Bortus is into some kinky shit. That’s not the actual takeaway from tonight’s episode, which confronts how poor communication and unaddressed resentment lead to self-destructive behaviors we often pursue as a way to sabotage our relationships. But since that message was conveyed via Bortus using a ship simulator to create intricate sex prisoner porn scenarios for himself; that ends up being the more indelible statement.
“Primal Urges” was originally intended to be the season 1 finale, and you get a sense of that from the cinematic effects in this episode. We open with the ship observing the last planet in a solar system to be consumed by a star that has gone red giant. And it really was quite a lovely sequence watching as the thick plume of the planet’s atmosphere was siphoned off into the sun. Bortus, however was unimpressed and asked to leave his post early. Instead of returning home, he goes to the ship simulator and starts up a rustic woodland scene where he meets another Moclan and the two begin making out. This was just a mild introduction into an episode that focused on Bortus’ increasingly involved sexual fantasies. I’m going to profess my ignorance here and say that I’ve never once delved into what must be entire server rooms’ worth of Star Trek holodeck erotica. So, lacking that resource, I guess I’m pleased The Orville has chosen to explore the questions that have crossed my mind countless times since the mid-90’s:
1. Everyone must use the holodeck for porn, right?
2. How do people keep from doing so all the time?
The answers, we learn, are: Yes, and sometimes they do. I sincerely appreciate how the show infers it’s a given everyone uses the simulator for their own self-satisfaction and there’s no shame in some regular deep-space maintenance. It’s solely when it becomes all-consuming where pornographic simulations are a problem. The problem here is that Bortus is not only spending too much time in the simulator, but doing so at the expense of his marriage. He refuses to make time or have “the sexual event” (as the show cringingly insists on having the Moclans call it), to the point where a frustrated Klyden drives a knife into Bortus’ chest. Bortus survives and we learn the stabbing was a botched divorce attempt, in keeping with Moclan predilection for violent, brusque solutions to complicated problems. In order for Klyden to stay aboard, Ed forces the two to attend marriage counseling. This service is provided by Dr. Claire, who’s MD is either more broadly applicable than our modern day version, or she’s the closest one among the ship’s modest crew of 300 people to fit the role.
As the only (still) married couple on the Orville, Bortus and Klyden’s relationship gets a lot of attention. And while their dialog is pretty uninspired stuff, I commend both men for working their sincere hardest to convey a real emotional connection through the staid mannerisms of an alien species and enough prosthetic that they can’t turn their heads to face each other. The big cathartic reveal emerges when Bortus finally admits that he’s been shutting Klyden out due to lingering anger over his choice to allow the surgery that changed their daughter to a boy. It does seem like a pretty damn big deal, so I’m grateful the show is keeping that storyline alive and also doesn’t offer up a pat resolution to the issue.
Isaac learns that the last, dying stragglers of the doomed planet are living underground to wait out end times. But a rescue attempt is hampered by a virus the ship suffers from Bortus’ illegal porn scenario. The last-ditch solution is for a shuttle to land and grab as many survivors as they can cram onboard.
It’s a really beautiful set piece as Isaac and Bortus land planet side. A bloated red sun dominates the sky and chunks of the planet surface peel off and hurl into the furnace. The pair locates the doors leading into the catacombs and descends to gather up the remaining inhabitants. I’m often frustrated by The Orville’s superficial approach to its moral topics. The show never explores a topic too deeply, nor approaches any subject from other than the most expected, straight-forward angle. But there are some things it continuously does well. And one of them is the limitations of what one mid-sized exploratory vessel —staffed by smart, dedicated, but still just regular people— can accomplish. Due to the planet disintegrating faster than expected and the virus infecting the ship, the crew is unable to save all 75 of the planetary survivors. Less than half, in fact, make it out. And it’s sad! There were a bunch of children! But some problems can’t be solved, and there are rarely last minute miracles. The survivors hold a lottery, the chosen get on the shuttle, and it takes off. And that’s all there is to it. The planet is destroyed along with the remaining 45 people. The final scene on the planet where the minister who is remaining behind, says goodbye to her partner is there to be overheard by Bortus and make him reflect on the value of his own relationship. But it works more effectively as a simple illustration of the unbending intractability of some situations.
Bortus returns to the Orville dedicated to making his marriage work. It will be interesting to see if the show ever addresses his holo-porn addiction since I still can’t shake the feeling that would be an incredibly tough habit to break. That said, it’s been a couple of Bortus-heavy episodes in a row now, and I’m not feeling any great urgency to revisit his erotic misadventures too soon.
Stray Observations
- It’s killing me that I can’t just call it the Holodeck.
- Porn addiction isn’t listed in our current DSM 5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). I don’t know what edition they’re up to in the 25th century, but perhaps it’s made it in.
- As different as Moclans may be from humans, Bortus’ fantasies fell into familiar human scenarios of forced submission, medical play, and good ol’ fashioned pastoral bacchanalian orgies. It’s nice to know that as different as we are, in a lot of ways, we’re very much the same.
- I loved the practical effects costume for the big, chunky alien that provided the orgy simulation for Bortus. I’m exhausted that the show remains in love with the idea that wouldn’t it be hilarious if this crazy alien just talked like a regular bro? Maybe they’ll work through it by season 3.
