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

[picardjean-luc]

Somebody mentioned this being reminiscent of the TNG episode "Justice." Maybe somewhat.

In 'Justice' the aliens wanted to execute Wesley for the simple offense of trespassing in their 'sacred ground'. Of course everyone's going to be appaled by the alien's behavior and find it unjustifiable.

While in this episode, the Gilliacs sentenced Kelly and Bortus to death because 1) They attempted a prison break in a prison where no one has ever tried escaping before, and 2) They killed more than a dozen guards in their escape attempts.

Yes, the Gilliacs are Nazis, but I cannot help myself thinking that they have a good reason to sentence Kelly and Bortus because of what they did. Which is why I also found this episode problemmatic in so many ways....

 

[Charles Phipps]

I have friends ask me why the Orville characters can't "beam" - BTW, non-Trekkies look confused sometimes when you refer to "the transporter," it's just that thing that "beams" people. It's Trek's signature contribution to space opera, and people think of it when they think of Trek..and when they see someone teleporting, they think of Trek.

Also, bluntly, the transporter is a source of countless plot holes and questionable elements of stories. By just restricting things to the shuttlecraft, you automatically make a large number of stories and action scenes infinitely more plausible.

In 'Justice' the aliens wanted to execute Wesley for the simple offense of trespassing in their 'sacred ground'. Of course everyone's going to be appaled by the alien's behavior and find it unjustifiable.

While in this episode, the Gilliacs sentenced Kelly and Bortus to death because 1) They attempted a prison break in a prison where no one has ever tried escaping before, and 2) They killed more than a dozen guards in their escape attempts.

Yes, the Gilliacs are Nazis, but I cannot help myself thinking that they have a good reason to sentence Kelly and Bortus because of what they did. Which is why I also found this episode problemmatic in so many ways....

Eh, they kidnapped Kelly and Bortus and attempted to exile the Orville on the premise that they had the authority to do so. Bluntly, that's an act of war in almost any sort of civilization.

Mind you, I appreciated this episode a lot more than anyone else because it's a toned down work by Seth regarding his anti-superstition bias. It's at least not aimed at religion directly but the idea of irrational nonsensical beliefs. These people are just 21st century capable technology-wise as they just have a SETI program entering into things and the world is full of terrible practices.

I also believe given it's an authoritarian government, we could probably argue this is a 1984 scenario where the government is manufacturing enemies for it to justify its existence. There's been many cases where fascists make up reasoning that is self-justifying just to keep the people terrified and under boot.

Sometimes the fascists themselves believe their own lies.

 

[Mudd]

In 'Justice' the aliens wanted to execute Wesley for the simple offense of trespassing in their 'sacred ground'. Of course everyone's going to be appaled by the alien's behavior and find it unjustifiable.

In this show, the aliens wanted to imprison our people for being born at the wrong time. That's even more appalling, since it has nothing to do with any overt act or anything that they can control.

The attempted escape was morally justified.

Also, bluntly, the transporter is a source of countless plot holes and questionable elements of stories. By just restricting things to the shuttlecraft, you automatically make a large number of stories and action scenes infinitely more plausible.

Exactly. The contexts in which more than one person (okay, there have been about three altogether IRL, never mind all the conversations you read online) has asked me about the beaming thing have, in fact, been scenes where the problem could have been solved with a snap of the fingers if transporters existed.

I also believe given it's an authoritarian government, we could probably argue this is a 1984 scenario where the government is manufacturing enemies for it to justify its existence. There's been many cases where fascists make up reasoning that is self-justifying just to keep the people terrified and under boot.

Sometimes the fascists themselves believe their own lies.

Yeah, but with those motivations they're not likely to throw all those useful beliefs over at the appearance of a star that doesn't fit immediately into their justifications.

The reaction of the priest in "Mad Idolatry" was much more plausible - immediately knife the guy who proposes to upset the apple cart.

 

[Trekker4747]

Since it's my favorite episode so far, I've measured all the episodes of season two against "Mad Idolatry" to see if they compare favorably. This episode met that standard effortlessly. I now have two favorites.

"Mad Idolatry" is sort of my barometer metric too, and I'd say this measures up to it, not quite reaching it, but close. For me it's just interesting to see this sort of take on something. It's not unique, new, or different or anything, but it was just a fun little romp.

I see people above criticizing Trek's "Prime Directive" and... Hell, I'd say this episode is a good example of why the PD is a good idea. In this episode it's said that the protocol for First Contact is when the planet reaches out. Which seems.... Dumb.

Hell, we've reached out. Is our civilization ready to meet alien species?

There's a difference between calling out into the darkness saying, "Hello?" and actually stepping into that darkness prepared to find something. Trek's "warp capable" civilization seems like a much better threshold than (well, they sent a signal out asking if anyone is around, so I guess we just got to respond, no matter if they're ready for their world to open or not.)

