Well, it appears an unexpected invasion of homicidal robots went and put the fear of Avis in everyone and accomplished what had previously seemed impossible. Wasting no time in the wake of the Kaylon attack, the Krill have reached out to the Union and began tenuous steps toward a peace treaty. We don’t have a specific timeframe for how long the two species have been at war, though at one point during the episode Ed alludes to the conflict going on for longer than he’s been alive. The Orville is tasked with initiating the process, despite being a mid-sized exploratory vessel with no focus on diplomacy. But as Admiral Returning Guest Star Ted Danson on a View Screen points out, even though both of Ed’s encounters with the Krill were by all measure disasters, the amount of time he spent with the race as a result places him in the dubious position of being the Union’s sole expert on the space zealots. But negotiations are nearly broken before they begin as the crew intercepts a Krill shuttle piloted by Orin (Mackenzie Astin), a prisoner of war, and an old friend of Gordon’s from Union Point. Orin and his daughter Layna (Sarah Scott) escaped from a prison camp, but the Krill insist the pair managed to destroy three space cruisers in the process and demand their return. This seems impossible, since the tiny shuttle has nowhere near the capabilities of taking down a warship, but the Krill insist they be returned, lest talks are nullified.
“Blood of Patriots” really demonstrates how The Orville generally, and Seth MacFarlane’s writing specifically, have improved since season 1. While it isn’t a particularly stand-out episode, it shows just how much higher the baseline for the show has become. It’s still clunky in parts: it hinges on a plot reveal that feels lifted from nowhere, it teases at the edges of the motivations for suicide bombing in a way neither the episode’s pacing nor Macfarlane’s writing quite have the wherewithal to address in a meaningful way, and the episode’s biggest jokes are a couple of urine sample and rectal exam gags that feel increasingly out of place. But it’s also a well-crafted premise that kept me engaged throughout the entire episode. Entering into a very delicate and tricky peace process only to introduce a wrinkle in a completely sympathetic character like Orin created real tension as well as a lot of great character moments as each crew member struggled with deciding what price peace between humanity and the Krill is worth. This is especially true for Gordon.
The show has been long overdue on delivering a Gordon episode. Especially in light of John’s graduation to chief engineer, Gordon has become the de facto goofy reaction guy, and often not much more. Here, he’s given something a lot more substantive as he struggles with his own guilt over the Krill attack that Gordon escaped only because Orin rescued him, leading directly to his capture. In their interactions, you see Orin try and brush off Gordon’s regret, only to let deep resentment bubble up to the surface. Which, as nearly everyone on the crew, even the most suspicious of Orin’s behavior, have to concede is perfectly legitimate. So Gordon has to contend with his sense of obligation to a man who may very well be broken, Ed has to find the truth of how or if those warships were destroyed in order to prevent Orin’s extradition to the Krill, and Talla has to pursue her instincts that something is off about the whole situation.
While it was easy to intuit from the moment she was introduced that Orin’s companion was going to be the key to this whole thing, the reveal that she is not his daughter —but instead a hereto unknown species of humanoid aliens that have highly volatile blood— was interesting, but also out of nowhere. I’m not going to ding the episode for it too much, because as I’ve stated multiple times in the past —I’m a simple man who is easily satisfied enough by the mere concept of someone using blood bombs to destroy warships even to the expense of more sophisticated storytelling— it does rob the story line of a chance for a thematic through line. Instead it was just a plot thing that happens. For a fair amount of us watching, I assume Layna’s character immediately invoked Firefly’s River Tam as someone who was experimented on by the Krill and turned into a super weapon Orin used to extract revenge. And while it’s better that the show did its own thing, its own thing was also completely random and impossible to intuit from anything we had watched. Again, this is not a major crime against storytelling. It just demonstrates that one lingering weak spot of MacFarlane’s writing is his tendency to write a script where a bunch of things just occur. I mean, her blood is literally a weapon. If you’re looking for easy symbolism about how a person’s prejudices and hatred can corrode them and infect subsequent generations, you can’t do much better than actual weaponized blood. But maybe Layna has another story. According to IMDB, she returns for the next new episode, so there’s an opportunity to build on her character in a more satisfying way.
Ultimately, Orin decides death is preferable to the possibility of returning to Krill prison. But even without the threat of captivity, he’s so incapable of letting go of his pain that dying is better than living to see peace made with the race that tortured him and took his family. And while sad, it’s still understood that everything Orin feels is completely legitimate. So legitimate, in fact, that his self-destruction prevents Ed from having to make an impossible decision.
