By my own biases, I’m predisposed toward reviewing a television show more favorably if it features a cavern of skulls. But even if tonight’s episode, “Identity”, didn’t feature a seemingly infinite necropolis of human remains, it would still be one of the best episodes of the entire series. It had lots of small character moments, some really stunning set pieces, sharp dialog, legitimate questions about our projection of our humanity, and an actual, well-deserved cliffhanger. The Orville has a tendency to occasionally rush its ending. It’s a common problem with television pacing, and hardly unique to this show —but as things kept escalating closer and closer to the end of the hour, I worried that all the tension and build-up would be washed away with some sort of button press and hand-waving explanation. So when the “to be continued” flashed against the halo of Kaylon death spheres flying toward earth with the Orville at the lead, I was relieved that we get another episode to see how
this whole intergalactic army of murderous robots thing will play out.
It’s understood that we anthropomorphize everything: Animals, our most beloved possessions, our most hated possessions. It’s just a natural extension of our humanity to cast ourselves onto the world around us. And granted it’s not a huge stretch to project human traits onto Isaac. He’s humanoid, speaks well-mannered English, he came here specifically to learn about our humanity, and he holds his arms exactly like C-3PO, who is very emotional for a robot. But it has always been an open question how much, if any, of our mannerisms and quirks may have ingrained themselves into his programming. Because it bears repeating, unlike other androids who crew well-lit exploratory space vessels, Isaac has no desire to become more human. His best character trait is his absolute unwavering certainty that there’s not a whole lot about humanity worth assimilating. But then Isaac’s deepening relationship with Dr. Claire suggests, if not a change in his logic, then a reinterpretation of how that logic manifests and how there may be an underlying utility to empathy and interpersonal connection. I don’t think I’m going wild with the speculation to say that’s going to prove to be the case with next week’s conclusion to “Identity”, and Isaac will ultimately choose his lovable gang of goofy meat friends —but Marc Jackson does a good job of portraying Isaac so inscrutably, you never truly know how he processes his experiences on board the ship.
Dr. Claire presents to both her children that she and Isaac are dating, which earns an enthusiastic “Yay!” from the younger Ty and a more nonchalant “I knew it.” from the older Marcus. It was sweet how both the kids had positive reactions to the news. But the moment Dr. Claire and Isaac’s relationship goes public, Isaac flickers out and drops to the floor, completely inert. Without any of the technology or know-how to diagnose Isaac, (“Picture your mom trying to hook up a stereo.”, as Ed explains to Admiral Halsey), the ship gets permission to take Isaac to Kaylon 1 in order to seek help from his people. The scene where the Orville descends into the planet was the most gorgeous establishing scenes the show has created, despite Bortus’ insistence that the planet is “…not so impressive.” The towers emerging from above roiling layers of cumulus clouds evokes Star Wars’ Bespin, and even the living above the earth futurism of The Jetsons, which is kind of appropriate, given the Kaylon’s kitschy, 50’s sci-fi appearance. That awe-inspiring circuit board cityscape gives way to a barely repurposed office lobby interior where the team finally meets other members of Isaac’s race. I don’t know if it’s meant to be unsubtle foreshadowing that the other Kaylons all glow red instead of Isaac’s icy blue, or if it’s just a simple way of making sure his character remained distinguishable from the rest. I was hoping we’d get to see other varieties of Kaylons specialized for different jobs, but that’s probably not realistic for the show’s budget. On speaking with Kaylon Prime, the crew finds out Isaac simply amassed enough data from his time aboard the Orville to satisfy the parameters of his mission and was thus deactivated. Perhaps others have been more suspicious of Isaac’s vague diplomatic mission, but I’ve always just taken it at face value, as little as there was ever presented about it. But finally seeing the place Isaac came from, everything feels infused with a bit more menace than you would expect, even from a place as devoid of hospitality as a robot planet. The crew request Isaac be reactivated, and the Kaylons promise to look over the data he provided to decide whether or not they want to join the Union.
