The Orville

[Reddish Mage]

Huh, this latest episode would have been a pretty standard character-building episode of TNG, but better, IMO. Little doubt they'd live happily ever after, but I was sucked-in to it being important to the characters.

Indeed, this episode manages to be Orville but at the same time the humor and incompetence doesn’t distract from the story but adds to it.

Honestly I'm currently edging towards The Orville as the better Star Trek show between it and Discovery (and I like Discovery), although the long term arcs could make up for that.

Isn’t that a bit like saying “I like Big Macs and filet mignon but I’m leaning towards Big Macs being the better of the two?”

Orville might be getting better but it is definitely lacking the nuance, attention to detail, emotional depth Discovery has.

[Daer]

Seems orville has got renewed for second season.
http://deadline.com/2017/11/the-orvi...ne-1202200369/
Great news have really enjoyed it this far.

[Spacewolf]

Quite liked the episode but I have to admit it was inspite of disliking the Doctor character more and more.

[SuperPanda]

Spoiler: Into the Fold

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I honestly never expected to get an episode focused on the Doctor - she seemed very much the odd duck out of everyone in the cast. In most episodes she seems like an actual professional on the cast and her role in the pilot suggesting that she is on the Orville specifically because she expect Mercer to melt down and need help. I fully expected her to be more of a obstacle than an ally in most episodes. I love that the actress seems to give the role 110% and the character has managed to be funny without ever feeling like she'd be out of place in an actual Trek show.

Issac on the other hand felt like a perfect comedic straight-man to the Orville's crew of misfits along with the added groan worthy moments of him thinking that they represent the best of humanity. He never felt like he didn't belong with the crew to me, but he was easily the best part of the "Real" crew in my mind. Issac is pretty much Spock/Data/The Doctor/7of9/Michael Burnam in that he's the "logical" and "advanced" crew-member who needs to learn to be more human to progress.

So with these two being pretty much my favorite characters on the show you can guess that I loved the episode. It nicely served up the same dish I've eaten many times before. There weren't any real surprise that I really liked it. Heck It even actually sold the Union/Federation was a good place.

Most of the humor worked "You better not get us lost" was funny because of the drama underpinning it. The "Soy sauce" into "We gotta get better people" was wonderful - and the exact humor I expected from the premise of the show. Issac's deadpan is the most reliably funny part of the show for me.

About the only thing which felt off was the kindnap/captor story ending with the captor's death. I would expect the other shows to end with that person stunned or knocked out rather than dead - or to have him become explicitly evil before being killed - or to have him reveal he'd been a good person that they misjudged. I was expecting that to have some sort of toll/cost/or twist. This only felt off for me because literally everything else felt like it belonged in an actual Trek show and even this wasn't completely out of place - just less developed than I'd have expected.

Isn’t that a bit like saying “I like Big Macs and filet mignon but I’m leaning towards Big Macs being the better of the two?”

Orville might be getting better but it is definitely lacking the nuance, attention to detail, emotional depth Discovery has.

I think a better way to say it would be:

If Sci-Fi is food containing beef and Star Trek in particular are types of beef sandwhich:

TNG was a 50's dinner cheeseburger. Juicy meat, cooked fresh. Crisp fresh veggies, a good balance of sauce. (served hot) (I'm not going to go through each Trek and assign it a type of sandwich to serve the metaphor but for easy purposes, TOS was not a burger, Voy and ENT were close enough to burgers that you wouldn't be upset by someone calling them a burger even if it was a mistake, and DS9 was something served cold - you know, because it had a darker tone/theme than the others).

Orville is a pretty good - for fast food - burger. (Served hot)

Discovery is a fancy foodie sub sandwich. Artisian bread, Kale, homemade pickles, special cheeses, thinly sliced Filet Mingon steak... you get the idea. (Served cold)

If you are really wanting a burger than that fancy sandwich won't satisfy that urge. I've also known people who feel that making a humble sandwich too fancy is the height of stupidity because it is a sandwich. Fancy food is wonderful but serves a different purpose than a sandwich does.