The Krill are apparently satisfied enough with Orin blowing himself up that they’re willing to continue with treaty negotiations. Ed and Gordon meet to make peace over the jealousy Ed felt between Gordon and Orin’s friendship. It was a weird little subplot of the episode that didn’t make much sense to me on account of how fast everything was occurring, but it did provide the show an opportunity for two adult men to have an honest conversation about their feelings with each other, so that makes it worthwhile. Next week’s a repeat, so see you in two for more… I dunno. Astro-shenanigans?
Stray Observations
- Lt. Yaphit was awarded the Sapphire Star for his efforts against the Kaylon war machine. I would have enjoyed it if Ed just gently pushed the medal into Yaphit’s body, where it would float, suspended, in quiet dignity.
- Informal poll: Do you enjoy the sci-fi convention of combining an alien descriptor with a human product —such as the Xelayan rum referenced in this episode? Or should it just be a completely made-up name? The alien/human device has annoyed me all the way back to when I was a kid watching syndicated Star Trek on TV, but I can acknowledge there’s a utility to making something recognizable and not overly obtuse just for the sake of presenting a theoretically more realistic extraterrestrial booze name
- This is nitpicky, but all the track marks on Layna’s arms were human blood-colored. I’m sure they wanted to hold off on the yellow blood reveal until the bloody nose, but perhaps there was another way to handle it?
- I do like that the show dedicated and entire, seemingly purposless scene where Talla shows off her holophonor. Maybe at some point we’ll get an episode where she strikes a bargain with the robot devil.
72 Comments
I’m not convinced the Krill would be mollified by Ed saying “We don’t have him anymore, he blowed up”. Without a body they’d think it was a trick. And why didn’t Gordon just stun him? That would have solved that plot hole as well as the plot hole of not just stunning him.
Considering how volatile the Blood Bombs, I’m guessing he didn’t want to risk Orrin dropping it and blowing them up.
Possibly. But since those canisters were for transporting warp plasma (or whatever) you think they’d be a tad drop-resistant.
Yeah, but I think he turned the safeties off.
Of course, suggesting they throw it out the airlock wasn’t off the table, either.
There was a couple seconds between after struggling with the gun and Orrin standing there that Gordon could have tased him, though; if I just got in a fight with a guy with a bomb, I’d definitely at least stun his ass.
Killing him off (assuming the Krill believe he’s dead) was taking the easy way out. Then they don;t have to decide if they turn him over to the Krill, is he a terrorist or taking justified vengeance, et cetera. The fact that Trisha isn’t really his daughter also avoids some of those more difficult writing decisions by taking away from the relationship. The show has definitely gotten better with this stuff, it is a little less clumsy in its storytelling, but it still has room for improvement.I do really like how stuff sticks. Yaphet gets recognized, Botus is still upset about what he had to do to his child, they are very good with stuff like that.
I would have preferred it if Orren was actually innocent just really hated the Krill and his “Daughter” was the one blowing up Krill ships.
If the Orville was close enough to pick up Gordon with speed, it’s not unreasonable to assume that they had some kind of sensor log or gun camera or some kind of eyes on the exploding shuttle that they could provide to the Krill.
I thought that too, but there was obviously a time jump of a few hours (?). I assume they placated the Krill by turning over all logs relevant to the incident. The show could help these transitions along if only they had some sort of narration … maybe a Captian’s diary of events … Something like that.
Darn. Missed the Orville tonight. Thank You AV.Club for hat tip etc.
This was another really cool episode. The deal with her blood was interesting and since this is a whole new universe we’re going to get all sorts of interesting things out of the blue. As we’re finding in physics and astrophysics space is actually really more weird than we thought. I’m glad they think outside the box. Gordon is really developing as a stronger person than I think he even thought he would be. But I think the one who shows the most is Ed. Every episode he grows professionally, personally and in these ways that can be profound. His admission about his introspection about being in command to Gordon is something all leaders good and bad deal with. But the ability to question and strive to do better even if you have doubts is something not all can do. I’m so happy to have The Orville on TV. It’s become its own thing now in a very good way.
I wonder if the musical instrument was intended as a Futurama reference, or as a Foundation (Asimov) reference, which the Futurama scene was a reference to?
It felt more like an Asimov reference, with the joke at the end of the scene, about her not getting laid because of it a nod to Fry at the same time.
