What about it strikes you as great sci-fi?
Literally almost everything. There were like ten things in every minute of running time. Great premise, nearly perfect execution, clever dialogue, stellar visual effects, cool action scenes.
Sounds like a Giliac sympathizer to me… When is your birthday?
And when the Rigorians realize it was a trick, wouldn’t all the people born under the sign of Gelliac again be exposed as liars and cheats, as well as violent? Ed is just assuming they won’t care.
Cool action scenes??? You mean, more examples of how “our guys” are incredibly good at fighting and the “bad guys” are completely inept at everything they try to do? It was like Legolas and orcs, or, worse, Leia and stormtroopers! How the hell is Commander Kelly Grayson a crack shot with a submachine gun that she’s NEVER USED BEFORE??? To say nothing of her ability to pick off soldiers in a night setting with confusing shadows with a hand gun she’s never fired before? And neither she nor Bortus were at any point even wounded???
Don’t you even think about stuff like this when you watch a show? 
Re: escaping. Since they established that nobody knows how to escape because noone has ever even tried, I immediately thought the twist was going to be that Grayson and Bortus would organize an escape, only to find that they are all able to just walk away with little resistance. Because escape isn’t something that’s ever been attempted, the confused guards wouldn’t be prepared for such a situation and have no idea what to do. The Orville would somehow notice the disturbance and a negotiated release would happen.
I’m starting to lose interest in this show. I liked it better the first season, when it was more like “Galaxy Quest: The Series” than “ST:TNG Part II”. This episode is strike two for me. The first was Alana’s sudden, miraculous recovery to save the day, when I expected it to end with her figuring out some clue due to her security training/experience that everyone else missed, in spite of being “slow” and physically handicapped.
Yeah, it was pretty awesome!
Sounds like you’re upset that someone else enjoyed the episode.
No, I honestly don’t. I don’t care that that Kirk couldn’t have scrounged up enough sodium nitrate, sulphur, coal dust and diamonds, filtered out the ordinary dirt, found bamboo plants in the middle of the Vasquez Rocks and build a crude cannon while a sentient crocodile who walks upright lumbers around trying to throw a big rock at him. I don’t even particularly care that Chuck Cunningham never came back from college and disappeared so completely that his own father forgot he ever existed.
When I watch a documentary I expect it to get its facts straight. When I watch an entertainment program, I expect to be entertained.
heretic! Get thee out of here!
You are not of the body!
Yeah. Maybe their species have endocrine and neurological systems that are very sensitive to astronomical phenomena, and the only reason the Prisoners were so docile is they were heavily medicated to keep them that way.
And once they are released into society and not medicated, they act more like the Reavers in firefly.
Having Isaac come in and explain that to the captain right before the episode ended would’ve been a better ending.
“The slaughter has been immense.”
QFT. Not even “The Inner Light” could hold up to the nitpicking scrutiny I see focused on this show.
You probably liked the *Star Trek *reboot. 
If people were really nitpicking, it wouldn’t be on page 4. It wouldn’t have survived two episodes.
What matters is consistency within the fictional universe. The universe might not make a lot of sense as compared to ours but if it’s consistent, it’s fine.
To use another example, Star Wars. “The force” makes no sense as compared to our universe; it’s silly. However, as long as it’s consistent in THAT universe, it’s a great idea. Where people start to complain is when it’s not consistent; when it goes from being a mystical thing to “midichlorians” people hated that, or when the rules of its use change. Light sabers don’t make sense, but they seem consistent, so they’re fine; if suddenly they could reach out 15,000 miles, instead of two or three feet, that would be stupid, because it would be inconsistent. Hyperspace is nonsense, but used consistently, it’s a fine thing that makes a galactic war make sense. When, in the new movies, it was suddenly totally different from before, that was a minor irritation.
Episode 5 suffers from inconsistencies, and ones much more substantial that technical mumbo jumbo. Character inconsistencies.
I think I made myself clear. “When I watch an entertainment program, I expect to be entertained.”
I don’t know how you could think that applied to the reboot.
In passing, but I try not to think about it so much that it ruins the show for me. I like this show, and I LOVE the idea of it. The first half of this episode was great. It was fun seeing the crew so excited and energized about first contact, and then seeing a new culture through their eyes until it all blew up. I think the first part may have been too long, though. It seemed like it became rushed and MacFarlane had to cram in a lot during the second half. I agree that Bortus and Kelly shooting their way out of the camp was ridiculous, but I can buy the rest of it.
ETA: I’m surprised nobody (that I remember) has considered the communication issue. Presumably, an alien culture would have a language no one’s heard. Does the Union have some kind of universal translator?
That was the Brannon Braga era of TNG. You’d look a the clock and it was five mionutes to the top of the hour, and the episode showed no chance of wrapping up in the time left, and just as you start to wonder if it is two-parter, everything gets finished in 30 seconds. Roll credits. Repeat next week.
And guess who works for The Orville now.
I can overlook a lot of fictional aspects when they are both consistent within their universe and add to the storytelling. I wouldn’t complain if, in context, it made sense for Grayson and Bortus to be experts with weapons that to them would be the equivalent of a 17th century blunderbuss and a brace of pistols. But in this episode, it didn’t. It was a complete break, as if someone said “Hey, we only have 5 minutes left, we need to wrap this thing up pronto!”
The problem I’m having with The Orville right now isn’t nitpicking technical details, it’s that the stories themselves are not, for lack of a better term, coming to a satisfying conclusion. The episodes tend to start out with an interesting premise and at the halfway point I’m all in and wondering what clever solution the writers will come up with. But too often this season, in the last five minutes they throw away all of that story development and just have a big gunfight, spring a deus ex machina, then smash cut to a birthday party on the bridge with no further explanation.