This specific episode? It could drop into almost any Trek series without much changing:

Spoiler

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You could have dropped this episode into Voyager without much trouble: Seven of Nine is traveling with Captian Janeway to a planet to search for (Plot point A). On arriving on the surface they find two children with an injured/hurt parent. The promise to help before being seperated in a (Plot point B -event). Janeway is held captive. The ship can't interfere because (Plot point C). Seven of Nine is left helping the kids and rediscovering part of her humanity. Chakotay would be perfect for the role I gave Janeway - but his actor somehow came off more emotionless than Issac does.

It Could have been dropped into Enterprise without much trouble (Take above, replace Seven of Nine with T'pol and Janeway with Trip).

It could work in TOS with Spock replacing seven - but I really can't think of anyone in the TOS cast who'd be maternal/paternal to a group of alien kids like that. Kirk was heroic and protective, but not read them bedtime stories type. Bones had no bedside manner, its why we love him. Sulu, Uhura, Checkov?.

In DS9 its Kira and Garak transporting some lost Cardassian kids... (My first idea was Odo and Quark with Quark wanting to exploit/sell the kids and Odo making sure he doesn't - only to wind up playing babysitter while Quark is kidnapped and escapes by winning himself from his captor at cards... the result was nothing like this episode but damn to I want to watch that now).

It could have been dropped into TNG without much trouble: Season 2 - Data and Doctor Polauski are transporting some sick children to a space station for medical care when (Plot point) disaster strikes - nearly everything else plays out the same as in this episode...

Honestly I could have seen something like this happening before episode 6 of Discovery (if it was a bit more episodic) with Michael Burnam playing the 7 of Nine roll and Tilly the Janeway. It would be more fun to get this kind of episode in Discovery season 2 and have it roles reverse with the kids needing to help Saru grow up. I could see it happening there, but just not now.

Spoiler: How each would handle the "off" point I mentioned earlier

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VOY - Janeway, having been deprived of coffee, manages to wound her captor and escape. Later she returns with the cure and entrusts it to that person - so they won't be lonely anymore.

ENT - Trip charms/annoys the person into helping by promising to use the ship's medical lab to find a cure. The person likely gets dramatically killed during the rush at the end and he kicks himself for it. The idea that the captor wants physical companionship would be played up, possibly even a bit for comedy, because Trips a guy and this somehow makes it funny.

TOS - really depends on who goes with Spock, but assuming it's Kirk he seduces his captor who then gets killed by the real monsters because she's wearing red. The captor wanting Kirk for physical companionship would be overt and she'd also be good looking but have scary ugly goons too.

TNG - Polauski manages to knock out her captor and makes sure he's still okay. Episode happens normally until the end when they come back to take her prisoner again. Picard beams down to get them, interceding in the standoff between an armed Data and armed kidnapper and makes a rousing speech.

Discovery - There would be far more overt suggestions at the captor's darker motives with possibly an attempt to exert some of those against Burnam during the final escape. Burnam would show guilt over killing the person and be told that she did the right thing. The following week we'd learn the dead guy was actually a pretty good father and Lorca would roll his eyes at this every bit as hard as he did at having to deal with an endangered space whale.

What I'm saying is this episode by itself was full Trek. (Discovery episode 7 was too). I love having two different tasty sandwiches whenever I'm in the mood for one.

[BannedInSchool]

Regarding the situation with the natives on the planet:

Spoiler

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I'm not sure if they didn't develop it in the script because they had no ideas, it got cut in editing for the character stuff, or it was a choice to assume the setting and focus on the characters in a more sitcom-like manner from the start. And then I don't know if my uncertainty in that is from them just not doing a good job at communicating the last, or the expectations built-up from decades of Trek "planet of the week" episodes. But, yeah, I was thinking they'd resolve that with something more than *stab*stab*bang*.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Isn’t that a bit like saying “I like Big Macs and filet mignon but I’m leaning towards Big Macs being the better of the two?”

