Overall, pretty decent episode. Not great, though.
First off, nice to see Yaphit getting his medal! I love that guy, and it's always fun to see him oozing around.
now if he and Dr Finn become a shipping item (sigh), that'll at least be more insightful than most forms of drivel being shipped from other shows. Any crap soap opera can have characters hit the sheets. Yawn. Sci-fi forgets it's sci-fi and can explore a lot more than just what fabric is used in the bed sheets.
So, my original impression of the Krill was that they were there to be the ultimate implacable enemy - the way their religion was described, there seems like there would be no possibility of peace with them. So it's kind of strange to me that they're now willing to make peace. Not a problem as such, just means my initial impression was wrong and the writers are taking it another way.
In "Identity", I took it at face value that the Kaylon threat was an impetus. "Blood of Patriots" almost seems to go out of its way to ignore the preceding episode, favoring the wildcard of Malloy's friend and with a little exposition. I agree with you, this turn of events for the peace treaty seems a little different, but I accept it as a continuation of the arc starting with "Identity". Casual audiences might have benefited from a recap, but it's only been one week and catering to casuals is like making a lion a pet and then wondering why it casually eats your arm for dinner one day, it's not seeing you the same way you're seeing it I suppose?
The first real issue I have with the episode comes up pretty early... as soon as the Krill accuse Gordon's pal of being some bad guy who's killed loads of their people, it was pretty obvious that they were telling the truth. Not that there were clues, but in a "what's the obvious way this will pan out" kind of a way. It put me in mind of The Wounded in TNG, and I figured they would do something along those lines as soon as that scene happened. Not a huge problem, but it would have been stronger to do something different with it.
Ah! I thought there was a TNG callback - but there are only so many plotlines to begin with and we've had Krill episodes before. It's not quite the same way, there are some differences so it's not a pallid remake. Could it have been stronger? Yeah. Some plot twists were predictable but then came twists on those that threw me off. I dunno.
Along similar lines, as soon as the Krill said something about him using a weapon, but he didn't have a weapon, I figured that the girl was the weapon. Only I thought it would be a bit more "mutant power"... I pictured her doing a Magneto and crushing ships with her mind or something.
LOL!!
Okay, the girl threw me off completely. I was wondering "Did the guy have weapons but destroyed or ditched them somewhere?" I kept thinking that, so I overlooked other possibilities.
Loooove Talla doing her TSA impersonation. "Do you have any fruits or vegetables?" Funny, but it does make me think - ships like the Enterprise or the Orville, why wouldn't they need to do stuff like this with people coming aboard? And the rubber glove... too funny.
Speaking of Talla, nice to see Ed asking her what she thought of the guy and she immediately says there's something off about him. As Security Gal she should have good instincts for stuff like this. I also wonder if the writers weren't doing this on purpose. One of the classic writing mistakes is to have your audience ahead of your characters, and there was an element of that here since the audience is going to pretty much know there's something off about the guy. By having at least some of the characters realise it too, even if they have nothing to base that on, they at least avoid that aspect.
Other shows, including Trek, have done that many times. "Space Seed" being the most glaring example, even before Kirk let Khan freely read up on how the ship worked... Tonight's Orville episode, I felt, kept the "Okay, when's the shoe going to drop" suspense going fairly well as could the Krill have been doing a setup or maybe the twist is that Mackenzie is the good guy for real, and so on. (The twist was, his child also died along with his wife - it worked for me at the time, but doing a rewatch in a couple weeks might see the flaws of the story become more obvious. I still love it as it stands.)
Also nice to see Talla almost immediately catching him up to no good. She's good at her job!
It was the most obvious bit, but I kept hoping they'd show Malloy going to Mercer on screen. One bit of dialogue (homing device, his asking for the plan) had me thinking they had an off-screen scene discussing the big plan. Maybe I read into it wrong.
Another weakness of the episode was Gordon apparently turning bad and helping his pal steal a shuttle. Didn't buy that for a second - there's no way a main character is going to turn evil, so it's never convincing when he seems to. Still, they only sold us that for like one scene, so it's not like it was the big thrust of the episode or anything.
