THE ORVILLE S2, E5: "ALL THE WORLD IS BIRTHDAY CAKE"

Looks great. It seems the episode will follow the traditional Trek trope of making contact with a planet that is not what it appears to be. And I love the title. Just a cool title for an episode.

 

The Orville takes the Trek TOS approach to contact with new worlds: find a civilization, traipse on down and introduce yourself for whatever reason, ask questions later. It makes for a lot more entertaining TV than the Roddenberry Revised Version of Trek that was introduced in 1987.

 

Interesting title. I wonder what it means.

 

Hello.

 

I saw ST: VOY alum John Rubinstein in that preview. The crossover continues.

 

Jessica Szohr was great and funny in 2015 Complications. Not really familiar with her other work. Let's wait and see...

 

The Union has more relaxed first contact rules than the Federation it seems.

 

Good grief! I've missed this one, as well.

 

That was pretty silly.

I liked that they lied to a whole civilization and Ed didn't know what the ethics and outcome would be and he was pretty okay with that.

 

Was rather similar to the social media episode. I would rather they just attacked the facility. Show these societies not to mess with them.

 

It amazes me that no one thought to point out that Kelly and Bortas were born on different planets and that therefore different constellations would have been in the sky at the time. Oh well.

 

I enjoyed it. My favorite episode of the season so far

 

I thought the social media story was successful and this one was not really. Even for this kind of show the premise was preposterous.

I may mellow on it, but right now I think it may be my least-liked episode of the series.

 

Introduced by another admiral here. I wonder if they would cast Kelsey Grammer as one.

 

I really liked that episode, likening it to the "Social Media Planet" episode seems apt.

I think it was a good, solid, episode that was certainly interesting in what they did with their premise. (A planet's society being driven by astrological superstition.)

The new Xelayan security officer..... I'm not feeling. She's no Alara. She doesn't seem to have quite the same "fun" quality to her, but I'll continue to give her a chance.

 

Yeah, the astrology thing was a bit of an eye-roller, and while watching, I asked myself, "Will Serveaux admit it?"

So good for you.

 

Someone on Reddit posted "The Orville cemented its place in the Star Trek legacy by joining its peers in finally having an inordinately bad episode."

You know what it reminded me of, though - "Devil's Due." I remember watching that and thinking that the level of monolithic superstition and rote acquiescence on the part of a world's otherwise sophisticated population necessary to make that plot work was just too nonsensical to buy.

I enjoyed Seth's self- deprecating joke about plagiarism, despite having heard it in about a dozen ads now.

 

As a parable on the dangers of first contact? Fine.

But the actual danger in this case feels a bit trite (I won't quite go so far as to say contrived), and it's another classic Trekkian example of Our Heroes failing to do even basic levels of research ahead of time. Say what you will about the duck blinds and covert infiltration and such, this episode makes it clear just why they're a damn good idea (until they fail).

It's uncomfortably similar to "Justice"...but at least the people in that episode had a manifest god.

I did like the ending of the episode though, and that it takes place over a long period of time. I'd like to think there's some story arc potential here, but I'm not going to expect it.