THE ORVILLE - S1, E6: "KRILL"

Mercer and Teleya, at Rana III.
Mercer and Teleya, on the ocean.

Shaka... when the walls fell.

 

So now we know, 'Future Guy' from Enterprise was Krill high priest!! James is a cool guy I had the pleasure of meeting him 12 years ago when Enterprise was still on.

 

So the Krill bible isn't available as an E-Book?

 

I guess not. Maybe the Krill believe that the writings must be read on paper to preserve the sacred quality, similar to how Muslims believe the Koran must not be translated?

 

Shame no one clued the Union in that the Krill leave copies of the thing in every motel room in the Sagitarrius arm...

 

Overnight ratings ticked up slightly this week.

 

I figure it's like Demolition Man and they have a channel dedicated solely to funny TV/radio commercials and jingles of the past, since it's something they no longer have in the future. I mean, we kind of do that today to an extent, with old TV commercials being archived on YouTube, and lots of people tuning in to the Superbowl primarily to see the funny commercials rather than the game itself.

I do agree that they went too far with the Avis joke, though. It's a mildly funny one-off joke, but not a great idea for a running gag, especially if you want to believably portray them as blending in with the Krill crew. Gordon's antics should have probably gotten them called out as fakes a dozen times over even without the holograms malfunctioning or their lingering in the chapel being observed.

 

It was a funny episode but it was my least favorite episode thus far. I didn't like the part about 2 goofy and dorky spies playing double agents like idiots in the face of villains. Villains acting mostly oblivious to the whole thing. Frank Drebin in space. It's not like the comedy (i loved) in most of the Stargate series or in the previous Orville episodes where humor comes naturally from the characters personalities and quirks. It was earth sending unprepared goofy spies on one of the most important mission of its history. Still at the end the episode was successful at getting back the right tone and setting up the Krill as a credible threat for our crew and earth.

 

Which makes me think too that there are probably smaller Krill colonies with copies of the Krill book which would have made for a far less risky mission than infiltrating a military ship.

 

I liked the everything doesn't end so well ending. Reminds me of earlier seasons of "Gunsmoke" that did that or even had sad endings. Some sad endings would be nice.

I don't, however, get why the female Krill teacher is left hanging. Why exactly can't she go back to the Krill home world? The children were arranged to be returned to their families on the Krill home world, so why can't the teacher go back?

 

The Union will want to interrogate her to learn everything that they can about the Krill.

 

So are they going to do with anything with Lamarr or is he a meta joke on the token black character a la Mayweather? His acting chops seem a bit limited but to be fair he's had very little opportunity to show us much. It seems most of J Lee's credits are from writing The Cleveland Show.

 

Looks like the next Episode will have a focus on Lamar.

 

Plus, she was an officer aboard that ship, so the Union may consider her a party to that potential genocide of the colony. War crimes charges, or at least attempted war crimes.

Also forgot to mention... another TNG reference with the colony being Rana III. It was Rana IV in "The Survivors".

 

I was trying not to pick nits but they seriously could have tried asking for a copy of that book or replicating one.

 

She's a captured enemy officer during a time of war. That makes her a POW, she only gets sent back as a bargaining chip or part of a prisoner exchange. Really they should keep the kids as a bargaining chip as well but apparently the Union aren't that cold hearted.

The Ship has one copy, they clearly aren't handing them out to everybody. Also we don't know the Krill have replicators, but even if they do, if the book is limited access it wouldn't be in the replicator database anyway.

 

If it's limited access I thought they would've been more mad about finding them in the chapel.

 

This is all speculative so no point in debating

 

The humor from the spies in the middle of the most important scenes, put me off several times, but apart from that it was a really good episode. The humor in between ship mates when off duty is actually funny, and feel like they belong as part of the concept.

 

Yes, the first scene at the cafeteria was funny among others. It felt natural. The unprepared spies thing a bit too goofy and unbelievable.