Extraterrestrial cuisine is a subject you could kick around for hours. Terms like roast, soup or tea are broad enough that it’s reasonable to think that aliens might have something that would fit that description, but our descriptions of alcoholic beverages tend to refer to specific ingredients and specific processes. It’s also unnecessary, as just the act of serving it and drinking it provides more than enough context. Look at the final act of the TOS episode “The Corbomite Maneuver”. We have no idea what tranya is made of, but it doesn’t matter. We know it’s something diminutive alien starship captains like to drink on social occaissions, and we get that from the context of the scene.Just a side observation, but any beverage that could relax a Xalayan would probably be fatal to a human.
Alcoholic drinks aren’t that specific in their ingredients. If it’s made from fruit (usually grapes, but also plums, cherries, pomegranates, or elderberries) it’s probably considered a wine. If it’s made from a cereal grain, it’s probably a beer. (The weird exception being ‘rice wine’.)An disadvantage of the ‘tranya’ approach is that the writers have to include context for the audience any time it’s mentioned. If they mentioned, “a tranya-drinking contest” we could guess at the meaning, but we wouldn’t be sure. “A Klingon blood-wine drinking contest” or “a Tribble-milk-drinking contest” carries more information.
Depends on the context, though I would say in case, that it was in a glass and then drunk it gives you all the info you need for that situation.
Cereal grains also make vodka, whiskey/whisky/bourbon/rye, gin, and a number of other alcohols/spirits, not just beer. It’s the fermentation and distillation process that differs – which is why, even though they’re both made from grains that have to be converted into sugars before the fermentation process can begin, rice wine is called rice wine and not rice beer.
It could be that Aguava just adapted well to Xalayan climate and the tequila they make from it is awesome. How ever that leads to the whole invasive ecosystem destruction that adding a foreign plant causes.
A very good point, or it could be like coffee, or rubber, where it’s grown in several places. Murphy’s Law seems to rule horticulture, in that while the stuff you don’t want will grow everywhere, the the stuff you do, you have to struggle to keep it alive.
Even if they use Agave, it should technically be called Xalayan Mezcal since Tequila can only come from the one region in Mexico, just like Champagne and Calvados in France, Chianti and Prosecco in Italy, etc.
You sir are technically correct and as we all know Technically Correct is the best kind of Correct.
Bad news, everyone! If only you’d called me ma’am, you’d’ve been technically correct as well 😉
I hope you relish the tranya as much as I.
Firefly’s character is called River Tam. River Song is from Doctor Who.
Are we sure it’s not River Styx?
Shit! You’re right. Fixed.
Do you enjoy the sci-fi convention of combining an alien descriptor with a human product You mean like Klingon blood-wine or Romulan ale? Isn’t that just like saying Japanese rice-wine or English ale? There are probably more specific names in the language of the species/culture, but if we’re speaking Federation standard then you’ve got a broadly labelled “place-of-origin / English beverage equivalent” naming scheme. Makes things easier to understand.
Or maybe you’d just prefer to dine on Babylon 5. Have a Hot Jala or a shot of Brivari to wash down a plate of Spoo.
Also not even the first time the Orville has done it with Xelayan booze. Alara’s drink of choice was Xelayan tequila.
See that’s the thing, I do prefer the Babylon 5 version. Or Hitchhiker’s Guide’s Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster or Buck Godot’s Ion Sucker. I think it’s more fun and more textural. The only problem is doing it this way is usually a comedic decision.
I just assume the Universal Translator is processing those alien food and drink names into something dumb Earthers can easily understand. *puffs inhaler, applies tape to glasses*
It does leave things more up to the imagination.
Except for Spoo. No imagination is necessary for that legendary dish.
On the one hand it’s silly, because rum, whiskey, etc, are all products made in very specific ways, with particular ingredients. So no alien world would be able to produce actual whiskey or ale.
But on the other hand a word like blood wine is much more evocative than some made up Klingon word.
Well the Cardassians did drink Kenard and the Klingons love Racktagino,so there’s that.
“We got scarlog poppies, flurrlow, Hal-zingers, bloogies, uh juicy time babies…”“Yeah, yeah, yeah. How about some scotch whiskey. Do you have any of that around here? Or is it just a bunch of nonsense words?”
I can never suspend disbelief enough with that. My mind just screams “they’re speaking gibberish!” through the entire scene.