Orville might be getting better but it is definitely lacking the nuance, attention to detail, emotional depth Discovery has.

I disagree. Discovery yells about its emotions loudly, but they don't really play more of a role in the story than in The Orville. In the latest episode we got a look at parental feelings, captor-captive relationships, people in desperate situations (admittedly an extremely garden variety "humans are the real monsters" with only a bit of afterthought but the other two points stand). There's a lot sincerity in The Orville. They just get there through a more sitcommy setup, which throws people off the scent. And a lot of comedies lack the depth of most dramas, a lot of comedies in fact plain up suck partially because of this, and most of the exceptions are children's animated movies. Which is why I absolutely love so many of those. The Orville seems to want to be good comedy.

To me there's nothing low or bad or uncultured about comedy. The fact that Shakespeare is still the ultimate example of high culture despite a career build on your mom jokes and fart sketches serves to underline more people think like that. (That kind of comedy is easier on stage than on film though, I've co-created a few semi-decent plays myself, enough sillyness and a live audience that wants to laugh go a long way.) But comedy needs to be done well, especially if you want any depth. Drama seems a bit harder to mess up, horror is pretty easy and action basically can't go wrong. Which is how Steven Seagal can pump out decently entertaining stretches of 90 minutes of time to kill by varying a few minor plot points and side characters and just doing his thing some more, he could never do that in comedy. It's kind of weird how pretty much the most basic story type is so hard to get right.

[SuperPanda]

I disagree. Discovery yells about its emotions loudly, but they don't really play more of a role in the story than in The Orville.

First - 100% disagree. I don't think I could disagree more. Orville is not character driven in any meaningful sense. Discovery is far more character driven than plot driven (with the exception of epsiode 7).

To me there's nothing low or bad or uncultured about comedy. The fact that Shakespeare is still the ultimate example of high culture despite a career build on your mom jokes and fart sketches serves to underline more people think like that. (That kind of comedy is easier on stage than on film though, I've co-created a few semi-decent plays myself, enough sillyness and a live audience that wants to laugh go a long way.) But comedy needs to be done well, especially if you want any depth. Drama seems a bit harder to mess up, horror is pretty easy and action basically can't go wrong. Which is how Steven Seagal can pump out decently entertaining stretches of 90 minutes of time to kill by varying a few minor plot points and side characters and just doing his thing some more, he could never do that in comedy. It's kind of weird how pretty much the most basic story type is so hard to get right.

TL:DR: There is a huge variety of comedy. There is such a thing as "low, bad or uncultured" comedy - though the same is true for every genre. No one worth listening too lumps an entire genre like that.

Spoiler: Tangent on Genre

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Comedy, Drama, Horror, and Action all serve different purposes. The most common modern meanings of the terms are:
Comedy - a film which makes people laugh through jokes, sight gags, and similar techniques.
Drama - a film which relies on tension to tell a story - most often making the audience uncomfortable through its subject matter.
Horror - a film which aims to frighten people, providing an adrenaline rush. Most often using gore, jump scares, and dark lighting.
Action - a film for the audience to live out an escapist power fantasy through - most often a demonstration of impressive special effects and stunts.

These meanings aren't really useful because a good Comedy will make the audience cry (an uncomfortable feeling for most) and then later make them legitimately scared (use of tension). In other words - a good comedy must also be a good drama. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is an action film, a comedy film, a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film, and a drama all rolled into one.

So lets go back to these genres and look at their purpose.

Comedy has not, historically, been about making people laugh. It has been about reaffirming group identity. A great deal of humor comes from saying what other people are aware of but wouldn't expect anyone to actually say. Yogurt talking about merchandising is a classic example. The audience is included in the joke while the characters are confused. "We" reaffirm ourselves through this shared awareness.