After Isaac, anything's possible. I was wondering "Oi, he's a main character. Is this show really going off the deep end and taking big bold risks?" It was refreshing to see that, no, Malloy really wasn't but was working with the senior officers on a plan. Otherwise he'd be in the brig and not chatting with Mercer about his friend whose personality died in the camp.
And another nice Talla moment, with her "Did you ever meet a Xelayan?" I admit it, I like to see Xelayans kicking ass.
That was an
awesome scene! Then comes the doc, who sees the yellow blood (not a common hue) and recognizes the danger. The cliffhanger and its resolution were absolutely first rate. And the bonus of how her blood becomes an explosive in an atmosphere with nitrogen. That was
brilliant.
Okay, here's my biggest problem - the ending. Malloy pulls a gun on his friend. His friend knocks it out of his hand, and they fight. It was a nice fight, well choreographed. Guy sets his bomb counting down as Malloy grabs the gun. Malloy shoots the console out and puts a space suit on so that he can jump off the shuttle before it goes boom.
When Malloy whipped it out, I was screaming at the TV for him to use the thing - despite knowing he wouldn't and as a result big drama would ensue. And, oh yeah, it was perfectly choreographed. Looked authentic. A far cry from 1960s action movies where they speed up the film or use other tricks (which works, but isn't the same thing. Neither is modern day CGI, nothing compares to solid choreography and actors that can pull it off so well like that.)
Didn't Malloy ask him to put the suit on? (I thought I saw two). But then he's be prisoner and sent to the Krill and would be killed. Whatever caused Mackenzie to sit there and wait to be blown to bits was serendipitous in terms of the peace treaty narrative at the backbone of this story.
I was also half-hoping the Krill would have gotten to him first. Which reminds me, in the last episode we see Malloy and Kelly entering Krill space and captured very quickly. They're not in Krill space but it stands reason to believe that Krill might be monitoring the area for unusual activity. The shuttle and explosion qualify for that.
Now here's my problem - the guns have a stun setting. They even demonstrated that this particular gun has a stun setting by shooting Talla with it. So why didn't Malloy just shoot his Evil Pal the instant he pulled a gun on him? Then the bomb never goes off and everything is fine!
Oops, this is why I don't read ahead. There's be no drama or story if he did that, and the fight scene made up for it. My other guess is that, he wasn't sure if Mackenzie as he knew him died in the POW camp, so he didn't
want to fire.
Okay, he wanted to give him a chance to surrender. So they fight, his pal activates the bomb. So why not shoot him now? Whilst he's unconscious you throw the bomb out of the back door. Bomb go boom, Malloy is fine, Evil Pal is fine but unconscious, the shuttle is fine.
Fight or flight response, not everyone thinks on their feet so perfectly 100% of the time. In any well-written show involving human beings, that is. Even with aliens, that 100% thing ends up feeling like a cheat. Here comes the old song'n'dance about Mary Sue 'n' Marty Stu...
It's a really simple solution that's ignored because they wanted to cool moment of Malloy jumping out the shuttle and having a 'splosion and tractor beam and stuff.
As far as gimmicks go, I don't think that's been done before quite like that. Though at this point it was obvious he'd be found on cue. I was still hoping it'd be the Krill, but if it panned out that way then there goes a wild card in terms of what may be coming in the remaining three episodes, if this peace stuff works out or if there's another battle looming. But this episode did sell the shakiness of founding treaties rather well.
All in all, then, this was... okay. But no more than okay. I don't know that I've ever seen an Orville episode that I think is truly bad, so I don't think this was a terrible episode or anything, but in any list of quality eps, my take is that this one is going to be in the bottom five or so.
I'll definitely rewatch. I think it's one of the best of season 2, but it is more "war story drama" versus sci-fi exploration (e.g. New Dimensions). But I'm a sucker for good DS9 style war stories too.
