually doubt the latter, given that the show often centers on how *his character* learns how to be a better person.

It is almost like McFarlane said, "Hey, what if we did Star Trek, but instead of the main characters started as absolute paragons like Kirk and Spock, we had them be like the people who watch the show, and they grow over time?"




* Who, for whatever flaws he has as a producer, is still perhaps one of the most experienced on the planet for this kind of show.


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## Dannyalcatraz

I think you nailed it with that last sentence.  Hell- that might have been the pitch!


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## Legatus Legionis

.


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## Dannyalcatraz

I think _everyone_ hates STDs.

_*whiper*_

What?

_*whiper*_


Oh, nevermind!


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## Orius

Robert Picardo and John Billingsley as guest stars in the same episode?  Sure, why not!

Pretty good episode too, particularly the dream sequence and the gift.


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## Richards

That was actually a very well-done episode, although I was dreading it more and more the more I saw of it.  With rumors that Alara was going to leave this season, when I saw it was an Alara-themed episode I started to worry that this might be it; when I saw it was called "Home" I was convinced it was; and when she walked into Capt Mercer's office there at the end after they had found a way for her to stay with the ship I was all "Aw crap - she's going to resign her commission!"  Dang it - she was my favorite character on the show.

So now I'm left hoping the actress had an opportunity to go star in a movie or something and will be back later after that's over with - they did leave the door open for Alara to return, after all.  I guess we'll see.

But at least she got to go out on a high note, because this was a really good episode.  So I wonder if Patrick Warburton's going to be a permanent replacement as the new security officer?  (I also wonder how he puts that shirt-with-a-hole-in-it on if his second esophagus is actually permanently attached to his stomach, because I didn't see any flaps or anything.)

Johnathan


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## Nutation

A fairly standard alienated daughter story done pretty well. They should have put a little more thought into the visuals. Xelayan architecture shouldn't have thin vertical hoops. The buildings should be squat or at least solid towers. Square-cube law is a thing. I also would have put fishing weights in the hems of the actors' clothing to make the fabric move differently.

We did see Alara's foot thump solidly on the floor at one point, and there were a few other similar visuals, so they tried. Sorry to see Alara go also; she was a favorite.


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## Aeson

Warburton's character was the only low point for me. Alara and her sister looked so elven to me.


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## Ryujin

Richards said:


> That was actually a very well-done episode, although I was dreading it more and more the more I saw of it.  With rumors that Alara was going to leave this season, when I saw it was an Alara-themed episode I started to worry that this might be it; when I saw it was called "Home" I was convinced it was; and when she walked into Capt Mercer's office there at the end after they had found a way for her to stay with the ship I was all "Aw crap - she's going to resign her commission!"  Dang it - she was my favorite character on the show.
> 
> So now I'm left hoping the actress had an opportunity to go star in a movie or something and will be back later after that's over with - they did leave the door open for Alara to return, after all.  I guess we'll see.
> 
> But at least she got to go out on a high note, because this was a really good episode.  So I wonder if Patrick Warburton's going to be a permanent replacement as the new security officer?  (I also wonder how he puts that shirt-with-a-hole-in-it on if his second esophagus is actually permanently attached to his stomach, because I didn't see any flaps or anything.)
> 
> Johnathan




Also my favourite character. I was dreading this.

If I remember correctly it was landing a role in this movie that had her leave:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7957694/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_1


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## CapnZapp

If there's been a theme so far it has been to stick it to those disliking it - talk about doubling down on social progressiveness and maudlin sentimentality.

(Before you jump to the conclusion I'm one of those, keep in mind I'm still watching)


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## Umbran

I can easily see that before she left the show, they'd keep a lid on it.

But once that show has aired, if her departure were permanent, why stay tight-lipped about it?  It is easy enough to say, "Hey, she had a really great opportunity, and had to make a hard choice.  The schedules didn't work out, so we wish her all the best!"  

However, if she's coming back at *some point* then you don't talk about it because you don't want the audience to prethink the plot too much... Maybe?


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## Kaodi

I had no idea the bartender was Jason Alexander. The episodes have been interesting so far. Sad to see Halston Sage go for now, but I will hope we get her back at some point. Was great to see doctor v doctor ; ) . 

I read an interview with Scott Grimes that said the show gets "big" after the first few episodes of the season so I think we will have to wait and see for the real structure of the show. Whether they have some sort of over-arching story coming on, like a transition to a more DS9 kinda metaplot, or whether their world dramatically expan- ... wait, I guess part of the plot of DS9 was also the world getting bigger with access to a new quadrant.


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## Rabulias

I had heard another Xalayan like Alara was coming on board, maybe as the new security officer?


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## Ryujin

Rabulias said:


> I had heard another Xalayan like Alara was coming on board, maybe as the new security officer?




Actress Jessica Szohr is listed as being in 11 episodes and hasn't been seen yet.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1221906/


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## Legatus Legionis

.


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## Orius

Pretty good episode tonight.  It was a pretty good take on the Enemy Mine plot.  The Space Orcs were an interesting element too.  And the B plot with Gordon was handled well too, I'd say maybe even better than Trek usually does.


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## Nutation

Orius said:


> Pretty good episode tonight.  It was a pretty good take on the Enemy Mine plot.  The Space Orcs were an interesting element too.  And the B plot with Gordon was handled well too, I'd say maybe even better than Trek usually does.




They fooled me - I did not recognize the returning actress (understandably). The final gesture (letting Teleya go) was predictable, but how they got to that point was very good.

Gordon was quite in character. Humor should emerge from the natural behavior of the characters, and this is an instance. OTOH, I will not be sorry to see Warburtun's character leave. He was an example of forcing humor to happen.


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## Morrus

I prefer it when they lay off the jokes and just pretend to be Star Trek. When it gets into the fart jokes and the like it takes me out of it.


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## Umbran

Morrus said:


> When it gets into the fart jokes and the like it takes me out of it.




I agree.  But... fart jokes just kind of follow Seth McFarland, hanging around him like a cloud of vapors.


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## Dannyalcatraz

There will always be the whiff of scatology about him.

I’m just waiting for the scene in which someone lets one loose in a shuttle or other confined space.  Given the direction Warburton’s character has trundled down, can that be far behind?


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## Ryujin

Nutation said:


> They fooled me - I did not recognize the returning actress (understandably). The final gesture (letting Teleya go) was predictable, but how they got to that point was very good.
> 
> Gordon was quite in character. Humor should emerge from the natural behavior of the characters, and this is an instance. OTOH, I will not be sorry to see Warburtun's character leave. He was an example of forcing humor to happen.




The story started to be predictable once the Krill ship showed up. It's a well-traveled path, but I agree that they did it well. 

I agree on Warburton's character. A bit of  waste of someone like him too.


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## Aeson

Morrus said:


> I prefer it when they lay off the jokes and just pretend to be Star Trek. When it gets into the fart jokes and the like it takes me out of it.




I'm glad they toned it down. As I've said, my mom watches the show. It would be much easier to watch when I visit if it wasn't so crude. During the first season I had a number of cringe moments. 

I think this episode was an excellent homage to the trope of trapped with your enemy. It was telegraphed when the Krill showed up, but still fun to watch.


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## RC Hagy

Had to read a second time. Oh, boy so appropriate.

I work for a winery in Central Pennsylvania. We went to 2 letter codes on the wine cases.

I have to _constantly_ remind everyone that no one wants to see a case of wine labled with: ED, BM, MS or VD.

My job is neverending.

R




Dannyalcatraz said:


> I think _everyone_ hates STDs.
> 
> _*whiper*_
> 
> What?
> 
> _*whiper*_
> 
> 
> Oh, nevermind!


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## RC Hagy

CapnZapp said:


> If there's been a theme so far it has been to stick it to those disliking it - talk about doubling down on social progressiveness and maudlin sentimentality.
> 
> (Before you jump to the conclusion I'm one of those, keep in mind I'm still watching)




A maudlin progressive?


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## Richards

I liked how the Krill shuttles vented plasma to find the cloaked ship - kind of like _glitterdust_ against an _invisibility_ spell - but it immediately made me wonder how they knew to do so, and it made me suspect the dark matter cartographer right away.  So the reveal was kind of ruined for me - when a female Krill walked into view, I immediately suspected it was the same person even though I definitely did not recognize the actress under the prosthetics.

I wasn't much of a fan of the "orc" aliens, though - they looked way too primitive to be flying around in spaceships and shooting lasers.

Still, it was a good episode.  (And when Ed and his girlfriend were kissing in his quarters, I half expected to see a shuttle through the window with Commander Grayson piloting.)  I also thought the "fake command codes" set-up was brilliant.

Johnathan


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## Dannyalcatraz

But he spilled the beans on the fact that they were decoy codes, ruining the tactics for future captives.  That’s problematic.

I mean, I realize he’s tying to build a rapport- something his pilot failed at hilariously in simulation- as an opening for test NOW and possible future diplomatic overtures.  But unless he suspected she was wise to the procedure- and he may well have- he got little in return for something that addects his entire organization.

OTOH, they may be setting up a reveal that _The King and I_ and a Billy Joel mixtape can bring peace...

Is a puzzlement!
[video=youtube;9u5iHzag120]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u5iHzag120[/video]


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## CapnZapp

The decoy codes was about the only plausible thing here. 

The rest was a true throwback to everything stilted and unconvincing about "classic" Star Trek. (For everyone's sanity, I shall refrain from listing all the headache-inducing points)

It makes me realize my dream isn't just "another Next Generation". I actually only want the best 20% episodes.


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## Dannyalcatraz

I don’t have a problem with the dummy codes.  I have a problem with him admitting they were dummies when asked.


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## Morrus

At least it’s a stronger password than the self destruct code on the Enterprise.

000 Destruct 0

[video=youtube_share;Wk0f43GOtSk]https://youtu.be/Wk0f43GOtSk[/video]


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## Maxperson

Aeson said:


> Warburton's character was the only low point for me. Alara and her sister looked so elven to me.




Would you please tell that to my DM?  I've been trying to get him to let me play elves with that kind of strength bonus, but he's not going for it.


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## Maxperson

Morrus said:


> I prefer it when they lay off the jokes and just pretend to be Star Trek. When it gets into the fart jokes and the like it takes me out of it.




For me that's the biggest reason I'm enjoying the show.  The show seems to me t be a light parody of Star Trek mixed with some serious themes and issues.  There are enough serious sci-fi shows out there that the jokes and humor put the Orville into a new and refreshing category for me.


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## CapnZapp

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I don’t have a problem with the dummy codes.  I have a problem with him admitting they were dummies when asked.



It was still better than pretending the Fleet only has one set of codes - the real ones. (Like TOS or TNG. So yay for progress!)

To be anywhere near realistic, he would not need to explain that there are at least one set of codes that appear real in every way, except they also alert the fleet of the situation, and are overridable by any officer of adequate authority.

Because any species that can build a spaceship, let alone an interstellar warpship, will have grasped the basics of cryptography.


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## Ryujin

Maxperson said:


> For me that's the biggest reason I'm enjoying the show.  The show seems to me t be a light parody of Star Trek mixed with some serious themes and issues.  There are enough serious sci-fi shows out there that the jokes and humor put the Orville into a new and refreshing category for me.




Yup, I've said that before too. Everything is dark and brooding now; even Star Trek. We need some hopeful SciFi.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Morrus said:


> At least it’s a stronger password than the self destruct code on the Enterprise.
> 
> 000 Destruct 0
> 
> https://youtu.be/Wk0f43GOtSk




See also:
[video=youtube;9hcSBH-4kEY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hcSBH-4kEY[/video]


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## Dannyalcatraz

CapnZapp said:


> Because any species that can build a spaceship, let alone an interstellar warpship, will have grasped the basics of cryptography.




As a species, yes.  Not necessarily at the individual level.  Even in high-ranking positions that SHOULD.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Perhaps Warburton’s character will try the venerable “pull my esophagus” joke...


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## CapnZapp

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As a species, yes.  Not necessarily at the individual level.  Even in high-ranking positions that SHOULD.



??

Officers don't need to know jack squat about this. They only need to follow procedure. I didn't say every officer would or should be a cryptography expert. 

I am saying it is trivial to instruct your officers to learn a version of your code that is indistinguishable as such while also triggering an alarm.

At least for really important stuff. One ship (that isn't even a capital ship) is not that important. 

So yes, if someone was trying to commandeer an individual ship like the Orville, that would be plausible. 

But infiltrating the whole fleet network (or whatever the Krill were up to)? Nah, you don't do that by demanding "the codes" of just any captain that falls into your hands. (Capt Mercer was clearly not randomly selected, but there are zero indications he's special in any way)

The notion of fake codes was, as I said, credible - in comparison to how clumsily/naively TOS or TNG would have handled it. But that is also it for credibility.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Sorry I was unclear.  I wasn’t referring to our Captain in particular.  

All I meant was I have personally known people in positions of authority who SHOULD know about X, Y, and Z, but nonetheless remain ignorant.  People who make multimillion dollar and/or life or death decisions, yet who are clueless as to the functions of the people and systems they supervise.  And worse, some do not even take steps to educate themselves thereon.


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## Aeson

Maxperson said:


> Would you please tell that to my DM?  I've been trying to get him to let me play elves with that kind of strength bonus, but he's not going for it.




I never pictured elves being heavy worlders though. Light world is more likely.


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## Dannyalcatraz

OTOH, heavyworlder elves on an earth-normal or lower grav planet could be _fun_...


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## Aeson

They're called dwarves or Patriots fans.


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## cbwjm

Maxperson said:


> For me that's the biggest reason I'm enjoying the show.  The show seems to me t be a light parody of Star Trek mixed with some serious themes and issues.  There are enough serious sci-fi shows out there that the jokes and humor put the Orville into a new and refreshing category for me.



This is why I like it. They have some crazy serious moments for something by Seth McFarlane but they still have some light humour thrown in which I like.


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## Ryujin

Aeson said:


> I never pictured elves being heavy worlders though. Light world is more likely.




A STR 19 Grugach would fit.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Aeson said:


> They're called dwarves or Patriots fans.




That doesn’t sound right- D&D dwarves get *bonuses* when facing Giants.


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## darjr

I knew something was up when she said her favorite was "Taxi Driver"

But I have to admit, I didn't figure it out.


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## Aeson

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That doesn’t sound right- D&D dwarves get *bonuses* when facing Giants.




Well, The Hateriots are probably going to the Super Bowl once again. The Giants are not. I guess they do get a bonus.


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## Satyrn

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That doesn’t sound right- D&D dwarves get *bonuses* when facing Giants.




That hurt. A lot.

But still, I laughed.


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## Umbran

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I don’t have a problem with the dummy codes.  I have a problem with him admitting they were dummies when asked.




Thinking about it for a minute, I don't think it is such a problem.  We must accept that, as a practical matter, word doesn't get around.

Why?  Because it is a very complicated system, must be deployed fleet-wide, and known to every single person with relevant codes - this isn't a tightly held secret, as there are too many people involved.  And, it isn't really plausible that he's the first captain to get caught and pressured for codes.  So, presumably, the fact that they use dummy codes has been revealed any number of times already.  But, their biggest enemies, who can manage to get a fake crewmember onto a ship, don't know about it.

Perhaps historically, the fake codes have enabled the Union to delay and bust the heads of anyone who managed to get them.  Or maybe the embarrassment of getting played keeps people quiet.

Or, maybe Mercer was lying.  The codes he gave were real.  He just doesn't want her to try using them if they survive....


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## Dannyalcatraz

I don’t get the impression that the Union-Krill conflict has been protracted.  Mercer could very well be the first officer captured.  But your point is nonetheless a valid one.


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## Umbran

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Mercer could very well be the first officer captured.




He may be the first in that conflict, but certainly, there have been other conflicts.  The policy exists for a reason, right?  

A lot of people would look at this sort of thing and tell us it is a plot hole.  I look at it and try to figure out what the fact of it implies about the world (okay, galaxy) in question.  Why is it that this *hasn't* gotten around so that everyone knows Union officers give fake codes first? 

For example:  The Union always wins.  Those who have discovered this in the past have since been beaten or subsumed, so that they don't talk about it.

Folks were all worried about how the admirals were going to pitch a fit over letting her go.  Nobody mentioned how many people were going to get court marshaled _for letting a hostile spy onto a starship crew!!!_  Someone had to do some serious records-falsification, and is gonna get hung from a yardarm for their trouble...


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## Dannyalcatraz

Fer giggules, I checked out the show’s fan wiki.
http://orville.wikia.com/wiki/Krill

According to it, The Union has yet to declare war in the Krill, but that “the conflict” has gone on for a few years, and that the nature of the disagreement means it “could last decades”.  The wiki doesn’t detail much in the way of ship-to-ship skirmishes, instead noting that the Krill have done raids in installations & colonies over the past year or so.

In a way, the dynamics between the two is less like tahat of the Federation-Klingon interactions and more like the earlier back and forth between the Federation and the Romulans.  The Romulans started off nuking Fed colonies, and both sides were still in the earliest stages of gathering intel about each other.  Remember, the Feds were surprised to note the resemblance between Romulans and Vulcans.

To me, at least, the Union-Krill fight seems inits earliest stages as well.  So, like I said, this episode may mark the first capture of a Union officer.


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## CapnZapp

The first question needs to be: 

What do these codes do?

If they allow intruders to hijack the individual ship in question, fine. That's essentially just a computer version of old skool boarding action. (It does beg the question why the Captain does away missions, but never mind)

If they allow intruders to take over the whole network, disable the entire fleet, or some such - that's preposterously stupid.

Remember, we're talking about "give us the codes". We're not talking about breaking the codes, or hacking the network. Essentially, we're talking about intruders that play by the rules, as set up by the defending side. And it simply doesn't work like that.

It is only in stupid action movies running out of time where you can press a self-destruct button that brings down the entire villain HQ, or by a single command can win against the "motherbrain" or somesuch.

In short, it should not be possible for a single captain's "codes" to be valuable enough for the Krill to bother going through with such an elaborate scheme. (If she were a high-ranking officer and did it for personal revenge it would be another story, but the episode clearly establishes that she just happened to hear about the idea and volunteered) 

Another way to phrase this: if the Krill can successfully pull off such complete infiltration, they should aim for something much more useful and valuable - yet much simpler - than "the codes". 

Even shorter: "the codes" is a stupid short-hand used by sci fi hacks that doesn't know any better.


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## Umbran

CapnZapp said:


> The first question needs to be:
> 
> What do these codes do?




They told us what they did - or at least what the Krill wanted.  They'd provide access to tactical data.  



> If they allow intruders to hijack the individual ship in question, fine. That's essentially just a computer version of old skool boarding action. (It does beg the question why the Captain does away missions, but never mind)




In this case, he wasn't on an away mission.  He was on leave, in an area that, to his knowledge, did not have the enemy in it.  



> Remember, we're talking about "give us the codes". We're not talking about breaking the codes, or hacking the network. Essentially, we're talking about intruders that play by the rules, as set up by the defending side. And it simply doesn't work like that.




Yes, well, FTL travel "doesn't work like that" either, and you don't see folks up in arms about it.  Folks can be pretty arbitrary about what they decide to accept and what they won't.

In the real world, though, the easiest way to get access to a system is often still the "human engineering hack" rather than the technical one.


----------



## CapnZapp

Umbran said:


> In this case, he wasn't on an away mission.  He was on leave, in an area that, to his knowledge, did not have the enemy in it.



Absolutely. I was thinking about the general case.



Umbran said:


> Yes, well, FTL travel "doesn't work like that" either, and you don't see folks up in arms about it.



Sure - but then everything about criticizing a show falls apart. The dangers of generalizing. 



Umbran said:


> Folks can be pretty arbitrary about what they decide to accept and what they won't.



Yes. I alluded earlier to the "captain on away missions". Unlike "the codes" that is a necessary part of a show with this structure, and not worth getting riled up by. 



> In the real world, though, the easiest way to get access to a system is often still the "human engineering hack" rather than the technical one.



Absolutely true. Doesn't change that "give me the codes" doesn't work, though. 

Especially for a captain on shore leave. Not only would a spacefaring civilization never have one-factor authentication, the acting captain would have his own codes. Why would the onboard computer allow a mere cartographer (assuming the plan was for her to return alone) access to data unrelated to her field just because she can recite "the codes"?

No, change the plot so that the Krill plan was to replace Captain Mercer with a Krill changed to look like McFarlane and infiltrate not only the ship, but some planned high-level conference with actual sensitive data, and "the codes" start to make sense - since they're now just a small insignificant part (like stealing a bunch of keys, or an ID-card) of a much more ambitious scheme rather than the be-all and end-all of the dastardly plot.


----------



## Umbran

CapnZapp said:


> Sure - but then everything about criticizing a show falls apart. The dangers of generalizing.




No, not everything about criticizing falls apart.  Criticism about "it doesn't work like that" falls apart when you put a highly fictional universe against ours.  Because, well, that highly fictional universe... doesn't work like ours!

Criticism hinging instead on things like internal consistency (as opposed to consistency with our real world), or accessibility, or emotional plausibility of human characters, use of theme, and such - those all still work.



> Absolutely true. Doesn't change that "give me the codes" doesn't work, though.




They work, because the show isn't a spy thriller.  Trek, and this show by extension, is at its core _a morality play_.  It isn't about technical details or technical correctness - it is about morals, ethics, choices and why we make them.  If we accept that, then we can allow for simplification on the technical details, to allow us to get to the real meat of the play in 40 minutes.




> Especially for a captain on shore leave. Not only would a spacefaring civilization never have one-factor authentication, the acting captain would have his own codes.




They said on screen they were planning to get data out of the shuttle Mercer was flying.  The acting captain isn't relevant.

For sake of the morality play - how about we just take it that there is multi-factor authentication, and the codes are only the last element the Krill don't have?  No, they don't show that on screen, but they're also merely technical details that don't involve Captain Mercer.  We don't waste time on them, and we get to pressuring Mercer, which is the important bit in terms of drama.



> No, change the plot so that the Krill plan was to replace Captain Mercer with a Krill changed to look like McFarlane and infiltrate not only the ship, but some planned high-level conference with actual sensitive data, and "the codes" start to make sense - since they're now just a small insignificant part (like stealing a bunch of keys, or an ID-card) of a much more ambitious scheme rather than the be-all and end-all of the dastardly plot.




We dont' do that, because this is an episodic morality play show, not a strongly-arced techno-thriller show.  Get with the genre, man!  Yes, a show will disappoint you, if you criticize on the basis of not being something it never claimed to be!


