I missed the significance of the music until I watched it again with Mrs. Plant (v.3.0)
“As Time Goes By” was played four times.
And when two lovers woo
They still say, I love you
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by
Kelly never answers the question, “Do you love me?”
Upon watching the episode a second time: Just about everyone on this show is a dick.
If the only thing you are worried about regarding the rescue part of the episode is stuff like how big the aliens are, or whether or not and how they knew they could breathe, you’re totally missing the nit-pickers’ award here. The whole SCIENCE of what was happening was just ludicrous, and the visual implementation was nothing short of completely stupid. It was almost worse than Spock (old) being able to see Vulcan implode in the sky above from the outpost on “Delta Vega” in the 2009 reboot film of Star Trek. That sort of thing just makes me shake my head in dis-belief. Then, I shrug and simply ignore the stupidity and watch for the underlying plot.
I found the Bortus plot to be quite interesting. I like how it developed that Bortus’ dive into pornography resulted from his repressed resentment of Klyden’s decision to allow their child to be re-gendered. Klyden and Bortus allow MacFarlane to explore all sorts of human gender and relationship issues without dragging into the exploration the inevitable pre-assumptions that people would have about humans (such as those surrounding Mercer and Grayson). I wouldn’t want every episode to focus on them, and it should be noted that episode 1 was also about Kitan’s relationship issues, acting as a contrast to those of Mercer and Grayson. So it’s not like this was really two Moclan-centered episodes.
The Orville is not a great show. It doesn’t really handle drama well (it tends to make it seem quite formulaic). It also has very average comedy, worth at best a few chuckles, but no hearty laughs, really. The acting is so-so, and the scripts are decent, but not usually that thought provoking. In the old three-network days, it wouldn’t make it past the first season. But I find it much more interesting that season 1 of ST:TNG, and certainly don’t mind blowing 41 minutes watching an episode on Hulu at my leisure. 
Well, it is a Seth MacFarlane show.
I found the Bortus/Klyden a lot more interesting than the dying planet. Bortus’s porn addiction not only put the Orville it also led to the deaths of 45 people that otherwise could’ve been saved if not for the computer virus effecting the ship’s system.
“When virtual reality lets Joe Sixpack make love to Claudia Schiffer by the hour in his rec room, it’s gonna make crack look like Sanka.” - Dennis Miller
I wanted to know more about the aliens. Not the minutiae like whether they breathe oxygen, but where did they come from? What was their culture like? This is an alien race that the Union has never encountered which should be pretty important. Instead, they were used as a generic plot device.
At the beginning when Bortus asked to leave early because he didn’t feel well, and then Ed and Kelly said it was his third time that week, Dr. Finn was standing right there! I fully expected her to go after him down the hallway. But no, she stood there looking stupid. ???
This was a lame episode, but I still like the show and really, really hope it gets better next week. Brannon Braga started out as a writer for TNG. He really needs to step up. I don’t expect TNG, but The Orville can be much better than these last two episodes.
According to the plot, the shuttlecraft required lengthy modifications in order to be able to ferry people off the planet. There was never time to get two shuttles into the mix, nor was there time to make two trips. It’s possible that they thought they had more time because the virus messed up the scanners, but without the virus, an accurate scan would have just told them they only got one trip from the get-go. Those limitation were both highly contrived, but would still have applied even without the virus.
(Contrived as in only that one guy/team on the entire ship could do those modifications to the shuttlecraft? A second/third/fourth team couldn’t mirror the modifications on a second/third/fourth shuttlecraft as they worked?)
That was their home planet, and their scientists weren’t even sure if space travel was physically possible yet. So definitely a pre-warp civilization.
But yeah, it ended up being a pretty major scenario getting handwaved away in a perfunctory manner.
Well, I liked the episode. Was it perfect? No, but then nothing is.
So anybody on the fence who hasn’t’t watched it yet, give it a try.
Thing is, Bortas is a senior member of staff. What’s the point of climbing the hierarchy if you don’t get extra privileges? Remember, he has “important stuff” to do, and he needs extra access to the simulator to do it.
Remember the Voyager episode, when everyone noticed that incomplete, really cool, holo-novel about a mutiny that occurs on Voyager?
Tuvok: “Ugh. Its not a novel, I wrote that as a tactical simulation to practice for the contingency, should it have occurred.”
Everybody else: “So you routinely plot how to take us out in case of mutiny? With simulated phaser shots, and screams, and blood?”
Tuvok: “Hells, yeah. 'Cause I’m security. Its my job. Look it up.”
Remember, as shown in last season, Alara has the ability to lock out the safeties on the simulator, AND lock the Captain out of overriding her security protocols.
Kelly: “Really, she can lock you out Ed. And you can’t do anything? Really? That’s Union policy?”
Ed: “Yup. I can fire her if she survives. But that’s about it.”
Later this season, John or Yaphit or maybe the new Georgia O’Keeffe inspired alien Lt Urk may well do something unsanctioned with the engines, and that’s kinda their prerogative, because they have the technical know-how, and Ed and Kelly don’t. We’ve already seen that Gordon can fly the Orville anyway he feels like to resolve a mission.
So everyone other than senior members get X hours and senior members get X hours of private use a week plus unlimited usage beyond that which is logged and reviewable by the captain, and the captain’s use is reviewable by security.
Er, that episode was written for last season…
Then again, maybe somebody realized that it wasn’t exactly “the best of the bunch,” which is why it wasn’t the season premiere, with its corresponding boost from being right after NFL coverage.
I noticed Yaphit, the gelatinous guy, in Main Engineering, but he didn’t have any lines. Was Norm Macdonald busy?
Reportedly Norm does not enjoy the six-hour gelatinous blob makeup process.
:dubious:
It’s a better explanation than Norm MacDonald being busy. And I like how it showed him as a regular crewman and not just some handsy, er, glopsy horndog.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Conway Twitty.
Didn’t like E2 because gay porn between horrifying monsters isn’t a turn on for me.
It just occurred to me that I share the same kinks as Bortus (granted the scenarios we saw were all standard porno clichés).
Going down on the jailer?
:dubious:
That’s the thing about Bortus’s scenarios – they are like ours. We may think that our fantasies are complex, but if we try to write them down, we’ll discover there isn’t much substance to them. People who write porn scenarios, or perhaps, the author of things like 50 Shades of Grey are actually pretty talented in setting up a scene that gets people involved. I’ve never tried to write down porn, but I have tried to write fan fiction and the results are pretty lackluster even when I look at them when I’m done.
See, Bortus wrote the first one, kinda to unwind when he wanted to. Then he overused it and got bored. Then he wrote the prisoner one, 'cause that was a wild fantasy, but then he doesn’t even really want to play it, giving the monotone – “Ohnoicantdothatimavirginthatway” Then the Dr one is just boring no buildup. The final, orgy scenario provided by Lt. Urk is really more involved, kinda like Bortus’s first one, with better production values.
Even Dann was into it when he was stuck inside. How cool is that? We get two insights into Dann in adjacent episodes … except this one is from last season. They’ve been working on that character for a while. And I thought he was just going to be the “elevator muzac” guy.
I was kind of impressed by how they dealt with that too. One of the interesting things about the show is that it is hard to guess which aspects are going to be made the jokes and which are going to be played straight. The couples therapy, which I thought was going to be a funny scene turned out to be rather dramatic, for example.
The aliens did exist only to show Bortus the importance of families, but that’s what aliens are for in shows like this…
I agree, Bortus pisses and Bortus gets kinky. What’s next
? Bortus flings poo?