I could see that being the way a Confederation might decide to run things, at least at first.
I claim credit for predicting that Moclan females are a lot more common than the Moclans are willing to acknowledge https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20495721&postcount=543
Post 543, really? Check out post 477. 
I’m starting to get a little tired of the male/female schtick. A little less messaging would be nice. How about some really alien aliens, not ones that are designed simply to push some human agenda.
Well, a big part of sci/fi and fantasy is to basically hold up a mirror to ourselves by taking whatever it is out of the ordinary situation and using the sci-fi/fantasy situation to provide that mirror.
The Orville has been doing a lot of that, and so did ST:TNG. I’m with you in that I just like a heavy dose of good old space opera without the other stuff though.
When the Moclan ambassador threatened to ally with the Krill, I wondered how the Krill would view this situation. They are a theocracy, and wouldn’t it be interesting if they supported the sanctuary? They might even consider “corrective” surgery to be a sin, since the female Moclans were born that way.
I’m wondering how Klyden and Bortus got together in the first place. An arranged marriage, perhaps? (Not all Moclans do this, but maybe some do.)
I was surprised that Topa didn’t learn he was born female. I think that shoe will drop in an upcoming episode, though.
I applaud Bortus, for sticking with Klyden despite their problems. It’s easy these days to just punt and move on.
But after that last episode, I was rooting for him to “divorce” Klyden. Do they have anything in common at all?
Nicotine.
Heck, I’d like to see them aggressively subverting sci-fi tropes like the ostensibly oppressed culture doesn’t want to be rescued or the artificial intelligence doesn’t want to exterminate life forms.
Heck, one possible solution for this latest episode’s problem occurred to me - just have the Orville claim the planet as an Earth colony and send down a small group of officers to plant a flag and establish a garrison. Then the planet could be under Earth laws rather than Moclan laws and the Moclan females would be protected.
I was mildly curious while the rifle-toting females who aimed at the Orville landing party seemed disarmed and helpless when the Moclan males invaded, but I can fanwank that the males used some kind of EMP or remote shutdown command to deactivate the females’ weapons.
Playing Nine to Five during a firefight seemed particularly tone-inappropriate. It did not seem like the weapons were set to kill, but was it supposed to be comedic or something?
I have to assume you have not seen Deadpool 2?
And on further thought - in context - its appropriate “working hard to make a living” - what the female moclans have to do to survive every day.
I bow to your more prescient prescience https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20493341&postcount=477
Well, if that man is out to get you with energy weapons, fair enough.
Back to the show in general.
I like the character of Bortus. He’s interesting and in some ways more complex than many of the others. Better realized. Much better than Isaac, who I see they have marginalized since the “we are going to kill you all” little incident. Better than either Xelayan. Waif-fu is just not that interesting, and their society isn’t well thought out.
Sure, he’s parallel-Worf, but, Worf was a good character, too.
Interesting, too, how Season 2 lost almost all of the McFarland bathroom humor. I’m not sure I miss it, but it was a pretty distinctive feature of Season 1. Has there been anything comparable in the funny in the last several episodes?
The nicotine storyline was one of the funniest things the score has done. Lots of humor in the Isaac/Claire romance episode. The humor feels more organic and fits better.
I think it’s inaccurate and kind of snobby to call MacFarlane’s style of humor “toilet humor” - if there’s anything he’s overly reliant on it’s pop culture humor.
Tell that to the giant hallucinogenic spirit journey sheep dong peeing on his character in A Million Ways to Die In The West.
There was the pee corner, and also delaying the delegation with both a urine sample and implied cavity search.
Oh I’m not saying he doesn’t do toilet humor, just that he’s not limited to that. He does plenty of types. But I see a lot of people on the internet that seem to pigeonhole MacFarlane into being a low brow guy. Hrs very versatile.
It was a good episode in many ways. The firefight to “Nine to Five” was stupid. I don’t care if it’s a riff on Deadpool, or on anything else for that matter; stupid is stupid.
Jonathan Frakes said on the official fan podcast that Seth pushed hard to use “9 to 5” in that fight scene, and predicted that it would either work or *really *not work. MMV as to which it was (I was fine with it).
Yeah. The pee corner, I thought was decent comedy, right in the sweet spot of where the humor works in this show. The delegation thing was really one of the worst moments we’ve seen in the entire run of the show thus far, IMO. :smack:
This was the thing that bothered me most about the episode, but the EMP theory doesn’t seem to fit with the fact that they did start firing their own rifles after Kelly and Bortus joined the fight. They should have shown them fighting but pinned down, with a surprise flanking maneuver from Kelly and Bortus throwing them off and turning the tide.
I’d have to rewatch it, but I thought the females were picking up rifles dropped by soldiers who’d been stunned by Kelly or Bortus.
Of course, what bugged me more was that Kelly and Bortus stood perfectly still out in the open without cover or concealment like total idiots, but none of the soldiers could hit them.
I suppose the firefight soundtrack could have been worse. It might’ve been:
*Better keep your hands off my
Better keep your hands off my
Better keep your hands off my potential new boyfriend *