- Poor John has to fend off a gaggle of horny Moclans while trying to isolate the virus.
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There was room for at least 5 or 6, maybe a dozen people on the shuttle. Also they could have taken more kids and less adults. I’m sure there was a techno babble limit somehow.I would love to see a follow up of how they are coping. Given that they had probably come to accept their doomed fate… also sounded like they didn’t believe there was anyone else out there, almost like a nightfall scenario. The show didn’t go into it but the planet was breaking up due to the gravitational tides as the planet got inside the Roche limit. Not sure how that compares to when the atmosphere would escape or whatnot but at least they didn’t have wait until it literally was absorbed.
I can simultaneously why this episode was going to be the season finale and also why they changed their minds about it. Mostly because of the Porn storyline. The star eating the planet storyline was pretty cool.
Porn addiction is something that never gets addressed on shows unless it’s for a comedy bit (Like this sort of was) or if it’s the legal defense on like Law & Order SVU or something like. Bortus being completely deadpan during the porn segments really added to the bit. (I’m also amazed that nobody drew attention to the Penis Alien, that feels like the kind of thing a Seth Macfarlene show wouldn’t just leave alone)It’s still a very difficult subject to tackle but I do like that they didn’t really just let the transgender plot from early in the first season go unignored for the rest of the series. I’m glad there was still fallout from it.
I doubt many people expected an episode like that. I am not sure whether I liked it or not, but it was interesting.
They’re really not making it easy for new viewers to get into the show so far this season. I hope the ratings hold up.
Even though these first two episodes are being credited to Season 2, they were actually held over from the first season. Hopefully, we’ll see a more consistent voice once this season properly begins.
Only this episode is a Season 1 holdover. The first episode of Season 2 was indeed meant to be the first episode of season 2.
The season 2 opener was a light re-introduction to all of the characters and their backgrounds and plot lines…the captain and the XO had a thing but are now on the outs, the ginger is a nervous wreck around women, doc has her shit together dealing wit the kids, etc..etc…If a person couldn’t grasp what’s going on in the first 30 mins, then keep them away from sharp objects.
Isaac’s question about how the doomed society was deciding who should survive echoed Thanos’ quest in Infinity War to me. Not that the objectives were equal, but the notion of which members of a society best represent it. In Infinity War, Thanos makes a speech about sacrificing half of a planet’s population for the betterment of the other half, but randomly selecting who lives and dies, which to him equates to a notion of fairness.
This is essentially the same as the lottery process being used to determine the last 30 survivors of a doomed planet, which makes Isaac wonder why they don’t just pick the 30 smartest people. And with Bortus chiding him about his dispassion, it makes the episode seem on the side of the lottery, when really, Isaac raises a good point.To emphasize, these are the final 30 survivors of this civilization. It seem to me the best choice would be not necessarily intelligence, but who would represent the best chance for the survivors to thrive into a second chance for this society on a new world. Now, it could very well be that they are all equally capable of that, and in that case they might as well use a lottery. Or that 30 people might as well be nobody to the rest of the galaxy and they just assimilate and be done with it. But that’s the point of a thought experiment like this. We have a civilization on the brink of destruction with no hope of salvation, suddenly being told in the end of days that a select few of their society can be rescued to rebuild. That’s a huge gift.I think for sure you automatically send all the children (hopefully a good mix of boys and girls, assuming that’s their reproductive biology, though I suppose 30 is enough people to gain some genetic samples to clone a few more). Then you’d want people who can pass on the sense of culture, such as historians and artists. Keep families together as much as you can. And still, young people would have to have preference over older. Maybe too much to ask for just 30 slots?This is the Deep Impact approach — preselect enough people deemed essential to continuation of society, and then a lottery of qualified citizens for the remaining population. The elderly were excluded from the lottery in the film.
It also brings to mind the movie Knowing, in which (Spoilers) Earth is the doomed planet and aliens select a handful of children to repopulate humanity on a distant world. (And, the film emphasizes that no adults are allowed).
So, to connect back to Thanos, it goes back to how I would think Thanos’ plan of randomly eliminating half the population of the universe might actually hamper the very goal he seeks, which is for the survivors to thrive through what I assume would be a better allocation of the remaining resources. Would Earth be better off if the half of the population that was wiped out included all the farmers, teachers, builders and engineers? Would not the disruption caused by the elimination of half a population potentially cause more damage that the supposed lack of resources? It would be one thing if the entire population were equally miserable (as in the original Star Trek episode where Kirk recalls living on a colony planet where the governor executed half the population so the survivors could withstand a famine). But if you have a planet where half the people have food and the other half are starving, wouldn’t the least disruptive solution be to simply eliminate the starving half? (Setting aside any sense of social justice, of course — just assuming the thriving half of the population learned more efficient techniques for resource management and the poorer half was slower to catch on … no exploitation to account for the gap.) From Thanos’ perspective, wouldn’t he simply be putting the starving people out of their misery? I have a hard time buying Thanos as considering social justice in his genocide and that trait was probably thrown in there to make in easier for democracy-minded audiences to accept him as the film’s protagonist and at least ponder the merits of his plan.
This is why shows and movies like this are so fun, for raising (or implying) such interesting questions.