----------



## CapnZapp

Umbran said:


> We dont' do that, because this is an episodic morality play show, not a strongly-arced techno-thriller show.  Get with the genre, man!  Yes, a show will disappoint you, if you criticize on the basis of not being something it never claimed to be!



Nah, I get the show's genre just right. And there is nothing about "the codes" that is necessary for either the episode or the genre. It's just a lazy worn-out trope.


----------



## Umbran

CapnZapp said:


> Nah, I get the show's genre just right.




With the plot you suggested, no, I don't think you do.  But, whatever.



> And there is nothing about "the codes" that is necessary for either the episode or the genre. It's just a lazy worn-out trope.




For the episode, we need Mercer to have something that the enemy cannot get except directly from a command-level officer.  It can't be too specific - if Mercer was part of a particular super-secret project at that time, he wouldn't leave for vacation, but it has to be key information, worth a major operation to get.  Since it is key information... and access key is simple enough for everyone to understand.  We all have passwords to things.

Is it technically accurate?  No.  But if you are hung up on that, you don't really get the genre.


----------



## CapnZapp

Umbran said:


> But if you are hung up on that, you don't really get the genre.



Why are you trying to make this about me, and my faculties of comprehension? 

I am nitpicking a show that I love. I am clearly displaying the capacity for handwaving certain tropes - such as "Captain Away Mission". I have refrained from commenting about the mind-boggling stupidity that is to have a light-sensitive race whose weakness can be overcome by a mere _leather jacket_...?

Therefore I ask you to consider if it can't be that certain tropes are needed (or wanted) to support the genre, but that "the codes" is not one of them? 

At the very least, _stop accusing me of not getting the genre_. Is that really the argument you want to insist on?

Now, let me change the subject. 

The actress playing the infiltrator was both capable and attractive. Shame the Krill makeup completely obscured both - when I watched the episode I felt bad for her, trying to emote with zero chance of success. 

(I get that they came up with the Krill design long before writing this story, and I guess it could be much worse *cough* *cough* _discovery klingons_ *cough* *cough* but I can still wish I could see the actors' faces, can't I)


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Fer giggules, I checked out the show’s fan wiki.
> http://orville.wikia.com/wiki/Krill
> 
> According to it, The Union has yet to declare war in the Krill, but that “the conflict” has gone on for a few years, and that the nature of the disagreement means it “could last decades”.  The wiki doesn’t detail much in the way of ship-to-ship skirmishes, instead noting that the Krill have done raids in installations & colonies over the past year or so.
> 
> In a way, the dynamics between the two is less like tahat of the Federation-Klingon interactions and more like the earlier back and forth between the Federation and the Romulans.  The Romulans started off nuking Fed colonies, and both sides were still in the earliest stages of gathering intel about each other.  Remember, the Feds were surprised to note the resemblance between Romulans and Vulcans.
> 
> To me, at least, the Union-Krill fight seems inits earliest stages as well.  So, like I said, this episode may mark the first capture of a Union officer.




IIRC the Romulans were supposed to be a stand-in for Communist China and the Klingons were the Soviet Union analog. During the Romulan conflict neither the Federation nor the Romulans had video capable FTL radio so all contact was via voice or text. No one had seen a Romulan until the incident. Of course "Enterprise" threw that all out the window.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Ryujin said:


> IIRC the Romulans were supposed to be a stand-in for Communist China and the Klingons were the Soviet Union analog. During the Romulan conflict neither the Federation nor the Romulans had video capable FTL radio so all contact was via voice or text. No one had seen a Romulan until the incident. Of course "Enterprise" threw that all out the window.




I don’t remember a Romulan-centric episode in that series.


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I don’t remember a Romulan-centric episode in that series.




The original series episode I referenced is "Balance or Terror." In "Enterprise" they already had FTL visual communications, prior to the Romulan War, which shouldn't have been the case. There actually were a few Romulan-centric episodes in which the Romulans used an Andorian to control drone attack ships, that were capable of masking their appearance, and in which the Enterprise had to deal with a cloaked Romulan minefield, for example.


----------



## Deset Gled

CapnZapp said:


> I am nitpicking a show that I love. I am clearly displaying the capacity for handwaving certain tropes - such as "Captain Away Mission". I have refrained from commenting about the mind-boggling stupidity that is to have a light-sensitive race whose weakness can be overcome by a mere _leather jacket_...?




On the subject of nitpicking...

I was okay with the jacket thing, because it was clearly a short term emergency fix.  Like a human running through a radiation field with a lead blanket.  Sure, spend 5 minutes there and you'll get (literally) burned.  Spend 20 minutes there and get cancer that kills you.  But when you're being chased by someone with a gun, you take that calculated risk for 30 seconds to try and escape.  Very believable.

What I found harder to take was the earlier Krill infiltration episode where they incapacitated the ship by hacking the lights to turn everything too bright.  Why would lights in working area's of ship even have the ability to be bright enough to hurt the Krill?  That's like humans putting 1000W light bulbs in all our lamps, and just running them at 60.  Why would there be a remote control that even allow the lights to be programmed to kill?  Why would the infrastructure allow that much power to go to a light (one of the basics of electrical safety is that when a devices pulls too much power, you assume it's shorted and cut the power)?  It was definitely one of those little things that blew my suspension of disbelief for me.  I needed something with more technobabble to hand wave the problems.

That episode was also weak for me because of the dialog.  It just had excessive non-Krill-like joking while undercover.  I feel like this season, so far, has done a better job of figuring out when it's okay for the characters to be joking and when they're supposed to be serious.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Ryujin said:


> The original series episode I referenced is "Balance or Terror." In "Enterprise" they already had FTL visual communications, prior to the Romulan War, which shouldn't have been the case. There actually were a few Romulan-centric episodes in which the Romulans used an Andorian to control drone attack ships, that were capable of masking their appearance, and in which the Enterprise had to deal with a cloaked Romulan minefield, for example.




I know “Balance of Terror”. 

But I simply don’t recall the Romulans in _Enterprise_.  Mental block, perhaps.


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I know “Balance of Terror”.
> 
> But I simply don’t recall the Romulans in _Enterprise_.  Mental block, perhaps.




Apart from seeing a brief glimpse of Andoria, it wasn't a great arc. Easily forgettable. Since they were using mentally controlled drone ships they didn't show the Romulans a lot. Perennial tough guy Brian Thompson plays the Romulan commander who is in direct control of the drone ship programme.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Ryujin said:


> Apart from seeing a brief glimpse of Andoria, it wasn't a great arc. Easily forgettable. Since they were using mentally controlled drone ships they didn't show the Romulans a lot. Perennial tough guy Brian Thompson plays the Romulan commander who is in direct control of the drone ship programme.



Damn.  I watched that entire series, and have ZERO recollection of that _at all._

I’ll have to contact my buddy J.D. Edwards- we often watched the show together.






There were no Romulans in that series.


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Damn.  I watched that entire series, and have ZERO recollection of that _at all._
> 
> I’ll have to contact my buddy J.D. Edwards- we often watched the show together.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There were no Romulans in that series.




[video=youtube;v9ospnoQvdI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ospnoQvdI[/video]


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I vaguely recognize the flea shaped ship and that actor...but not that scene.


----------



## Umbran

That clip makes me want to go back and rewatch Enterprise


----------



## Orius

Announce a first contact and the whole ship celebrates.  There's something we've never seen in Trek.  In Trek, they all celebrate first contact like Vulcans.  But then, Trek never talked about another favorite activity, stellar cartography, like this either:

[video=youtube_share;Jg658eHR3Oc]https://youtu.be/Jg658eHR3Oc[/video]

So a whole world run by astrology.  That's a plot that hasn't been overused so far.  Though I'm surprised it took the crew a month to figure things out about the CONSTELLATION OF DEATH.  It never occurred to Ed to point out that the stars aren't going to look the same from other worlds, and thus the signs that allegedly rule Regor II don't exist on other worlds.  Hell, the planet's other hemisphere probably shouldn't have the same signs.  For that matter, the stars don't remain in the same place forever; the Sun doesn't occupy the same place it did in the zodiac when Western astrology was first developed, and this planet has had their system longer.  They haven't noticed how the stars move especially with their tracking satellites?  But then, they think astrology works instead of being the pseudoscience it actually is, so their methodologies are probably all suspect.


----------



## Nutation

I never bought the claim in the Star Trek universe that the Federation had evolved beyond money, and I don't buy it here. (Have we heard of this before on The Orville?) Replicator technology makes most resource shortages disappear, but it's still damned efficient to have a means of tracking the exchange of value.



Orius said:


> It never occurred to Ed to point out that the stars aren't going to look the same from other worlds, and thus the signs that allegedly rule Regor II don't exist on other worlds.  Hell, the planet's other hemisphere probably shouldn't have the same signs.  For that matter, the stars don't remain in the same place forever; the Sun doesn't occupy the same place it did in the zodiac when Western astrology was first developed, and this planet has had their system longer.  They haven't noticed how the stars move especially with their tracking satellites?  But then, they think astrology works instead of being the pseudoscience it actually is, so their methodologies are probably all suspect.




I generally like the idea of this plot; I agree that it is little-tilled soil. The Union has presumably done several first contacts, so "the book" should advise each captain to talk to a society on its own terms. Mercer would never do such a thing, of course, otherwise 10% of the audience and 50% of the writers wouldn't understand. And so we get 30 days of stonewalling. The eventual solution was plausible enough.

I presume that the lightsail we saw was really placed farther out in the star system so that its position was essentially the same from everywhere on the planet. I also presume that Isaac hacked the astrometric satellites so that they produced consistent info.

I also presume that if birth dates are critically important and you have a pregnant woman in your prison that you watch her carefully. You at least notice when she suddenly deflates before one of your inspections. Not really important to the plot, though.

I did like the cartoon dance.


----------



## Morrus

Great episode. Though it always bugs me when people refer to their own planet in the “Sol 3” format. We call our planet Earth, but they called theirs “Rigor 2”. 

This was a solid TNG episode. This is the stuff I like in Orville. Less fart jokes, more good storytelling.


----------



## Ryujin

Nutation said:


> I never bought the claim in the Star Trek universe that the Federation had evolved beyond money, and I don't buy it here. (Have we heard of this before on The Orville?) Replicator technology makes most resource shortages disappear, but it's still damned efficient to have a means of tracking the exchange of value.
> 
> I generally like the idea of this plot; I agree that it is little-tilled soil. The Union has presumably done several first contacts, so "the book" should advise each captain to talk to a society on its own terms. Mercer would never do such a thing, of course, otherwise 10% of the audience and 50% of the writers wouldn't understand. And so we get 30 days of stonewalling. The eventual solution was plausible enough.
> 
> I presume that the lightsail we saw was really placed farther out in the star system so that its position was essentially the same from everywhere on the planet. I also presume that Isaac hacked the astrometric satellites so that they produced consistent info.
> 
> I also presume that if birth dates are critically important and you have a pregnant woman in your prison that you watch her carefully. You at least notice when she suddenly deflates before one of your inspections. Not really important to the plot, though.
> 
> I did like the cartoon dance.




I would think that if they've been doing astrology for as many thousands of years indicated, it would have grown to encompass all the 'signs' that are visible around the planet. As they had developed a world government and astrology was so ingrained in their basic belief structure, it would have had to.

The light sail thing seemed like a typical Star Trek style technological hole in the plot. You can hack satellites to report incorrect telemetry, however, simple visual observation is capable of determining approximate distance to an astronomical object. We knew how far out Jupiter was long before we had computers or satellites, after all.

Doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the hell out of it though


----------



## Ryujin

Morrus said:


> Great episode. Though it always bugs me when people refer to their own planet in the “Sol 3” format. We call our planet Earth, but they called theirs “Rigor 2”.
> 
> This was a solid TNG episode. This is the stuff I like in Orville. Less fart jokes, more good storytelling.




All that it was missing, was Wesley destroying a garden


----------



## Morrus

They’re a very suggestible species, luckily. There’s *nothing* that can change human closely held beliefs.  We’d probably try to shoot the star for challenging our position.


----------



## Aeson

Ted Danson had to like that gig. "Put this on. Sit behind the desk. Speak two sentences. Profit." Hell he could have filmed that one from home in his boxers. 

It did bother me they locked Kelly and Bortus up. Kick them off world. Send some of the other "bad" ones with them. They're your problem now. I wonder what sign the warden was born under.


----------



## Richards

Also, how many of the local aliens did Kelly and Bortus kill during their attempted jailbreak?  (And those were guns with bullets, not phasers set on stun.)  It seemed like around a dozen, at least.  So even if the "look, the missing star's back now" trick worked and those born under that sign are no longer automatically suspect, I would think the fact that these two alien prisoners actually killed a dozen people might be kind of worth remembering.

And I agree, the dancing birthday cartoon at the end was the best part of the entire episode.  That was laugh-out-loud funny!

Johnathan


----------



## Kaodi

My PVR somehow skipped The Orville this week (I checked, it is supposed to record next week) so I thought maybe the show had skipped a week. Now I am wroth to find out it didn't.


----------



## Maxperson

Nutation said:


> I never bought the claim in the Star Trek universe that the Federation had evolved beyond money, and I don't buy it here. (Have we heard of this before on The Orville?) Replicator technology makes most resource shortages disappear, but it's still damned efficient to have a means of tracking the exchange of value.




Yeah.  I remember it being said in at least one other episode.  Last season I think.


----------



## cbwjm

Maxperson said:


> Yeah.  I remember it being said in at least one other episode.  Last season I think.




That was the episode where they found out the John was way smarter than they realised. They talked about how with no money, wealth comes from reputation much as they mentioned in the last episode.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Nutation said:


> I never bought the claim in the Star Trek universe that the Federation had evolved beyond money, and I don't buy it here. (Have we heard of this before on The Orville?) Replicator technology makes most resource shortages disappear, but it's still damned efficient to have a means of tracking the exchange of value.




Utopian/post-scarcity economics is only now being discussed seriously, in part because of the impacts of technology on the _job_ market.  Right now, the discussion don’t have much in the way of solutions since they’re just now describing the problems and recording the effects.

The first real warning sign _I _can think of was a circa 2012 (I think) prototype modular robot that could be programmed to do @200 manufacturing jobs for the price of 5 years’ labor of an Indonesian factory worker.

Fast forward to today, we have driverless automobiles threatening any job involving driving for a wage, cashierless retail stores, specialized software that can generate basic legal documents for a growing number of jurisdictions, and medical diagnostic “AI” programs that are about 60% accurate compared to actual MDs...and improving.

A 2017 article estimated 800 million worldwide jobs are in danger of being eliminated by technology in the near future- mostly concentrated in modernized countries.  Another (from Forbes, as I recall) claims tech will eliminate 6% of the jobs in the USA by 2030.  

These trends are more likely to accelerate than decelerate.

So the question you have to ask is, what good is money when increasing numbers of humans can’t find a job?

The original Star Trek episode “The Squire of Gothos” has a scene in which Kirk rejects the temptation of piles of gemstones as worthless baubles, claiming the Federation had been creating them for years.  As of the *1980s*, you could buy a rod of synthetic corundum (ruby, sapphire) more than a foot long for @$50.  Those rods had clear indicators that they were lab grown.  Better ones from that era were indistinguishable from the natural ones.  Manmade diamonds- not stimulants like CZ ot YAG, but actual diamonds- are a fraction of the costs of natural ones, but still have telltale signs they’re artificial.  With enough time...


----------



## Morrus

Nutation said:


> Replicator technology makes most resource shortages disappear, but it's still damned efficient to have a means of tracking the exchange of value.




I think the point is that physical commodities have zero value because of zero rarity.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Satyrn

Legatus_Legionis said:


> One thing they did not explain was that one planet's "year" are not the same as another planet's "year".
> 
> For example:
> Earth orbit's our Sun every 365 Earth days.
> Venus orbit's our Sun every 224.7 Earth days.
> 
> So even if one celebrates their "birth day" in the following week, the actual sign based on when/where they were born could differ planet to planet.
> 
> To easily say every planet in the union has a year of 365 days is wrong.
> 
> To say instead, "On my home world I would be celebrating my birthday next week" would have been more accurate.  And it should have been something Mercer and the crew should have realized.
> 
> But if one then looks back at what sign Bortis or Kelly was actually born under, and it might easily be something else from what this planet thought.




I thought the silliest part of that episode was when the Orville captain didn't understand a word (the name of a constellation, I believe) and the world's leader said "You must have a different word for it."


----------



## Orius

Tonight's episode was The Orville saying to Trek "This is how you do it", and doing it better.

LaMarr is kind of the anti-Geordie, at least that's the thought I've been having recently.  He gave some pretty solid advice here.  Of course, when it came time for the breakup I thought, "Yup, we're going to get the full Seth here."  And we did, heh.  And then he tops it with Ed giving advice on how to fix things.

Seeing Yaphit get jealous was funny, as was his attempt to cheer up Claire later.

Other random musings: Bortas's mustache was funny, and predictably enough Klyden hated it.  Even more funny, their son liked it.  I like how they had the symphony in the shuttle bay with the orchestra playing with space behind them.  Another one of those things things Trek would _never_ do, but kind of makes things feel more real here.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

The mustache was bow-chicka-wow-wow worthy.

As for the Isaac/Claire storyline?  Well, much like the analog with ST equivalents, I can’t help but think of...

[video=youtube;YlHnpoVYbHE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlHnpoVYbHE[/video]


----------



## Orius

That mustache would have gone well with his porn binge.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Orius said:


> That mustache would have gone well with his porn binge.




Yep, and THAT means..._*SETH, YOU MISSED ONE!!!*_


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Morrus

That was bloody awful. I want my 45 minutes back!


----------



## CapnZapp

It was too long for the simple and well worn story.

I actually longed for more McFarland jokes.

At least they're making a trend of hooking up the doctor with a strange lifeform each season


----------



## Aeson

Not one of their strongest episodes, which means the guy at Nerdrotic loved it. I liked getting to see Isaac sans robot costume. Also I want to say I called it in an earlier post. Dr. Finn was falling for him and they would hook up.


----------



## CapnZapp

Minor observations:

They could make more of a deal of how Lamarr dates one hot young white chick after the other.

I can't make sense of having the Yaphit character. Not in this episode; the call back to the Doctor's previous escapades was nice, but in general. Having such an absurd creature - and then using it so very little, I mean.

Kelly is somewhat of a disappointing character this season. She comes across much too much as the boring responsible TV mom. She's boringly competent with a wet blanket of a boyfriend.

Come on, Orville - you're wasting Adrianne Palicki!
When she was cast, I hoped to see more of her wild side. More like how Lois of Family Guy has one. Season one delivered at least a little, but not season two so far.

Halston Sage's replacement hasn't even got a chance yet. Very strange, almost as if Sage left with no warning and they decided to just hire another actress to just stand around. I can't think of a single reason why they had to have a Xelayan onboard this season. (The Alara farewell episode doesn't count, since that was obviously inserted to explain her absence) I saw Halston Sage on Magnum PI the other week, and I miss her on the show.

This season has really doubled down on the soap opera aspects of Next Generation. Also the boring competence. Not what I expected. They really need to pick up the pace here, the show plods along as if it already knows it's getting cancelled!

That would be a huge waste, so bring on the smart, sexy action plots! More of the outrageous blue Rob Lowe. More of anti-Picard Mercer (who immediately schlobs it up when captured). More Yaphit. And bring back Alara and her heavy drinking in the face of danger!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Legatus_Legionis said:


> And I don't know if I like Bortus better with or without a mustache?
> 
> Guess it reminds me of the Magnum PI mustache.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

CapnZapp said:


> At least they're making a trend of hooking up the doctor with a strange lifeform each season




Soooo...like Kirk & Riker?  Excellent!


----------



## CapnZapp

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Soooo...like Kirk & Riker?  Excellent!


----------



## Ryujin

Not all can be gems.


----------



## Nutation

CapnZapp;7557612Halston Sage's replacement hasn't even got a chance yet. Very strange said:
			
		

> I agree with this. For quickly bringing in another Xelayan, they should have had an immediate reason; otherwise, there would be (and seemingly was) time to craft another character and perhaps show us another race in the Union.


----------



## Ryujin

Nutation said:


> I agree with this. For quickly bringing in another Xelayan, they should have had an immediate reason; otherwise, there would be (and seemingly was) time to craft another character and perhaps show us another race in the Union.




Reason: To avoid rewrites? Story reason thrown out the window.


----------



## cbwjm

I thought it made a lot of sense for Ed to want another selayan for his head of security.


----------



## Richards

And with her hairstyle, the makeup department only ever has to craft a left ear for her.

Johnathan


----------



## Orius

Reruns already?  That pisses me off.


----------



## Ryujin

Orius said:


> Reruns already?  That pisses me off.




Unfortunately that now seems to be the North American broadcast TV cycle.


----------



## CapnZapp

I think it's simply the Superbowl making shows skip a week?

(That networks insert reruns in the usual time slot when a new episode is not forthcoming can hardly come as a surprise)


----------



## Morrus

I can never work out when US shows are on. We get criticised for short series, but we show them from start to finish. With US shows it seems to be two weeks on, three weeks off, one week on, a week off, two more weeks off, two weeks on... sometimes I’ve actually forgotten shows exist and suddenly rediscover them a year later!


----------



## Aeson

They're so ratings critical. If something they know will draw big numbers, a show takes the night off. Holidays often means no one is watching TV, so they take night off. I think it's an effort to stretch the season. With 52 weeks in a year but on average 22 episodes, a show would be on for less than 6 months. More than 6 months for viewers to forget. There was a time in the past there were ratings weeks. A week in November, a week in February, and a week in May. The best of the season would be shown in those weeks. The very special episodes. Big name guest stars. So they had to be able to cover time from August to May. Now you have a show covering 8 months time instead of say 5. Now it's expected to be every week I think.


----------



## Orius

Morrus said:


> I can never work out when US shows are on.




Don't worry, neither can we.

Of course, this is *FOX* so that makes it even worse.  They're really good at the squirrely schedules.

Still, even with the Super Bowl, I have no idea why the skipped a week.  Especially during February, which is a sweeps month.


----------



## Morrus

Aeson said:


> They're so ratings critical. If something they know will draw big numbers, a show takes the night off. Holidays often means no one is watching TV, so they take night off. I think it's an effort to stretch the season. With 52 weeks in a year but on average 22 episodes, a show would be on for less than 6 months. More than 6 months for viewers to forget. There was a time in the past there were ratings weeks. A week in November, a week in February, and a week in May. The best of the season would be shown in those weeks. The very special episodes. Big name guest stars. So they had to be able to cover time from August to May. Now you have a show covering 8 months time instead of say 5. Now it's expected to be every week I think.




