The Orville [SPOILERS WITHIN]

The second episode wasn't as bad as the first, but it still wasn't very good.

So, The Orville has the Borg now, except instead of being part robot, they're part spider. That's dumb.

Char-lee still sucks.

Yeah I’m guessing that’s the new bad guys for the protagonists.

Well, I thought the second ep was a VAST improvement over the first. Not sure if these spider people are the new big bads or not, but I kind of doubt it. This is a region of space I don't expect them to have access to going forward.

The Orville has split the Borg in two. The Kaylon are the robotic, super-sophisticated, mostly indifferent-to-humanity portion, and the Demons (or whatever they will be called) are the relentless "you will be assimilated" portion.

Something feels off about this season so far. It's taking itself too seriously one minute, then the next minute self-awareness kicks in and they either overcompensate by reeling it back in to a reset button, or trying to abruptly lurch back into comedy. Maybe there's too many chefs on the kitchen or something.

This episode started to remind me of a Twilight Zone episode, but then as it progressed and I started to figure out what was going on, it reminded me of the TNG episode "Liaisons" where three aliens want to experience different aspects of human behavior. That episode also makes me think of "Allegiance" where Picard is abducted along with other aliens and Picard is replaced on the ship with a doppelganger. I thought this episode was interesting, but the twist at the end left me underwhelmed.

What a surprise, episode three is another stinker. Yet another alien species that's all "we're so superior and you're so primitive." If they were so superior, they'd understand the principle of "show, don't tell." Imagine someone telling ants how superior he is while burning them with a magnifying glass, and the sort of person who would do such a thing. Every time a "vastly superior" alien shows up, starts fucking with humans, and acts all arrogant about it, I figure the humans aren't exactly dealing with the best of the best.

I thought Charr-leie couldn't get any worse, but once again I was proven wrong. She needs to get a dishonorable discharge, and the actress who plays her needs to have her SAG membership permanently revoked and never act again.

That was DUUUUUUUUULLLLLLL

I thought it was fine, even if it was a little been there, done that.

Maybe against the backdrop of Strange New Worlds generally being good, having a Trek homage show doesn't hit the sweet spot it used to. Or maybe this season just has been particularly lackluster and the positive feelings I have about the first two seasons would diminish on rewatch.

It does manage something Trek never pulled outside of novels - a follow-up to the "weird encounter of the week" storyline. With Trek, it's usually obvious from the get-go that an arc is being set up or a sequel is coming. How many folk had money on a culture from a random "Prime Directive story" showing back up?

Did TOS or TNG ever bother mentioning what happened to Apollo's kid from Who Mourns For Adonais?. I know the NF novels did, but this would be similar. Or have the guy who hyper-evolved in TNG come back to help out when Q's fucking around.

I've decided to give each episode this season a score:

E1: 2
E2: 3.5
E3: 2

Note: Out of 100, not out of 10 or 5.

That last episode really dragged and the ending was unsatisfying. Are they really going to make me rewatch the relevant episode from a previous season where Kelly was worshipped as a god? Why not splice in some clips to save us the trouble?

I'm not sure how I feel about this episode. I want to like it, but I'm not sure if I did or not. When the axe beat appeared, at that point I lost a bit of enthusiasm for the episode. Then by the time the plane crash happened I knew that each of the landing party was going to have a near death experience.

When the disco gal appeared and refreshed who she was, I pretty much lost interest. She told Kelly that they had moved past worshipping her and there was no real need for disco gal to even include Kelly in their outer body experience test. Disco gal could have used the crew off any ship by that point.

Holy fuck. Did we watch the same episode?

I just finished the second episode (have not watched the third yet) and it sucked hard. Really, really, really hard.

As I was watching it, I was thinking it's very similar to some of the paint-by-numbers episodes that were crapped out for Enterprise and Voyager.

And, oh... look who wrote it! Brannon Braga.

Season three of The Orville is a train wreck so far, and that makes me sad.

I want to like it too, but unfortunately, season 3 has to be a big, steaming turd.

Seth McFarlane is lucky the House is busy investigating Jan.6th, otherwise he'd be under investigation right now. I hope everyone involved with season 3 does prison time for sucking so hard.

There was literally one moment here that got my respect: when he said "now we know it's an illusion" and explained that the gravity, had they actually been on Selayah would have killed them - that's the sort of tying up of a plot hole that you don't always see in this sort of show.
(also, I literally just noticed the easter egg of that planet name in this episode)

Episode three was meh. Certainly not the flaming turd that was episode two, but definitely meh.

I hate to agree with Uncle Al, but something is definitely off this season. Maybe the lengthy delay between seasons? Maybe the move to a new network/streaming service? I don't know, but so far... blech.

That was a weird episode, I thought it was going to be about election fraud/ Jan. 6th.

Episode Four is the worst one yet! Hey! Let's do the last election, but less stupid than it actually was, because that makes sense.

Idiots. I'm ashamed that I live on the same planet as the creators of this show. They all need to be charged with war crimes for this season, especially Anne Winters because I hate Ensign Whatever Her Name Is more than I hate my family.

Score: 1/100

It was.

No it wasn’t. She clearly won the election. She didn’t lose and then claimed fraud.

It wasn't an exact allegory, but I'm not surprised in the least that you fail to see the parallels.

We don't have enough information to know if she clearly won or not.

Previous Chancellor was claiming that their projections had them safely ahead, then when she did well in the last few precincts, he claimed fraud and wanted to contest things with the Council of Clerics.

Could be that Previous Chancellor was right and fraud was a real thing. Could be that Previous Chancellor was a salty, whiny bitch and lost fair and square.

To spell things out more:

The Previous Chancellor had traits in common with 2020 Trump in that he was overconfident in his prospects for re-election to the point that he could not see any other explanation for his loss than fraud.

Teylana had traits similar to 2016 Trump in some respects. She's a charismatic non-professional politician who was underestimated by the political class and who drew large crowds to her speeches about making her political entity great again, warned about the dangers of outsiders, claimed that her opponent was a criminal. She was also a huge hypocrite in that while she was talking about outsiders being demons, she banged one of them and had a love child with him.

That said, they didn't devote the entire episode or much of it to being about the voter fraud/election stuff like they could have. Another version of the show would have had forces of Teylana and the former Chancellor fighting and the Orville caught in the middle. Instead, they had the election stuff disposed of really quickly to get to Teylana's in charge and willing to go to a hot war with the Union.

So it had some aspects of voter fraud/Jan. 6th. I think it would have been more interesting to devote the whole episode to it and have the Orville caught in the middle. I do find it interesting that it had that bit about abortion right as Roe was overturned.

Yeah, that was subtle as an anvil and almost as graceful. I hope they don't make a habit of it.

Too much of a mirror to the soul?

Too much of the clowns pretending they have anything insightful to say, instead of entertaining me like they are paid to do.

I ain't seen dollar one from you, chump.

No pay, no play. As yo momma used to say.

Didn't know you were Seth McFarland's accountant.

Didn't know your mom was his type.