I don’t think that 30 people is a wide enough genetic gene pool to continue a race. Hence it doesn’t matter who they pick in terms of long term survival. So after that it’s just a moral issue – and in my opinion the best thing is to have the lottery and then let the winners decide whether they want to pass their survival on to someone more ‘deserving’. The leader doesn’t have the right to make the moral choice for them. If this was a longer term thing (like Deep Impact) I could see how the necessity of saving the entire race and civilisation would override any moral concerns about picking who lives and dies. IMO, there are moral justifications for allowing a settlement to die (such as in your TOS example), but when it comes to the survival of an entire civilisation there is a much lower bar.
I agree the choice of who should survive is a tough one, but I don’t think that just choosing the 30 most intelligent people is a fair solution. Intelligence isn’t an indicator of goodness. One of those 30 most intelligent people might end up creating a virus that wipes out the other 29. I think your solution of saving as many children as possible, along with representatives of the culture, is a good one. But, while I understand the reasoning of trying to keep families together, that also dooms people who don’t have a family. I don’t think this choice is ever going to be an easy one. But it looks like the episode did at least keep a couple of families together. I wonder if they made an exception to the rule of 30 and allowed for a couple of babies who would not require seats of their own on the shuttle.
“But if you have a planet where half the people have food and the other half are starving, wouldn’t the least disruptive solution be to simply eliminate the starving half?”
One of the things that I find interesting in fiction is this demand we seem to have for moral universes, where the most ethical solution is also the most functional one. In my experience, those qualities rarely correlate in the real world, but it’s like 95% in narrative entertainment. If you’re telling a story about two cities with a population crisis like the one you describe, and the first decides to cull the starving and the other decides to do the hard work and share resources, the first would probably make out better in the short term. Things wouldn’t even necessarily get worse for them in the long term, and it’s not totally impossible that city 2 would be destroyed if there truly isn’t enough to go around. Yet, I would argue that they still made the ethical choice.
But you could pretty much never tell that story because audiences demand just fictional universes. I’m not sure that’s good for us; this idea that goodness will always be materially rewarded and evil punished.
My issue with Isaac’s suggestion is where’s the time? How to judge? I know he’s supposed to be so advanced, but it seems like that would waste a lot of time. And he’s not exactly perfect either.
Thirty people were saved. They’ll get to tell the story of their civilization, but unless inbreeding isn’t an issue with their (surprisingly human-looking for aliens on The Orville) species or genetic manipulation isn’t an issue in the show’s time period, that species is done. Except for having some learned adults who can share what knowledge they have – and just think of how limited the knowledge of any random 75 humans would be – a lottery is as good an answer as any.
I would have done children first, then a lottery for the remaining spots. Better chance of species survival.
The age of the survivors wouldn’t affect the genetic diversity issue – though not having a parent and child go together would have been slightly better.There is an additional matter of choice. The survivors look human so unless they are committed to perpetuating their people, there is very good chance that few of them would end up with each other but would likely fall in love with humans or someone else of a different species. Being science fiction, they’ll still be able to have children with people who evolved on a planet light years away, but that’s just going to be like how there people with a small amount of Neanderthal DNA, but Neanderthals are extinct.
I remember reading an essay some years back presenting the case that the minimum number of fertile people required to restart the human species without the genetic risks of inbreeding was sixteen – eight men and eight women, or at least eight people capable of producing sperm and eight people capable of bearing children, regardless of gender identity. This would still require careful planning over multiple generations. As I’m not a geneticist, I don’t know if that’s true, but hypothetically that would mean 30 people could perpetuate a species, assuming at least a slim majority have genetic offspring.
But culturally…yes. Their civilization as they knew it is probably gone; for that matter, their civilization has probably been decaying for a long, long time, given their dwindling population and resources. Nevetheless, I also expected them to pick the children first, and hold a lottery for adults only if there were fewer than 30.It was a devastating scenario, though, and I did think that as the big SF plot of the episode, it was quite compelling. I had guessed, as they continued monitoring the planet, that it would turn out there were living people down there, but I hadn’t expected that final twist.(Side note, though, I have a hard time believing they can fit 30 people into one of those shuttles. I mean, I GUESS, but I feel like literal breathing room would become an issue. Perhaps my sense of scale is off and it would be no worse than a bus at rush hour.)
There’s something off about the sense of scale with the shuttles. When they’re in them, then don’t seem that big. But then you see the shots where it enters the ship and based on how big the ship is they have to be enormous…
That’s the other thing, I’m not sure of the scale of the Orville, either – the shuttlebay is marked as being on Deck E, and is at the midpoint of the ship, perhaps? Which means maybe nine or so decks? The shuttlebay also takes up a lot of space, and appears to only fit two or three shuttles. And according to the Orville Wiki, which I believe got their info from The World of the Orville book (yes, there is a book, which contains info not in the series; the part of me that used to pore over the Star Trek technical manuals almost wants to buy it), the crew complement is 300. That’s larger, I think, than Voyager’s complement, but smaller than the original Enterprise’s crew of 400-ish.So yeah, I don’t know how big any of the spacecraft on the show ARE, and that’s normally detail I don’t NEED to get into, but it’s aggravating when it feels like the sizes are changing for the sake of plot convenience.
I guess my question is… if they knew that their sun was going to be destroying the planet what were they doing even having children in the first place?