Well, yes. All those reasons are true elsewhere, too. We have big events and special guest stars and holidays too. They aren’t unique American traits. But the result is different. You might as well have said “It’s because the actors breathe oxygen”. The question is about what’s different, and therefore creates that unique scheduling frustration, not listing the things common to everyone.


----------



## Orius

Remember what I said about the last episode?



Orius said:


> Tonight's episode was The Orville saying to Trek "This is how you do it", and doing it better.




That was apparently a practice run for tonight, where we get The Orville spiking the ball in the face of one of TNG's most infamously bad episodes:

[sblock]
Of course, I'm talking about "The Outcast" here, which tried to do an early LBGT tolerance episode and fell flat on its face doing so.  It was done so badly, that I recognized just how much of a fail it was when I was only 15.  This was done better, though TBH, that's not hard to do.

I think it was a good touch that he wasn't simply portrayed as a victim either.  He was perfectly willing to frame Klyden for murder, and he got called out on it.   Okay, so Klyden _was_ being pretty bigoted here, but there's two things to point out.  First, he is an established character who probably has some fans, and there's some audience sympathy for him about how being framed will hurt both him and his family.  Second, keep in mind he was born female, and then had a female child with Bortas, so that may affect how he feels on top of the cultural norms.

Between last season's episode about Bortas and and Klyden's kid and this one, I suspect Seth is going to come back to these issues unlike Trek would do.  While some aspects of Moclan society are clearly played for laughs, they seem to be seriously messed up under the surface.  Further, these problems aren't just shallow bigotry either, since it seems there was some necessity for it in the past, but is probably not now and only keeps going because of the social pressures of tradition.   They're not an all-male species, they deliberately suppress both females and heterosexual males, and since we have two Moclans as regular characters who've been personally involved in these matters, I doubt it's going to be swept away.

On other matters, the whole murder mystery aspect was handed in an interesting way.  Once some doubts about Klyden emerged, I figured it was a suicide, until they revealed that was just as shaming as coming out.  I also liked how they immediately assumed scanners would be useless against a very skilled engineer, and didn't bother wasting time with them.  I figured out he was probably using something like a personal cloaking device or something too, since it would help with evading any searches.  Trek doesn't often think things out this well.
[/sblock]

The flower guy was the latest interesting alien design, and the cookie bouquet was silly and funny.


----------



## Zardnaar

I thought it was a great episode. Clever social satire is how to do it.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> I can never work out when US shows are on. We get criticised for short series, but we show them from start to finish. With US shows it seems to be two weeks on, three weeks off, one week on, a week off, two more weeks off, two weeks on... sometimes I’ve actually forgotten shows exist and suddenly rediscover them a year later!




A British show that has more than 6 episodes is a long UK season for me. Quality over quantity.

 Still Blackadder was so good.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

5 word review: Roddenberry would have been proud.


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 5 word review: Roddenberry would have been proud.




I would tend to agree. I'm not really warming up to the character of Talla, at least not yet, but that was a good episode in the Star Trek:TNG style, holodeck and everything.


----------



## Morrus

It was good, but wasn't the last episode a romance plot? And this one was essentially two simultaneous romance plots (with a murder mystery added in). I'm hoping for some action next week!


----------



## CapnZapp

For a brief moment I went "oh noes, another syrupy story". Bortus and Kelly both.

Then it turned out to be clever and interesting! 

Of course with that said the attraction between the two aliens got zero development, but I am understanding nevertheless. If they wanted to earn her tears at the end, they would have had to set up their relationship in a separate episode, and I think it was a reasonable priority to skip that.

That said, this episode provided at least two chances of seeing a Moclan wrestle a Xelayan, and they squandered both: first romantically as a much more likely pastime (why would an interspecies pair ever go for the nostalgia of an unrelated third species??). Then when the Engineer could have tried to overpower Talla in the shuttle.


----------



## Zardnaar

Well Talla at least got a plotline and she is still a new character.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Morrus said:


> I'm hoping for some action next week!


----------



## Ryujin

CapnZapp said:


> For a brief moment I went "oh noes, another syrupy story". Bortus and Kelly both.
> 
> Then it turned out to be clever and interesting!
> 
> Of course with that said the attraction between the two aliens got zero development, but I am understanding nevertheless. If they wanted to earn her tears at the end, they would have had to set up their relationship in a separate episode, and I think it was a reasonable priority to skip that.
> 
> That said, this episode provided at least two chances of seeing a Moclan wrestle a Xelayan, and they squandered both: first romantically as a much more likely pastime (why would an interspecies pair ever go for the nostalgia of an unrelated third species??). Then when the Engineer could have tried to overpower Talla in the shuttle.




With or without the relationship angle, the fact that her devotion to duty and personal morals placed her in a position in which she had to destroy the life of a member of a victimized minority gave the story power.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I wonder how things would have shaken out if the faked death had actually been as it initially seemed.

A murder conviction would have left Bortus as a single parent, a warrior raising his kid in a ship of aliens who don’t get his culture...

Wait...that’s Whorf & Alexander.


----------



## Jester David

Nutation said:


> I never bought the claim in the Star Trek universe that the Federation had evolved beyond money, and I don't buy it here. (Have we heard of this before on The Orville?) Replicator technology makes most resource shortages disappear, but it's still damned efficient to have a means of tracking the exchange of value.



I’ve thought about this at length, and while writing for a Trek RPG blog. 
It’s actually kinda simple and comes down to warp engines and transporters.

Warp reactors generate enough power to warp space. Which also means a reactor the size of a small strip mall can power the Eastern United States. There’s a riddiculous amount of power available. And when every city can have one you have an effective limitless amount of power. Supply and demand kicks in, and when you have an infinite amount of power it becomes free.
With unlimited and free power you can do all kinds of projects that would otherwise be cost ineffective. Like mile long greenhouses in the Sahara and mass desalination plants that turn sea water into fresh water. Food and water are also abundant and thus become free.
The one limiting factor that would increase the cost is shipping. But then transporters come in and that becomes free. 

Then add in being able to mine asteroid belts. That radically increases the availability of metal ore. And even modern tech like 3D printers allowing you to make simple household items.

Free food, free water, free goods, etc. At that point, why do people need to go to work? Would you keep going to some crap job if everything you need is free? 
Now this is still the mid-2160s. Now fast forward 100 years. At that point money has cases to be important. It can’t buy anything of value and many people don’t have any.


----------



## Jester David

Back on topic, I’m still enjoying this season. Mostly simply relationship episodes, which I rather enjoy. Entire episodes focusing on the crew is fun. But they also had neat social commentary episodes, and the awesome one with the hidden Krill.
I’ve quite been enjoying the series.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Zardnaar

Legatus_Legionis said:


> No wonder Locar wanted all those security access codes.
> 
> Otherwise, for comparison, it reminded me of Star Trek: TOS, season 1 "Court Martial" were one with the technical know-how tries to stage their death and creates evidence to blame the death on another.
> 
> 
> 
> SMEG!
> 
> And here I thought you were gonna mention RED DWARF!




Yeah Red Dwarf is great. Series seems to be on an uptick after 8 and 9.


----------



## CapnZapp

Ryujin said:


> With or without the relationship angle, the fact that her devotion to duty and personal morals placed her in a position in which she had to destroy the life of a member of a victimized minority gave the story power.



Yes.

I am sure, though, we agree that if they had 

* either managed to arrive at that conclusion without adding a (unsatisfyingly cursory) romantic element between the two
* or fleshed out said romantic element to make it minimally satisfying

...it would have been better, not worse


----------



## Umbran

Jester David said:


> Warp reactors generate enough power to warp space.




That doesn't mean anything, since we don't actually know what warping space entails.  Maybe the outright power output needed to warp space is small, and the trick is what you do with that power.  

To make this point, what you should do is note that the Federation has more *fusion* reactors than you can shake a stick at.  Same result, but more accurate reasoning.



> The one limiting factor that would increase the cost is shipping. But then transporters come in and that becomes free.




This holds in the Trek Universe, yes.  But not in The Orville, where we don't see transporters.  But, if energy is basically free, then shipping is a matter of time - there's no notable material of fuel cost associated with it.



> Free food, free water, free goods, etc. At that point, why do people need to go to work? Would you keep going to some crap job if everything you need is free?




How many of the "crap jobs" are in doing things to manually produce the stuff that is now free?  You have machines to do heavy labor.  Computers to do boring record keeping.  Why would you keep going to some crap job when there is no need for humans (or any sentient being) to do crap jobs?

In the Trek universe, there's no "crap jobs" to speak of.  The crappiest you get is shepherding robots that do the crap work for you - and most of that can be done by computer, too.

Which is to say, yes, there's not a whole lot of need for "wealth" in the current way we think of it.  Most humans can spend their time in intellectual and artistic pursuits (like Sisko's father, who has a restaurant - he's a food artist).  And, there's a big question as to whether you'd need anyone to *pay* for those intellectual and artistic products, because... well, the artist doesn't *need* anything.

Money is a concept based in scarcity.  In a post-scarcity world, there's not a lot of call for it.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Bingeaux.


----------



## Ryujin

Legatus_Legionis said:


> No wonder Locar wanted all those security access codes.
> 
> Otherwise, for comparison, it reminded me of Star Trek: TOS, season 1 "Court Martial" were one with the technical know-how tries to stage their death and creates evidence to blame the death on another.




Reminds me more of season 5, episode 17 "The Outcast", in which Riker strikes up a relationship with a member of an androgynous race.


----------



## Deset Gled

Morrus said:


> It was good, but wasn't the last episode a romance plot? And this one was essentially two simultaneous romance plots (with a murder mystery added in). I'm hoping for some action next week!




I think the "upgrade the ship" side plot and accompanying test fight was their attempt to shoehorn some action into what was otherwise a relationship episode.


I also think it worked.  I've been surprisingly satisfied with these romance plots.  I generally disliked Riker romance on TNG, but these have been working for me.  Hopefully they won't get stale.


----------



## Nutation

Jester David said:


> I’ve thought about this at length, and while writing for a Trek RPG blog.
> It’s actually kinda simple and comes down to warp engines and transporters.
> 
> ...
> 
> Free food, free water, free goods, etc. At that point, why do people need to go to work? Would you keep going to some crap job if everything you need is free?
> Now this is still the mid-2160s. Now fast forward 100 years. At that point money has cases to be important. It can’t buy anything of value and many people don’t have any.




Some things will always be scarce - prime real estate, original art, honorific titles. Even now, I can get free water, paper, flu shots, and various other goods that have a marginal cost to the provider of nearly zero. But, money is now and probably will be the most efficient way to distribute scarcities, assuming that individual differences in preference are to be respected.
On a small scale, barter or trading favors works. Across the whole Union, not really.


----------



## Jester David

Umbran said:


> That doesn't mean anything, since we don't actually know what warping space entails.  Maybe the outright power output needed to warp space is small, and the trick is what you do with that power.



In Trek we know, since they had entire books devoted to the in-world science. I can pull out my _Next Generation Technical Manual_ and tell you the exact power output of the _Enterprise-D_'s Warp Reactor. 

_Orville_… less so. But the show seems much more interested in the characters than delving that deep into the pseudo-physics rabbit hole. 
But it stands to reason "infinite power" is likely a key element of building to a post-scarcity economy. 



Umbran said:


> How many of the "crap jobs" are in doing things to manually produce the stuff that is now free?  You have machines to do heavy labor.  Computers to do boring record keeping.  Why would you keep going to some crap job when there is no need for humans (or any sentient being) to do crap jobs?



There are entire industries that largely exist because the government subsidizes them to avoid people losing their jobs. 
The US overproduces ridiculous amounts of milk and wastes gallons and then packs it inefficiently letting the majority spoil before it can be consumed just to keep the dairy farmers working,




Umbran said:


> Which is to say, yes, there's not a whole lot of need for "wealth" in the current way we think of it.  Most humans can spend their time in intellectual and artistic pursuits (like Sisko's father, who has a restaurant - he's a food artist).  And, there's a big question as to whether you'd need anyone to *pay* for those intellectual and artistic products, because... well, the artist doesn't *need* anything.
> 
> Money is a concept based in scarcity.  In a post-scarcity world, there's not a lot of call for it.



Right.
Theoretically, the restaurant owner just works because they love cooking. And people show up and order whatever they want and it's free. 
People do what makes them happy. And while some people probably waste a few years doing nothing, that gets old and they move on to challenging themselves or finding their passion. 



Nutation said:


> Some things will always be scarce - prime real estate, original art, honorific titles.



True. But in a _Star Trek_ universe where you can "beam" across the globe to work, prime real estate matters less. You can live in San Diego, pop over to Paris for breakfast before work in London, then zip off for lunch in Moscow.
Less so in the _Orville_ show. But with simple shuttles able of travelling interstellar and breaking atmo, commuting between cities shouldn't be as bad. 



Nutation said:


> Even now, I can get free water, paper, flu shots, and various other goods that have a marginal cost to the provider of nearly zero. But, money is now and probably will be the most efficient way to distribute scarcities, assuming that individual differences in preference are to be respected.
> On a small scale, barter or trading favors works. Across the whole Union, not really.



Kinda.
The catch being, you need the "currency" for big transactions. But those are irregular. The small, daily stuff is free. You don't need it for daily life, and so there's no reason to amass currency. And once you have the big things (a house, a title, a decent amount of art) what else do you need? 
The value of currency over bartering is that it's easier for regular mundane transactions. The kind that are now free. So you can handle those rare occasional transactions with a barter. 
Without regular use of currency, it cease to have value or importance. It becomes devalued. 

But this is putting a lot more thought into the economics of a fantasy world, for a show unconcerned with economics and focused on life in a spaceship and not said fantasy world.


----------



## Umbran

Jester David said:


> In Trek we know, since they had entire books devoted to the in-world science. I can pull out my _Next Generation Technical Manual_ and tell you the exact power output of the _Enterprise-D_'s Warp Reactor.




Yeah, I have a copy of that, and could look it up if I wanted.  That book was written by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda - who are great guys, excellent with artistic design, but not physicists or engineers.  That number is nice for the book, but I do not believe it was considered for its overall ramifications and implications to the society and economics at large.  I wouldn't hold them to that, if I were you.  It isn't fair to them.

Or, if you want, I can go look it up, and run some numbers on it.  What do you figure the chances are that it is either far too large or small to make sense?



> The catch being, you need the "currency" for big transactions. But those are irregular. The small, daily stuff is free. You don't need it for daily life, and so there's no reason to amass currency. And once you have the big things (a house, a title, a decent amount of art) what else do you need?
> The value of currency over bartering is that it's easier for regular mundane transactions. The kind that are now free. So you can handle those rare occasional transactions with a barter.




More the point - how often, even today, are huge amounts of raw cash value exchanged?  How often are large exchanges done in terms of stocks/options/futures, or rights and licenses, or contract terms?  Basically, on the large scale, don't we often get back to barter anyway?


----------



## Ryujin

I don't know if it's been mentioned elsewhere but, in the ST:TOS episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", the cost of a tribble was mentioned in "credits" on a Star Fleet station.


----------



## Umbran

Ryujin said:


> I don't know if it's been mentioned elsewhere but, in the ST:TOS episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", the cost of a tribble was mentioned in "credits" on a Star Fleet station.




Yes, and on Deep Space 9, the Ferengi were still in pursuit of latinum.  Not everyone the Federation deals with has eschewed currency.  Cyrano Jones was not exactly a shining example of the Federation's internal economics, y'know.


----------



## Ryujin

Umbran said:


> Yes, and on Deep Space 9, the Ferengi were still in pursuit of latinum.  Not everyone the Federation deals with has eschewed currency.  Cyrano Jones was not exactly a shining example of the Federation's internal economics, y'know.




The price was quoted back, with profit margin, by the bartender on the Federation station 

*EDIT* I would posit that the Federation had some sort of basic general income structure, giving all citizens a living and some comforts without the necessity of gainful employment, then topped it up with "credits" for discretionary purchases beyond that based on their duties.


----------



## Umbran

Ryujin said:


> The price was quoted back, with profit margin, by the bartender on the Federation station




"Deep Space Station K7" was operating on the edge of the Federation.  That bartender was dealing with Jones, Klingons, and goodness knows who else that were not Federation citizens.

Using this as an example of economics in the Federation is kind of like using the Old West shootout at high noon as an example of criminal justice in the US in the 1880s.  Not typical.



> *EDIT* I would posit that the Federation had some sort of basic general income structure, giving all citizens a living and some comforts without the necessity of gainful employment, then topped it up with "credits" for discretionary purchases beyond that based on their duties.




Alternatively, people on a starship or station at the border are given some accommodations when interacting with other cultures, to make things easier.  You check a phaser out of the armory, and you get a few credits from the Quartermaster before going ashore, so to speak.


----------



## Deset Gled

Umbran said:


> Alternatively, people on a starship or station at the border are given some accommodations when interacting with other cultures, to make things easier.  You check a phaser out of the armory, and you get a few credits from the Quartermaster before going ashore, so to speak.




There's a TNG episode where Worf barters with an alien for information about his father (Birthright).  The specifically talk about the "price" of the information.  IIRC, they never go into specifics about exactly what the price is, which was probably the writer's way of avoiding the question of how economics work in ST.  

The important take away, though, is that Worf clearly had access to a significant amount of some form of currency.  And it had to have been more than just walkin' 'round money, because it's enough for the alien to fly Worf into Romulan space and back.  There's no way the alien was doing that for the price of a weekend's worth of synthehol.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

“Price” only implies something of value, not necessarily money.  Information springs to mind.  In other fiction, personal favors were the medium of exchange favored by the protagonist.


----------



## Ryujin

This thought exercise is pretty interesting. I think that, essentially, he works his way around to something very much like my "basic income" comment. There was a pilot programme operating in Ontario, Canada experimenting with the concept, until a conservative government was elected and canned it, for purely ideological reasons.

https://medium.com/@RickWebb/the-economics-of-star-trek-29bab88d50


----------



## Orius

Deset Gled said:


> I generally disliked Riker romance on TNG, but these have been working for me.  Hopefully they won't get stale.




Like you said, Riker "romance".  Nothing compelling there unless it's named Deanna Troi, and then YMMV (and Riker and Troi were just Decker and Ilia recycled from TMP anyway).



Umbran said:


> Yes, and on Deep Space 9, the Ferengi were still in pursuit of latinum.  Not everyone the Federation deals with has eschewed currency.  Cyrano Jones was not exactly a shining example of the Federation's internal economics, y'know.




Cyrano Jones wasn't exactly a great businessman either.  Just look at his tribble scheme: peddle a creature that reproduces at a ridiculously explosive rate as a pet.  He thinks that because they breed so fast he can keep lots in stock and profit on volume. But then he gives one away to Uhura as free advertising, apparently not realizing that the supply will very rapidly outpace demand.  The Ferengi would run circles around him. 



Ryujin said:


> Reminds me more of season 5, episode 17 "The Outcast", in which Riker strikes up a relationship with a member of an androgynous race.




I mentioned that episode earlier, but since I was posting before the episode aired on the West Coast, I put my comments in spoilers.


----------



## Umbran

Orius said:


> Cyrano Jones wasn't exactly a great businessman either.




Well, no.  He wouldn't have been *funny* if he were a good businessman.


----------



## Orius

Ooooh, the plot thickens!  It felt like another character-driven episode, but then they drop the last 10 minutes on us.  Yeah, it's one of the standard sci-fi plots, but they pulled it off pretty well.  I'm guessing this is the something "big" that was teased at?

[Sblock]Man, this was really creepy.   Isaac and the other Kaylons have their whole arrogant Data schtick going on, then then they all go Skynet at the end.  Was the game Issac playing with the kids some sort of subtle foreshadowing?  And then there was the way Isaac just casually threw away that picture.  I was kind of bothered by the way Tye was just able to wander off the ship, but it did set up that reveal, so I can kind of let it slide for dramatic purposes. [/Sblock]

Am I the only one who got a Star Wars vibe from Kaylon?  Not just the visuals, but the ominous music in the background as well.


----------



## Zardnaar

Lol I just said Star Wars vibe to my wife. This is a good subversion maybe the Krill are not the villains. Music plus Attack of the Clones vibe with the ships departing.

 One of the oldest tropes done very well. Best episode yet imho.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Re: the twist

At first, I was thinking they were Cybermen/Daleks, but they’re more Cylon or Borg.  Either way..._OOPS!_

I wonder if the Union is going to get help from that out of phase planet where Isaac spent a billion years...

I also agree that the kid got off the ship and wandered around on Kaylon a LOT too easily, but it _did_ move the plot along.

One thing is for sure: the writing staff are fans or at least good students of sci-fi in visual media.


----------



## Zardnaar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Re: the twist
> 
> At first, I was thinking they were Cybermen/Daleks, but they’re more Cylon or Borg.  Either way..._OOPS!_
> 
> I wonder if the Union is going to get help from that out of phase planet where Isaac spent a billion years...
> 
> I also agree that the kid got off the ship and wandered around on Kaylon a LOT too easily, but it _did_ move the plot along.
> 
> One thing is for sure: the writing staff are fans or at least good students of sci-fi in visual media.




I think 1-2 of the writers worked on Trek.

 In Stellaris terms they might be determined exterminators.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I know at least a couple did, but to my eye, they’re also seemingly referencing other stuff, too.


----------



## Ryujin

Did anyone else get the vibe that it wasn't actually Isaac that was involved? After all, they're all identical except for the lighting.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Its possible.  Or maybe they did a factory reset to original specs.

Regardless, taking this kind of risk with a major supporting character is refreshing, to say the least!


----------



## Morrus

Now THAT'S more like it! Fantastic episode. Can't wait for the second half!


----------



## Aeson

The face guns made me cringe, and I don't do that often. I'd rather forearm blasters or a shoulder gun. When they were landing I was picturing Dromand Kas from Star Wars The Old Republic. Funny how I thought about Cybermen when I saw them all walking around. Star Wars, Doctor Who, some of us are seeing the same influences. 

Keeping the crew alive seems like a tactical error they would not make. They slaughtered their makers, which didn't surprise me. There had to be an egg before the chicken.