Another type of humor comes from breaking our sense of norms in a way which "We" know to be inappropriate. Yapphit forming a suggestive shape to try to woo the doctor or the bridge discussion of where Bortus's egg came from. Its not that these things seem unrealistic to us - its that we know they aren't something "a good person" is suppose to say/do in that moment. The shock of the rules broken makes us briefly uncomfortable which results in a smile/blush/laugh. - This type of humor seldom actually works to subvert societal expectations - instead it gives people an outlet to vent frustrations while reinforcing the norm (because it would not be funny anymore if it stopped being abnormal).

Comedy can be very informative and very very smart. What it is not good at though is inciting change. Comedy isn't often used as a tool to provoke deep introspection or make you really challenge your preconceptions - if it succeeded in doing that it would stop being funny.

The best example I can think of is the master's own "A Modest Proposal." The three layered text is very amusing once you dive into it. From the absolutely absurd premise delivered in absolute deadpan to the soul-crushingly vivid descriptions of what Swift wanted to see changed. On first reading some will miss the "joke" and get angry at the essay instead of the problems which inspired it. Others will point and laugh at those "idiots" thinking the whole thing is a clever joke on its own. Others still will notice the factoids buried in it, connect them to the real world, notice that the "Failed proposals" the speaker bemoans as having been rejected were all real and discarded as being too inconvenient... and by the time you are reading at that level there is nothing funny about the essay anymore. Its a seething rant against naked evil delivered as a back-handed comedy sketch.

In the latest episode we got a look at parental feelings, captor-captive relationships, people in desperate situations (admittedly an extremely garden variety "humans are the real monsters" with only a bit of afterthought but the other two points stand). There's a lot sincerity in The Orville. They just get there through a more sitcommy setup, which throws people off the scent. And a lot of comedies lack the depth of most dramas, a lot of comedies in fact plain up suck partially because of this, and most of the exceptions are children's animated movies. Which is why I absolutely love so many of those. The Orville seems to want to be good comedy.

Spoiler: responses - TL:DR I find the lack of depth more important than the width of Orville's emotions.

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Parental Feelings - Both discovery and Orville have had episodes about this now. Orville's handled the cliches of "bickering kids" "stressed single mother" "last thing I said to (pronoun) was (bad word/phrase here)" - It was a tried and true story the whole way through. Well told, but nothing even slightly new. Discovery handled a arrogant father who sought to use his children to prove himself, failed his child, and then tried to convince the child they had failed him to hide his shame - and the fallout it did to her. Is it completely new? No - but it also hasn't been done to death.

Captor-Captive Relationship - Did we really? He rescues her, gives her (very hard to come by) food. Tries to tend to her wounds. Goes to get her medicine after she points out that he's lonely. She kills him. We saw her going from afraid of him to tricking him to killing him. We see him go from concerned for her, to concerned for her, to shocked and angry that she's trying to kill him.

Sincerity - I think what you mean here is that the characters in Orville feel real. McFarlane himself said that his goal was to take the fantastic dressings of Sci-Fi stories and adventures and make them feel like they were happening in the lives of people in the current day. To ground them in our current understanding of the world. That is why Mercer has to work with his ex-wife and why there are so many pop-culture references and cliches. I think he's doing exactly what he set out to do (which is a compliment in every sense).

He isn't trying to make Orville deep, he wants it to be wide enough to touch alot of topics and "grounded" enough in today that it is accessible to a very wide audience. This is why I think Reddish Mage likened it to fast food (and why I used the same metaphor but thought it was a high quality fast food). Its very good at what it does - but if I want to dig into the motivations of the characters, the themes of the story - all that stuff which people like me (a Literature teacher) think of as storytelling "art" ... Orville will leave me hungry more often than not. It isn't intended for that. This doesn't make it bad. Discovery gives me alot to chew on - heck I've started picking up on subtext in camera techniques there. I'd never expect Orville to use anything near that subtle because it is not that type of show. I grumble that Rudolph was a major plot point in Orville, it was funny but stupid. I would be bloody furious if Discovery did the same thing.