As someone else pointed out above, though, if you top-load the children you’ll simply be able to save MORE. I’m assuming the estimate of “30 individuals” is more a factor of weight than of the number of open seats on the shuttle…
Plus also children are smaller and you might be able to squeeze a few more on.
We don’t actually see the decision-making process, only hear Isaac’s account of it being a lottery. My guess is that a lottery was only *part* of how they decided who got the lifeboat seats – maybe a way to decide who got the final handful of slots.
OMG, your comment is longer than the episode.
Like most things on this show, it’s really just a blatant copy of something from a specific “Star Trek” episode
Douglas Adams gave us the Golgafrinchams, an advanced society that “solved” its overpopulation problem by dividing people into three groups: The leaders, planners, inventors and other “thinking” types; the farmers, workers, laborers, builders and other “doing” types; and the “useless third” of middle managers, bureaucrars, sales reps, PR, advertising, marketing and (in a tragic miscalculation) telephone sanitizers. They misled the latter group into boarding an enormous space ark, launched on a preset course with the promise the other two groups were right behind them in their own arks.Just putting that out there.
So, does the Orville have the equivalent of a janitor who has to clean up the environmental simulator when it gets sticky?
I was so expecting Spooge to show up.
I would NOT want to have had that job in TNG after Riker got done in the holodeck.
I hope that’s automatically taken care of via some sort of robotic room sterilization between uses.
It’s probably self-cleaning or at least done by a quasi-sentient Roomba, or maybe they borrowed from South Park and have a Cumby.
I just figure they recycle it to supply the raw material for the food synthesizer.
Please assume that I just linked you to every possible ‘NO’ GIF on the Internet.
Hold the mayo.
Hence the gloppy pizza.
More importantly, do they have the equivalent of a Kevin Smith who can write a scene that includes a discussion of said job?
It apparently has a joke janitor whose job is to recycle that joke from the 1990s about the holodeck on Star Trek into an entire episode of a TV show
That joke works better on Star Trek, where they’re all prim and proper and dignified and everyone tries to pretend they’re not just doing sex stuff in the holodeck and that must be someone else’s mess. On the Orville they’d totally just have a “wipe down the equipment when you’re done” rule.
I watched the first few episodes of Orville, last year and gave up. All year, I read here how Orville started weak but found its legs over its run, so I decided to pick it up again last night and was rewarded with the single, most relentlessly unfunny television I’ve EVER seen. How can you not even stumble into a single amusing line in a show about alien holo-porn? When an hour-long comedy lands only a single joke, and that joke is “Hi, my name is Dan”, it deserves to die. Even the “drama” plot was weaker than any grade school history pageant (or season 1 TNG episode). If this deserves a “B”, I weep for all TV viewers.
I remember the pearl clutching fit the TNG crew had over Barclays harmless Restoration era fantasies. Finally a Holodeck scenario that’s believable next to Our Man Bashir….
Yes, finally we have a show that turns subtext into awkward text for burbling idiots
Meaning you don’t understand it? Try close captioning.
Barclay’s fantasies weren’t harmless because he was using the images of fellow officers in disrespectful and sometimes sexual ways.
Like every middle school boy in history.
Barclay wasn’t a 12-year-old boy. He was a grown man and an officer aboard the flagship of the Federation.
Dr. Finn is an MD first and perhaps a PhD second.
“This ship is gross”. – Kelly
LOL. Also, not to nitpick, but they could have crammed all the remaining people into that shuttle. Unless it was a weight thing.
The ending was a heatbreaking scenarios that I’m not sure even TNG would have done – they would have found some technobabble way to take all 75. But – couldn’t they at least have made the shuttle look crowded? There was room for at least 8-10 more people in there.
The original series had “The Conscience of the King”, in which a colony’s governor, Kodos (yes, the guy that the Simpsons alien is named after), is facing the death of everyone following a severe famine, and orders the random execution of half the colonists to save the other half, so shades of this and Thanos. (As it happened, a cargo ship bearing food showed up a few days later, unforeseen, so Kodos was labeled One of History’s Great Monsters.) Also, DS9 implied very heavily that people got their rocks off on the holodeck (well, holosuite, since they were on a space station); this later became explicit canon in Voyager, as various crewmembers (including the captain) did the necessary as they got in the mood (or, in the case of Tuvok, the Vulcan security chief, pon farr).
There was a line in TNG after Riker met Kamala from “The Perfect Mate” and she kisses him, knowing he can’t touch her he excuses himself from her quarters and one the door closes he hits his comm and says something like “if anybody needs me I’ll be in Holodeck 3″
“I’ll be in my bunk.”
lol yeah for a syndicated series in the early 90 they got away with riker doing a lot of kinky shit. agreeing to hook up with an alien nurse to escape a hospital is another that comes to mind
That wasn’t just some random kinky nurse – that was Bebe Neuwirth!
Yes! 😀
“But – couldn’t they at least have made the shuttle look crowded? There was room for at least 8-10 more people in there?”This was my sentiment as well when watching the episode. My wife, who is arguably a bigger Star Trek nerd than I, pointed out that they might have had the room, but the shuttle’s life support might not have been able to handle more passengers. John was only able to give that so much of a boost.
I thought the same thing. They could have done some kind of “weight limit” thing but if it REALLY was down to life or death, I’d like to have seen everyone stacked one on top of the other. Better a few minutes of extreme discomfort to save 75 people than requiring each person to have a seat.