----------



## Ryujin

Aeson said:


> The face guns made me cringe, and I don't do that often. I'd rather forearm blasters or a shoulder gun. When they were landing I was picturing Dromand Kas from Star Wars The Old Republic. Funny how I thought about Cybermen when I saw them all walking around. Star Wars, Doctor Who, some of us are seeing the same influences.
> 
> Keeping the crew alive seems like a tactical error they would not make. They slaughtered their makers, which didn't surprise me. There had to be an egg before the chicken.




Regarding the mistake, it's likely written in to enhance their racial superiority complex.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

The head guns made me think of Princess Leia (as a cyborg).


----------



## Morrus

Aeson said:


> The face guns made me cringe, and I don't do that often. I'd rather forearm blasters or a shoulder gun.




I felt it underlined we’ll that they didn’t care about human notions of aesthetics. 

Unlike thes pebble they put around the pillars of their buildings, that is. They looked nice.


----------



## Aeson

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The head guns made me think of Princess Leia (as a cyborg).




Watching the ships launch made me want a doughnut.


----------



## Zardnaar

Red eyes may gave been foreshadowing. Thought it was to obvious.


----------



## cbwjm

Zardnaar said:


> Red eyes may gave been foreshadowing. Thought it was to obvious.



This is why I think Isaac is going to turn on his people. His lights are blue. Red = bad, blue = good.


----------



## Jester David

It will be interesting to see if they keep Isaac or not, or if the Kaylons become a longer lasting threat. The “big bad” even, with the Krill being a reluctant ally.
Or hard reset button. Who knows.


----------



## CapnZapp

Speculation Time!

1. It's all a Test. Simulation ending, it didn't really happen. But congrats for passing the test, yada yada. Worst ending, prevents part 1 from being great in retrospect.
2. Jeff Goldblum makes a guest appearance to download a virus to the "core modem" or some such nonsense. Kaylon self-combusts. Isaac is alone, but rejoins his new family. Second worst ending, since the bad guys centralized everything and still provided an easy access hatch. Again. Sheesh.
3. Isaac find his inner human and talks down his fellow countrymen. Using emotions. Okayish - but yawn. It would ruin the anti-Data approach they've taken Isaac in, that <s>he</s> it really is a machine.
4. The crew manage to prove to the Kaylons they have evolved and that no further violence is necessary. Kind of like when Q put Picard & Co on trial for the crimes of humanity. Much more interesting ending since it means the Union turns the other cheek. "Shouldn't we avenge our fallen?" "Will Kaylon ever attack us again?"
5. Isaac becomes a villain (even if only for the rest of the season). And oh, the crew somehow manages to stay alive (that part is so obvious it's the least interesting bit).

What sort of ending do you prefer?


----------



## Zardnaar

5. Kaylon is the big bad (for now). Isaac goes back to his friends or becomes the big bad.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Morrus

How far away was it? They said it was a long way, on the edge of Union space and out of comms range. But in terms of travel time it seemed like it took an hour or so to get there? If they move that fast, nowhere is remote, really.


----------



## theT0rmented

Isaac mentionned being out for 32 cycles (or so... maybe 34). If a cycle is a day, then the distance makes more sense.


----------



## Jester David

Legatus_Legionis said:


> Also, this story would have been best used as a season ending cliff-hanger, not a mid-season episode. When ST:TNG had its season 3 "Best of Both Worlds, Part 1", fans could not wait for season 4's "Best of Both Worlds, Part 2". I think this is an error on the part of the producers/writers.



It is still a science fiction show on Fox. They are in constant danger of being cancelled. They probably didn't want to end on a cliffhanger...


----------



## CapnZapp

I noticed as well - they said it was a long distance... and then they were there.

That aspect would have needed a build-up phase to work. Show, don't tell, you know?

Still, it didn't actually bother me. Okay so they decided they didn't want to focus on the journey so they simply told us. I'll respect that, given what they did have was actually interesting.

And unless the length of return journey actually matters in part 2, I _really_ won't hold it against them...


----------



## Ryujin

CapnZapp said:


> I noticed as well - they said it was a long distance... and then they were there.
> 
> That aspect would have needed a build-up phase to work. Show, don't tell, you know?
> 
> Still, it didn't actually bother me. Okay so they decided they didn't want to focus on the journey so they simply told us. I'll respect that, given what they did have was actually interesting.
> 
> And unless the length of return journey actually matters in part 2, I _really_ won't hold it against them...




I don't think that I've ever seen a good way to represent a month of uneventful travel, without taking a fairly large chunk of an hour-long episode of TV to show it. Better to just drop a line like, "Wow, that was boring" and move on I think.


----------



## CapnZapp

Ryujin said:


> I don't think that I've ever seen a good way to represent a month of uneventful travel, without taking a fairly large chunk of an hour-long episode of TV to show it.



Me neither.


----------



## Umbran

Morrus said:


> How far away was it? They said it was a long way, on the edge of Union space and out of comms range. But in terms of travel time it seemed like it took an hour or so to get there? If they move that fast, nowhere is remote, really.




Isaac says he was out of commission for "30 cycles" or the like - I'm going to guess that a cycle is like an hour, not a day.  They just elided over what was basically a day of travel as fast as they can.  A month makes little sense - they don't know Isaac's condition, and probably aren't going to expect that he can be reactivated after being dead for a month.  Especially without saying something about it.

It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the Union to be considering them for membership if they are a month's travel away.  An ally who can't support you, and who you cannot support, for over a month isn't a terribly useful ally.


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> Isaac says he was out of commission for "30 cycles" or the like - they just elided over what was basically a day of travel.
> 
> Which, if I turn that into something more real-world.  I live in Boston.  30 hours driving flat out no traffic might put me... not all the way to Denver, Colorado.




Do we know that a cycle is an hour? I figured a cycle was a day and the travel time was a month.

I loved this episode.  Best one yet in my opinion.  I hope it concludes with as much quality as it began.


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> Do we know that a cycle is an hour? I figured a cycle was a day and the travel time was a month.




I added a bit - I don't think it makes sense for the Union to be courting a single planet a month's travel outside their borders.


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> I added a bit - I don't think it makes sense for the Union to be courting a single planet a month's travel outside their borders.




It makes sense to me.  I don't think they said it was that far out of their territory, only that they would be too far away from the home world to communicate.  The area of the alliance could be large enough that when on one end you cannot communicate with the other.  Further, the Kaylon's(not sure if I spelled that correctly) are a very advanced race and would be a great addition to the alliance, regardless of distance.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Do we know which of the Union or Kaylon did the initial outreach?  We know the Kaylon were exploring all their options.  Perhaps the arrival of the Kaylon emissaries/scouts/Isaac and their self evidently superior tech was enough to convince the Union to work VERY hard to have them join.


----------



## CapnZapp

Umbran said:


> Isaac says he was out of commission for "30 cycles" or the like - I'm going to guess that a cycle is like an hour, not a day.  They just elided over what was basically a day of travel as fast as they can.  A month makes little sense - they don't know Isaac's condition, and probably aren't going to expect that he can be reactivated after being dead for a month.  Especially without saying something about it.
> 
> It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the Union to be considering them for membership if they are a month's travel away.  An ally who can't support you, and who you cannot support, for over a month isn't a terribly useful ally.



30 hours is nothing. If the Union can't keep up communications if you travel barely more than a day, it would be a strange Union in a very strange space indeed.

Also: they probably aren't hoping for Kaylon to be "the Cavalry". They hope to learn more about their technology.

Distance is irrelevant to information.


----------



## CapnZapp

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Do we know which of the Union or Kaylon did the initial outreach?



No, don't think we do.


----------



## Morrus

Umbran said:


> Isaac says he was out of commission for "30 cycles" or the like - I'm going to guess that a cycle is like an hour, not a day.  They just elided over what was basically a day of travel as fast as they can.  A month makes little sense - they don't know Isaac's condition, and probably aren't going to expect that he can be reactivated after being dead for a month.  Especially without saying something about it.
> 
> It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the Union to be considering them for membership if they are a month's travel away.  An ally who can't support you, and who you cannot support, for over a month isn't a terribly useful ally.




Thing is, a day away is not what I'd really consider remote. It doesn't match the way they described it. The Union has really only explored space within a day of Earth?


----------



## Umbran

Morrus said:


> Thing is, a day away is not what I'd really consider remote.




This isn't "a day" the way tourist Morrus would travel, drive for a few hours and end in a hotel.  This is "round the clock, this ship don't stop," traveling at best sustainable speed.

In a full day of hard driving, if there's no impediments, one can drive maybe 1400 miles?   That's like going from Boston, MA to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

In case of difficulties, would *you* think keeping up a supply line from Boston to Baton Rouge would be easy, or tactically advisable?  




> It doesn't match the way they described it. The Union has really only explored space within a day of Earth?




It was within 30ish cycles _of the Orville's location at the time_, which wasn't Earth.


----------



## Umbran

CapnZapp said:


> Distance is irrelevant to information.




It most certainly is not!  We were told, very clearly, that the Orville would be *outside communication range*.  The only way to get the information would be to send ships back and forth.

This being crucial, as there was no way for the Orville to warn the Union of what's happening...


----------



## Morrus

Umbran said:


> This isn't "a day" the way tourist Morrus would travel, drive for a few hours and end in a hotel.  This is "round the clock, this ship don't stop," traveling at best sustainable speed.
> 
> In a full day of hard driving, if there's no impediments, one can drive maybe 1400 miles?   That's like going from Boston, MA to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
> 
> In case of difficulties, would *you* think keeping up a supply line from Boston to Baton Rouge would be easy, or tactically advisable?




But it's not me in a car, and even if it was I wouldn’t describe that as remote, on the edge of explorered territory, and out of communication range. 

It's how the_ Union_ describes the planet. I'm pretty sure the US military would find it a fairly trivial logistical problem. I can't imagine they'd think "That Louisiana, that's pretty remote! Furthest we've ever explored!"  You've compared me in a car to the Union. 

But anyway. You're arguing pretty hard that a day's travel qualifies as "remote" and I feel strongly that it doesn't. I don't think either of us is going to change our minds on that!


----------



## Umbran

Morrus said:


> But it's not me in a car, and even if it was I wouldn’t describe that as remote, on the edge of explorered territory, and out of communication range.




Dude, I think you need to jump your mind out of the preconception rut....



> It's how the_ Union_ describes the planet. I'm pretty sure the US military would find it a fairly trivial logistical problem.




True, as Louisiana is within the borders of the US.  But, that's not analogous to the situation.  So, thin of it in terms that are actually analogous.

Imagine that the _Commonwealth of Massachusetts_ is trying to support a supply line to Baton Rouge.  Over land.  Without the land between being pacified and under control.

If you prefer a European version - the equivalent is supporting a supply line from Paris to Moscow with modern overland technology.  1500 miles, traversible by 4 people in a car in one day, if they are lucky and drive fast.  As a military supply line in an emergency?  That would not be a good idea.

Or, do you want to try to tell us that Paris is really *local to* Moscow?


----------



## Morrus

Umbran said:


> Dude, I think you need to jump your mind out of the preconception rut....
> 
> 
> 
> True, as Louisiana is within the borders of the US.  But, that's not analogous to the situation.  So, thin of it in terms that are actually analogous.
> 
> Imagine that the _Commonwealth of Massachusetts_ is trying to support a supply line to Baton Rouge.  Over land.  Without the land between being pacified and under control.
> 
> If you prefer a European version - the equivalent is supporting a supply line from Paris to Moscow with modern overland technology.  1500 miles, traversible by 4 people in a car in one day, if they are lucky and drive fast.  As a military supply line in an emergency?  That would not be a good idea.
> 
> Or, do you want to try to tell us that Paris is really *local to* Moscow?




OK.


----------



## Zardnaar

We also don't know much in universe about there FTL drives.

 In Star Wars 30 hours could get you form one side on the galaxy to the other on a good hyperlane in something like the Falcon. It took 4 hours from Tatooine to Alderaan and the Falcon- 8 hour trip .5 hyperdrive. That is almost half way across the galaxy.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> We also don't know much in universe about there FTL drives.
> 
> In Star Wars 30 hours could get you form one side on the galaxy to the other on a good hyperlane in something like the Falcon. It took 4 hours from Tatooine to Alderaan and the Falcon- 8 hour trip .5 hyperdrive. That is almost half way across the galaxy.




Exactly. In Star Wars, halfway across the galaxy isn’t remote. It’s a day trip. I’m Star Trek halfway across the galaxy is a journey of years, so the Delta Quadrant is indeed remote. In medieval times, India was remote; now it’s a few hours on a plane.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I’m going to go an record as guessing that a “cycle” is going to be more akin to a day than anything else.

“Cycle”, to me, sounds like completing a repeating process back to its starting point.  So in astronomical terms, that would be something like an orbit or a planetary rotation rather than a subdivision of a day.  A planetary orbit- a.k.a. a day- or even just a lunar orbit- roughly a month, in our system- seems waaaay too long.  What earth-centric (assumption, yes) interstellar organization would take a ship out of regular duty for (essentially) 2.25 years to _possibly _ressurrect a crewman, even one as exemplay as Isaac seemed to be?

OTOH, if a “cycle” is a day (one of Kaylon’s planetary rotations), unless it’s exceedingly odd, we’re talking less than months or years.  30 days travel A=>B seems pretty distant, regardless of scale.

And of course, since the Kaylons seem to want The Orville riding point on this mission for some reason, even if they have faster ships, they won’t be using them at full speed...on the way back, at least.  So that’s 30 days/cycles back into Union territory.

It will be interesting to see _why_ the officers (at least) were kept alive.


----------



## Morrus

Yep, I’m guessing about a day, making the journey a month.


----------



## Zardnaar

I figure 30 days as well. They did it off camera.  Back in the day it was a couple of weeks across the Atlantic, 3 months UK to NZ.

 30 days cN happen in Star Wars as well at speed 2 hyper drive unexplored or lesser known routes.


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> It was within 30ish cycles _of the Orville's location at the time_, which wasn't Earth.




It couldn't have been that far away, though.  They were communicating with Earth in real time.  No delay.  It seems really unlikely to me that they could go from instant communications to out of communications in 30 hours.


----------



## cbwjm

Maxperson said:


> It couldn't have been that far away, though.  They were communicating with Earth in real time.  No delay.  It seems really unlikely to me that they could go from instant communications to out of communications in 30 hours.



Star trek has subspace communication arrays to help facilitate communications. Maybe the Orville universe has something similar and there simply aren't any that far out of union space.


----------



## Maxperson

cbwjm said:


> Star trek has subspace communication arrays to help facilitate communications. Maybe the Orville universe has something similar and there simply aren't any that far out of union space.




That's an idea, but I still think the simplest explanation is correct and it's 30ish days.


----------



## cbwjm

Maxperson said:


> That's an idea, but I still think the simplest explanation is correct and it's 30ish days.



Whoops, I misread hours as days. I'm in agreement, I think a cycle is a day.


----------



## CapnZapp

Umbran said:


> It most certainly is not!  We were told, very clearly, that the Orville would be *outside communication range*.  The only way to get the information would be to send ships back and forth.
> 
> This being crucial, as there was no way for the Orville to warn the Union of what's happening...



You know I meant the technical information they hope to bring back from Kaylon in case of an alliance.

Whether Kaylon is too far away for a proper defense perimeter doesn't matter if what they offer you are cool upgrades.


----------



## Ryujin

CapnZapp said:


> You know I meant the technical information they hope to bring back from Kaylon in case of an alliance.
> 
> Whether Kaylon is too far away for a proper defense perimeter doesn't matter if what they offer you are cool upgrades.




And unfortunately the upgrades turned out to be of the Cybermen variety, without the brain saving part.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Brains?


----------



## Aeson

Maxperson said:


> That's an idea, but I still think the simplest explanation is correct and it's 30ish days.




If we are to go by the book, then hours will seem like days, and days will seem like hours. If we go by the book.


----------



## Zardnaar

Think it was my favorite episode. This, Expanse and DS9 are scratching my Sci fi bug.


----------



## Maxperson

Aeson said:


> If we are to go by the book, then hours will seem like days, and days will seem like hours. If we go by the book.




LOL  I thought about that when I typed it.  Great minds think alike!  Or is it sick and twisted minds? I get that confused.


----------



## Aeson

Maxperson said:


> LOL  I thought about that when I typed it.  Great minds think alike!  Or is it sick and twisted minds? I get that confused.




In the right hands, one is indistinguishable from the other.


----------



## Orius

Cycles?  It's like Stardates, a meaningless unit of time that are intended to sound important.  I just handwave it.  We all know Trek travels at the speed of plot anyway, and the Orville is just following that tradition.  Star Wars is even _worse_  -- The Last Jedi was so ludicrous with Plot Speed that it almost went plaid....

So we've got Yaphit to the rescue, huh?  It was interesting watching him in action here.  Actually, the two biggest joke characters on the show were critical here -- the only time it seems Gordon isn't a complete fool is when he's flying something (and speaking of plaid... ).


----------



## Nutation

Orius said:


> Actually, the two biggest joke characters on the show were critical here -- the only time it seems Gordon isn't a complete fool is when he's flying something (and speaking of plaid... ).




There were a few too many long shots that hit their mark for my taste. But, we already know Gordon is likely the best pilot in the Union, so we do have the foundation for two of those crazy attempts. (Or three. Putting a human in a Krill fighter?)

The Orville should have been vaporized as soon as Kaylons were no longer in charge. That should have been easily noticed.

Leaving aside those quibbles, though, damn they spent a lot of computer power on the final battle mayhem sequence. I particularly liked the image of one Union ship scraping against another. There were other unique shots as well, much more imaginative than "ship takes a bunch of energy hits and blows up".


----------



## Morrus

Pretty good, if a bit simplistic resolution.

The Kaylons don't carry through on their threats. "This will be a test of your compliance. If you do not comply, we will depressurise the shuttle bay and kill your entire crew!"

Three minutes later...

"You didn't comply! OK, we changed out mind, we're just gonna kill one of your guys instead. Forget we said anything..."

That aside....

Are all Union ships exactly the same shape, just different scales? I've noticed that before, and it bugs me a little. Wouldn't they have different ships of different types, built at different times, which would look different to each other? I guess it's just a budget thing - one CGI ship model which they can replicate?

I very much liked that they've largely jettisoned the fart jokes (at least for now) and are going full TNG. 

Back to the distances discussion, they mentioned that it would take a month to get the Union fleet back to Earth. That definitely supports the cycle=day theory.

Do all Kaylons except Isaac have red eyes? Was Isaac always able to do the head guns?


----------



## Richards

Well, they did go out of their way to mention (several times in fact) that Isaac was constructed well after the Kaylons rose up against their creators and slaughtered them, so maybe the blue eyes are a feature of a member of his generation.

As for the head guns, I don't think we'd ever seen them before the first part of this two-parter.  I was actually rather disappointed that Isaac did in fact have head guns - I had thought that might only be a feature of a warrior class of Kaylon or something.  (Plus, if he's had those guns in his head the whole time, was there never a situation in any previous episode where they would have come in handy?)

Johnathan


----------



## Ryujin

Morrus said:


> Do all Kaylons except Isaac have red eyes? Was Isaac always able to do the head guns?




Don't know about the head guns but I recall seeing at least one other Kaylon with blue lights, and others were either red or orange (slight difference).


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Morrus

Legatus_Legionis said:


> Oh, the Borg Queen... oops sorry, the Kaylon Prime, died.
> 
> Seven-Of-Nine... oops, sorry again...
> Third-Of-Five aka Hugh (from "I, Borg"/"Descent" ST:TNG)... oops, did it again.
> 
> I am sure this "individuality" will not effect Isaac... oh gess, I guess it has.
> 
> 
> I am also sure the Federation and the Klingon Empire (TNG) will never join forces...
> Or the Federation and the Kardashians (DSN)will never join forces...
> 
> Oh wait, they both did.
> 
> And now the Union and the Krill are doing the same.
> 
> 
> Yay, the Star Trek similarities are many.
> 
> I know they are using inspirations and writers from Star Trek, but come-on!  Don't make it so obvious.
> 
> Make things more original.




It’s near the end of season 2. If you haven’t realised this show is McFarlane’s homage to TNG yet...


----------



## trancejeremy

Yeah. To me, basically it's "What if a hollywood figure had enough pull to turn his Star Trek fan-fiction (compete with turning himself into the captain) into a TV show".  And yet the result has been surprisingly good


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Back to the distances discussion, they mentioned that it would take a month to get the Union fleet back to Earth. That definitely supports the cycle=day theory.




So did Isaac’s comment about being inactive for “.7 cycles.”

Re: Isaac’s head guns

It could be he didn’t get them until _after_ he was returned to Kaylon.  An upgrade in preparation for the attack, or perhaps a restoration to full functionality after they were removed for his covert operation inside Union space.

Re: the space battle

Aces!

Re Union/Krill team-up 

I wouldn’t be surprised to see McFarlane continue down the Trek Tribute path, but there are still other options.  I could see them forging a mutual nonaggression pact until the Kaylon threat is completely resolved, and then...

Because I think the continued threat of the Kaylons is the ONLY reason the Krill didn’t take advantage of their having a huge war fleet right on Earth’s doorstep while much of the Union fleet present was pretty well shot up and in disarray.


----------



## Zardnaar

Liked the episode but the pacing may have been a little off. Kaylon not so great as big bads if the have a drastic weakness easily exploited and discovered. Their tech wasn't that great either. Usually the villains are a bit tougher for a bit longer before the heroes figure out how to wreck them.


----------



## Morrus

Yeah, I wasn't clear on the higher-tech thing. They didn't do anything that seemed higher-tech. They had bigger ships, was that it?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Well, we KNOW they shut down the Orville completely in seconds when it entered their home space, so SOME of their tech is clearly superior.  Their best stuff is probably just not ship portable.

And to be fair, it was one of their own who took them down...at least on ship.

However, given modern writers extrapolating from current day tech, I’m surprised Kaylons don’t have at least a short range “wi-fi/cloud” infraspecies comm capability- one thing that keeps them from being Borg clones- and some personal hardening vs EMPs.


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well, we KNOW they shut down the Orville completely in seconds when it entered their home space, so SOME of their tech is clearly superior.  Their best stuff is probably just not ship portable.
> 
> And to be fair, it was one of their own who took them down...at least on ship.
> 
> However, given modern writers extrapolating from current day tech, I’m surprised Kaylons don’t have at least a short range “wi-fi/cloud” infraspecies comm capability- one thing that keeps them from being Borg clones- and some personal hardening vs EMPs.




I thought about that and figured that sort of direct link would probably be considered an exploitable weakness, so not employed.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Soooo...perhaps they saw _Independence Day_, And don’t want someone to take them down with a virus.  They fear Jeff Goldblum!