I'm going to guess that the Orville picked up the signal by some kind of "active" process of getting signals rather than a passive process of waiting for signals to come to it. Otherwise, they'd have to practically be on this planet's system's doorstep to get the signal.

I just watched the episode again, and sort of an interesting not or detail I noticed. the jumpsuits worn by the detainees in the internment camps have a "starburst" symbol on them, this makes me think of the Star of David on the uniforms worn by prisoners in Nazi internment camps, and could be a "clue" as to that astrological sign. The sign's importance is based on the disappearance of a star, so it makes some sense a starburst would be the zodiac sign for that.

My parents enjoyed the episode too, but they wondered why Bortus and Kelly were still let go after the violence they generated in what seemed to otherwise be peaceful camps (the people felt they belonged there.) My reasoning was that the reappearance of the star at that moment was so meaningful to them that it exonerated all wrongs committed by those under that sign. So Kelly and Bortus were now guilt free as, "the stars do not lie" and they were given a sign that these people were now something special.

Again, I just found it to be really interesting because I like little twists on concepts like this or just taking some small idea and magnifying an entire civilization around it. I could probably really grumble and say that it wasn't too different than an "average" Voyager episode or something but, somehow, for me it just seemed to work more than that, and it wasn't entirely a "technobabble" solution in the vain of Voyager.

The comedy bits seem to hit a lot better this season. Less obvious and broad.

Kelly asks Bortus, having a child, can be of any help for the woman in labor.
"Will there be an egg?"
Kelly, "That's a no."

A type of humor that landed better for me than most of the jokes in the first season.

Entertaining episode, shame to see so much... Not "hate" but just... "indifference" towards it.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

It seemed that Szohr was directly given all the lines written for Sage. I hope this pattern doesn't hold in the future, that the new character gets her own development .

 

[Mudd]

It seemed that Szohr was directly given all the lines written for Sage.

You're kidding, right?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

You're kidding, right?

No. Obviously lines were written for Szohr, as when she describes punching the captain. However, things like balancing the ball on her nose sounded very Alara. It's like season 3 of TNG, when many of Pulaski's scenes were basically given over to Crusher .

 

[Velocity]

I was kind of shocked that Kelly led Bortus into violently attacking their First Contact people and nearly got them both killed. I mean, where was she expecting to go? She had no communication with the Orville and had no reason to expect the Orville to be nearby. They would stand out among the locals and be captured pretty soon. Not a very good command decision on her part.
That said, I enjoyed this episode. Kyden laughing at the Bortus dancing cartoon was fun. Bortus never smiles let alone laughs, so this gives more insight into Moclans. If we never met Klyden, we might think they were all stiffs like Bortus.

 

[Gryffindorian]

If last night's episode was an indication, then the Planetary Union needs to revisit its first contact protocols. Mercer and his away team were visiting an industrialized world for the first time, and they never factored in one concept: contamination - cultural, technological, and biological. Imagine extraterrestrial beings arriving on Earth, and within a few hours, they were given a tour of the local hospital - the delivery room and nursery of all places!

The concept of astrology being the guiding force of a society isn't necessarily farfetched. Religion has done much worse. What's hard to believe is how an entire world or civilization so diverse could subscribe to a single belief system. Surely, there would have been portions of the populace that didn't believe in Regorian astrology. Where were those factions?

 

[Charles Phipps]

If last night's episode was an indication, then the Planetary Union needs to revisit its first contact protocols. Mercer and his away team were visiting an industrialized world for the first time, and they never factored in one concept: contamination - cultural, technological, and biological. Imagine extraterrestrial beings arriving on Earth, and within a few hours, they were given a tour of the local hospital - the delivery room and nursery of all places!

The idea of cultural contamination is a pretty asinine one, IMHO. It requires a very paternalistic view of culture and anti-cosmopolitanism.

The concept of astrology being the guiding force of a society isn't necessarily farfetched. Religion has done much worse. What's hard to believe is how an entire world or civilization so diverse could subscribe to a single belief system. Surely, there would have been portions of the populace that didn't believe in Regorian astrology. Where were those factions?

Eh, pseudoscience has a lot of beliefs in it regardless of religion or facts too.

Sacrifices have to be made for television budget and storyline. Even if 30% of the planet doesn't believe in astrology, the 70% of which Mercer and company dealt with DID believe in it.

Kelly and Bortus being stuck in the Russian Federation, for example, wouldn't it mean jack if the laws were different in the USA.

 

[The Wormhole]

Seth needs to stop writing almost all the episodes.