I’ll argue for the sake of convenience, that the shuttle engines could only handle a certain weight, so there could be no more taken for that reason.
Yes. This.
Is sex addiction not in the DSM-5? I believe porn addiction is a form of sex addiction.
No, sex addiction is not.
That’s surprising, but then it makes sense that porn addiction is not there.
Isn’t the doctor an MD? Maybe they mentioned she also has a PhD, and I missed it or something.
She’s an MD, the reviewer just used the wrong term.
You’re correct, and edited to reflect.
I love this show. I mean I loooove this show.
But: enough with the damn Moclans! The best line was Kelly’s: “I know we’re supposed to respect alien cultures. But there has to be a limit.” Indeed. What I want to see on this show is an exploration of Planetary Union procedures, not an exploration of the obscure cultural practices of the various alien races. The conversation taking up several scenes should have been the one between Ed and the admiral, not the one between Bortus and Klyden.
My favorite line was “You’ve already had enough injections!”
“God this ship is gross.”
Love this show too, its probably the best sci-fi out there and I intend to start watching it real soon.
I’m sort of baffled as to how and why the Moclans are members of the Planetary Union, to be honest. Yes, the Federation in Star Trek allows planets to self-govern and respects their cultures to a degree, but there are still lines they do not cross – ritual murder being one of them, and while the lives of transgender individuals on Star Trek haven’t really been explored, I doubt they’d sanction surgical intervention on a child before said kid was old enough to make their own choices, either. The Planetary Union seems much the same. So why on Earth do they put up with a species whose members murder their spouse if they want a divorce, routinely test weapons in populated areas and flight paths, and insist that any child born female be surgically modified to a male? I agree with Ed, there has to be a limit.It would honestly make a lot more sense to me if the Moclans were the Klingons of The Orville universe – I mean, they ARE, to be sure, but in terms of their relationship with the Union. Allies, and uneasy ones at best, with Bortus posted to a Union ship as part of some diplomatic exchange. It would help explain why Bortus and Klyden STILL don’t appear to understand life aboard a Union ship, why no one on the ship really appears to have any concept of Moclan culture or even prior exposure to other Moclans, and why the Admiralty appears to keep cutting them breaks.
This is an excellent point.
The Federation has standards for its members; the Planetary Union should have similar standards. Also, it is inconceivable that Ed and Kelly wouldn’t even know the details of the Moclan culture. To me that’s a hole in the writing.
Also, the ease with which Ed got the admiral to agree to let him handle the matter without imposing Union disiciplinary standards was kind of cheesy. It’s like the “I’ll allow this” gag that both The Simpsons and Family Guy have mocked, the practice that allows televised trials to diverge ridiculously from real trial practice.
I would have prefered a long, in-depth discussion of how the Union deals with diverse cultures aboard its ships, similar to Picard’s discussions with various admirals on similar issues. Actually, I thought that Kelly’s comment about the limits of tolerance was going to lead us to such an examination; so I was disappointed when it didn’t happen.
Anyway, let’s hope that the Bortus/Klyden storyline is put to the side for a while. (Honestly, if the show had more courage, it would have allowed them to break up.)
Turkey came quite close to being in the EU for a country that quickly descended into one-party totalitarianism. Romania’s passage of an “employers can demand employees do so much unpaid overtime it’s virtually slavery” legislation is also out of place in the EU. It’s easy to see how the Planetary Union might have looked at the Moclans and said “well this is a species we really really really want in the Union… sure there’s some problematic elements in their culture, but those are so rare they’re practically statistically insignificant, and maybe if they’re exposed to other Union cultures they’ll grow out of that stuff more quickly!”Andorians and Vulcans had some “rarely invoked” cultural practices (like duels to the death) that definitely don’t fit with the supposed precepts of the Federation, and they were founding members!
Good points. But this doesn’t explain Ed’s and Kelly’s and Dr. Finn’s ignorance of the Moclan divorce practices. In the situations that you mention, all parties know what they are agreeing to when they enter into an alliance.
Themiscyra does kind of address this, and it goes all the way back to “Balance of Terror”. Vulcan was an unknown world that was new to the Federation, and Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet. That’s why things like pon farr were such a surprise. You can say that the Fed or the Union did a lousy job of vetting, yes, but the Klingons in TNG filled the same role, so let’s just admit it’s a handy device for the writers to introduce stuff for the built-in “they do THAT?” effect, as long as they don’t overdo it too much.
Once again, Ed, though, is shown to be an ineffective and compromised captain. Bortus betrayed HIS trust, using him as a shield for his dalliances, which we are to believe is somehow balanced by his being of use during an emergency (that he had a huge part in causing), so it’s all OK? If a Krill HAS found its way onto the ship, as some have surmised after last week, this had better be re-visited. Right now, Ed has no one he can really trust except for Isaac, and he doesn’t seem to notice that.
The Vulcans of all people sanction fights to the death for marriage disputes. And I don’t think the Andorians and Tellarites are squeaky clean either. So it’s not as if the Federation is the bastion of purity “Star Trek” wants us to think it is. Now, maybe they are the exception to the Federation standard because they are founding members. So it’s hard to judge the Union for accepting a stabby race like the Moclans. On the other hand, given that the Moclans are a hyper-industrial race specializing in weapons manufacturing I suppose the Union might be looking the other way a bit so in order to supply guns to their ships and colonies cheaper.