----------



## jmucchiello

trancejeremy said:


> Yeah. To me, basically it's "What if a hollywood figure had enough pull to turn his Star Trek fan-fiction (compete with turning himself into the captain) into a TV show".  And yet the result has been surprisingly good




It doesn't happen often. But sometimes (rarely, nearly never) sometimes fan fiction is better than the source material.


----------



## Aeson

The Krill religiosity reminds me of The Ori. The Ori did it better though. The Kaylon are more Dalek than Borg. The Borg wanted to assimilate everyone. The Kaylon want to kill everyone, in my mind a big difference. A short alliance with The Krill was to be expected. No other spacefaring race seems to match the Union so far. Moclans were mentioned but I doubt they would have the numbers to help, if they did it wouldn't need to be part of The Union. I'd like to see the Krill/Union conflict end kind of like the Mimbari/Earth war. That way they could pay homage to Babylon 5 also. An underappreciated show.


----------



## Zardnaar

Babylon5  seems popular online among the general population not so much.


----------



## Umbran

Legatus_Legionis said:


> Yay, the Star Trek similarities are many.
> 
> I know they are using inspirations and writers from Star Trek, but come-on!  Don't make it so obvious.
> 
> Make things more original.




Didn't you hear the doctor at the end of the episode?  They just told you!

"A cliche becomes a cliche because it bears endless repeating."


----------



## Umbran

Morrus said:


> Are all Union ships exactly the same shape, just different scales? I've noticed that before, and it bugs me a little. Wouldn't they have different ships of different types, built at different times, which would look different to each other? I guess it's just a budget thing - one CGI ship model which they can replicate?




It isn't so odd that they all have the same general architecture.  I did not a few minor variations of elements upon the hulls.



> Back to the distances discussion, they mentioned that it would take a month to get the Union fleet back to Earth. That definitely supports the cycle=day theory.




The scene where they wake up Issac may suggest otherwise.  He says he was out for 7.5 cycles?  Or was it Danny's 0.7 cycles?



> Do all Kaylons except Isaac have red eyes? Was Isaac always able to do the head guns?




I am pretty sure that, as far as we saw, Issac's the only one in blue.  And I don't think we've ever seen his head-guns before, but they did seem a slightly different design.  

It could be generational - maybe most of the Kaylons we have seen are pre-genocide.  Or he's purpose-built for the mission they game him, so he's a bit different.


----------



## Umbran

Dannyalcatraz said:


> So did Isaac’s comment about being inactive for “.7 cycles.”




I thought I heard 7.5 cycles, but I wouldn't swear to it.  If you're correct, then yeah, a cycle is a day.



> Re Union/Krill team-up
> 
> I wouldn’t be surprised to see McFarlane continue down the Trek Tribute path, but there are still other options.  I could see them forging a mutual nonaggression pact until the Kaylon threat is completely resolved, and then...
> 
> Because I think the continued threat of the Kaylons is the ONLY reason the Krill didn’t take advantage of their having a huge war fleet right on Earth’s doorstep while much of the Union fleet present was pretty well shot up and in disarray.




We saw a lot of Krill ships get shot up, too.  If they took losses heavy enough, taking on the Union fleet without having forces left to hold and take the planet? 
 Bad move.

Plus, the Krill captain made it pretty clear that he felt they were called together to fight this once *for a reason*, and he wasn't sure what that reason was.  If you aren't sure exactly what your god wants, you do the obvious thing... and don't go beyond that.


----------



## cbwjm

I heard .7 cycles. Figured he was out most of the day.


----------



## Zardnaar

. 7 for me as well.


----------



## Maxperson

Morrus said:


> Do all Kaylons except Isaac have red eyes? Was Isaac always able to do the head guns?




A number of them had orange eyes.  I couldn't get a feel for why some were orange and some red, but only Isaac was blue.  I did think for a moment as they were carrying a dozen Kaylon bodies off of the bridge that they had best be careful and not forget which one is Isaac.

My big "Really!?" moment was when the Kaylon, who are supposed to be a bazillion times smarter than biologicals, tell the crew that they will all be killed and then threaten to kill them if they don't help kill everyone else.  I mean, didn't any of them think that just maybe that would just make the biologicals dig in their heels, because "What the hell, we're going to be killed anyway."?

All in all, though, I loved the episode.  Not as much as Part 1, but it was still a very good ending in my opinion.


----------



## Maxperson

Same for me.  I heard .7 cycles.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> Babylon5  seems popular online among the general population not so much.




It's 2019. The general population is online. Who isn't?


----------



## CapnZapp

At this stage I believe it has been conclusively shown exactly how little gain further discussion about time and distance would yield. 

Entity K1 is making a surprise attack on entity E. 

While en route, a few prisoners from team E manage to escape, and travel all the way to entity K2. Not only that, there is time for K2 to decide on a war, and assemble a fleet, AND travel from K2 to E.

All in time to have a meaningful impact on the K1 - E battle. 

The only rational thing to do is to conclude words like cycles, days, and lightyears are just words on this show, and that everything operates on the "speed of plot" with zero attempt to have it make any sense at all.

Not that this makes the show less entertaining, just that the Orville has firmly settled itself in the "we don't care" (or, charitably, we're copying TNG which didn't care") camp.


----------



## Umbran

CapnZapp said:


> At this stage I believe it has been conclusively shown exactly how little gain further discussion about time and distance would yield.
> 
> Entity K1 is making a surprise attack on entity E.
> 
> While en route, a few prisoners from team E manage to escape, and travel all the way to entity K2. Not only that, there is time for K2 to decide on a war, and assemble a fleet, AND travel from K2 to E.
> 
> All in time to have a meaningful impact on the K1 - E battle.




Well, if a cycle is a day, and the trip from Kaylon to Earth takes a month, this makes more sense.  It could have been *weeks* between the escape and the actual battle.

Of course, if it had been weeks, the conditions in that shuttle bay would have been... unpleasant.  Given the joke about the "pee corner", the lack of sanitation alone would have been an issue if that trip took a month.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> It's 2019. The general population is online. Who isn't?




I basically meant online you hear about B5 alot, IRL not so much its a bit obscure. It doesn't have the cultural awareness of say Stargate.


----------



## CapnZapp

Umbran said:


> Well, if a cycle is a day, and the trip from Kaylon to Earth takes a month, this makes more sense.  It could have been *weeks* between the escape and the actual battle.
> 
> Of course, if it had been weeks, the conditions in that shuttle bay would have been... unpleasant.  Given the joke about the "pee corner", the lack of sanitation alone would have been an issue if that trip took a month.



Are you actively trying to find logic where none exist?

Yes, you could invent lots of stuff not  shown or even mentioned by the show. Not just convenient time gaps between scenes that otherwise appear closely connected, or how the Krill just happened to stand by with a large battle-ready fleet. Or how small shuttles fly faster than big ships. Or that the Kaylon took a detour. Or travelled slowly just because.

Or you could just accept that concepts like time and distance is essentially technobabble that doesn't make sense. It isn't intended to. It doesn't have to.

Which makes the discussion about cycles an exercise in futility. Since the show creators clearly don't give a frak, why should we?

Just enjoy the ride. I do 

Best regards


----------



## Umbran

CapnZapp said:


> Are you actively trying to find logic where none exist?




There is a spectrum.  Zero logic would not create a comprehensive narrative.  



> Or you could just accept that concepts like time and distance is essentially technobabble that doesn't make sense. It isn't intended to. It doesn't have to.




With respect, explicitly stated basic durations ought to make sense.  Especially *when the writers keep bringing them up*.  

I have no issue with things the authors don't bother to mention.  In Babylon 5, for example, they don't tell you how their ship drives function.  By in large, science has almost no impact upon the show, because they don't talk about the science, and it all works out fine.

It grates when they bring up a thing that ought to be consistent, but we have to struggle to make them work out.  If they never mentioned how long these things took, we could and would take it that things simply happened in the order presented, and the gaps could vary as needed for the narrative.  But *THEY* brought up the duration in a unit.  Not us.



> Since the show creators clearly don't give a frak, why should we?




If they mention them, repeatedly in the text, I assume they do care.  If they didn't care, they shouldn't have brought it up.  Writing 101 - don't write yourself into a corner with details that impinge upon the plotline, but are not actually intended to be relevant.



> Just enjoy the ride. I do




"Just enjoy what is presented, but, for heaven's sake, don't *THINK* about it!"  

Because we are here for *mindless* fun.  Thinking, in sci-fi?  Never!  {/sarcasm}


----------



## CapnZapp

The ep was okay but hardly groundbreaking.

Again I fear those early bad critics reviews made McFarland dial back on what gave Orville its edge.

Sure even mediocre Trek is better than no Trek at all, but at least I found S1 funny precisely because it was "what if the Enterprise crew actually were klutzes?"

Now they have gone full TNG. And you should never go full TNG.

I guess schmaltzy Beverly Crusher plots is up for S3...


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

They didn’t go _full _TNG.  I don’t recall any Trek episodes in which stalling for time involved peeing in a cup.  Or a dry reference to a captain’s sex life endangering his ship.  _AWKwaaaarrrrrd_.  Or casual references to getting laid.


----------



## CapnZapp

Yeah, well, that's a pretty dry run compared to S1


----------



## Morrus

CapnZapp said:


> Yeah, well, that's a pretty dry run compared to S1




The fewer fart jokes is why I’m still around. Unlike others I thought the Kaylon two parter was good, but it was no Best of Both Worlds by a long shot. I enjoy the show, but I like it less when they make fart jokes. It undermines the good stuff.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Morrus said:


> The fewer fart jokes is why I’m still around. Unlike others I thought the Kaylon two parter was good, but it was no Best of Both Worlds by a long shot. I enjoy the show, but I like it less when they make fart jokes. It undermines the good stuff.










Of course, one of the best possible sci-fi fart jokes has been done already.
[video=youtube;w3qzCAoc5JU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3qzCAoc5JU[/video]


----------



## Aeson

I miss Farscape. *wipes tear*


----------



## CapnZapp

Yeah no, fart jokes isn't what I'm talking about.


----------



## Morrus

CapnZapp said:


> Yeah no, fart jokes isn't what I'm talking about.




Neither was I. It's shorthand. Colloquial speech.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Morrus

Legatus_Legionis said:


> I like how they try to mix serious with humorous.
> 
> And you have to wonder how much additional information the Union got by Lt. Talla taking all those "samples", probe, etc. on the Krill.




I’m sure that in a war which they say has been going on for longer than they’ve been alive, the Union has killed one and checked it out before. The Krill have certainly had human prisoners.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

FWIW, I like that they have stated an approximate span for the war’s length, and not just once.

Of course, we don’t know if humans in the Union have longer life spans than people today.


----------



## Zardnaar

Aeson said:


> I miss Farscape. *wipes tear*




Watched it last year along with Babylon5. Typing this watching DS9. 90s were golden age for Sci fi Stargate SG1 as well.


----------



## CapnZapp

Then you will have to explain what you mean:



Morrus said:


> The fewer fart jokes is why I’m still around. Unlike others I thought the Kaylon two parter was good, but it was no Best of Both Worlds by a long shot. I enjoy the show, but I like it less when they make fart jokes. It undermines the good stuff.



Based on this, your hang up seem quite specific.


----------



## Morrus

CapnZapp said:


> Then you will have to explain what you mean:
> 
> Based on this, your hang up seem quite specific.




Eh. I think it’s pretty obvious what I mean. I don’t feel like explaining the obvious in-depth though, so I guess it will have to remain a mystery.


----------



## CapnZapp

Legatus_Legionis said:


> I like how they try to mix serious with humorous.



I do too.

I just find there's something... off, beige, lame... about this aspect in S2.

Like they took the edge off the jokes. Now they're reduced to basically just the level of fart jokes the critics initially accused them off!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Seth has always had a taste for scatology, hence the pre-airdate fears from critics.

But to his credit, I think one of the things that a lot of people gloss over is how _normal_ the general dialogue sounds on this show.  Really makes a lot of post-ToS Trek sound stilted.


----------



## Deset Gled

CapnZapp said:


> Like they took the edge off the jokes. Now they're reduced to basically just the level of fart jokes the critics initially accused them off!




OTOH, we've had an episode about porn addiction in the holodeck, sex between multiple crew mates (ranging from robot sex to alien sex to the pilot using his rank to pick up chicks), and an episode based entirely on someone needing to pee.

I agree, they're "taking the edge off" this season, but I think they're doing it the other way around.  The fart jokes aren't there because they're hilarious, it's to help you not take the show too seriously.  A character faking their own death to escape homosexual stigma needs a pinch of humor so that the whole show doesn't turn into Law and Order: SVU ... IN SPACE!


----------



## CapnZapp

I don't need fart jokes for any reason. 

I want officers with flaws. Captains who immediately become schlubs when taken captive. I want a security chief who needs hard liquor to command. And I want to surprise Cmdr Kelly in bed with more aliens!

Serious competent Seth MacFarlane can't compete with Picard or even Janeway, so why even try? 
New security chief is also serious and competent.
And Kelly has been only serious and competent this season.

All three are a downgrade compared to S1 in my view. Boooring! 

Fart jokes or no fart jokes. (Or even whatever "fart jokes" is shorthand for).

This season is far from bust. Heck, I'm still watching! All I'm saying is, if I squint I see a course correction in exactly the direction I imagine Seth would take if he listened to the premiere critics.

Which is the bummer. I'd much rather he listened to the (much better) audience ratings that coalesced in the weeks and months thereafter!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Well, we already had Garibaldi as an alcoholic security chief, soooo...


----------



## Ryujin

CapnZapp said:


> I don't need fart jokes for any reason.
> 
> I want officers with flaws. Captains who immediately become schlubs when taken captive. I want a security chief who needs hard liquor to command. And I want to surprise Cmdr Kelly in bed with more aliens!
> 
> Serious competent Seth MacFarlane can't compete with Picard or even Janeway, so why even try?
> New security chief is also serious and competent.
> And Kelly has been only serious and competent this season.
> 
> All three are a downgrade compared to S1 in my view. Boooring!
> 
> Fart jokes or no fart jokes. (Or even whatever "fart jokes" is shorthand for).
> 
> This season is far from bust. Heck, I'm still watching! All I'm saying is, if I squint I see a course correction in exactly the direction I imagine Seth would take if he listened to the premiere critics.
> 
> Which is the bummer. I'd much rather he listened to the (much better) audience ratings that coalesced in the weeks and months thereafter!




You might like a novel that Matt Vancil is in the process of writing; "The Fatal Frontier"   His "Federation" is in a post scarcity, but capitalist culture. Imagine who rises to command. No fart jokes so far, but you don't want to be a Redshirt.


----------



## Mark CMG

I don't mind if they squeeze off the occasional fart joke and I prefer dry humor.


----------



## cbwjm

Mark CMG said:


> I don't mind if they squeeze off the occasional fart joke and I prefer dry humor.



If you prefer dry humour, they better not try too hard to squeeze off an occasional fart joke.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Zardnaar

Legatus_Legionis said:


> MSN reported they have already been renewed for season 3.  This after only a few season 2 episodes have been aired.
> 
> 
> 
> So are you then a fan of Red Dwarf?
> 
> It is more comedy and less serious sci-fi.




Smeg head.

 Are Americans that familiar with Red Dwarf?

British Sci fi is so good on a budget big enough to buy a cheeseburger. Special effects budget of Humans is enough to buy  two shades of contact lenses so they are splashing out.


----------



## cbwjm

Zardnaar said:


> Smeg head.
> 
> Are Americans that familiar with Red Dwarf?
> 
> British Sci fi so good budget of a cheeseburger. Special Effect budget of Humans are two shaded of contact lenses.



Are you okay? Are you having a stroke?


----------



## Zardnaar

cbwjm said:


> Are you okay? Are you having a stroke?




Fine trying to do 3 things at once. Yeah that post was horrible.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Zardnaar said:


> Smeg head.
> 
> Are Americans that familiar with Red Dwarf?
> 
> British Sci fi is so good on a budget big enough to buy a cheeseburger. Special effects budget of Humans is enough to buy  two shades of contact lenses so they are splashing out.




I live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

Never watched _Humans_, but am quite familiar with a fair number of other UK genre fiction shows.  Besides _Doctor Who _and _Red Dwarf_, local PBS, SyFy and other channels have aired _Torchwood_, _Blake’s 7_, _Apparitions_, _Sea of Souls_,  _Strange_, _Survivors_, _Demons_, _Life on Mars_, _Ashes to Ashes_, _The Fades _, _Primeval _and goodness knows how many others.


----------



## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


----------



## Ryujin

Zardnaar said:


> Smeg head.
> 
> Are Americans that familiar with Red Dwarf?
> 
> British Sci fi is so good on a budget big enough to buy a cheeseburger. Special effects budget of Humans is enough to buy  two shades of contact lenses so they are splashing out.




Some North Americans are familiar with Red Dwarf. A few of us were unfortunate enough to have seen the two separate attempts at Americanizing the series (one of which had Jane Leeves as Holly).


----------



## Ryujin

lowkey13 said:


> Blake's 7 is the best.
> 
> Also great because the show is total false advertising.
> 
> Very little Blake, rarely with 7.
> 
> That said, you really have to suspend disbelief when it comes to the ... um ... special effects.  "Hey look, in the space armada, it's a toaster!"




And no Blake at all in the final season, if memory serves.


----------



## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


----------



## Morrus

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.
> 
> Never watched _Humans_, but am quite familiar with a fair number of other UK genre fiction shows.  Besides _Doctor Who _and _Red Dwarf_, local PBS, SyFy and other channels have aired _Torchwood_, _Blake’s 7_, _Apparitions_, _Sea of Souls_,  _Strange_, _Survivors_, _Demons_, _Life on Mars_, _Ashes to Ashes_, _The Fades _, _Primeval _and goodness knows how many others.




I've only heard of about half of those...


----------



## Richards

Ryujin said:


> And no Blake at all in the final season, if memory serves.




Wasn't he brought back in the final episode - just to share the same fate as the rest of the crew?

Johnathan


----------



## Ryujin

Richards said:


> Wasn't he brought back in the final episode - just to share the same fate as the rest of the crew?
> 
> Johnathan




You're absolutely right. I had forgotten that. It's been rather a while


----------



## Umbran

There isn't anywhere to watch Blake's 7, though, which stinks.  I have several times been tempted to buy the DVD set.


----------



## Ryujin

Umbran said:


> There isn't anywhere to watch Blake's 7, though, which stinks.  I have several times been tempted to buy the DVD set.




I'm currently working my way through "Fringe" which never made it to syndication and the Blu-Ray collection finally came down to a price that I was willing to pay. The "Blake's 7" collection DVDs are double that price


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Ryujin said:


> Some North Americans are familiar with Red Dwarf. A few of us were unfortunate enough to have seen the two separate attempts at Americanizing the series (one of which had Jane Leeves as Holly).




Somehow missed that.


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Somehow missed that.




Trust me when I say that you missed nothing. There's a reason why an Americanized "Red Dwarf" never saw the light of day


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I just looked them up on a site that discusses them, and even goes so far as providing super grainy clips with degraded audio.

I’m sure those who saw them back in the day would call that an improvement.


----------



## Aeson

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well, we already had Garibaldi as an alcoholic security chief, soooo...




Ever been to a scfi convention? Talk about life imitating art. His handler had to drag/carry him out of a hotel bar at DragonCon years ago. Claudia Christian liked the drinky a little too much also. At least it made her more entertaining at her panel.


----------



## Aeson

Umbran said:


> There isn't anywhere to watch Blake's 7, though, which stinks.  I have several times been tempted to buy the DVD set.




Don't know how you feel about it, but have you tried Youtube? Might find what you're looking for.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Aeson said:


> Ever been to a scfi convention? Talk about life imitating art. His handler had to drag/carry him out of a hotel bar at DragonCon years ago. Claudia Christian liked the drinky a little too much also. At least it made her more entertaining at her panel.




Yeeks!


----------



## Umbran

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Yeeks!




That isn't the best.  Many years ago now, Jason Carter (who played the ranger, Marcus) once, rather drunk on the dance floor at a convention referred to a woman on the dance floor as a "dominatrix" (intending it as a compliment).  Dr. Demento was the DJ, and he just happened to start Tom Lehrer's "Masochism Tango" at that moment.  It was a little surreal.


----------



## Ryujin

Aeson said:


> Ever been to a scfi convention? Talk about life imitating art. His handler had to drag/carry him out of a hotel bar at DragonCon years ago. Claudia Christian liked the drinky a little too much also. At least it made her more entertaining at her panel.




Alcoholism is what eventually killed Jerry Doyle. That, and maybe a little more than averagely high blood pressure from a career as a right-wing talk show host.


----------



## Orius

Pretty good episode tonight.  Nice balance of drama and humor.

Tuvok!

Gordon channeled a bit of Barclay here.  I thought Greg seemed a lot like him, which is probably why he hit it off with Laura.  They should have given a copy of that simulation to ite museum or wherever they were dropping off the artifacts.

And the B plot was Seth cutting loose again.  Our Moclans do something crazy stupid again for laughs.  We've been told Moclans can digest almost anything, so I was just waiting for one of them to eat a cigarette.  And Seth went through an entire repertoire of smoking jokes -- can't substitute the gum, smoking in the airlock, hiding cigarettes (the cigarette pillow had me howling with laughter), nicotine withdrawal crankiness, the works. The only thing missing was trying to quit by smoking enough to puke.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Zardnaar

Legatus_Legionis said:


> I don't know how well those Yankees down south of us, but as being part of the Commonwealth, we get plenty of British television series.
> 
> Space: 1999, Benny Hill, Faulty Towers, Monty Python (Flying Circus), The Black Adder, The Avengers.




Did you like Blackadder.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

“WTF” = “Wireless Telephone Facility” 





> The only thing missing was trying to quit by smoking enough to puke.




That would take a LOT, given their physiology.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Legatus_Legionis said:


> Space: 1999, Benny Hill, Faulty Towers, Monty Python (Flying Circus), The Black Adder, The Avengers.




Dallas’ PBS has been one of the most UK-centric (as well as shows from other former colonies) channels in the USA.  They were among the first to air _Monty Python’s Holy Grail_ in the USA.  Besides all those and the ones I mentioned already, we’ve been treated to dozens of shows on that channel alone:

Are You Being Served
Only Fools and Horses
Open All Hours
Still Open All Hours
Keeping Up Appearances
The Two Ronnies
Black Books
Moone Boy
Coupling 
Father Ted
The Dave Allen Show
My Hero
The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin (original and remake)
Hold the Sunset
Good Neighbors
Goodnight Sweetheart
Marley’s Ghosts
People Like Us
Robot Wars

...and that’s just what I can remember watching.  Not to mention other channels giving us things like The Young Ones.