Dr. Claire is rightfully upset that Isaac won’t be returning to the ship, but she is unable to sway his decision. So the crew throws him a goodbye party. Isaac quotes Sally Field’s Oscar acceptance speech, then walks off and casts aside a picture Ty drew of him together with his family. In the process of trying to return the picture to Isaac, Ty bumbles his way to the catacombs beneath the city and discovers the endless ocean of bones that used to be the planet’s organic population. As it turns out, the Kaylons were made by the former planet’s inhabitants, but things didn’t work out super-well and as these things often do between robots and their flawed creators, break out into genocide. The Kaylons won the war, and no humanoids remain. The crew discovers this at the same time as they notice the rapid construction of a series of weaponized spheres on the planet’s surface. The purpose of the spheres becomes clear when Kaylon Prime informs the Orville that just like their own creators, the organic inhabitants of the galaxy will try and stop the Kaylons evolution. It’s a zero-sum game and therefore, humanity must be destroyed. And if a cave of bones weren’t hardcore enough, a bunch of Kaylons sprout guns from their heads and move to board the Orville.
We haven’t really seen anything like tonight’s climax on the series before with multiple lethal skirmishes taking place all over the ship. The crew members manage to take out a Kaylon here and there, but the loss is irrelevant in light of the seemingly limitless number of troops that continue to clomp aboard. The ship’s survivors are all gathered into the docking bay, as a team of Kaylons —Isaac among them— helm the Orville and direct it toward earth. Will the Kaylons succeed in destroying our beloved home planet? Will Isaac revolt against the cold, uncaring logic of his species and join us in wallowing in our capricious, often destructive emotions? Tune in next week to find out!
Stray Observations
- While it’s much less flashy than landing on Kaylon 1, the simulation Ty goes to find comfort in was another great scene. With the lone tree in a vast, verdant field, it demonstrates a slightly more engaging visual composition than we see on what is otherwise a very blocky show.
- Isaac’s parting sentiment toward Ty and Marcus: “I have no doubt you shall grow to be competent and productive adults.”
- Not getting a corner piece with a flower on it really wrecked Bortus’ ability to enjoy the farewell party.
- Is the robot invasion of the Orville more or less scary because the Kaylons are so unfrightening? The Borg were super freaky, at least in part because they also turn you into Borg, but is it scary when the danger comes from a seemingly endless number of Mego action figure-looking assailants? I’d say either yes or no is legitimate.
- This is unrelated to the show, but my local news affiliate kept running a chyron for their top story throughout the episode tonight, which was “A ‘Ruff’ Morning for Two Dogs”. I’m mad at them and mad at the world.
250 Comments
I wish my Mom thought a B+ was fantastic……
agree, this was “A game” if I ever saw it brung
yeah, I think someone is grading on the curve.
Couldn’t the Kaylons simply have sent him a message telling him to come home? Just turning him off seemed unnecessarily dramatic.Why would the whole ship land? Don’t they usually just send a shuttle? Especially since the Kaylons didn’t specify.If the Kaylons need more room to expand maybe they should clean out all those bone caves. Seems silly that they wouldn’t have just disintegrated the remains.
Couldn’t the Kaylons simply have sent him a message telling him to come home? Just turning him off seemed unnecessarily dramatic.He is a machine that served his purpose, so the Kaylons deactivated him. They knew the crew would respond by coming to Kaylon 1 for help, which is what they wanted.Why would the whole ship land? Don’t they usually just send a shuttle? Especially since the Kaylons didn’t specify.The Kaylons gave them landing coordinates. The message likely implied what was to be landed at those coordinates, because the message itself would have needed to specify the coordinates being given were for landing. I mean, it isn’t like you can just give someone coordinates and expect them to know what the coordinates are for, unless you tell them.If the Kaylons need more room to expand maybe they should clean out all those bone caves. Seems silly that they wouldn’t have just disintegrated the remains.I’m not sure what people aren’t getting about this. I’m not calling you out specifically on this, but I’ve seen more than a few people say this.
They aren’t just trying to expand. They stated their home planet is no longer conducive to their evolution; specifically because there is no more information to accrue from their planet. They need to move somewhere where they can accumulate more information, but at the same time, they view the continued existence of organic life as incompatible with their own existence. Therefore, they need to both expand, and to go where organic life is, and end it.
