Please. If this were anywhere on the internet other than the SDMB, people would throw a fit if we failed to acknowledge it was instead a ripoff of an obscure anime.
Oh Mercer’s not a loser. The Admiralty knows that. He’s got tactics on every episode equivalent to a Picard maneuver, and he doesn’t need his android officer to discover them, nor a plucky pre-adolesent to execute them. For cripes sakes, he spends his time … reading his mission specs, and uses them later. No seriously, nobody else has ever done that in the history of sci-fi. Kirk, nope , all action. Picard, yeah, he reads Earth classics, but only to prove he’s literate, he doesn’t use it in the episode. Commander Adama, in any incarnation, Janeway, Sisco, I dunno, Honour Harrington, whoever, they all fly by the seat of their pants, running on pure instinct and gumption. And always succeeding.
Must be what I’m enjoying about The Orville, Mercer is actually thinking and planning, not just ruling from the big chair. Contrast the Krill Captain and Priest – no one wants to interact with them. No one wants to say, “Sir, did you notice … urm … Kri-um-Kyrs’s head distorting when he rubbed it? Want I should scan them, or something, for organs in the wrong place, or anything?” Nope. Those guys are too locked into hierarchy.
That whole, “you’re no one’s first choice for this” is pure smokescreen. They’ve likely already formally reprimanded him for being hung-over on duty. Halsey dredges it up because its the way he’s chosen to say, “Snap out of it Mercer. You married a woman way to hot for you. You’re too career driven for married life anyway. We’re sending right to the edge, and the Krill are a constant problem. Go handle it.” Either Halsey’s just too cold-hearted, or he realizes the tough love is what Mercer will respond to.