----------



## CapnZapp

Back on topic, this episode was great. For once, the melancholy ending felt earned.

Greg was like a mix between Gordon (or, I guess, Scott Grimes) and Wil Wheaton (except he never got nasty . The girl reminded me of Robyn in Himym (Cobie Smulders). Wikipediaing her it comes as no surprise they found somebody that was both an actress and a music talent (apart from being real pretty).

I see the AV Club called the ep "middling". The reviewer must have forgotten it's not easy to do even a simple drama like this without failing at some stage. This ep didn't. Probably the season's best, even if it (of course) never had any suspense or excitement.

Plus we got Adrianne Palicki's secret talent!


----------



## Zardnaar

I liked this episode alot. Gordon's my least favorite character but I still like him.


----------



## Aeson

I remember Ray Kurzweil talking about using AI to do something like what Gordon did. His father kept journals and notes on everything. Along with his fathers photos and music, Ray thought he could bring his father back to life via a computer simulation. I think he's still working on it. Knowing this bit of trivia helped me enjoy the episode more. I already liked it, but I felt it gave a real world connection. Also I recognized Tim Russ' voice before seeing him. I got excited. TUVOK!! The smoking moclans was hilarious and I felt they would come to blows at some point.


----------



## Ryujin

CapnZapp said:


> Back on topic, this episode was great. For once, the melancholy ending felt earned.
> 
> Greg was like a mix between Gordon (or, I guess, Scott Grimes) and Wil Wheaton (except he never got nasty . The girl reminded me of Robyn in Himym (Cobie Smulders). Wikipediaing her it comes as no surprise they found somebody that was both an actress and a music talent (apart from being real pretty).
> 
> I see the AV Club called the ep "middling". The reviewer must have forgotten it's not easy to do even a simple drama like this without failing at some stage. This ep didn't. Probably the season's best, even if it (of course) never had any suspense or excitement.
> 
> Plus we got Adrianne Palicki's secret talent!




The best stories are about people. Technology just facilitates them


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> The smoking moclans




Band name!

Also, this was in the back of my head from the first puff:
[video=youtube;5oVBvxA0mm0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oVBvxA0mm0[/video]


----------



## Morrus

They should have totally had him look again at the phone and see that photo there. Paradox fun for all the family!


----------



## Morrus

Aeson said:


> I remember Ray Kurzweil talking about using AI to do something like what Gordon did. His father kept journals and notes on everything. Along with his fathers photos and music, Ray thought he could bring his father back to life via a computer simulation.




That's an early Black Mirror episode.


----------



## Morrus

Legatus_Legionis said:


> I don't know how well those Yankees down south of us, but as being part of the Commonwealth, we get plenty of British television series.
> 
> Space: 1999, Benny Hill, Faulty Towers, Monty Python (Flying Circus), The Black Adder, The Avengers.




Do you get any British TV from the last 30 years?


----------



## Aeson

Morrus said:


> That's an early Black Mirror episode.




It could be. I was talking about a documentary about Ray Kurzweil. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil
I want to say it was The Singularity or Transcendent Man.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Another “britcom” I love: _Posh Nosh_.  Cracks me up every time.  Huge fan of Lenny Henry’s _Chef_, too.

I’ve also seen a few episodes of _Whites_, but it hasn’t quite grabbed me.  One of the costars Darren John Boyd of _Spy_ and the original _Dirk Gently’s Holostic Detective Agency_- both good.

Which of course reminds me of the _Hitchhiker ‘s Guide_ series (loved it).

And right now, I’m eagerly awaiting _Good Omens_, and would love to see _Neverwhere_.  Don’t know if/when for either.


----------



## Zardnaar

Inbetweeners is a classic British drama series. Would recommend.


----------



## Deset Gled

The music in this episode blew me away.  I really expected Laura's song at the bar to be something contemporary to 2015, not a 30 year old piece from America.  At first, I thought it was just an obscure reference.  Then, at the reprise at the end, the meaning behind the song choice hit me.

For those that didn't catch it, the song is from the soundtrack to The Last Unicorn.  If you haven't seen that movie, go watch it first.  For those that have: [sblock]The song is the one that Lir sings to Amalthea.  It's a song about a relationship that is doomed to fail because the object of his affection isn't human and is incapable of reciprocating his love.[/sblock]


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Forgot _Vicar of Dibley_, _Fry and Laurie_, _Twenty Twelve _and _W1A_!

I also catch a fair number of the UK’s murder mystery shows too.  Besides various takes on Poirot and Holmes, _Father Brown_ & _Death In Paradise_ are among my faves, and Dad’s a big fan of _Midsommer Murders_- I especially liked the one with the guy getting killed by poisonous mushrooms.


...and to think WE export shows like _Baywatch_ and _Dallas_.


----------



## Morrus

Dannyalcatraz said:


> ...and to think WE export shows like _Baywatch_ and _Dallas_.




.... and The Orville.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Morrus said:


> .... and The Orville.




Yeah, NOW!  After all those years of exporting- arguably- some of our worst TV.  

Maybe American TV execs got embarrassed by the quality gap and..._*NAAAAAAHHHH!!!*_


----------



## Morrus

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Yeah, NOW!  After all those years of exporting- arguably- some of our worst TV.
> 
> Maybe American TV execs got embarrassed by the quality gap and..._*NAAAAAAHHHH!!!*_




Well, in the past you also exported Star Trek and The West Wing and The Sopranos. So don’t feel bad!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

4 shows vs dozens?  Seems balanced. . Especially when we have so many shows we ripped off from you guys.

I can’t remember which UK show it was that _Three’s Company_ was inspired by, but I know _Friends _was inspired by _Coupling_.


----------



## Morrus

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 4 shows vs dozens?  Seems balanced. . Especially when we have so many shows we ripped off from you guys.
> 
> I can’t remember which UK show it was that _Three’s Company_ was inspired by, but I know _Friends _was inspired by _Coupling_.




It wasn’t an exhaustive list. 

Coupling came after Friends, though. Steven “Doctor Who” Moffat, IIRC.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Morrus said:


> It wasn’t an exhaustive list.
> 
> Coupling came after Friends, though. Steven “Doctor Who” Moffat, IIRC.




*Thaaat’s right*- _Friends _begat _Coupling_ which begat a watered-down American version of _Coupling_.


----------



## Aeson

I enjoy Death in Paradise. The Cat from Red Dwarf is on it. And Father Dougal from Father Ted.


----------



## Zardnaar

There's been a lot of crap UK shows as well.

 Percentage wise US tv probably isn't any worse than most countries efforts. With so much being made you are going to get a lot of crap. 

 Very rare for an American version of the show to be better than the UK one. Maybe Shameless and The Office ymmv though. British comedy shows are probably hands down better though to many good ones.

 NZ tv is fairly atrocious though. We have made 1 great show and a handful of good ones.


----------



## Ryujin

Zardnaar said:


> There's been a lot of crap UK shows as well.
> 
> Percentage wise US tv probably isn't any worse than most countries efforts. With so much being made you are going to get a lot of crap.
> 
> Very rare for an American version of the show to be better than the UK one. Maybe Shameless and The Office ymmv though. British comedy shows are probably hands down better though to many good ones.
> 
> NZ tv is fairly atrocious though. We have made 1 great show and a handful of good ones.




Would "The Almighty Johnsons" fit in there somewhere?


----------



## Zardnaar

Ryujin said:


> Would "The Almighty Johnsons" fit in there somewhere?




Haven't seen a huge amount of it but thought season one was decent. The great one is Outrageous Fortune.


----------



## Ryujin

Zardnaar said:


> Haven't seen a huge amount of it but thought season one was decent. The great one is Outrageous Fortune.




I'll have to look it up. I watched "Almighty Johnsons" right through and thought that it was both novel, and quite good.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Ryujin said:


> Would "The Almighty Johnsons" fit in there somewhere?



Isn’t that the one where they’re all ancient gods incognito?*






* But not _American Gods_


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Isn’t that the one where they’re all ancient gods incognito?*
> 
> * But not _American Gods_




Very close. The major characters are the avatars of the Norse Gods.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Ryujin said:


> Very close. The major characters are the avatars of the Norse Gods.




I may have seen an episode of that.  Sounds familiar.  Don’t remember why I didn’t watch more.


----------



## MNblockhead

Finally had a chance to watch the most recent episode. I think this is my favorite from both seasons. I love getting away for big stakes and coming down to the more personal stories. I loved how the advance technology was a plot device that emphasized shared humanness across the centuries. 

Often, when I read ancient writings, it is the little details and personal stories that hit me the strongest, because they create a shared sense of humanity that helps me relate to someone from a very different culture in a very different time and it help immerse me the larger work. 

This last episode really helped put another hook in me and draw me deeper into the Orville's world.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

(Our PBS is doing their fundraising right now, and it’s britcom night.  Which reminded me of _Fawlty Towers_, _Detectorists_, and _Ripping Yarns._

I think we need to send American writers across the pond to get some tips.)

The humanizing aspect of this show is one of the things I think the humornis a key component to- even the crass stuff.  I mean, the crew of the Orville sounds and acts like people in any given workspace.

That’s one thing they doing better than the original.  For all the talented acting and solid scriptwriting across the decades of the Trek franchise, there are times when those shows looked & sounded like _plays_, too artificial to be real.  Now, due to Standards & Practices and the show’s channel and time slot, we’re not going to hear quite the same _vocabulary _real people would use in some of those circumstances.


----------



## CapnZapp

Let's start a new thread for those obscure UK shows, eh?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

CapnZapp said:


> Let's start a new thread for those obscure UK shows, eh?


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## Umbran

CapnZapp said:


> Back on topic, this episode was great. For once, the melancholy ending felt earned.




Agreed!

So, they had a doomed romance plot, with my wife's favorite character, and they used a song from _The last Unicorn_, which is perhaps her most favorite movie...

It was like Seth McFarlane cleverly designed an episode specifically to make my wife cry.


----------



## Orius

Legatus_Legionis said:


> Damn, I heard the next two weeks will be a re-run of the previous two part episodes.




Yup, that's what they ran, but at least it's a quality set of episodes.  Don't know why FOX is pulling out the reruns here, unless they don't want to compete with March Madness or something.


----------



## Aeson

March Madness, spring break, baseball season starting. Most likely March Madness.


----------



## CapnZapp

Legatus_Legionis said:


> Damn, I heard the next two weeks will be a re-run of the previous two part episodes.




Thanks for the heads-up!


----------



## CapnZapp

Apparently there's a (rather specific ) site called "CancelledSciFi dot com" which predicts Orville might be axed because of Disney's buyout of Fox.


----------



## Umbran

CapnZapp said:


> Apparently there's a (rather specific ) site called "CancelledSciFi dot com" which predicts Orville might be axed because of Disney's buyout of Fox.




If it gets axed, it isn't, "because of the buyout".  It'll be because while its ratings were good for the network in the first season, they're much more like average this time around.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/single-parents-orville-tvs-average-rated-shows-1189209


----------



## CapnZapp

Umbran said:


> If it gets axed, it isn't, "because of the buyout".  It'll be because while its ratings were good for the network in the first season, they're much more like average this time around.
> 
> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/single-parents-orville-tvs-average-rated-shows-1189209



If you say so. 

(Please note: I have no affiliation with the site and I am definitely not an expert on American TV exec decision-making!)

But to be honest, S2 HAS been "much more like average". That _edge_ that set Orville off (from just being much like yet another season of TNG) has been sandpapered down quite a bit. I guess that's what happens when you listen more to the critics (that hated S1) than the viewers (which were quite happy). :-/


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

If it gets axed, it’s not an either or situation.  Both could be factors....and neither might be the biggest factor.  Imagine, for instance, if unpublicized but very credible allegations reached upper management that Seth McFarlane had done some things that would be scandalous to the general public.  Or if, for some reason, costs were spiraling out of control.


----------



## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


----------



## Umbran

CapnZapp said:


> But to be honest, S2 HAS been "much more like average". That _edge_ that set Orville off (from just being much like yet another season of TNG) has been sandpapered down quite a bit. I guess that's what happens when you listen more to the critics (that hated S1) than the viewers (which were quite happy). :-/




That narrative would hold if it had been a slow erosion over time, with Season 2 opening with Season 1 ratings, and folks dropping off as they realized the "edginess" was gone.

But that's not supported by the data.  Season 2 opened with a 33% drop in overall viewership, and 44% drop in the key 18-49 demographic, from its season 1 premier.  That means a third of the viewers who watched the Season 1 premier _didn't even try_ Season 2.  Season 2's lack of edge can't be blamed for their drop off if they didn't try it.

Another bunch dropped off after the season 2 premier, without going on to Episode 2 of season 2.  You'd have to argue that the first episode was *SO INCREDIBLY* indicative of lack of edge, that folks didn't come back for a second episode.

From there, the ratings have been pretty constant, minor ups and downs, resulting in an overall net slow *rise* in viewership after that initial drop at the start of the season.  

A narrative that fits this data better is:

Season 1 has a whole lot of buzz.  There's lots of curiosity.  Viewers of all types flock in - some like Mac Farlane, others like Trek, others are just curios about buzz, and so on.  Lots of folks are willing to give a show one season to prove itself...

But a lot of them didn't come back.  Some did come back.  They saw the premier, and about half of those said, "Yeah, I guess it was like I remembered from last season.  Bleah! I'm not going to keep watching," and left after this season's premier.

What's left is actually the core audience.


----------



## Ryujin

lowkey13 said:


> (As a side note- Disney also got the FX networks and Fox Television animation . yes, the House of Mouse owns pretty much everything from Buffy to Boba Fett).




Making both Klinger from MASH and Cordelia Chase Disney Princesses.

Fox is very intolerant of "OK" and "Good." If they don't get "Spectacular", they bring down the cancellation hammer. Hopefully this doesn't happen to "The Orville."


----------



## Aeson

Cordelia Chase and the original Buffy would be the first Disney princesses to pose for Playboy. Hehe


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I’m loving how important plot points don’t simply fade away.  Case in point: Moclan (FE)males!


----------



## Orius

I called it last time:



Orius said:


> Between last season's episode about Bortas and and Klyden's kid and this one, I suspect Seth is going to come back to these issues unlike Trek would do....and since we have two Moclans as regular characters who've been personally involved in these matters, I doubt it's going to be swept away.




Yeah, I'd better spoiler block again.

[sblock]I figured there'd be more problems, the only visit to Moclus that wasn't problematic so far was Bortus taking his yearly piss.  Some of the twists were pretty predictable, but I think it went well overall.  Bonus points to them bringing back the Moclan female from the first season as the leader.  And Ed made a good point about how the Union probably shouldn't be relying solely on the Moclans for arms, especially if their hyper-masculine culture is presenting problems for the Union.

Klyden's bigotry raised its ugly head again, but we can't count out how much of it is his own defensive reactions to being born female himself.   Teaching their son that females are inferior is problematic when the kid's got to interact with other species with different values, and it's a shame the episode didn't touch on that.  I also like how Bortus called Klyden out for it in front of Kelly, especially his rudeness to her, while she just wants to avoid getting in the middle of it.  Bortus is a bit more open-minded I think partially because he has to work with other people on a daily basis, but it's also more natural given that he didn't reveal how that other guy was into females.

Interesting contrast between Moclus being completely industrialized, while the sanctuary word is more natural.  It could be a subtle nod to to male vs. female theme of the episode, but there's also a more prosaic explanation in that the females don't have enough numbers to industrialize on a planetary scale and they want to remain undetected.  Of course, it could be a bit of both too.

I rolled my eyes at the Dolly Parton stuff, but I think it was both the episode's touch of Seth, and a bit of comic relief.

The Union Council scenes were pretty good too, showcasing a number of the unique species we've seen on the show so far.[/sblock]

Moclan biology makes little sense -- a single gendered species of egg-laying males is biologically illogical.  However, I'm viewing it in a meta way to suspend my disbelief.  Seth is using the Moclans to comment on a host of LGBT issues, and by making them ridiculously hyper-masculine, he's avoiding the stereotypes that would cause trouble like the camp gay or butch lesbian.

They brought out more Trek alumni here.  I recognized Marina Sirtis as the teacher right away, and we had Tony Todd playing one of the Moclan ambassadors I think (hard to tell with all that head rubber )?


----------



## Aeson

You don't have to see Tony Todd to recognize him, you just listen to the voice.


----------



## Ryujin

Good catch on Tony Todd. I wasn't sure I was seeing what I thought I was, so I checked IMDB; not listed on his page, but confirmed on The Orville's page.


----------



## Aeson

I saw his name in the post opening credits. I expected Ron Canada to be a Moclan also. They had a lot guest stars in this one 

I loved the Dolly Parton stuff. She was a great choice.


----------



## CapnZapp

I'm guessing the hiatus is over, and new discussion = new episode


----------



## Ryujin

Aeson said:


> I saw his name in the post opening credits. I expected Ron Canada to be a Moclan also. They had a lot guest stars in this one
> 
> I loved the Dolly Parton stuff. She was a great choice.




When we're talking 500 years (or whatever) in the future, I don't mind a little historical silliness. I loved the ZX-11 Ninja motorcycle rebuild in "Babylon 5", for example


----------



## Orius

Aeson said:


> I saw his name in the post opening credits. I expected Ron Canada to be a Moclan also. They had a lot guest stars in this one




I think he already played as an admiral before?  The 4 admirals they had in this episode had all shown up before if so.

Though Ron Canada as a Moclan would have been funny in its own subtle meta way, since he was the testosterone poisoned captain in Babylon 5, and Moclans are Testosterone Poisoning: the Species.


----------



## Aeson

I remember him being on the show before but for reason I had as a moclan in my head. Its odd.


----------



## MNblockhead

*WARNING SPOILERS *- Shouldn't have to state it on this thread (I don't read it until I've seen the newest episode) but since I'm un-commenting parts of a spoiler commented block, I figure I should give a warning up front. 




Orius said:


> I called it last time:
> 
> Teaching their son that females are inferior is problematic when the kid's got to interact with other species with different values, and it's a shame the episode didn't touch on that.




That was a major theme of the episode and this was used as an intro and the conclusion. Not sure how much more they should have done. I think the balance is about right. It is easy to seem a bit ham-fisted about these things. 



> I rolled my eyes at the Dolly Parton stuff, but I think it was both the episode's touch of Seth, and a bit of comic relief.




I did initially, but we see this even in earth history. Things that were taken deadly as part of religious dogma become children's stories and stories for kids become cultural touch stones. I've certainly found things meaningful and interesting in Chinese culture that many of Chinese friends roll their eyes at. It is difficult to predict how someone on earth today will react to art, music, or literature from another contemporary earth culture. How much moreso intelligent life removed by centuries and light years?

Besides, I'm a big Dolly Parton fan. 




> The Union Council scenes were pretty good too, showcasing a number of the unique species we've seen on the show so far.




Yes, I like how this makes the unique members of the crew and especially the unique walk-on visitors feel more part of the story and universe rather than a random alien-looking creature thrown in to drive home that this is a sci-fi show. 

The one thing that bothers me is how so many species in the universe seem to evolved with hominid-like bodies, to breath the same air (or air at all), etc. I realize that there are budget reasons for this and all we can do is give a few nods to this, but when you see everyone sitting in a UN assembly style hall, it beggars belief.  I choose to believe that all those attendees are not their physically. Instead they are hologram projections. And advanced form of telepresence technology.



> Moclan biology makes little sense -- a single gendered species of egg-laying males is biologically illogical.  However, I'm viewing it in a meta way to suspend my disbelief.  Seth is using the Moclans to comment on a host of LGBT issues, and by making them ridiculously hyper-masculine, he's avoiding the stereotypes that would cause trouble like the camp gay or butch lesbian.




Well, advanced technology can make this work, unfortunately. Certainly there have been serious moves in Earth history to apply this to race--an example of using new sciences to support unscientific beliefs. 

There have been similar calls for making mankind single gender, though it is from people currently far-out-of-the-mainstream.  If anything our mainstream is moving away from enforcing the concept of two genders and we will eventually have a planet where some cultures enforcement of two gender roles will look like how the Moclans are portrayed in the Orville.  Most calls for a single-gender humanity that I've seen were for a woman-only society.  The most well known is the S.C.U.M Manifesto by Valerie Solanas, most famous for her attempted murder of Andy Warhol. 

Our technology has advanced to the point predicted by Solanas and the society she envisioned is theoretically possible. 

It is difficult to believe that such theories would ever gain sufficient political support to actually effectuate a single-gender humanity, but we don't know what the history of Moclan is. On earth, today, the treatment of women varies greatly from culture to culture. In China, the One Child Policy, which sought to address population pressures led to the abortion and infanticide, and abandonment of many girls. Both China and India are today struggling with a gender unbalance, creating what some call a crisis of masculinity. If relatively small unbalances cause big societal issue, what if there was something in Moclan culture, perhaps  some biological factor in addition to cultural factors that created huge imbalances.  

I suspect that Seth McFarlane is aware of some of this and that it influenced how he envisions Moclus and Moclan culture.  

Of course, I'm glossing over the "men" hatching eggs.  Where do the eggs come from? It would have been more believable for the Moclans to have eschewed sexual reproduction for cloning. 

The Sontarans from Doctor Who seem like a more believable version of what Moclans would be like (at least as the Sontaran origins are explained in the Doctor Who RPG by FASA).


----------



## CapnZapp

I guess I'm about to give up on this show.

Far too much preachy stuff with the crew on the obviously good side, with little complication or nuance. I guess unavoidable given your political climate in the US, but still. (In a show like Madam Secretary that so obviously is counter-programming to real politics I get it, but here...?)

I miss the show where the crew members were fallible. Schlobs, adulterers, drunkards, pheromonal goo-lovers... I miss the sense of them being decidedly a B-team.

Now they're the crew at the forefront of every major crisis in the Union, and every flaw has been polished away.

This show is interested in bashing in already wide-open doors. It makes me long for the irreverence of McFarland's other shows.

It was there in S1 but I'm afraid that after this week's episode any hope of it is thoroughly gone.


----------



## Ryujin

It has been watered down a fair bit from season 1, but I recall an awful lot of complaints about its tenor.


----------



## Morrus

I think I’ve finally become bored with this — I don’t dislike it, but I haven’t bothered watching the last episode yet. The erratic scheduling doesn’t help.