The ship seems similar in size and shape to Voyager, meaning that it can land or at least hover, without it being too awkward.
I think they probably deactivated Isaac in the hopes of the Orville coming there, so they could commandeer it and use any of its security codes/databanks against the Union.
army of murderous robotsI think the technical term you’re looking for is “Murderbots”.
Killbots.And there’s only one man in the universe capable of stopping them: 25-star General Zapp Brannigan.
A gaggle of Murderbots?
It has to be a Murder of Murderbots, right?
It’s only a murder if they can fly.
If they are ground based, it’s a cornucopia.
Robotron?
An overclock of murderbots.A Pentium of kill bots is also acceptable.
Fun book series, btw!
Talk about having a Headcannon.I can’t believe the Kaylon’s are both the Geth and Reapers from Mass Effect. (Just kidding, I can)I also can’t believe how good Isaac and Claire are at getting me all emotional.
I thought exactly the same thing about the Geth/Reapers connection. I think some of it might have been an intentional homage to them. Like the whole machines rising up against their builders thing (albeit in a far more horrifying way), and the way the Kaylons talked about organics being primitive and unable to understand them seemed to be really similar to the Geth and Reapers, respectively. I’m also pretty sure that one of the voices of the Kaylons is also a voice in Mass Effect.
I doubt it, robots overthrow masters is a very common premise. And plus they probably would have homaged Battlestar Galactica before Mass Effect.
“they probably would have homaged Battlestar Galactica before Mass Effect”I don’t know Mass Effect, but doesn’t the similarity between “Kaylon” and “Cylon” count for anything?
Probably
I instantly thought “A planet where Skynet won?” but I like the term Polite Daleks that somebody used uppthread better.
Is no one going to mention the singing? Was it real? If so, it was awesome.
Totally real. Scott Grimes has a damn good singing voice. He also does the voice of Steve Smith on American Dad where his singing talent is occasionally displayed.
He’s also great at get fuck-me eyes from English MILF laundresses:
He was Malarkey!? Wow, it has been a while since I’ve watched BoB.
I’ve been trying to find a place to watch it that isn’t Youtube Red Premium.Also, why am I greyed out in a reply to TO A COMMENT I MADE THAT WAS IN BLACK LAST NIGHT?!?
Holy shit he’s also the kid from Critters!
Damned Yanks: over-paid, over-sexed, and over HERE.
Also, he and Adrian Palicky, from The Orville, are getting married.
Right! Gorgeous voice!
Someone needs to answer that, if not, best lip syncing Ever!
I remember Googling Scott Grimes last year (I was not familiar with any of his work before The Orville) and came across lots of videos of him singing—he’s incredible!
Like, who else can flawlessly pull off Queen like this.
They really tried to “Best of Both Worlds” this cliffhanger. Even the music is reminiscent of a Trek cliffhanger.And if only the Kaylons had studied enough earth culture to have watched Guardians of the Galaxy. They could have learned from Ego’s mistake and not put their mass graves in such an easily accessible place.But they’re going to be defeated by computer viruses from the porn alien, aren’t they?
Also, this kind felt more like a Stargate episode. The Kaylons are very reminiscent of the replicators, especially the ones on Atlantis. They have the same silly fashion sense and they both built a fleet of warships to wipe out humans across the galaxy.And it’s about time that Scott Grimes got to sing.
I haven’t seen the episode yet, but if ever there was a cliffhanger to emulate or aspire to it’s Best of Both Worlds.
Best cliffhanger that hasn’t been topped since.
That was one loooong summer break!
In the UK, SKY bought the broadcast rights to TNG after the BBC had been showing them. If you couldn’t afford SKY (like me) it was an 18 month wait before the second part was shown
Who shot mister burns was pretty good.
Well, if we’re including cartoons, then why stop with American.
End of Code Geass season 1 is awesome.
It would be great if the porn episode were done in order to set up that solution.
But they’re going to be defeated by computer viruses from the porn alien, aren’t they?
Please, please take my money …
“And it’s about time that Scott Grimes got to sing.”It’s funny how people go on about how different Discovery and Orville are, yet they keep doing similar things.