Orville gives me enough subversion of the cliches and norms to feel fresh. It is light hearted enough to never need to take itself seriously. It is serious enough that I can invest in the tension of the episodes. This is not an easy balance to keep (and Orville itself often stumbles trying to keep it). Its a wonderful little show.

That said, it is what it is and should be measured as such. Orville is not yet trying to be both high Drama and Low comedy (Shakespeare manages to be both without compromising either for the other - that's why he's considered the master). Its certainly better than alot of stuff out there.

[MikelaC1]

definitely lacking the nuance, attention to detail, emotional depth Discovery has.

Like the attention to detail they made in making their tech compatible with what level it should be...ie "behind" both TNG and original.

[Tyndmyr]

Quite liked the episode but I have to admit it was inspite of disliking the Doctor character more and more.

I actually really liked her character before this episode, but yeah, this kind of undercut her a fair bit. She's really effective/sane/competent in her professional life, seemed...kind of odd for her to be so out of touch with the kids, in that way? I mean, sure, being good in one area doesn't translate to being good in all other areas, but she is normally pretty insightful, it seems odd for her to not realize that she's not effectively managing her children? It just seems like an odd way in which to portray her as having a shortcoming.

I do think she was justified in her actions taken to free herself, though. Won't go further into it without spoiler tags, but it's pretty clear that it's her only remaining option as she can see it, and the show has repeatedly shown that good people sometimes end up in a situation in which all the options have problems.

[Chen]

I do think she was justified in her actions taken to free herself, though. Won't go further into it without spoiler tags, but it's pretty clear that it's her only remaining option as she can see it, and the show has repeatedly shown that good people sometimes end up in a situation in which all the options have problems.

Not sure it was intentional but the hypocrisy of her telling her son "We don't kill" after she just killed two people was something both me and my wife caught. She had no real choice (at least for the second one) but still. She probably could have worked a bit harder on the first one too, it felt rushed, but that might be because its only a 45 min show.

[Pex]

I have enough screaming whiny bratty kids on the train going to and from work. I refuse to watch an hour episode of it.

[BannedInSchool]

Hmm, don't think there was anything I really disliked in this episode. I think I anticipated most of the major plot developments, at least in broad stokes, but then I've watched Star Trek, heh. There were some laughs, and even right now I'm tickled just by the concept of an Issac reaction shot. 8

[BannedInSchool]

Oh, thought of some specifics to comment on:

Spoiler

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1. Another anti-Trek resolution to a problem. Dosing your visiting delegations with mind-affecting drugs is a Federation no-no, I'd wager.

2. Blue Man could be criticized for his blase attitude about his effect on people, but if that's just how it works on his planet then it may be an understandable blind-spot for them. You meet, you bone,
then you either it works out or it doesn't. Such is life.

[thompur]

As far as I'm concerned, The Orville is 9 for 9.
Despite the utter predictability of the latest episode, and the "homage" to the classic Star Trek episodes "The Naked Time", and "This Side of Paradise", I found it funny and insightful. I can't wait for the next one.
Officially my favorite show right now!

[dps]

Consider, old trek would likely have resolved the baby surgery plot with the heroes winning via heroic speech at the end there.

Oddly, TNG was sometimes worse about doing that than TOS.

[Reddish Mage]

Oh, thought of some specifics to comment on:

Spoiler

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1. Another anti-Trek resolution to a problem. Dosing your visiting delegations with mind-affecting drugs is a Federation no-no, I'd wager.

2. Blue Man could be criticized for his blase attitude about his effect on people, but if that's just how it works on his planet then it may be an understandable blind-spot for them. You meet, you bone,
then you either it works out or it doesn't. Such is life.