Maybe they just prefer the Moclans inside pissing out than outside pissing in. You don’t want the guys making weapons join your enemy.
Probably the same reason the Krogans are part of the alliance in Mass Effect. Their warfare skills outweigh the negatives.
The Klingons eventually joined the Federation.So, there you go.I could blather on endlessly about all the crazy things the Federation allows in TNG, I mean Betazoids alone haven’t aged particularly well to 2018 given their incredibly invasive, degrading powers, should they choose to use them, just being a-okay in the Federation.
To be fair, the Union doesn’t appear to be anywhere near as established as the Federation is, despite the TNG aesthetics. I may be wrong, but just reading between the lines, I gather that they’ve only been a formal organization for a decade or so, which may help explain why people aren’t really familiar with the various cultures.
I’m thinking the Planetary Union is a lot less structured than we’re all expecting it to be as a stand-in for the Federation. More like the UN than a government unto itself. Just a bunch of planets (usually) at peace with each other, probably having trade relations, maybe embassies, and protected by (or at least able to call upon for aid) a communal fleet of ships in return for letting the ships travel through their territory.
Gotta say firstly that I have liked the show very much and have been awaiting its new season to begin, but this episode with Bortus and his Wife was a total killer for me — sick, sick sick —just totally unappealing in the way it was presented and for that matter, WHY was it brought about on this show in the first place? I’m not a prude by any means, but c’mon already — who wants to see crap like Bortus doing the nasty with other men — Really, sorry to see this crap happen on a show that I looked forward to returning this season — guess I won’t bother watching again. In closing, I’m a big fan of Seth McFarland and always have been and I began watching solely because of his involvement with the show, but this episode grossed me out and such scenarios are not what a fan would expect to watch on futuristic oriented entertainment. Seriously, with all the B.S. we see on a daily basis of entertainers being bashed for making comments about other peoples life styles and all the politically correct idiots out there that scream about everyone else rights and don’t call me names — who wants to see this crap on what would offer us an escape into the future with science and a bit of comic relief thrown in — up until this broadcast I was a dedicated fan — Sorry Seth, people really don’t want to see crap like that, guess I won’t be tuning in anymore
sweet! now you have an extra 40mins in the week to deal with your sexual hangups!
I give them big credit for fitting a story into an hour-long ep. All these shows with are soap operas dragging shit out forever are so annoying.
But they had to have ‘60 TV SF writing to make it work. Hinge the plot on anyone can pop any non-certified code into a starship’s computers—uh-huh, sure. Like that would ever happen.
Loved it, as always.The best “joke” of the night for me was near the start where Bordus goes “You must eat, or you will die” when his kid didn’t want to eat his breakfast. He just gives the kid a straight up fact and I found it hilarious for some reason.
My favorite line was “hone your bone.”
Favorite line: “Is there an injection?” “You’ve already had enough injections!” Big flaw in the dialog, though: Bortus refers to sex as a baby seeking it’s mothers’ teat but Moclans are all-male so this makes no sense. Also, everyone had radiation suits on except the leader’s mate and child who went out without them. I get that it’s more emotional seeing them talk to each other without two of them in a suit, but still ….
“It’s nice to know that as
different as we are, in a lot of ways, we’re very much the same.”Umm, it sounds like you are talking about real aliens not creations of writers with a limited personal perspectives.
The fact that anyone on the ship can walk in on your “holodeck” porn fantasy seems pretty inconvenient.
It is odd that most of the aliens on the show speak like modern day bros, but I have to say, from that ONE alien, especially with the “Nah man. It’s cool.” dismissal of his drug dealing attempt, was entertaining as hell. Maybe “hearing” that dialogue from an alien that’s SO alien made it better. (Plus Dann’s “Hi, I’m Dann” to the Maclan orgy guys was also pretty entertaining).And you’re right about the look… especially the glow of Isaac’s eyes (and belly button?) and Bortus’ suit as they slowly exited the EVC.
Glad that they didn’t show this episode last season; Topa is already looking like a 4-6 year old, which, yes, yada-yada alien species, but still… that growth spurt would have been WAY to abrupt to happen last season.
As far as the porn addiction… I figure given their humans aren’t that much more morally advanced then ours, it simply works the same. I’m sure their are a ton of folx in the future addicted to their holo-porn… and because of that they don’t make it as a Union officer. That Union Officers have, for the most part, found the balance, but like Reginald Barclay, every once and a while they have bad periods where they succumb.
Liked this ep a lot better than last week’s. Still want this show to find the balance between humor and being a legit Star Trek homage. Also would love to get a better idea on how these humans were able to lift themselves out of our pettiness and get up into space.
I’ll be “that guy” and say I flipped through this after watching “Escape at Dannemora” and holy fuck what a stupid show this is. Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? I tuned in as the two hulking dudes were in therapy and was just amazed this is on TV (and with a second season to boot!) I flipped away and came back and one of the hulking dudes was asking some alien about porn. What a laugh riot. This show offends me more than Big Bang Theory. That is all.
You must rewatch all of Season One before commenting. But yep, you’re right.
It’s pretty fucking bad, yeah
Its like they decided to take all the worst parts of early tng and forgot to make it a parody
That shuttle could have held more than 30 people. Did anyone notice all the extra space in it? Unless it was an issue of too much take-off weight instead of actual physical space.
