The Orville [SPOILERS WITHIN]

Ha! He's practically playing a younger version of himself on the Orville.

If you look at the comments, someone suggested that the Orville is set in TNG’s future and both are in the same universe.

Except that would make no sense.

On any level.

This was a nice, light episode. I can't help but love Kelly more and more each week, and consider Adrian Palicki a genuine treasure on the show. The B plot of Bortus and Klyden getting addicted to cigarettes was hilarious, and I love how when Klyden confronts Bortus and his sneaking, he takes one from the sculpture, one from behind the television, and then what had to be 100 from inside the pillow.

Gordon's addiction to Lara and her world is completely understandable, and I would likely be just as overwhelmed were I in his place. I like how the episode touched on what is and isn't real, how we lie to ourselves for just a little bit of happiness, and how it can ultimately destroy us if we don't let go of that denial. All in all, a good slice of life episode.

I think Scott Grimes acting is getting much better. He is turning into a real asset on the show. Tonight's episode proved that he can carry an episode pretty much on his on. The episode reminded me somewhat of the story from the science fiction movie Solaris I think it was where part of the thrust was "how much of what makes up a person is what others think they are".

Who hacked Dayton's account?

Wow.. I just watched the first 2 minutes of this episode and... TUVOK!! I mean Tim Russ! This show has so much heart. My preference for The Orville & ST: Disco oscillates almost every week.

Another good episode that pulls a bit at the heart strings... but they're not breaking new ground in terms of storytelling. This episode was very reminiscent of TNG's "11001001" and "Booby Trap" mixed in with a bit of the film/book Somewhere in Time.

Still, really well done.

(Plus, Leighton Meester is cute as hell.)

So I kind of forgot Scott Grimes is Steve Smith from American Dad. Yeah, his acting chops and singing chops have always been there, they just focused on him being the funny guy for so long. Good episode. Oh and, Tuvok!

We've seen so far that what we think are frivolous filler episodes end up paying off later.
Lara will be a magic plot gimmick for something.

I liked Tim Russ's characters misinterpretation of "WTF" as an inquiry regarding "Wireless Telecommunications Facility"

If you like things like that (which was pretty fucking funny), I suggest that you check out MOTEL OF THE MYSTERIES by David Macaulay which is in a similar vein.

Kind of a mash up of the TNG episode Booby Trapped with some hints of Tapestry thrown in. Very well executed, IMHO.

https://wordforge.net/index.php?posts/3131279/

It's nice to see Malloy becoming a real person instead of just a comic-relief frat bro.

And playing "spot the Trek alum" is fun.

Good episode this week.

Marina Sirtis! Tony Todd!

Dolly!

And MacFarlane using long dissolves to black when going to commercial has to be another nod to Trek. Most modern shows seem to either cut to black or dissolve so quickly that it might as well be a cut.

The long fade looks so anachronistic.

My wife laughed at the repeated use of "9 to 5".

That said it was a good episode. Mercer's solution speech (more like a simple observation) was short, succinct, and appealed to the what would've been the worst possible fears of the Moclans. Sad to say that though Bortas is still an interesting and compelling character, the Moclans in general and Kryden in particular are coming off as a truly repugnant race.

anyone notice that Isaacs role seems to have been parred back greatly?

Anyone else think Adrianne Palicki is just freakin' gorgeous?

Good episode although I hope this is the last of the Moclan focused episodes for a long while. They are starting to get overused like the TNG/DS9 era Klingons.

Love the Trek cameos. Good to Marina Sirtis again even if its just a short cameo. Although if she is the new teacher on board the ship maybe we will see her more regularly.

Would like to see the show develop more of its own identity although that may not be possible at this point.

The problem they have is that the Moclan's are really the only society we know a whole lot about. We know almost nothing about what life on Earth is like, we don't know much about the Krill (aside from their worship of Avis), and because of their genocidal nature, you couldn't replace the Moclans with the Kaylons. Because this episode was really about the importance of diplomacy and trying to get people to see things in something other than simply a black-and-white manner.