A Buck Godot reference! My day is made! A round of Ion Suckers on me!That said, I also prefer the B5 approach – and despite giving us Saurian Brandy and so on, Trek did move along somewhat – I mean, the primary Cardassian drink was “Kanar” not “Cardassian {Human Liquor}”. Though I guess that might have been expedience; “Kanar” is easier to say and perhaps they figured they needed to pare down the syllables because characters would be using the term a LOT.
I think that’s they key. Make your pretend beverage a simple, easily understood word. Let’s follow up those Ion Suckers with some Kanar.
DS9 did its share of both; the alien crew members tended to favor alien foods (“kanar” for Cardassians, “hasperat” for Bajorans, “tube grubs” for Ferengi) and the humans gravitated either toward familiar human dishes or the alien planet + human food-word style, like “Idanian spice pudding.” This seems like a logical way to represent cultural exchange at a military outpost.
To be fair, in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide” universe you can walk ito any pub in the Galaxy and order a “ginandtonic” and probably receive something pleasantly intoxicating.
But, speaking of Hitchhiker’s Guide,
“It is a curious fact, and one to which no-one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85 percent of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonyx, or gee-N’N-T’N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand variations on this phonetic theme.
The drinks themselves are not the same… and in fact the only one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that their names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.”
So there’s that 🙂
Well, they did step it up on DS9 with Kanar.
It also still make sense that Xelayan rum is not an original Xelayan drink but rather based off of the original Earth rum, only with slightly modified taste that’s more appealing to Xelayans. After all these are food and drinks created out of a molecular synthesizer whatchamacallit instead of made directly from fresh ingredients. People trade and tinker with recipe settings all the time.
I like the space booze convention, but not as much as I relish tranya. AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Ahh, Tiny Clint Howard! Who *doesn’t* relish tranya?!
I, for one, have always had taste for the warrior’s drink — Prune Juice
A warrior’s drink apparently due to the lack of water content.
Water being disapproved of due to its association with… bathing. *shudder*
Back when I was reading TV Tropes all the time I wanted one for “the third example is from Earth” because of all the times I’ve heard dialogue like “…one of the greatest novelists, like S’urang, Kele-shem-koth, or Isaac Asimov” in science fiction shows.
Raktajino for me, if you’re buying.And on a completely different space station.
Good to have a Gordon-centric episode. But him without John is like Abbott w/o Costello. Their pairing is great. I feared moving John into the Scotty role would reduce his screen time and hi-jinks with Gordon.
After so many Trek-related casting gags, it was pretty neat to see the show go for Babylon 5’s Byron as the Krill ambassador. Even under all the makeup, that voice he’s been making such good use of as cartoon villains is instantly recognizable.
Sergeant Mularkey episode! It’s funny, when you watch Band of Brothers you see a lot of Gordon beats in Mularkey.
Holy shit! I didn’t realize he was in that! (I’d seen it looong before American Dad)
The SUCK is the biggest threat to The OrvilleWell, and bad ratings
And this ep had the lowest demo ratings so far, just 0.6. Doesn’t bode well for renewal.
Depends on how much Disney wants this Star Trek wannabe travesty to continue
The track marks were mostly bruising. They would have had to neutralize the any blood because of how volatile it is in nitrogen environments … so my guess is that the redness which looks like a blood scab is a healing barrier like a healing plaster of those invisible band aides. Just a thought.
The daughter is called Leyna, and the rum is Xeleyan, like Talla.
“the episode’s biggest jokes are a couple of urine sample and rectal exam gags that feel increasingly out of place”
Comeon guys! No more Jaloja jokes! The viewers are not 5 years old!
Xelayan, not Solean. I figure because of their gravity strength bio whatever thing, they tasted rum and were like “This isn’t anywhere near strong enough, and we can totally do it better”
Note: I’ve gone through and updated Layna’s name from Trisha. I apologize for the error, but when I was checking my notes against IMDB and other online sources after the episode, “Trisha” was the only name that came up in relationship to the actor who portrayed her. It didn’t match up with my notes, but I assumed I wrote her name down incorrectly. My apologies for the error and any undue confusion.
I am glad you are taking time away from the 2020 Trump campaign to edit your lazy reviews, Brad.
The actress who played Leyna is Aily Kei, not Sarah Scott.(Sarah Scott apparently played a different character who was named Trisha.)
Re Alien Descriptor with a human product — I hate it, especially from Neelix. At least the Cardassian beverage has its own name – kanar. But Romulan Ale, Blood Wine? C’mon.