But they’re going to be defeated by computer viruses from the porn alien, aren’t they?
Yes…yes they are. I’m betting a million dollars that either that Moclan engineer came back to hide on the ship, or Klyden is going to write a virus to infect them.
I think they wanted them to find the skulls so they would be confronted and they would have the most important crew members in one spot. They probably did see GotG, and that’s where they got the idea.They also probably have seen Independence Day, so the porn virus won’t work.
First of all, kindly stop referring to Dr. Finn as “Dr. Claire”.Anyway, the episode was beautifully executed. It nevertheless left me with plenty of questions.If the Kaylons needed another planet to conquer, why would they pick Earth, which is so far away? Earth is far enough from Kaylon that Admiral Halsey said that the Orville would be out of contact with the Union, and that it would be the only Union ship in the area. (No word on what Uncle Albert thought.) Indeed, why would the Kaylons even need a “Class M” planet (or whatever the Planetary Union equivalent to that Federation classification is)? If they wanted more room, they could just have occupied the next planet in their own star system, or else a planet in a neighbouring star system.The Kaylons could not have had designs on conquering Earth, since they weren’t expecting the Orville — it was mentioned that the planetary defence system came within a second of destroying the ship.This raises the question of what the Kaylons expected would happen once they deactivated Isaac. If they were surprised at the Orville’s arrival, this suggests that they didn’t need Isaac’s presence, since they had already received his reports.And how could people from the Orville (first Ty; later Bortus and Talla; ultimately Ed and Kelly) walk around the Kaylon complex without being detected?Furthermore, what makes the Kaylons think that they will be able to take over the Earth with one starship and a few hundred personnel?Finally, after the Kaylons seized the Orville, why didn’t they kill the crew, especially if they intend to kill billions of humans on Earth?The episode demonstrated once again the Union’s lack of preparation: they have no idea how an individual Kaylon works, just as they had no clue about the details of Moclan culture.And how is Captain Mercer authorised to withdraw the offer of Union membership? Perhaps all of these holes are down to the writers’ inexperience at creating an integrated canon within a fictional universe. Still, I remain enthralled by this show; and I eagerly await the conclusion of this two-parter.
And how could people from the Orville (first Ty; later Bortus and Talla; ultimately Ed and Kelly) walk around the Kaylon complex without being detected?That was another thing I was going to add to my list but forgot. I guess you could chalk it up to arrogance, them not caring if a bunch of biologicals wandered around without an escort. The bigger question for me was: DON’T ANY OF THE DOORS ON THE ORVILLE HAVE LOCKS?!? Seriously, I have aspirin bottles that are harder for a child to open.
That was another thing I was going to add to my list but forgot. I guess you could chalk it up to arrogance, them not caring if a bunch of biologicals wandered around without an escort. The bigger question for me was: DON’T ANY OF THE DOORS ON THE ORVILLE HAVE LOCKS?!? Seriously, I have aspirin bottles that are harder for a child to open.Door locks aren’t relevant, the Kaylons just override the systems. I mean, they managed to deactivate the entire ship, while it was in space, so they could scan it.
Yeah, I find it strange enough that kids can just waltz into the simulator without some kind of parental permission. But straight off the ship? That seems like a major flaw!
“DON’T ANY OF THE DOORS ON THE ORVILLE HAVE LOCKS?!?”The show established earlier in the episode that they could shut down anything on the Orville at will.
It seemed to me that maybe they were setting up that Isaac dropped the picture and then left various doors unlocked specifically to lure the kid & then the grownups looking for him to find that big cavern o skulls. No idea if they’re going to stick with his heel turn or reveal that he’s being coerced in some way, but that was my first thought.
