Sure, but if he shows up in his old job next week, a substsantial portion of the fans will still scream, “But, but…CONTINUITY!!!”
And we all know how Seth is such a stickler for continuity! 
That was a pretty cool episode. Liked the fascination with the 2D world, and some good character development for John and Yaffat (sp?). Engineering should be a bit more interesting now.
Oh, that’s a good point. :dubious:
I liked the Xindi arc, although I was also fine with the episodic mode they were in earlier. But if you like that song…I guess you’re into Richard Marx and stuff like that? Not me, but to each his own. Still, I would think that even if your tastes in pop run to that kind of stuff, you’d still agree it doesn’t fit a Star Trek show…?
Thanks! I’ll watch on Netflix.
Indeed, but they should avoid doing so when there’s a big reason not to. Like on Voyager, I would assume they were careful not to get out of order around the time Kes left the show. If she were suddenly back the next week, that would be pretty jarring. This isn’t quite that extreme, but it will still be a little weird. Actually, if the old engineer is shown, that will be *very *weird.
I can’t remember the exact words, but I liked Mercer’s comment “You made a guy eat another guy. Chief Engineers don’t do that.”
Also, a model kit on the way?
Nice episode.
I would have preferred that John had shown some interest in the role of chief engineer, or intellectual curiosity first.
Putting him in that role on the basis of test scores, at that point in time, seemed incredible to me. And if he had done more to get into that position it would have made me respect the character more.
But it’s just a minor gripe in a good episde. Isaac had best joke; stroking Malloy was priceless.
Maybe doing that French accent that everyone quickly realized sounded too ridiculous rehearsing for the TNG pilot.
Also it’s a police box, not a phone booth. 
Actually it struck me more like “just like Wesley, somebody gets a highly technical job on book smarts alone, without any of the necessary training, getting promoted over people who have had that training and yet show no resentment for it.” Realistically, LaMarr would need some indoctrination, or he’d be completely lost as soon as the engineers starting talking in their usual engineering jargon.
Personally, I’d’ve liked it better if either:
-
Grayson pushes LaMarr into engineering training under Yaphit on a trial basis. Putting him in command over Yaphit just after wrist-slapping him for assaulting Yaphit seems like a recipe for serious personnel conflicts, possibly pushing Yaphit to resign or ask for transfer to another ship; or
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At the end, LaMarr ends up staying where he is because he likes his relatively low-stress post, he likes joking around with Malloy, even if it means letting his potential go to waste and guarantees he’ll never get promoted, because he’s found his niche and is comfortable there. Grayson loses a lot of respect for LaMarr (in part because it undercuts her confidence in herself to spot and promote talent, as she had with Mercer) and this becomes a lasting low-level character conflict.
For what it is worth, I was lucky enough to always have good technically sharp Chengs when I was on the USS Ranger (a carrier). But one of my Division Officers for Electrical Division was a know nothing guy with a business degree and prior experience was only in Supply. He was clueless to what our job was and made no effort to learn it. The Navy idea being, he wasn’t there to do the work, just to supervise. However the division ran far better when we had Div. Officers that knew what the division did.
So real world Navy did make job assignments like this, so I guess it can be excused if the Union does the same.
Oh, E-Div had about 115 to 120 men in it. So probably actually bigger than the Orville’s Engineering Department.
As a general rule, people should not supervise people if they don’t know the job the supervisee is doing.
Obviously, but I’ve never seen that prevent the owner’s soon in law running something that he knows nothing about.
Walter Blunt VII, Chief of Union Intelligence.
Thanks. . .now I have to clean soda off my keyboard!
mc
Not a bad episode, but not the best. Seemed belabored to have Mercer doubting himself so much (even after the admiral tried to soothe him) just because his ex-wife put in a good word for him.
Cool CGI with the 2D world.
What happened to the alien smuggler ship? Did they just leave it, and all the weapons, behind for the Krill to pick up? Why couldn’t the Orville have just stuck around and had Mercer say to the Krill, “We found these, but we think they’re yours - so you’re welcome to take them back”?
After griping so much, Yaphit seems to have accepted LaMarr as his supervisor awfully quickly (although I did like his meeting with Mercer: “This is so racist!” “That’s not true. I have many gelatinous friends”).
Maybe I missed it before, but Mercer now has, hanging to the right of his office desk, the famous 1903 Kitty Hawk photo: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/First_flight2.jpg
Do we know that for sure?
That would be awesome.
Heh. I also remember a Bullock line that began something like, “I was thinking, last night when I was staring at the back of your daughter’s head, that…”
Fair point, especially since some have wondered why he seemed to be uncomfortably close to a minstrel-show character up to now.
And a model of the flyer on his desk.
Yep. Unless he lied in his Forbes interview.
Seems like a bad career move to announce your insecurities to your superior officer. If I was the Admiral I wouldn’t tolerate that kind of behavior and give Mercer an ass chewing. He’s got 3000+ ships under his command. If he was payed to listen to their existential whining he’d have a 80’s perm hairstyle, a nice cleavage, and be called Troi.
There does seem to be a lot of tolerance for this sort of thing. Mercer himself just sat there while Yaphit basically yelled “This is BULLSHIT!” to him repeatedly. I kept waiting for Mercer to remind Yaphit who was captain.
Does anyone know who the actor is? My guess was David Neher but I don’t see “The Orville” listed in his credits.
I think Yaphit got a lot of leeway because they don’t want him to file charges, which would probably take the whole matter out of their hands.
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