As far as I'm concerned, The Orville is 9 for 9.
Despite the utter predictability of the latest episode, and the "homage" to the classic Star Trek episodes "The Naked Time", and "This Side of Paradise", I found it funny and insightful. I can't wait for the next one.
Officially my favorite show right now!

Spoiler: Episode 9

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Actually I think the relevant episode is TNG "Lonely Among Us." Picard makes peace between reptiles and ape peoples, also stuff happens because crew-members get possessed.

I thought this show was getting better and more balanced, with the last two episodes managing to raise the overall level of the show. This episode however, I think is a turn in the wrong direction.

It was overall predictable, with the artifact showing the two very different looking aliens were actually one people. Not that this actually settled anything in the end, because that plot gets utterly derailed by the boy in blue and what he brought with him.

The love-pheromes in the air had the potential for a great deal of silliness (and it does get silly) but things were nowhere near as silly and random as episodes like "The Naked Time" and "This Side of Paradise." Meanwhile, the blue alien's bafflement at the notion he is doing something wrong is never contradicted by the crew and the episode.

Indeed, they whip up a love-drug concoction to end the conflict, after it had already spiraled into a fleet battle. This might work as juvenile comedy but the lesson of the day endings in Orville have previously carried a more serious-minded message.

The result implicitly confirms that blue guy's attitude towards sex is well-adjusted and there is nothing wrong that blue guy goes around drugging people to have sex with him. They even hand-wave away the potentially serious problem of what is going to happen when the pheromones wear off to the alien diplomats in a few days.

[Fairfieldfencer]

For me, this show is a step in the right direction. I always felt Star Trek characters, while interesting, never felt quite as human as a lot of other shows could pull off. Always maintained themselves too well. For the captain of a ship, this works well, but even then, you like to see flaws so you get the sense these guys can screw up. I can't see Tom Cruise ever getting shot by a random alien, but Seth MacFarlane? Definitely.

To me, this show is a 3 man team; a 14 year old Star Trek super fan and fanfiction writer, his 16 year old sister who is very into politics and got into Star Trek after he pointed out the social commentary to her, and his 18-21 old brother who knocks back 3 beers once he walks in the door, blurts out a few dirty jokes the 14 year old thinks are funny, and occasionally comes out with a good zinger.

[Tyndmyr]

Not sure it was intentional but the hypocrisy of her telling her son "We don't kill" after she just killed two people was something both me and my wife caught. She had no real choice (at least for the second one) but still. She probably could have worked a bit harder on the first one too, it felt rushed, but that might be because its only a 45 min show.

There is indeed some conflict there. I *think* the show is trying to tell us that she'd rather not kill, and had no other option against her captor, but the framing of it seemed just a shade off.

This last episode I was unfortunately quite unhappy with. They're relying very heavily on the "humor" of the captain/XO working with each other despite the sleeping around thing. It gets more and more cringey the more it takes center stage.

The resolution is ethically pretty shaky, I think, and I have my doubts that it'd end up being excused by the convenient scientific discovery(which wasn't really surprising at all). I see no reason why the involved parties wouldn't go back to hating each other, and both hating the Federation to boot.

I also feel as if the Federation apparently keeps really, really poor records regarding the races that make up, yknow, it. Bartok's culture not being known, okay, one off sure, that's explainable. Issac's culture not being well integrated....well, that's explained by him literally being put here to overcome that. Still okay. But the blue race(I forget the name, despite it being said on screen a few times) is pretty clearly decently known-ish, and not wholly new to the federation, yet somehow nobody knows about a fairly common thing they all do?

In actual plot, this episode ends up being super weak, and also very predictable, all in the service of adding more cringe humor.

[BannedInSchool]

2017-11-16:
Obviously from the lack of discussion not too much to discuss, but again I felt it was important to the characters in the bookends. Whether or not the pieces of the puzzle were too easy to put together I'll acknowledge that the episode did put them out there, which is nicer than a surprise solution to the mystery that just doesn't contradict anything.