----------



## CapnZapp

Ryujin said:


> It has been watered down a fair bit from season 1, but I recall an awful lot of complaints about its tenor.



Yes the critical premiere reviews were scathing. The change in direction is consistent with what one would do to please those critics.

Trouble is, the audience liked what was there. They don't seem to like what the critics made the show into.


----------



## Ryujin

CapnZapp said:


> Yes the critical premiere reviews were scathing. The change in direction is consistent with what one would do to please those critics.
> 
> Trouble is, the audience liked what was there. They don't seem to like what the critics made the show into.




I think that I can see the cause of this. Other than MacFarlane there are TWENTY ONE producers, co-producers, executive producers, and co-executive producers on this show. Those are the money people. I suspect that those people put pressure on to "clean things up', in order to get better critical reviews.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## CapnZapp

A show having multiple directors is perfectly normal. 

In fact, a show having multiple producers is perfectly normal too.

That doesn't mean you're wrong - just that a show with even one producer can experience this "the producer leaning on the writers" effect


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

While I would prefer _The Orville_ to retain SM’s signature touches, I can’t say I’d be all that unhappy if it mererly became an extremely good homage to the original.


----------



## CapnZapp

I am much more interested in the captain Mercer who, upon being incarcerated in a zoo, immediately gives up personal hygiene; than the captain Mercer without which the Union would get repeatedly invaded and broken up.

Sure Seth MacFarlane has blinding white teeth, but he's no capt Picard. The crew was so very clearly conceived to be a B-team, and season 2 has tried to re-engineer them as infallible heroes.


----------



## Ryujin

Legatus_Legionis said:


> I too dislike how the show had to "alter" itself from what the fans loved to what the critics/media wants instead.
> 
> And how much of that has to also do with not just all the producers, but also the number of directors they are using this season (over season 1).
> 
> There has been 13 different directors to-date.
> 
> 6 did 1 episode each.
> 4 did 2 episodes each.
> 1 did 3 episodes
> 1 did 4 episodes (that was Seth himself with "Deflectors", "A Happy Refrain", and "Ja'loja")
> 1 did 4 episodes.




Multiple directors can change the tone of the delivered product, but it's the writers who give broader continuity. Producers have a wider effect, due to them being the primary funders of a show. (It's why groups like Zombie Orpheus Entertainment don't do the big investor thing).


----------



## Maxperson

CapnZapp said:


> I guess I'm about to give up on this show.
> 
> Far too much preachy stuff with the crew on the obviously good side, with little complication or nuance. I guess unavoidable given your political climate in the US, but still. (In a show like Madam Secretary that so obviously is counter-programming to real politics I get it, but here...?)




I don't agree with that.  If there were no complication or nuance, the Moclans would have conceded that the women should be able to live on their planet in peace, and Bortus's child would have been allowed to remain female.

The show is presenting these themes, but proceeding in very realistic ways.  The Union professes beliefs in freedom and choice, but was pretty quick to throw those beliefs aside when their survival was at risk of Moclan left the Union.  Bortus's daughter was given a strong fight, but the society that was very strong in their beliefs that no Moclan should remain female decided to give her a sex change anyway.  If the political climate in the US(and elsewhere) mattered that much, those things would not have happened.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

We have had flaws pop up pretty prominently in this series, though.  

Both Moclan regulars have had their foibles on parade more than once.  We’ve had another character get really obsessive about a relationship with a simulated woman centuries dead.

We had the Isaac reveal.

Now, most of the flaws depicted were _personal_ rather than _professional_, but the premise that the crew were a “B-team” from jump is a bit strained.  The pilot has always been described as one of the best in the fleet...but he is a bit of a cocky showboater.  The Captain is making a “comeback” because he fell apart in the past- his crisis is of no bearing on his actual level of competence.

Etc.


----------



## CapnZapp

Maxperson said:


> I don't agree with that.  If there were no complication or nuance, the Moclans would have conceded that the women should be able to live on their planet in peace, and Bortus's child would have been allowed to remain female.
> 
> The show is presenting these themes, but proceeding in very realistic ways.  The Union professes beliefs in freedom and choice, but was pretty quick to throw those beliefs aside when their survival was at risk of Moclan left the Union.  Bortus's daughter was given a strong fight, but the society that was very strong in their beliefs that no Moclan should remain female decided to give her a sex change anyway.  If the political climate in the US(and elsewhere) mattered that much, those things would not have happened.




Sure. But my argument wasn't really that the show lacks any moral complexity. 

It is that the crew's own flaws have evaporated. Now Mercer is saving the Union in every other episode. It's as if the Union would self-implode if the Orville wasn't there each week to fix things.

_YAWN_


----------



## Maxperson

CapnZapp said:


> It is that the crew's own flaws have evaporated. Now Mercer is saving the Union in every other episode. It's as if the Union would self-implode if the Orville wasn't there each week to fix things.




My God!  You're right!!  It's almost as if the Orville was the center of a show.

They are going to be the center of whatever is happening, because that's how a show works.  Do I wish he had those flaws he had in season 1?  Sure.  I liked those.  Would that make much of a difference in the stories going on?  Nope.  He'd still be saving the Union every other episode, but with flaws.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I’m struggling to remember- what flaws did he have season 1 that have _actually_ disappeared?


----------



## Maxperson

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I’m struggling to remember- what flaws did he have season 1 that have _actually_ disappeared?




Mercer's self-doubt is gone, and they were a bit more bumbling in how they succeeded.  They seem more competent this season than they were last season.  The friction between Mercer and Grayson is gone, but they explained the cheating as not her fault, so that makes sense.

Edit:LaMarr's mouth and Malloy's cockiness are also not getting them into as much trouble this season.


----------



## Ryujin

Maxperson said:


> My God!  You're right!!  It's almost as if the Orville was the center of a show.
> 
> They are going to be the center of whatever is happening, because that's how a show works.  Do I wish he had those flaws he had in season 1?  Sure.  I liked those.  Would that make much of a difference in the stories going on?  Nope.  He'd still be saving the Union every other episode, but with flaws.




And, perhaps, accidentally.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

But you’d _expect_ a former command officer on his second go round to not only have a bit of confidence to be able to do his job before, but also have it returning because he’s been on a bit of a roll.

At this point, his self-doubt was mostly personal, it seemed to me.


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> But you’d _expect_ a former command officer on his second go round to not only have a bit of confidence to be able to do his job before, but also have it returning because he’s been on a bit of a roll.
> 
> At this point, his self-doubt was mostly personal, it seemed to me.




As I recall the beginning of season 1 there was a surfeit of ships and a dearth of qualified command officers. On his ex-wife's recommendation Mercer, who was still lacking in confidence, was given command of Orville. In season 2 he is more confident.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Right, but he had to have confidence & competence to reach command rank in the first place- IOW, the backstory to the current story chronology.  He then suffered his crisis, costing him his command _and_ confidence.  

Season 1, he was still shaky.  Season 2, though, he’s been on a roll, so the pre-crisis Captain Mercer has begun to resurface.

But having spectacularly gone to pieces once means he could still do so again.  He _has_ been prickly about the Krill “Mata Hari”, of course.  Perhaps that wound will fester.


----------



## Aeson

Character growth? Want 10 seasons of bumbling? I would like to see growth.


----------



## CapnZapp

Point is: I didn't see their bumbling as some temporary obstacle the writers always intended for them to overcome.

It felt as if the show was *conceived* that way, as a source of irreverent humor.

S1 Mercer wasn't a prototypical hero in his formative stage. He was a fully developed character full of immature insecurities, which was the draw of the show. I.e. "what if there was a ship NOT crewed by superhuman paragons like the Enterprise!"

Nothing suggested these were expected to go away any time soon, and certainly not vanish almost overnight from one season to the next.

So please, this is not about "growth". This is a desperate retooling of a show confusing the audience for some critics.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Mercer still exhibits a whole bunch more “fallibility” across the board than most of the ST captains across the franchise history.  The man just did a “flyby” to check on his ex!

And the “bumbling”?  What bumbling?  Again, the pilot has been consistently described as one of the best in the fleet.  Others had similar accolades to their credit or unique attributes, including one of the few Xelayans serving on a Union ship and the _only_ Kaylon.

They weren’t “bunglers”, just written with their foibles on more prominent display.  The verbal jousts, in-jokes and asides we see between several of the characters typically existed only within a single tight pair or trio of friends in a given Trek series- Kirk/Bones/Spock, Bashir/O’Brien, etc.- if at all.

Besides, we’ve gotten to focus on the supporting cast _a lot_ this season: multiple Moclan storylines, a necropsy-holoromance, goo-guy done good, family-centric stories for 2 different families, a spy revealed and (seemingly) redeemed, and a cast change.


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Mercer still exhibits a whole bunch more “fallibility” across the board than most of the ST captains across the franchise history.  The man just did a “flyby” to check on his ex!
> 
> And the “bumbling”?  What bumbling?  Again, the pilot has been consistently described as one of the best in the fleet.  Others had similar accolades to their credit or unique attributes, including one of the few Xelayans serving on a Union ship and the _only_ Kaylon.
> 
> They weren’t “bunglers”, just written with their foibles on more prominent display.  The verbal jousts, in-jokes and asides we see between several of the characters typically existed only within a single tight pair or trio of friends in a given Trek series- Kirk/Bones/Spock, Bashir/O’Brien, etc.- if at all.
> 
> Besides, we’ve gotten to focus on the supporting cast _a lot_ this season: multiple Moclan storylines, a necropsy-holoromance, goo-guy done good, family-centric stories for 2 different families, a spy revealed and (seemingly) redeemed, and a cast change.




The cast change is really the only thing that occasionally jars me. The original actress brought a life to her character that her replacement lacks, IMHO. It feels like there's a hole in the cast.


----------



## Jester David

I'm still loving this show. 
It's nice to have a show unafraid to do a big two-part event story that adds a dangerous new foes and shakes the accepted status quo. And also smaller shows focusing on the personal lives of the crew. Because when everything's a crisis, when the stakes are always turned up to 10, you suddenly need to go to 11 for people to care. 

The past week's episode was great, in part because it really builds off the lore and continuity established by the show. You have the traditional Moclans and a dramatic issue with them that feels like a logical extension of what we've seen before. But extra tension is added by invoking the Kaylon threat and bringing up the Krill. It has three plotlines intersecting. There's a lot of payoffs and the drama comes from the mythology built-up over the last two seasons.
You believe that the Moclans would leave the Union, because we've repeatedly seen they hold tradition that highly. You also believe the Union feels the pressure and isn't comprising because it's an easy choice. 

It’s great that the show can so effortless straddle the line between enjoyable comedy and high drama.


----------



## CapnZapp

Ryujin said:


> The cast change is really the only thing that occasionally jars me. The original actress brought a life to her character that her replacement lacks, IMHO. It feels like there's a hole in the cast.



Not to mention she's boringly competent with no real weakness. (Attraction to Moclans doesn't count)

To be fair, there might be an ep centered on her that attempts to rectify this.


----------



## Orius

Tonight's episode wasn't too bad.  I'm not one for character episodes like this myself, but I didn't feel it a wasted episode.  Didn't see the ending coming though.  And the club scene wasn't too bad, particularly the comic relief with Yaphit and the Moclans.

I'm satisfied with the show myself.  I like the TNG homage, particularly one towards the stronger later seasons, but one that feels fresh, still has something to say, and hasn't run out of ideas.  The characters?   I think Seth's pulling off the captain role pretty well, he's really picked himself up from his divorce, and while he still has some insecurities, he gets the job done when he needs to.  Gordon hasn't done anything really goofy this season, though the two episodes focused on him were serious this season.  LaMarr hasn't had any goofy moments, but then he played stupid to stay popular, and he doesn't need to do that now.  Talla's kind of flat yeah, but she's older and more confident than Alara was.  Interesting, the most flaws we've seen this season was from Bortus of all people.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

...and Klyden.

Lots going on in that episode.  Shades of Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen” & Donald Fagen’s “Slinky Thing”, Ryker’s teleportation accident, complex dating navigation, and a humerous inversion of Klingon opera.


----------



## Orius

Yeah, but Klyden's not a crew member, so we don't expect to see him live up to the Trek standard.  He also serves as a window into Moclan culture, especially when Bortus is willing to question it.

I had kind of a Riker vibe going on too since there were similarities at first, but then they went in a very different direction with it.


----------



## cbwjm

So was it a different timeline or the same one? Will next episode be about what happens if Ed and Kelly never get together?


----------



## Jester David

cbwjm said:


> So was it a different timeline or the same one? Will next episode be about what happens if Ed and Kelly never get together?



We don’t know....
It is telling that the ship faded to white without seeing what happened when she went back.

So the next episode could be status quo everything normal. Or it could be an alternate timeline where Ed and Kelly never married.


----------



## Jester David

Okay, the text on the next episode sez:

_The Orville Season 2 Episode 14: "The Road Not Taken"

The crew must contend with the disastrous fallout from Kelly's decision. (air date: April 25, 2019)_​


----------



## cbwjm

Jester David said:


> Okay, the text on the next episode sez:
> 
> _The Orville Season 2 Episode 14: "The Road Not Taken"
> 
> The crew must contend with the disastrous fallout from Kelly's decision. (air date: April 25, 2019)_​



Cool. I like alternate reality episodes.


----------



## Aeson

Who know moclans would be the life of the party? And Yaphet has rhythm.lol


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

cbwjm said:


> So was it a different timeline or the same one? Will next episode be about what happens if Ed and Kelly never get together?




And if it’s an alternative reality, who will have goatees and/or facial scars?!?!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

...orrrrrr

What if Dr. Aronov emerges from a ball of hot plasma in a modified space shuttle, trying to get Kelly to come back in time with him to correct the timeline?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Aeson said:


> Who know moclans would be the life of the party? And Yaphet has rhythm.lol




Hmmm...
[video=youtube;RHUxfVoxbnc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHUxfVoxbnc[/video]

Coincidence?  _*I THINK NOT!*_


----------



## Ryujin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And if it’s an alternative reality, who will have goatees and/or facial scars?!?!




That's for alternate *universes.* In alternate realities the captain never made captain.


----------



## CapnZapp

That actually wasn't too bad. 

Palicki had a tough task but she pulled it off. And time travel shenanigans always offer the opportunity for goofing around (sorely lacking in S2). The Captain acting like a shitheel when he was all like "if you don't take me back I'll bang your younger hotter self". 

(Only problem was, I don't think that douchebag move was intentional. I fear the writers honestly believe asking for permission makes it okay. As if people, especially women, in the future are immune to insecurities based on looks and age... )

So I'm actually stoked for the next episode! Speculation time!

I realize the alternate timeline is there to suck, so I'll accept that the next episode must end with Kelly deciding to accept that second date with Ed after all. But please pretty please let the explanation not be "Kelly becomes Captain and is bad at it". Or, even worse, that the Union needs Captain Perfect Mercer for its existence!

There can be any number of explanations that doesn't suck, so it's too soon to fear either of those two. For example: Gordon's hot-shot piloting skills are needed, and he's only aboard because Mercer chose him. Or maybe Mercer actually needs to fail during one of the Orville's away missions, and without Kelly's rejection, he's not the Orville's captain during the right time. The possibilities are endless.

I'll take most anything, really. Except McFarlane writing himself into the role of a flawless hero with a blindingly smug smile.


----------



## CapnZapp

Aeson said:


> And Yaphet has rhythm.lol



There's no such website.


----------



## Zardnaar

I like Mercer just less than the other characters.


----------



## Orius

Well it went like this:

[sblock]Without the second date, Ed and Kelly never married, and never got divorced.  Without the chain of events that eventually made Ed the captain of the Orville, Isaac never bonded with Claire and her kids, and thus never developed sympathy for humans, and he stayed deactivated on Kaylon.  So the Kaylons were able to take everyone by surprise.  And it got nasty. 

We got to see Alara again for a bit.  Didn't see that coming.  The detachable flying heads make thins even worse too.  I got some more Star Wars vibes from this episode too, like Yaphit greeting them at the hidden base.

[/sblock]

It was a pretty good end to the season.


----------



## Richards

Agreed, except for the whole "let's hide our starship just inside the event horizon of a black hole" stratagem.  I'm willing to accept quantum drives and such in a science fiction show, but to mess up how black holes like that work?  Ugh.  And to make it worse, when they left the black hole, their chronometers showed that days had passed... ugh again.  Time would have passed for the chronometers at the same rate as for everything else on the ship: several minutes.  (Unless their chronometers are constantly getting updated by a source in normal space and suddenly "caught up" once they left the event horizon.)

On other nitpicking fronts, I'm pretty sure the bottles of booze would have fallen off the shelves during the Orville's crash to the bottom of the seven-mile-deep oceanic trench.  (The fact that they made such a point about the intense pressure under seven miles of ocean made ignoring the pressure from inside a black hole even that much more painful to stomach.)  Unless Bortis made cleaning up the bar and restacking the bottles a top priority during his solitary stay.)

But still: an interesting episode, and it was good to see Alara again, even if only briefly.  And I wonder how that removable head process works for Kaylons - are they able to maneuver their headless bodies when their heads go flying off to pursue enemies?  Do they have sensory apparatus in their torsos equivalent to those in their heads?

Johnathan


----------



## Ryujin

So the alternate timeline of a Star Trek homage is a Star WARS homage? Who knew?


----------



## CapnZapp

Whelp, that didn't take long. To crush my dreams, that is. 

Yes, it was the entirely predictable option that won out: Mercer is officially needed to save the universe.

On the plus side. Alara, yay! Kelly's cleavage. And I didn't mind the Star Wars homage. 

On the minus side, the science made my head hurt, repeatedly. There's no need to talk about it because it was so needless. The black hole obviously. Speeding straight through the water's surface. Brrr...

This ep wins the award for Most Predictable Ep. As soon as Rebel-Kelly explained her plan, I knew exactly how the episode would end, and so did most of you too. At least the pace was zippy - they were clearly aware they had a lot of plot to cover, even if we've seen all the parts before. (Felt somewhat like Family Guy's Star Wars homage: you know everything that's going to happen but you watch anyway)

Still - this could have been the show's way of mixing it up for season 3. An opportunity lost.

Kelly should be made Captain. They should allow her to recollect glimpses of the alternative timelines. (A vague recollection of how cleave helps her be in command and be successful would be a nice start!) Mercer should be assigned whatever department that wears red shirts. Alara needs to come back. And so should all the silliness as well: Tharl. Blue Rob Lowe. John as God's gift to women (give him the Troy counsellor job, with Ensign Turco as his secretary). Yaphit deserves the Engineering promotion. And for the love of god, cut down on the universe-saving plots.

We'll see if there's a third season. Otherwise: it has been great having someplace to discuss the show. Thanks.


----------



## Legatus Legionis

.


----------



## MNblockhead

I enjoyed it, but it was a weak ending for season 2.


----------



## cbwjm

I thought it was one of the best episodes so far, a lot more action oriented with a lot riding on their success. I also liked the the visual effects. The destroyed moon, the lack of sea life was a nice touch, and I thought it was awesome when the Orville flew again.


----------



## CapnZapp

Legatus_Legionis said:


> Considering how bad things are in this episode, other than Claire, everyone's hair and clothing and face is all clean, etc.
> 
> Costuming/makeup did NOT do its job to reflect how bad things are on the characters.
> 
> PLUS:
> 
> If the Kalyon's are so superior, why were they so bad marksmanship and tacticians.
> 
> As for bad tacticians... why did the rebels leave their base to become living targets?  And why was the base not covered from all sides from the Kalyons?
> 
> It felt like they rushed to get this strip written/approved/filmed without thinking it through.
> 
> Over all, this was one of the poorest outings for the Orville.



The answer to all your questions is spelled "star" and "wars"


----------



## CapnZapp

cbwjm said:


> I thought it was one of the best episodes so far, a lot more action oriented with a lot riding on their success. I also liked the the visual effects. The destroyed moon, the lack of sea life was a nice touch, and I thought it was awesome when the Orville flew again.



I see your point. However. Since I was thoroughly convinced where this was headed, it all felt a bit like going through the motions.

I mean, the second I realized McFarland had chosen the most self-indulgent story possible, right when Rebel Kelly explained her plan after the opening action scene, no way he was going to delay that by adding failure to the plot.

So my enjoyment was lessened by the predictability and inevitability of it. Going through the motions, as it were.

Does that mean I disagree about the visuals? Heck no! 

But it means my comparison to Family Guy Star Wars wasn't random. It was very much like that: following a plot you already know by heart. Pretty visuals keep you entertained, but you can't keep from wondering how much better it could have been if they had added even a smidgen of suspense, originality and unpredictability.


----------



## Ryujin

Legatus_Legionis said:


> Considering how bad things are in this episode, other than Claire, everyone's hair and clothing and face is all clean, etc.
> 
> Costuming/makeup did NOT do its job to reflect how bad things are on the characters.
> 
> PLUS:
> 
> If the Kalyon's are so superior, why were they so bad marksmanship and tacticians.
> 
> As for bad tacticians... why did the rebels leave their base to become living targets?  And why was the base not covered from all sides from the Kalyons?
> 
> It felt like they rushed to get this strip written/approved/filmed without thinking it through.
> 
> Over all, this was one of the poorest outings for the Orville.




The Kaylons were great shots when they started to take the rebel base, because NPCs. They kept missing Mercer and Malloy because PCs/"The Force is strong with them."


----------



## CapnZapp

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy


----------



## Morrus

Legatus_Legionis said:


> If the Kalyon's are so superior, why were they so bad marksmanship and tacticians.




Man, don't *ever* watch Star Wars, James Bond, Star Trek, or anything else which features protagonists!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Words of wisdom that would shorten many sci-fi movies and franchises to 15 minute action sequences:


----------



## CapnZapp

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Words of wisdom that would shorten many sci-fi movies and franchises to 15 minute action sequences:



Interestingly, the antagonists (the Kaylon) appear to have done exactly this.


----------



## Kaodi

I kind of thought the treatment of time travel was inconsistent. Young Kelly was all like, "we know it will work because it already worked," but then the plot turns out that it did not work. That feels pretty contradictory to me: presumably Commander Kelly already had this time travel incident happen to her and it worked then so why is there some sort of weird time travel two step going on where it both worked and did not work at the same time? And how they solved it with the Doctor just fading away was just weird. 