If they had tried to do this with a different species, they would have had to spend a lot more time in doing a set-up of that society's culture, as well as giving them a reason for being so important to the Union (and the Union to them). Using the Moclans enables them to skip all that. (Let me point out that the only aliens we see with any regularity in the crew are Xelayahians, Yaphit [whatever he is], and Dann [whatever he is]. None of them have a family [that we know of], so they couldn't bring the kind of interpersonal dynamics to the episode that using Moclans could, without a longer build up.)

Hopefully, they'll use upcoming episodes (there's just two left in the season, and I'm going to assume that it's been picked up for a third one) to flesh out the backgrounds of more of the characters and expand the number of aliens we see on the ship. That will enable them to tap other species for storylines.

Anybody notice that F. Murray Abraham (another Trek alum) appeared to a Xelayahian? I thought that it was pretty rare for them to join up, and there he is, the head of the Union Council.

Something else that struck me when the Moclans were headed to the shuttle to go to the other ship: Not having transporters could cause production for the series to get hella expensive. They either have to use the Orville's shuttles in the shots, or they have to build a new set (if the story revolves around a species we haven't seen yet), if they want to have some kind of touching goodbye scene as someone goes to leave. There are ways to work around this, of course, such as having the goodbyes take place at the doors into the shuttle bay, with the person walking towards a CGI ship in the distance, but that's not going to be natural-seeming for every episode where such a situation might arise.

If it weren’t for her eyes I wouldn’t think she’s as pretty as she is. I prefer girls with dark eyes, but at least her light eyes offset the rest of her being so monochrome (her hair and skin are basically the same color).

To me Adrianne Palicki is immensely more appealing and sexy in "The Orville" than she ever was in "Friday Night Lights".

Anyone noticed though that this is the second episode this season where Kelly and Bortas mow down a bunch of people at the climax of the episode?

I understand the sentiment that they're focusing too much on the Moclans. At the start when I saw that they were taxiing another group of Moclans, I almost thought I was watching a rerun.

But this episode kinda felt like it was built on what we knew about Moclan culture without introducing anything new, really. Rather, it was taking the foundation that has been laid and using it to show an interesting episode on intergalactic politics. The episode would not have been possible, or at least the stakes wouldn't have seemed has high, if it had been any of the background alien species from the Union Council scenes. And by making the species the same as one of the main cast, and with the history of that crew member and his species, it raised the stakes even further.

This one pretty much sucked. Tired of Orville devolving into "Moclan LGBTQ Rights" every third episode. And, eh, just, no... Sending Kelly and Bortus down to the planet to annihilate an entire strike force by their own and getting away with it? Jesus.

And Klyden. Dear Klyden. Why doesn't Bortus just "divorce" him?

I thought it interesting. A comment by Mercer about the Union depending too much on the Moclans for their weapons. Something that has been hinted at a number of times. And that Ed had been on record opposing this policy. Much like in Star Trek. Starfleet having to go to the Klingons or Romulans every time they needed a cloaking device.

That roomful of admirals was some impressive cameos. Ted Dansen, Victor Garber, Ron Canada, and the always-stunning Kelly Hu.
And Marina!!
Then we get Tony Todd and F. Murray as well!

Palicki's eyes are her most beautiful feature, IMHO, and her perfect figure. Luckily I'm an eye man.

And I'm sure 60's bigots were sick of TOS being anti-racist and anti-Vietnam.
They were on the wrong side of history, and I pee on their graves.

Two words for this episode: Girl Power! This episode started off kind of, not boring, but kind of typical the Dolly Paton speech was good, I laughed when "9 to 5" came on the first time, I could see where it was going, then Kelly goes down to the planet and "9 to 5" come back on and they start kicking ass and all of the sudden I'm loving this episode. It was really good and I liked seeing the politics of the Union. I'm glad they finally got Bortus to recognize that Clyden just doesn't fit with the rest of the crew, that marriage can't last too much longer.

I'm sure they were. My least favorite TOS episode of all time is Omega Glory.