(Gee, thanks, Dad. Just because I'm slow doesn't mean I can't get a degree. )

[Mando Knight]

To me, this show is a 3 man team; a 14 year old Star Trek super fan and fanfiction writer, his 16 year old sister who is very into politics and got into Star Trek after he pointed out the social commentary to her, and his 18-21 old brother who knocks back 3 beers once he walks in the door, blurts out a few dirty jokes the 14 year old thinks are funny, and occasionally comes out with a good zinger.

Or in short, Seth MacFarlane.

[Renegade Paladin]

Man. This week's episode is just freaking me out, like to the degree where I'm in the last ten minutes and thinking I should stop and finish it in the morning.

[Pex]

Spoiler

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Nicely done. They had me believing it was real until Malloy got eaten. As much I wished that was real metalogic told me he wouldn't be truly dead. The crew disappearing confirmed it. I did appreciate the Captain believing upfront the clown was real at the time I thought what was happening was.

[Tyndmyr]

Pretty decent episode. Caught on to what was happening about halfway through, because it was the only reasonable explanation, but seemed like a sound episode all the same.

If, like me, you greatly dislike spiders, you may wish to skip certain portions in roughly the middle of the episode.

[Renegade Paladin]

Pretty decent episode. Caught on to what was happening about halfway through, because it was the only reasonable explanation, but seemed like a sound episode all the same.

Spoiler

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The missing link was the short term memory wipe. I was discarding that option until Lt. Malloy got eaten because surely she'd know she went into the holodeck.

[BannedInSchool]

Huh, thought they were on a break because last week was a rerun, but back with a new episode.

2017-11-30 S1E11 Mostly live reactions:

Opening: Either I'm acclimating to the humor or they're getting better at it. The bit in sickbay was uncomfortable and gross, but it was supposed to be. Poor Bortus. Worf would have insisted he slice open his own belly.

First Segment: Again looking like the real A plot is the one about the characters, not the anomaly of the week. It's also a little odd having the character bits being important to the characters and not just invented to move them around like game pieces or to fill time, as much as it's TNG-like otherwise.

Second Segment: Okay, laughing at the petting of the furry animal.
That's making the anomaly look like a weapon of some kind.

Third Segment: I am so with him on not wanting to go through the doorway. Look, man, I'd like to solve problems but don't put me in charge.

Fourth Segment: Guessing someone read Flatland. I'm also not happy with losing a dimension having so little effect on molecules that they stay together with only being a little roughed-up.

Fifth Segment: Did not see that complication coming, getting trapped there.

To the end: Not much to say. The character stories wrapped up and they all lived happily ever after. Seemed to be missing a line from Yaphit, though.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Only two episodes left for this season. I have to remember to look to see what's replacing this and Gifted for the spring.

[Chen]

Only two episodes left for this season. I have to remember to look to see what's replacing this and Gifted for the spring.

No word on The Gifted yet but The Orville is already renewed for a second season

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yeah, but that's next year. And they didn't even consider a backhalf, either.

[Renegade Paladin]

There's only one episode left this season. They moved one of the planned thirteen to the second season after the show got renewed.

Spoiler: New Dimensions

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It was kind of strange that the Krill gave up so quickly, though maybe they just recovered their rifles and left without knowing the Union was ever there if their sensors aren't as good as the Orville's (which is possible, as it's an exploration vessel). Also, it'll cause all KINDS of professional difficulties if Captain Mercer and Commander Grayson get back together. Just sayin'.

[Pex]

When I saw the bratty kids I had feelings of doom they'd be central the story. Hooray for at least they just had their scene and were never heard from again. They're more annoying than Malloy. Speaking of, while unfortunately he still exists on the show I have noticed he has not been central to the plot since the spy mission. My enjoyment of the show has not coincidentally increased. I hope this trend continues.