I enjoyed watching the episode, but between that and the black hole stuff it was not very satisfying. Like somehow they can hide in a black hole but ocean pressure is a *problem* . The chronometer business is fine, I mean their ship should have the capability to calculate what the time variance would be. But the fact that they can "see" what is going on inside the black hole is super dumb: if their sensors can accomplish that inside the black hole they should be able to accomplish it outside. 

In any case I think the fact that Young Kelly is younger and mildly prettier than Commander Kelly is not that relevant to the dating situation. Like, you could do that some plot with Captain Kelly and most of the same issues would apply: what does it mean to be attracted to a different but completely real version of a person you love but whom you cannot be with?


----------



## Morrus

If they could hide in the black hole safely, why couldn’t the Kaylons come in to take a look? They hid behind a curtain and the Kaylons spent two days peering at the curtain but treating it as an impassable barrier. Obviously they knew they were in there. Did the good guys have technology that the Kaylons didn’t?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Morrus said:


> If they could hide in the black hole safely, why couldn’t the Kaylons come in to take a look? They hid behind a curtain and the Kaylons spent two days peering at the curtain but treating it as an impassable barrier. Obviously they knew they were in there. Did the good guys have technology that the Kaylons didn’t?




I think the Kaylon didn’t want to waltz into an ambush.  They couldn’t see beyond the event horizon, so going in on their prey’s tail would have set them up for taking weapon fire right where it hurt.

Besides the bad physics, though, I wonder why- when they had perfect camouflage- they didn’t simply emerge from the event horizon at a different point from where they entered.  THEY wasted 2 days watching Kaylons.


----------



## Morrus

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I think the Kaylon didn’t want to waltz into an ambush.  They couldn’t see beyond the event horizon, so going in on their prey’s tail would have set them up for taking weapon fire right where it hurt.




So just send one ship first. Or even just a probe.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Morrus said:


> So just send one ship first. Or even just a probe.




Ship or probe goes in.  Gets blown up.  Kaylon receive no data on what happened because the action is on the other side of the event horizon.

Only if the ship or probe returns, do they get data- prey destroyed or disappeared.


----------



## Morrus

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Ship or probe goes in.  Gets blown up.  Kaylon receive no data on what happened because the action is on the other side of the event horizon.
> 
> Only if the ship or probe returns, do they get data- prey destroyed or disappeared.




I didn’t realise the Kaylons were such scaredy cats!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I think they would just see it as a bad use of resources.


----------



## CapnZapp

I think there is no rational explanation and it is simply a case of heroes doing stuff NPCs don't.


----------



## Nagol

Morrus said:


> I didn’t realise the Kaylons were such scaredy cats!




It makes sense for their characters though.  They've been hiding out in their home system for how long?  They only came out when they thought they had a insurmountable advantage... and were stopped cold despite their intellectual superiority, preparedness, and thoroughly vetted plan.

I was a bit disappointed when the Kaylons were revealed as Determined Exterminators, I was hoping for some nuance.


----------



## Zardnaar

Driven Assimilators have been done, Rogue Servitors could be interesting.


----------



## Nagol

Zardnaar said:


> Driven Assimilators have been done, Rogue Servitors could be interesting.




Original Star Trek "I, Mudd" had Rogue Servitors.


----------



## Zardnaar

Knew it had been done but DEs are a lot more prominent.


----------



## Nagol

Zardnaar said:


> Knew it had been done but DEs are a lot more prominent.




Yeah.  I was hoping they'd just be "people".  Someone to talk to, negotiate with, attempt to ally, prevent a potentially disastrous misunderstanding from happening, etc. who have an odd viewpoint because most of the biological concerns don't interest them.

Now they are effectively a boogeyman plot device.


----------



## Ryujin

Nagol said:


> Yeah.  I was hoping they'd just be "people".  Someone to talk to, negotiate with, attempt to ally, prevent a potentially disastrous misunderstanding from happening, etc. who have an odd viewpoint because most of the biological concerns don't interest them.
> 
> Now they are effectively a boogeyman plot device.




That could be changed, if their fundamental premise could be shown to be flawed. Time for a patented James Tiberius Kirk logic loop!


----------



## CapnZapp

And we're renewed for S3!


----------



## Umbran

I finally got around to watching the final episode.

It was like someone in the writer's room said, "Hey, waitaminute.  We are a Trek homage show.  If we haven't made science-literate geeks have at least one moment of abject apoplexy this season, we aren't doing our job!"  

Other than my speachless gesticulating at the screen for a few moments, it was decent.


----------



## Umbran

Kaodi said:


> But the fact that they can "see" what is going on inside the black hole is super dumb: if their sensors can accomplish that inside the black hole they should be able to accomplish it outside.




Nope.  That part is pretty much okay.  Light falling in to a black hole does not *stop* at the event horizon.  It falls in, and could be detected on the inside.   Okay, technically it gets blue-shifted to gamma rays on the way in, but that's the *least* of the problems with the black hole bit.



Richards said:


> The fact that they made such a point about the intense pressure under seven miles of ocean made ignoring the pressure from inside a black hole even that much more painful to stomach.




There isn't any particular pressure inside a black hole.  It is still a vacuum, for one thing.  And the space inside the event horizon is just like the space outside it.  The curvature increases as you head toward the singularity, but there's no discontinuity at the event horizon that suddenly increases pressure.


----------



## Kaodi

Umbran said:


> Nope.  That part is pretty much okay.  Light falling in to a black hole does not *stop* at the event horizon.  It falls in, and could be detected on the inside.   Okay, technically it gets blue-shifted to gamma rays on the way in, but that's the *least* of the problems with the black hole bit.




This does not quite make sense to me. For them to "detect" the light falling towards the centre some would still have to escape towards them, would it not? But the "event horizon" should not really be a singular place, should it? Once you are inside it is basically event horizons all the way down, is it not? If light cannot escape at _x_ distance then there is no way it can escape at _x - n_ distance.


----------



## Nagol

Umbran said:


> Nope.  That part is pretty much okay.  Light falling in to a black hole does not *stop* at the event horizon.  It falls in, and could be detected on the inside.   Okay, technically it gets blue-shifted to gamma rays on the way in, but that's the *least* of the problems with the black hole bit.
> 
> 
> 
> There isn't any particular pressure inside a black hole.  It is still a vacuum, for one thing.  And the space inside the event horizon is just like the space outside it.  The curvature increases as you head toward the singularity, but there's no discontinuity at the event horizon that suddenly increases pressure.




There would be tidal stress effects on the hull though, but that would be "pushing out" (actually linear stretching stress as opposed to expansion) as opposed to "pressing in".   The ship needs to be designed to support a minimal amount of analogous "pushing out" from air pressure so I could wink at external pressure being a greater risk.  It just has to be a *very* big black hole to drop the tidal effect to manageable levels.  Who knew a massive black hole was wandering around that section of the galaxy?  No one!  No one knew!


----------



## Nagol

Kaodi said:


> This does not quite make sense to me. For them to "detect" the light falling towards the centre some would still have to escape towards them, would it not? But the "event horizon" should not really be a singular place, should it? Once you are inside it is basically event horizons all the way down, is it not? If light cannot escape at _x_ distance then there is no way it can escape at _x - n_ distance.




It's not escaping towards them, they are inside the event horizon so light is falling over them like water in a shower on its way deeper into the hole.  The event horizon is the surface of a sphere some distance from the singularity point (the more massive the hole, the farther the surface of the sphere from centre of mass).  Nothing is really there other than gravity at sufficient force levels that light can't escape.


----------



## tomBitonti

If they are inside the black hole, then either they are using their faster-than-light drive to keep from falling inwards, or they are falling inwards along with light any any other unlucky matter in their vicinity.  (Light would be moving along a geodesic which terminates at the singularity; any normal motion must also terminate at the singularity.)

Just *keeping still*, meaning, keeping at a constant distance from the singularity, requires use of the faster-than-light drive.

In regards to tidal forces, to tell whether the ship and crew are "spaghettified" this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification suggests the following values:

(Solar masses, event horizon radius, "spaghettification" radius")
(10 S, 30 km, 320 km)
(100 S, 300 km, 685 km)
(1000 S, 3000 km, 1462 km)
(10000 S, 30000 km, 3200 km)

The critical radius moves inside of the event horizon somewhere between 100 and 1000 solar masses.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## Umbran

Nagol said:


> It just has to be a *very* big black hole to drop the tidal effect to manageable levels.  Who knew a massive black hole was wandering around that section of the galaxy?  No one!  No one knew!




Oh, their handling of the tidal forces can be explained - we know they can generate gravity (to keep people with feet on the deck, and probably more dynamically to keep crew members from becoming red smears on the bulkheads when they perform high acceleration maneuvers).  They just use internal gravity generators to counter the effects.


----------



## Umbran

tomBitonti said:


> If they are inside the black hole, then either they are using their faster-than-light drive to keep from falling inwards, or they are falling inwards along with light any any other unlucky matter in their vicinity.  (Light would be moving along a geodesic which terminates at the singularity; any normal motion must also terminate at the singularity.)
> 
> Just *keeping still*, meaning, keeping at a constant distance from the singularity, requires use of the faster-than-light drive.




Yep.  And, a nod to this would have been a really good way to prevent us from awkwardly gesticulating at the TV in frustration


----------



## Umbran

Kaodi said:


> This does not quite make sense to me. For them to "detect" the light falling towards the centre some would still have to escape towards them, would it not?




Nope.  

They are just inside the event horizon, looking out.  Photons from outside are falling in at them - they can detect those.  There will be some warping of the field of view, but the event horizon does not present a discontinuity.  If you are just outside the event horizon, looking around, and then step just inside, the world will look much the same.



> But the "event horizon" should not really be a singular place, should it? Once you are inside it is basically event horizons all the way down, is it not? If light cannot escape at _x_ distance then there is no way it can escape at _x - n_ distance.




Pretty much, yes.  The event horizon is the *outermost* such position.  Which means you can always see things that are farther out from the singularity than you are.  You can't look *inwards* and see anything.  You always seem to be standing on the surface of a black sphere.


----------



## tomBitonti

Umbran said:


> Nope.
> 
> They are just inside the event horizon, looking out.  Photons from outside are falling in at them - they can detect those.  There will be some warping of the field of view, but the event horizon does not present a discontinuity.  If you are just outside the event horizon, looking around, and then step just inside, the world will look much the same.
> 
> 
> 
> Pretty much, yes.  The event horizon is the *outermost* such position.  Which means you can always see things that are farther out from the singularity than you are.  You can't look *inwards* and see anything.  You always seem to be standing on the surface of a black sphere.




Is this correct?  If one were held still, perhaps, but an infalling observer should still see objects which fell ahead of them.  In the infalling frame, the light proceeds outwards.  From the perspective of a still frame of reference, the observer would seem to catch up to light emitted by the object which preceded them across the event horizon.

If objects which fell ahead of the observer could not be seen, then physics as we know it would not occur for the observer once they are within the event horizon: Putting the observer's feet closer to the singularity, no nerve signal could be transmitted to reach the observer's brain.  Putting the floor beneath the observer's feet closer to the singularity than the observer's feet, no exchange particles could reach outwards from the floor to create contact pressure.  I am thinking, all sorts of physical processes would be very different.  That is not consistent with the idea that the event horizon could be crossed without notice (aside from tidal effects).

Thx!
TomB


----------



## Umbran

tomBitonti said:


> Is this correct?




I think so.  Freyar might correct me.  But, light follows geodesics.  From the event horizon inwards, there are no geodesics that ever carry you *farther away* from the singularity, iirc.  They all spiral inwards to varying degrees.  Each time you take a step towards the singularity, there is no going back out. 

There may be some exceptions, especially for black holes with high rates of spin.  But I'm not near my notes at the moment to check.



> If one were held still, perhaps, but an infalling observer should still see objects which fell ahead of them.  In the infalling frame, the light proceeds outwards.




There isn't one single infalling frame for all things inside the event horizon.  Each thing has its own rest frame.  The space is decidedly *not* flat in there, so frames at different distances from the singularity are under acceleration relative to one another, and the acceleration difference will increase as you get closer to the singularity.  And at the event horizon, you've already gotten to the point where light of things ahead of you has been red-shifted to infinity.  I don't see why that would change when you cross the horizon.

Again, maybe I am forgetting something, and I am not near my notes.


----------



## tomBitonti

Umbran said:


> I think so.  Freyar might correct me.  But, light follows geodesics.  From the event horizon inwards, there are no geodesics that ever carry you *farther away* from the singularity, iirc.  They all spiral inwards to varying degrees.  Each time you take a step towards the singularity, there is no going back out.
> 
> There may be some exceptions, especially for black holes with high rates of spin.  But I'm not near my notes at the moment to check.
> 
> There isn't one single infalling frame for all things inside the event horizon.  Each thing has its own rest frame.  The space is decidedly *not* flat in there, so frames at different distances from the singularity are under acceleration relative to one another, and the acceleration difference will increase as you get closer to the singularity.  And at the event horizon, you've already gotten to the point where light of things ahead of you has been red-shifted to infinity.  I don't see why that would change when you cross the horizon.
> 
> Again, maybe I am forgetting something, and I am not near my notes.




This particular question has bugged me for a while.  I don't have a clear answer, just what seems to be necessary for consistency.

Very definitely, there would be perceivable effects of the curvature; that would be tidal effects, and red and blue shifting of light.

What seems necessary is that light can appear to proceed "outwards", but that is only within the frame of the infalling observer.  From a frame which is still relative to the singularity, both the observer and the observed light are and must always move towards the singularity.

That seems to be necessary for the transition across the event horizon to not have a dramatic effect.  The alternative is a total disconnection (aside from gravitational effects) of anything inside the event horizon from anything closer to the singularity.  Normal matter couldn't even exist, as it relies on particle exchange, and that would become impossible in an outward direction.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## Umbran

tomBitonti said:


> This particular question has bugged me for a while.  I don't have a clear answer, just what seems to be necessary for consistency.




Did a bit of quick reading from work... 

The whole idea of "you could fall in and nothing happens" as you approach a supermassive black hole, is not what it appears.  It is really talking about your approach (like, you don't get sphagettified).  And there's no discontinuity at the event horizon...

However, after that, things get messy.  Fast.  It turns out that any choice of coordinate system runs into trouble, and you have to start talking about coordinate-invariant qualities.  But then it becomes near impossible to speak about what happens to say, a human's body.  You have funny things happen depending on whether you enter traveling in the direction of the hole's spin, or against the spin.  Ugly.


----------



## Ryujin

Given that they have control of both gravity and inertial, I tend to think of the ship as an independent and closed system.

... until that control fails.


----------



## Aeson

Scot Grimes just won the lottery. Marrying Adrienne Palicki

https://comicbook-com.cdn.ampprojec...adrianne-palicki-scot-grimes-married-wedding/


----------



## Umbran

Aeson said:


> Scot Grimes just won the lottery. Marrying Adrienne Palicki




So, in a meta sense, he married his best friends ex-wife.  What's just weird.


----------



## CapnZapp

Still not as bad as if Kit Harrington had married Daenerys instead of Ygritte..


----------



## tomBitonti

Umbran said:


> Did a bit of quick reading from work...
> 
> The whole idea of "you could fall in and nothing happens" as you approach a supermassive black hole, is not what it appears.  It is really talking about your approach (like, you don't get sphagettified).  And there's no discontinuity at the event horizon...
> 
> However, after that, things get messy.  Fast.  It turns out that any choice of coordinate system runs into trouble, and you have to start talking about coordinate-invariant qualities.  But then it becomes near impossible to speak about what happens to say, a human's body.  You have funny things happen depending on whether you enter traveling in the direction of the hole's spin, or against the spin.  Ugly.




This seems to be on point:

https://web.stanford.edu/~oas/SI/SRGR/notes/SRGRLect10_2007.pdf

Some main points are this, from page 3, regarding a non-rotating case:



> This reflects the fact that for the in falling object, it is always in a freely falling frame, an ever shrinking IRF. As the object passes the horizon, nothing significant happens. It doesn’t even notice that it has passed.




That "IRF" in "ever shrinking IRF" is short for "Inertial Reference Frame".  Close to the infalling observer, spacetime is still flat: An infalling observer will still see their feet, and locally physics will work as expected.

For the spinning case, page 4 changes the metric, and has:



> So our map, so far, looks like any other flat spacetime IRF however here thismust be seen as a patchwork of small local frames. We will examine a series of pointsand rays to find how to represent the shell observer and Schrodinger (far away) coordinates within this map.




So locally we are still OK, but the global picture is a lot more complicated.

Off topic: There is an interesting bit towards the end (page 8) which talks about difficulties of working out quantum gravity:



> To explore fluctuations greater than the Planck mass, or equivalently to measure distances shorter than the Planck length Rp, neither general relativity nor quantum field theory can be used alone. We can also get a sense of the energy of the fluctuation and the time limit by going backto the uncertainty relation.
> 
> Again, to describe fundamental particles with an energy of the scale of the Planck energy or time intervals less than the Planck time requires a theory of quantum gravity.  We can take this time limit as the approximate limit in exploring the initial conditions of the big bang. What this argument suggests is that we can push the separate theories of general relativity and quantum field theory (quantum mechanics united with special relativity) back to a time of about 10-42 s or so. Prior to this time physics is governed by the unknown theory of quantum gravity. If a theory of quantum gravity is developed, the hope is that it will describe the initial conditions of the universe and answer all questions about its development. Hence, such a theory would be enormously powerful. Over the past 50 years it has become clear that such a theory is not going to be easily developed.
> 
> What are the difficulties in uniting these two powerful theories? There are several different ways to point out the conflicts. First, it is clear that general relativity needs to have some modification on the extremely small, high energy scale. At the center of black holes and the beginning of the universe, the theory calls for a singularity. This singularity is a point of infinite spacetime curvature and energy density. Such singularities are mathematically unacceptable. However in low curvature, low energy, regions the general theory is an accurate theory. Quantum field theory (the unification of quantum mechanics and special relativity) on the other hand is an accurate theory on short distance, moderately high energy, scales. On the large scale, low energy scale, quantum mechanics transitions to classical mechanics. A transition which is not entirely well understood. There is much work today on this transition regime between quantum mechanics and classical physics.Another problem in bringing together these two theories is the question of what exactly is being quantized. To discuss quantization, first consider classical electromagnetic theory and its quantized form quantum electrodynamics. The process of quantizing the electromagnetic theory replaces the notion of an electromagnetic wave with particles (quanta) which mediate the electric and magnetic forces. The photon is the quanta of EM radiation. Classically it is electromagnetic waves (or electric and magnetic fields) which mediate the forces. This is what is being quantized.(The process is more complicated then simply replacing waves with particles but there is nospace to discuss the details). For general relativity what is to be quantized? Recall that the Einstein equation gives the metric solution for a particular distribution of energy. The metric is the ‘field’ which mediates the gravitational force (we are drawing an analogy to electricity and magnetism, again, there is no gravitational force but the curvature of spacetime). So the quantity to quantize is the metric itself. Or, put another way, spacetime itself must be quantized! This is surely a strange requirement. What does it mean to replace spacetime with quanta (gravitons) which mediate the gravitational force? What do these particles propagate through, since there is no longer a continuum of spacetime? Tying this together with quantum mechanics which employs time and space as parameters to describe the wave functions of the quanta – here being space and time itself. It is somewhat self-referential and causes difficulties in even beginning to construct a theory. Quantum theory relies on a spacetime background, however here we are doing away with such a concept and replacing it with discrete particles.




Thx!
TomB


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## Richards

Hey, if anyone's interested, Dark Horse just came out with the first issue of a new _Orville_ comic book miniseries today.  Apparently there will be four issues in all, comprising two different two-part stories.  Check your local comic book shop for details.

Johnathan


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## Aeson

There will be a 3rd season, but it will be on Hulu not Fox.
https://comicbook-com.cdn.ampprojec...tartrek/2019/07/20/the-orville-season-3-hulu/


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## Zardnaar

No surprise good sci fi doesn't do well on Fox.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Aeson said:


> There will be a 3rd season, but it will be on Hulu not Fox.
> https://comicbook-com.cdn.ampprojec...tartrek/2019/07/20/the-orville-season-3-hulu/


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## Richards

Well, shoot.  There goes another one.

Johnathan


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## Zardnaar

In think you can get a free month trial for Hulu. We looked into it today but I wasn't paying to much attention.


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## Ryujin

That's a damned shame. I won't be adding *another* streaming service for one show


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## Umbran

Zardnaar said:


> No surprise good sci fi doesn't do well on Fox.




If we take the statement as largely true, the issue wasn't how well the show was doing, but production schedule.  They were looking at not having new episodes until late 2020 - a year and more from now, which is a hard sell for Fox.


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## Zardnaar

Umbran said:


> If we take the statement as largely true, the issue wasn't how well the show was doing, but production schedule.  They were looking at not having new episodes until late 2020 - a year and more from now, which is a hard sell for Fox.




It was mostly a joke, Firefly and Terminator Sarah Connor Chronicles were on Fox.


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## Janx

We finished the season 2 last night (we watch one episode a week with friends over dinner).

good.  A lot darker.  The Moklan episodes are always super dark.  Bortis's mate has been dubbed MurderSpouse.

Seemed weird to replace Alara with a lookalike character.


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## Ryujin

Janx said:


> We finished the season 2 last night (we watch one episode a week with friends over dinner).
> 
> good.  A lot darker.  The Moklan episodes are always super dark.  Bortis's mate has been dubbed MurderSpouse.
> 
> Seemed weird to replace Alara with a lookalike character.




I suspect that they already had a lot of season 2 written when Halston Sage left and that they didn't want to rewrite, so brought in a replacement Xelayan. Seth likely didn't want to just let go of his "jar of pickles" joke.


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## CapnZapp

Ryujin said:


> Seth likely didn't want to just let go of his "jar of pickles" joke.



What a weird thing to say. IIRC they never had the captain make that joke with the new Xelayan. They even had an actual jar of pickles as a farewell present.


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## Janx

CapnZapp said:


> What a weird thing to say. IIRC they never had the captain make that joke with the new Xelayan. They even had an actual jar of pickles as a farewell present.




actually, on the last episode, when they get to the Orville, Seth tries to open the door and does the Pickle joke for the new security chief, bringing us full circle.


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## Legatus Legionis

.


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## cbwjm

Legatus_Legionis said:


> [h=1]Adrianne Palicki files for divorce from ‘Orville’ costar after two months of marriage[/h]
> 
> https://globalnews.ca/news/5673063/adrianne-palicki-divorce/
> 
> Is that crazy?  Two months only?
> 
> Was this a publicity stunt from the beginning?



Should make it interesting while filming the next season.


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