That’s where it gets complicated, and I’m not sure who if anybody is “right”. Should the humans be allowed to register their objections through peaceful protest (that is, shun the Moclans, like they shunned Kitan when she followed orders and abandoned the Captain and FO in the previous episode), or should they just go along smilingly with something that offends their sensibilities and ethics in the name of tolerance?
I think the show handled it about as good as could be done in a weekly show. Are they going to give Bortus grief about going through with the change in the next episode? Should they?
ETA: FYI, I side with the Moclans, but it’s definitely a close call. is the sex-change issue like circumcision, or like female genital mutilation? We don’t really know for sure, since it’s fiction.
Someone up thread suggested that it is bad translation. It is a small, weaker Moclan, and came through the universal translator as “female” when it is some sort of birth defect that produces a weaker Moclan.
I think that would be a good explanation if not for the characters obviously being portrayed by human females and given what appear to be more feminine appearances.
My point. Humans think they are female, when they are suffering from a birth defect. Apparently they reproduce “male” and “male”, which makes no sense.
It’s easiest, I think, to just assume all Moclans are male, with the very rare female, and they actually are males and females. IT was clearly the intent of the show that it be taken that way, and the Moclans appear to have no problem with the concept of make and female in other species. They don’t mistake smaller, weaker males for females. Bortus isn’t confused that Commander Grayson is female and Lt. Malloy is male, even though she’s quite a bit taller.
If you want to fanwank a reason for that, you can come up with fifty without even trying hard. Here’s one; 1000 years ago, a disease of some kind started killing Moclan females. No cure could be found. Desperate to save themselves as a species, they tried everything, but nothing seemed to work, except they figured out a way for males to mix their DNA and reproduce; they also made it so all babies would be born male. The society became all male, but every now and then a female would be born and die. Eventually the plague itself died out, but by that time the society was so masculinized they had the attitude towards females on display in the show.
I don’t know why that’s easier - the casual instance of two male Moclans reproducing (and not through some hypothetical medical procedure that could hypothetically be used on two human males, but in the normal course of events) immediately indicates a major problem with using the labels “male” and “female” as we understand them. The Moclan uses of “male” and “female” need a large asterisk on that basis alone.
Not going to post any spoilers from tonight, but damn this show just keeps getting better, solid story and the humor was finally well-integrated (and a nice cameo at the end). It has now been added to ‘must-see TV’ for me.
Decent show tonight. The humor is still juvenile, but the story was another very good Star Trek pastiche.
I loved the use of the Emerson quote that gave the episode its name. It’s the same quote that Asimov used as a basis for “Nightfall.” I’m sure that’s where Macfarland heard it (can you imagine him reading Emerson?)
As soon as I saw the biosphere inside the ship, I knew it was going to be a riff on “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky.”
I was expecting the distress call to be a fake to lure the *Orville *away, like in “Friday’s Child.”
The torture scene at the evil dictator’s HQ was the most brutal since “Patterns of Force.” The “truth serum” was a lot like the one in the latest iteration of 24.
I laughed out loud when The Sound of Music came on. IIRC, it was Frederick Crane’s favorite movie too.
Their meaning of “depression food” differs from mine. “Depression food” (with a capital “D”) is stuff like tuna casserole and hamburger hotdish. You know, like my parents ate back in the 1930s. I would classify ice cream as more “comfort food.”
I watch episode 4 tonight. It’s getting better. Liked the bickering between Bortus and Klyton, which I think remains unresolved. “Alera, you wanna open this jar of pickles for me?” is the go-to line for her muscling open anything. Cheesy, but I kind of like it because it’s cheesy. Norm’s blob continues to be amusing, and I’m glad he’s putting forth effort. Part of Norm’s shtick is a lazy, half-assed attitude. He’s working the voice-acting though, giving the blob character and life.
Sounded like Seth slipped in a little, “Stewie” in the elevator scene. “Co-cool, co-co-coooolll”
Alara got shot three times in the chest and she’s up and lifting people off the ground in short order. Wish we had tech like that. I feel like the show needs to find a balance. Episode 3 with the baby was fairly heavy, whereas here, they shrug off Alara’s horrible injury with a minute’s attention. Maybe it’s just me. I liked this episode though, and think the show might last a few seasons. Star Trek:TNG took a couple seasons to get its footing, and I think the Orville is progressing more quickly - at 13 episodes a season, there’s more time to polish each episode, but less time to experiment.
I wish a few of my shows would have more than 10-13 episodes a season. Can’t remember the last show I watched that had 20 or more per.
That it definitely was - though possibly even better executed. The use of a studio backlot for the city, and outdoors scenes shot in what is obviously the mountains of southern CA, gave it that extra bit of TOS feel. I liked the inversion of the standard interrogation trope, where Grayson is telling the truth from the beginning and her captors refuse to believe it, as well as her getting sarcastic as they went on. “There’s a little coffee shop on Lafayette St. in Soho called Central Perk. My Friends are there. Just don’t hurt the monkey.”
Was that Liam Neeson playing the ship’s late captain in the video on the bridge? I didn’t see his name in the credits or on IMDB, but it definitely sounded like his distinctive brogue.
I assumed they meant it as in “food one eats when depressed”. You know, like Q ordering ten chocolate sundaes after getting depowered by the Continuum.