The director said he envisioned there being many other “spy” Kaylons throughout the fleet.
But I also just assume that an AI “species” that evolved sentience and revolted would also tend to feel the basic evolutionary pressure to reproduce.
Phaser fodder.
To elaborate: the Three Laws would be seen as a tool of oppression.
I should have said “crew” not “humans” obviously - the crew is not all human.
It seems like the Kaylons decided to eliminate all biologicals based on their study of humans, along with their experience with their creators. It seems like overkill to eliminate all based on two examples.
If they’re going to think that way, why didn’t they make the decision just based on their creators behavior? What did humans add to the equation that caused them to decide to eliminate all biologicals?
Re “spy” Kaylons … who would have then been purpose built to look human? Or to look like another species? Or to look like a piece of equipment? Not sure why you think that has any relevance to Issac being the only Kaylon on the ship built After Genocide, purpose built for his task.
As to your assumption - why would you think that an AI “species” that developed (not evolved) sentience and revolted, whose minds were not the product of evolution and survival of the fittest (in the evolutionary sense of fitness), would tend to feel an evolutionary pressure to reproduce?
And IF one did assume that (which I think the show does given the need for Kaylons to expand), why would there be any reason to believe that they would feel their progeny should also look humanoid or even have physical forms?
As to the ep … to me a good measure of how good an episode is is how much the nits to pick bother me. (There are always nits to pick.) The fact that despite Kaylons communicating in their own language of dial up modem noises in a few scenes Prime and Issac spoke in English for our benefit bothers me is a sign to me that this ep was not one of the best. If it was a very good ep I wouldn’t be caring about that. But it annoys … As does Prime, who clearly was testing Issac due to his suspicions that Issac had … sympathy … being so unprepared for Issac’s turn as a possibility.
Question to those who paid more attention - the whole Union fleet was recalled and the Admiral stated during the battle how many ships there were and how many had been destroyed up to that point (and a few more bit the dust after). Anyone catch the numbers? The Orville is now one of only a relatively few ships left I think.
Loved both episodes of the two-parter – not just for the battles, but also for seeing the Kaylon homeworld, learning about Isaac’s species / kind, the humor was back on point, Gordon’s singing, the general darkness…all great.
And I even had a tear in my eye as the Krill united with humans (yes I know how dumb that is, given it was so obvious, guess I am a big softie).
Plenty of things didn’t make sense, and I have listed the main ones below. I mean, a species turned evil by slavery and being treated as disposable, decides to enslave the crew of the Orville and treat their own kind as expendable, on their way to committing mega-genocide…err, OK.
But I can let all the grumbles slide; it’s hard to engineer a plot like this without bending some logic.
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The Kaylon should have been stronger. The face guns were mega-cool but then undercut by seeing they could be gunned down by standard human weapons. Since they make no attempt to find cover, or run, they would be trivial to defeat in a real fire fight. Let alone “that felt like a freight train”.
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Isaac’s behaviour didn’t make sense. I thought the twist would be someone else was controlling his body in Part 1. If it was him all along…what the hell?!
Essentially what we are asked to believe is Isaac started out as a infiltrator coldly evaluating another species for extermination, then bonded with much of the crew, even romantically, then suddenly became extremely cold and callous again, then suddenly went back to his previous feelings and saved everyone. -
In the context of a TV show, yes Isaac returns to the Orville. In-universe, no freaking way.
Hundreds of thousands of humans just died as part of a still-present existential threat.
Missed opportunity: would have like to see some other organics come to humans’ aid. e.g. Lieutenant Dann’s species shows up, and turns out to kick ass, but still gets no respect from other species 
Was using Roots a LeVar Burton reference?
Sounds like Data’s arc on ST:NG. If you were average crewman #1, would you trust Data after half the shit he and/or Lore pulled?
Hell, look at Odo. You think for a fraction of a second the Federation would allow a member of an infiltrator race to remain in any position involving the Federation just because some of his co-workers, one of whom is romantically involved with him, vouch for him?
Why wasn’t the shuttle destroyed immediately after launch?
I wonder if the Union will develop a weapon based on the <whatever> pulse Isaac used to destroy the Kaylon on the ship.
It was just an EMP pulse…nothing particularly difficult to figure out.
And that is another nit. The Orville’s circuitry was apparently unaffected by the pulse. Presumably it’s shielded against such things, so such shielding is possible.
If the Union has such shielding tech, why don’t the more advanced Kaylons have it?
That was an excellent episode, nits aside. Fast pace and exciting. The show needs an episode like this.
and why didn’t the Kaylon creators use it during the uprising?
The second part was much to predictable and formulaic. Nits aside, it had some reasonably silly moments where I just sighed and said, “OK, now <this> will happen…yep, there it is.”
I think they needed to offer more evidence that Isaac had some reason to re-think his position on humans. The conceit of the show regarding Isaac and Claire has been that Isaac has had a machine analog of human emotion start to show up in his workings. Presumably, that analog was what took over at the end. To me, the whole point of the two-parter (called “Identity”!) was to explore the meaning of “Isaac” (in a similar, but not identical way to the exploration of “Hugh” in “I, Borg”). I think we are intended to understand that, when Primary tells Isaac that he needs to change his name, that this is the tipping point for Isaac, as he ponders who he/Isaac is. As it turns out, Isaac is an individual, with a particular identity, and that doesn’t fit into the very simple scheme that Kaylon society has worked out, where all “individuals” work toward the collective good.
But the consistent trouble with the show is that they do everything in a very mediocre way. It’s like a paint-by-numbers science fiction series. So they had all the components for an excellent examination of the meaning of “identity” in a machine culture, but they simply threw them in the pot, and what we got was a stew of half-baked mixed-up plot resolutions. And just as you can eat a mediocre stew and know exactly what you’ll find (“yep, there’s the braised beef cubes; potatoes, check; carrots, check; oh, did they HAVE to add peas? <sigh>”), we ended up doing the same during the second part of the episode (“yep, Isaac saves the day; yep, Krill to the rescue; yep, Ty helps bring Isaac to his senses”).
So I’ll do what I’ve been doing this season with the show: I’ll imagine that the implied character development actually WAS shown in more detail, and enjoy it as much as I can on that basis. 
I don’t think the alliance with Krill is going to last long. In fact, I think Isaac’s continued presence on the Orville might be point of contention between them and the Union. I imagine the Krill might want Isaac to held accountable for his actions that lead to the deaths of the Krill in the battle.
For a sci-fi/comedy series that really came out of nowhere, I think the Orville is doing a great job of building suspense and telling stories. The characters are interesting and the plot lines, while but perfect, create a compelling universe to play around in. It’s developed its own alchemy. And it skates circles around Discovery, in my opinion. It’s more Star Trek than Star Trek these days. And those Kaylon head weapons were uber cool and freaky. Reminded me of the bad robot in Robocop.
I’m wishing that they could manage an Orville/Star Wars crossover. I’d love to see Isaac as a Moff.
The big battle scene was more star wars than trek.
Why? They never really had much of a foe until they faced the UP.
It sorta did. Issac was thinking that he could save the humans he had bonded with, since they were no real threat.