Was it ever actually stated that the program was illegal? I’ve seen a few places refer to it as ‘illegal porn’ but I think it was just procured from a dodgy source and came with a virus rather than the content itself being illegal?
I like this season better than the first one, but it’s weird and distracting that most of the characters are now written exactly like Brian from Family Guy.
The more important question is; if you knew your planet was about to shit the bed in 100 years (and they did), why the fuck would you have children?
Somewhere in the venn diagram overlap of Discovery and Orville there is an actual Star Trek show but neither one is it. Seth can’t stop making dick jokes and Discovery can’t remember that Star Trek is about optimism.
I know this is really nit-picky, but if time is of the essence and people shouldn’t be exposed to the radiation from the sun, why in the world wasn’t the shuttle parked with its back door facing the hatch?
I guess I’m pleased The Orville has chosen to explore the questions that have crossed my mind countless times since the mid-90’s: 1. Everyone must use the holodeck for porn, right? 2. How do people keep from doing so all the time? This is one of those pop culture questions that becomes a lot less interesting and a lot more grating whenever someone tries to build a story around it. I mean, okay, sure, everything is boners, everything is cum, Superman’s wad would destroy the entire back half of Lois Lane, all right, we get it, write a Family Guy joke about it, you’ve said it all, bury it in a nameless grave
It kind of bothered me how slooooow everything was while evacuating the planet. Once Isaac and Bortus clear the airlock, they have to walk awhile to find the people who haven’t even gotten their radiation suits out yet. Why the hell weren’t they waiting at the gate and pouring out the instant Isaac opened it?Also: Bortus never had a pizza guy scenario, I was waiting for that.
You can feel the Family Guy style set ups all over the place with this show. But then the show (Orville’s “thing” or their angle/take on the genre) swerves. Then when they swerve, they either land on unexpected poignancy (frequently – which is nice) or they simply just swerve off the road. Like with the last episode where the set up seemed headed toward some sort of urine-splash pay off, this episode seemed like it was heading toward a point where the computer virus wouldn’t let go of the ship until it had completed its programming: “Captain, the only way to regain control of the ship is for these virtual Moclans to sexually gratify their target!”“Okay Bortus, you need to take one for the team. Get down there and register exquisite pleasure within the next 6 minutes or we all die!”“Sir, this is something I cannot achieve in 6 minutes.”“5 minutes, Captain!”“Bortus, why not?”“I am spent, Captain. Maybe if I could drink an energy shake or something…”“Well, somebody has to register orgasm in the simulator in the next 5 minutes or we’re all toasted!”“Captain! Dan is down here, he’s disrobbing.”“That’s great, John! Tell him to hurry it up okay?”(muffled pleasure sounds heard over the com)“Captain … I … Oh my God. Whoa. Goddamn! I can’t believe what I’m seeing here.”“John? Are they close? John?”(Com whispering) “the horror … the … horror.”- Or some such punchline -Maybe: “Oh, the humanity!”Or: “My eyes! Some of it got in my eyes! It’s all over the place! Yuk. But yeah, we’re good.”
“Bortus, if you pee, you’ll save them all!”“Sorry, Captain, we Moclans only pee once a year, you know that very well…”Aliens are not saved. The end.
Issac: “Captain, I’ve reconfigured all food replicators to accept sexual gratification, including the one here on the bridge. The Moclan computer virus will cease the moment anyone registers pleasure into any one of these appliances throughout the ship.”
Wow, you definitely should not write for TV
I thought they would have at least had Dan get rejected by the holo-Moclans. Poor guy can’t get any even in the holodeck.
The Orville pre-writes all its own fan-fic porn.
Episode two about alien porn was dreadful. I was like what happened to this show. McFarlene said there is going to be way more sex on season two? WHY.I thought this was a fun tongue in cheek comedy, more along the lines of Galaxy Quest. This last episode was a total turn off. I will not watch it if they go this route. It was gross and just strange.
Galaxy Quest managed its humor very well, something this show isn’t. Are writers afraid to say no to MacFarlane, or are they complicit with the unfunny humor? All that is missing is a laughtrack.
I agree with you 100%
NITPICK ALERT: A crew of three hundred and no shrink? To be honest, I was expecting all 75 aliens to be rescued SOMEHOW. One shuttle craft? Isn’t that what captains do? Solve problems? Or does this one just sit on the bridge and nothing else?
One shuttlecraft …
I’m assuming Dr. Finn is also qualified to do some light shrinking in addition to being a medical doctor. You know, marriage counseling, that sort of thing. But if someone has a complete psychotic break, they probably get popped into a stasis pod until the Orville arrives at the nearest planet or space station with a full psychiatric facility.
No empath on this ship? Ha!
You WANT the Orville to crash??
Isn’t Dr. Finn supposed to be some Super-Duper Whiz-Dang Top of Her Field Chief Medical Officer who’s so valuable to the PU that she can pick her ship assignments, and only picks those where she judges her help is required? I vaguely remember that originally causing some friction between her and Capt. Mercer, who assumed she’d come aboard because she believed him to be a Four-Star Fuckup…. If she’s as good as I remember her supposedly being, it’s likely she’s able to handle Ship Counseling as well as Regular Medical issues.THE ORVILLE only has a crew of 300, which is about double the crew of a nuclear submarine or a Destroyer, and 1/20th the crew of an aircraft carrier…and a third less populous than the ST:TOS ENTERPRISE when Kirk was commanding! It’s unlikely the ship has a Psychologist/Trained Counselor, and far more likely somebody in the Medical Staff was to do double duty as that.