I was kinda hoping we’d get some kind of reaction/fallout to Isaac being back on the crew, but he was barely in the episode and it was business as usual.
I actually disagree, somewhat, about the Layna reveal not being foreseeable. Only somewhat, because, yeah: I had no idea that she was an alien with literal volatile blood. But the second they revealed that Orin had stolen a MacGuffin that needed to be filled with a thing he didn’t have, I knew that that thing was going to literally be inside of his “daughter,” since they’d set up that she’d avoided being examined all episode.
Is it just me or does Nick remind you of Brad Pascale? Not just in general appearance but in opinion.
I did like Gordon’s Leap of faith!
I thought the Selayan rum thing was dumb. She could’ve said “Ooby Doob Shuh Nunu” and it would’ve been clear from context that it was an alcoholic drink.
Layna was giving off big creepy Momo vibes
Informal poll: Do you enjoy the sci-fi convention of combining an alien descriptor with a human product —such as the Xelayan rum referenced in this episode? Or should it just be a completely made-up name? I think it should be a completely made up name. There are ways actors can convey to an audience – by acting (gasp!) -that they are imbibing an alcoholic beverage. Cringe, crinkle the nose, toss the head back and forth several times and say “Wow!”, etc. We don’t need associations with human products to get the point across. Let the actors do their job and act. Associating an alien alcoholic beverage with familiar terrestrial labels violates the first golden rule of writing: show, don’t tell.
An actor can also make a passing comment indicating he or she is drinking an alcoholic beverage, such as, “You, know this reminds me a lot of champagne.”, etc.
Something else bothers me in addition to using alien descriptors + human products to describe extraterrestrial alcoholic beverages, and that is the lack of racial diversity among the myriad of species populating the galaxy – except for humans, that is. When it comes to humans in sci-fi shows, we get a pleasant smattering of racial diversity, ethnic background, etc. Earth’s diverse human make-up is well represented, and The Orville is no exception. However, alien races represented in pretty much all sci-fi shows tends to be homogeneous. Klingon’s always have dark complexions; Krill always portrayed with a blue hue, etc. For once, I’d like a sci-fi show to address racial diversity among the alien species. How about some orange skin toned Klingon’s, or pink skin toned Xelayan’s to give the impression that Earth is not the lone planet in the galaxy whose intelligent species are racially diverse. This is something that has always bothered me since the Lost In Space & original Star Trek days. Unfortunately, the decision to portray alien races homogeneously in a sci-fi series is based, I’m certain, solely on budget concerns, and that’s too bad. I’d love to see those pink Xelayan’s or purple Krill. Polka-dot Moclun’s might be cool, too.
I really enjoyed tonight’s episode. The script writing is getting stronger by the episode, the comedy is getting stronger by the episode, and the acting is getting more powerful, too. Gordon turned in a stellar performance. The actor portraying Gordon- whose name escapes me at the moment – showed a nice depth and range that drew me into the episode and captivated me from start to finish. It was great to see a different side of the goof-ball Gordon character. Very impressive. Stole the show. Kudos.I loved the Ed-Talla gag. I laughed my ass off! Ed begging Talla to stall the Krill delegation for five more minutes. Talla telling Ed she’s out of ship boarding protocol to stall the Krill with. Ed begging Talla to stall for five more minutes. Talla snapping on the latex glove. Classic! That the Krill didn’t complain to Ed afterwards about Talla’s latex glove treatment tells me they enjoyed that part of the ship boarding protocol procedure. Perhaps Talla’s latex glove treatment is a form of compliment on Krill World.What is it with FOX sci-fi series’ and The Planet of the Apes? The X-Files made numerous references to Planet of the Apes throughout it’s long run. So, imagine my surprise as I’m watching tonight’s episode of the Orville when >BAM< a clip from Planet of the Apes graces my TV screen! It gave me the strangest feeling of X-Files deja-vu. I felt like Alice stepping into Wonderland. I anticipated, and kept waiting for, David Duchovny or Gillian Anderson to make a guest appearance on the episode. Alas, such was not the case, and I’m a tad bit saddened by it. So, what is up with Planet of the Apes clips and FOX sci-fi TV shows? Does anyone know if any X-Files writers, directors, actors, behind the scenes people, etc., are involved with The Orville? (Tom Braidwood, is that you, man?)Curiouser and curiouser.....