This is actually a problem with more than just sci-fi shows. There has been an arms race of drama where most stories try to intensify the drama by artificially increasing the stakes so that every story has to have bigger consequences than it really needs to. After decades of stories galactic threats and saving the entire universe, it seems too small scale to save just a few people, or fight for an idea.
This has been something that has bothered me for a while - when the stakes are raised to being an existential threat to humanity/the world/the universe when they don’t really have to be as a cheap gimmick to increase the drama, and then the story/characters don’t actually act like you would expect them to act if the stakes were actually that high. I wrote more about this trend a while back about the film Sunshine, which I think is one of the rare examples where an existential threat is reacted to non-frivolous way, and it’s a story that takes it’s stakes seriously.
Having everything be an existential threat just leads to stakes fatigue where you lose all the drama you’re trying to cultivate because people are numb to the scale/importance of your threat in your story.
Another interesting aspect of this episode is that the alien was interested in meeting Kelly who had a great influence on their world through a brief encounter, but showed no such interest in Isaac, who spent centuries on their planet (of course, Isaac wouldn’t have any fear of death to investigate, but an acknowledgement of his role would have been nice)
And often, not even then. Take a show like West Wing. President Bartlett was supposed to be something of a background character with the show focused on the staff, but Martin Sheen ended up being the main lead. It just ends up that the character who makes the big decisions is the character who gets the most time.
It’s kind of weird. If you watch the pilot episode, it pretty much does focus on the staff alone for most of the run time. President Bartlett only shows up for a few minutes at the very end, but Sheen so dominates those few minutes that they re-worked the whole concept.
Holy crap. I just finished 3x04 (when I should be asleep by now) and holy crap. This episode was turned up to 11. This is The Orville’s The Best of Both Worlds episode.
There was a TNG episode where Worf was paralyzed and demanded Dr Crusher euthanize him. I don’t have a problem with how Seth handled the suicide per se; it was very realistic up until it turned out they could revive Isaac after all, but it would’ve had more impact if he stayed dead and the crew had to deal with the fall-out.
I agree that with how the Orville episode played out, it would have been better if isaac had stayed dead (even though he may be my favorite character). The way it was, no-one really learned anything, and it was inconsequential anyway.
I would also note that the episode was dedicated to Lisa Banes, who appeared in it and has passed away since. Also thought that casting Bruce Boxleitner as the President was a hilarious bit.
Episode four has politics. A coup, abortion punishment, the Planetary Union First Lady, I believe Lisa Banes, surely looks like Nancy Pelosi. Computer generate “fake news”. Oh, and screwy religion in government.
It’s only a shark jumper if the rain turns out to bring two warring civilizations together and the rainmakers end up married and living happily ever after.
Will everyone please hurry up and watch the episode so we can quit talking in riddles.
I thought the episode was solid enough, not great. It’s been so long since the earlier seasons of the show I only vaguely remembered the woman Krill who they captured and let go.
A little bit of humor back. I thought the Krill delegation talking about the harrowing propechy of the orphan in regards to Annie was pretty funny. They’re underusing Bortus so much this season and I don’t understand it - by far the funniest character.
They had a scene with deep fakes but never went anywhere with it. I thought that was going to be part of the story but it was just a reference without any real commentary on it. That felt like a missed opportunity.
The abortion commentary was also just sort of random and out of place, but I thought the idea of the “punishment” was actually kind of clever and interesting.
I felt like the president of Earth just casually walking around on a formerly hostile alien world with no security detail or anything was kind of silly. I know, it wouldn’t have really affected the story if he had a security detail and they were killed, but it kind of makes the Union feel small when the president of a multi-planet alliance has less security (and pomp) than the current president of a small country does in Earth today.
It was kind of contrived with the election and peace treaty timing, the commentary on a descent into fascism could’ve been explored more, but overall entertaining enough.