I’m not trying to be mean to anyone because everyone has different tastes, yet I can’t understand how people can take this show seriously. I don’t think this is a matter of a good idea executed in a mediocre way. I seriously think this show is the worst creation I have seen by any standard. I watched one episode from season one, and now I saw episode 2 from season 2. I can’t believe anyone green lit this show. I just don’t get it. Its not pulpy like Dr. Who. Its not dramatic. The show’s main arc revolved around a couple’s problems in the bedroom. If this had been done in a conventional show set in 2019, it would be laughable. Why is the fact that is takes place aboard a space ship make it interesting? Can someone explain the appeal of this show? I’m with the critics on this one. I just can’t see why anyone would watch this. Nothing original going on anywhere. What is the appeal? What even makes in Sci Fi other than the setting? I think Asimov, Bradbury, Ellison, and Dick among other writers would find this ridiculous. If anyone can explain the appeal, I’m all ears.
I enjoyed the first series of The Orville but I’m finding the sniggering blokey humour quite irritating so far this season. It’s been a lot of the Data-substitute and the Worf-substitute, and heavy on the bodily functions, men looking for sex and schoolboy humour. Also, it seems like they have remembered about the holodeck after the dating scenarios last week and sex addiction this – Voyager had Seven dating, in the excellent ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ and addiction (with less sex just about, thankfully!) in the less successful ‘Human Error’.
One thing I do like about this show is that when there’s a Command-type decision to make (like what to do with Bortus), both Mercer and Grayson show up to hear what’s happening and to render a decision. I don’t know why because in some ways it means your two most senior staff are off dealing with a problem rather than one staying on the bridge, but it feels more like a collaborative command style that makes Kelly as much the CO as Ed.
Also, Adrianne Palicki remains a far more convincing Captain than Seth McFarlane, though this season he’s a bit less awful than he was before.
(Emphasis below is mine), I recently rewatched the first season and remembered this from the pilot as Ed was doing a “Roll Call” after addressing the crew.
Penny J[14] as Doctor Claire Finn, the chief medical officer on the Orville, holding the rank of lieutenant commander.
A physician of exceptional credentials, she has expertise in molecular
surgery, DNA engineering and psychiatry, which could have afforded her
the privilege of serving on the heavy cruiser of her choice. She instead
chose the mid-level exploratory vessel because, as she explains to
Mercer in the pilot, she prefers to request her transfers based on where
she feels she is needed, as she feels more stimulated by such
assignments. When she tells Mercer she felt he could use her help on his
first command, he interprets this as lack of confidence on her part in
his competence, though she denies this.[13]
Having never found the ideal opportunity to marry, she chose to become a
single mother, and her two sons, Marcus and Ty, travel aboard the Orville with her.[15] She repeatedly rebuffs Lt. Yaphit’s advances,[16][17] though they become physically intimate in “Cupid’s Dagger” after falling victim to a Retepsian sex pheromone.[18]
The part I had the biggest problem with is that Bortus takes a fatal knife would to the heart, gets popped in to a TSA scanner and is “all better” in ten minutes without a drop of blood. So apparently you can hardly die on the Orville if you wanted to, so that pretty much squelches a lot of dramatic turns. Oh, and half the ship’s hull was burned off in deep space, but no problem there either. It’s just lazy writing and editing.
I don’t get why they just assumed the beings on the planet were humanoid. They could have been a verbal group of hamster sized aliens or all of them the size of a house – they just assumed humanoid- they never saw them until they got there.
This was my nitpick as well. There is some random, underground-dwelling species on this random, remote planet and … they’re humanoids? Why?
“Hi, I’m Dann”
I found it interesting that TOS first pilot/The Cage had escape into fantasy as the greatest danger to the Federation, and TNG had it, as the Holideck, as an employee perq.
I’m really enjoying this show overall, but this episode….yikes. If there was ever a case for “what happens in the holodeck/simulator stays there” it’s this. I can appreciate what they were trying to do here, and I’m no prude but I could have gone the rest of my life happily not knowing exactly what kind of kinky shit Bortus is into. Those scenes weren’t nearly as funny as the writer(s) seem to think – I found them a little creepy to be honest. And, if they hadn’t spent so much time on those stupid scenes they could have had time to give the inability to save everyone on the dying planet the narrative weight it deserved.
I’m an addict myself
I think it is quite a deep exploration of porn addiction and how it can cause negative consequences for other people in your life. As someone who had gone through porn addiction, Bortis’ talk with Isaac on the shuttle as they approach the planet was some of the most pertinent writing I’ve seen on ant show, and if I’m honest almost made me cry (and that take a a lot).“It is a call, deep within, like a baby seeking its mothers teet. It feels as if nothing else in the world matters but satisfying the urge and achieving the goal my body has demanded of me. Then as quickly as it began, it is complete, leaving a worn out shell in its wake. And the only feeling I am left with, the only thing I know is, that a death has occurred.”