Out of the five episodes that have aired this season, this one is only the second to have been written by MacFarlane. So far, this season has more episodes not written by him.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Sacrifices have to be made for television budget and storyline. Even if 30% of the planet doesn't believe in astrology, the 70% of which Mercer and company dealt with DID believe in it.

Bah, that's just laziness on the part of the writers. From the looks of the episode, Regor 2 was one united planetary government. If that's the case, as I said, the practice of a single religion or philosophy is unrealistic. It's like living on Earth where all the inhabitants are Christians - no Jews, no Muslims, no Buddhists, no atheists or agnostics, etc. If the Regorians were a heterogeneous civilization, and we can only assume, then I would have liked for the writers to explore other facets of that civilization. A conflict of ideology is always an interesting theme, as featured in the TNG episode "Attached" where Picard and Crusher were held captive by one of the factions on Kes Prytt.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Bah, that's just laziness on the part of the writers. From the looks of the episode, Regor 2 was one united planetary government. If that's the case, as I said, the practice of a single religion or philosophy is unrealistic. It's like living on Earth where all the inhabitants are Christians - no Jews, no Muslims, no Buddhists, no atheists or agnostics, etc. If the Regorians were a heterogeneous civilization, and we can only assume, then I would have liked for the writers to explore other facets of that civilization. A conflict of ideology is always an interesting theme, as featured in the TNG episode "Attached" where Picard and Crusher were held captive by one of the factions on Kes Prytt.

I disagree because in a totalitarian society, competing beliefs can and would be annihilated. There's also something to be said that the more technologically advanced a race becomes, the more homogenuous its values might be.

But I guess what I'm thinking is it's basically, "That's not what this story is about."

 

[Finn]

He's 50 now, I would think that by age a person would have either gotten at least gotten one promotion, or probably would have given up and moved on to something else.

 

[thribs]

Bad wouldn't be the word for me, but with some of these episodes, I feel like they have an idea, don't really know how to work it into a plausible 43 minute episode, but go ahead anyway. Does that make sense?

Also, this show has the most awkward commercial breaks.

They’re 49 minutes now.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Ted Danson was the only highlight. The replacement Alara feels like a cheat, although hopefully it will mean less of the one note joke of a character that is two esophaguses guy.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

Just finished watching it and really enjoyed it. The solution to the problem of the week reminded me of Die Another Day and the supreme prefect of the planet reminded me of Dr. Breen from Half Life 2.

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[RJDiogenes]

Well, that was an enjoyable episode, although definitely bottom tier for Orville. There were a few holes in the plot and the concept. The use of astrology as a metaphor for religion was terrific, but not very well thought through-- granted, you can only do so much world building in an hour, but it really needed some fine tuning. Then there was the escape attempt at Stalag 13 that left about a million aliens dead at the hands of two Union officers-- I'm gonna grade this first contact as a failure based on that alone. But the biggest hole was in the solar sail, so to speak. I loved the concept, but I just can't buy that a culture at that level of technology could really be fooled so easily. Maybe if they had set up a self-sustaining fusion reaction at the edge of the solar system that mimicked a stellar spectrum or something, it would have been more believable. And then there's the inevitable consequences of the aliens learning that they'd been had. I would have restructured the story around a different idea, like bringing the alien administrators out and proving that the star was still there, just invisible-- maybe playing up the coolness of a Black Hole so that everybody wanted one in their constellation (which could probably be arranged, since the stars in a constellation only line up in perspective and aren't really near each other).

I was not terribly impressed with the new security chief. The Badass Stereotype doesn't excite me and they really laid it on thick with her punching captains and picking people up by the neck and so forth. She seems especially out of place on the Orville, where even the biggest Badass from Planet Badass is a big Teddy Bear who hatched an egg.

My favorite part of the episode was the beginning, when Orville received the signal from the alien planet and everybody freaked out with excitement over the prospect of a first contact. That's my kind of Science Fiction and we haven't seen anything like it since the early days of Enterprise. It's too bad that the ensuing story turned into such a downer. A beginning like that deserves a better ending.

I don't know if it's a running joke but I do like how they keep bringing in familiar faces for the Admiral's that Ed has to talk to. This week it was Ted Danson and you got to wonder why he even did it other than he was helping out a friend or something like that.

I like the idea of a Special Guest Admiral, like the Special Guest Victims on Police Squad!. It's too bad Robert Duncan McNeill didn't insert himself as Admiral Paris.

 

[Jayson1]

I did find if funny that the aliens call their own planet Regar II which is something I think has been done in Trek before. Why would anyone call their planet the name that the humans would call them or put a number at the end.

Jason

 

[Mudd]

No. Obviously lines were written for Szohr, as when she describes punching the captain. However, things like balancing the ball on her nose sounded very Alara .

No. Alara was not a smart-ass.