certainly wasn’t mine but I admire your logic…my first thought was more along the lines of, “sure he may not have any of that emotional shit going on but if he’s so smart why would he do something he would clearly be able to know would be perceived as unusual & possible have negative repercussions if his study of humanity is complete to the standards of a superior intelligence?”…I mean, there must have been a wastepaper bin or equivalent receptacle somewhere…& the difference between dropping it & carrying it until he could leave it somewhere nobody would find strange, even if it’s just a table, is so negligible it just didn’t make sense to me…then again, I suppose we don’t know to what extent retaining it would have showed his fellow robot overlords too many cards when it came to their perception of whatever terran-o-phile tendencies his time with the union may have managed to instill…
Uncle Albert approves your comment 🙂
I don’t think they don’t need a planet like Earth, specifically. But they are convinced that all biologicals will attempt to impede their ‘evolution,’ and Earth is the seat of the Union, which they must feel is the biggest potential threat to their growth, so they feel it necessary to take it out. I think they deactivated Isaac in order to lure the Orville in, so they could use it’s security systems and databanks against the Union, too. Just like Isaac was lying about his purpose the whole time, Kaylon Prime was lying about not expecting the Orville’s arrival.
Very interesting. Maybe you’re right about the Kaylons’ desire to neutralise a big biological threat. (Though why don’t they go and fight the Krill?)
I am certain the Krill would be next. But they don’t have an inside man amongst the Krill and a Krill ship, that’s going to be a full out war either way. Makes sense to neutralize the target you have an advantage over first, and then use their resources against the one that will fight you either way.
They were catfished.
To answer a few of your points Ferdinand. The Kaylons didn’t need
an m class planet they targeted Earth because Isaac had been surrounded with
many humans and it is my guess that the humanoids they had concurred before are
most like us. The Kaylons see biologicals as a threat they will try to remove
that threat. The Kaylons stated that the founders were not compatible to live
with. This is the answer we expect to receive from a being that is devoid of
any feelings. Once anything becomes self-aware I would think the first thing
that would be important is self-preservation. This is something else the Kaylons stated in
that episode. Earthlings’ horrid history
of wars and issues do not paint a great picture of humanity. Earth is a main base for the Union. The
Kaylons are tech based life form it would be no problem form them to take over
Union networks, steal ships and use Earth as a deep space base for Kaylon replication
to form a new army. Distance from home is a supply risk for organic life forms
only. They can make what they need. They perceive no risk and sending machines
off to a far land. The Kaylons have demo stated that they have the ability to
build quickly. From there they would simply staff ships and send them out to
take over other union system. Being that they had taken over the Union network
it would be no problem for them to infiltrate security protocols and walk in to
whatever they wanted.
That is a good theory! Let’s see how things play out.
I wonder if there will be an alliance of necessity with the Krill? Or if the Krill might ally with the Kaylons? (Since they too want all other life forms to die…)But that maybe a bit too complicated for the Orville which doesn’t tend to do long term ongoing storyline’s like that. They’d have trouble squeezing that into an hour along with everything else.
If the Kaylons needed another planet to conquer, why would they pick Earth, which is so far away? Earth is far enough from Kaylon that Admiral Halsey said that the Orville would be out of contact with the Union, and that it would be the only Union ship in the area. (No word on what Uncle Albert thought.)Indeed, why would the Kaylons even need a “Class M” planet (or whatever the Planetary Union equivalent to that Federation classification is)? If they wanted more room, they could just have occupied the next planet in their own star system, or else a planet in a neighbouring star system.Occupying the next planet in their star system doesn’t resolve their view that organic intelligent life is a threat to their continued existence. They don’t need a “Class M” planet, they need to wipe out all life. They picked Earth specifically because it has been implied Earth is the capitol of the Union.
The Kaylons could not have had designs on conquering Earth, since they weren’t expecting the Orville — it was mentioned that the planetary defence system came within a second of destroying the ship.This raises the question of what the Kaylons expected would happen once they deactivated Isaac. If they were surprised at the Orville’s arrival, this suggests that they didn’t need Isaac’s presence, since they had already received his reports.They planned the whole thing. They deactivated Isaac because they knew it would bring the Orville to Kaylon 1. They had no intention of using the planetary defenses to destroy the ship, because they wanted to use the ship’s computer to access the rest of the information they required to designate Union targets.
And how could people from the Orville (first Ty; later Bortus and Talla; ultimately Ed and Kelly) walk around the Kaylon complex without being detected?Yeah, that one got me also. I’m assuming the Kaylons didn’t care, because the crew never had an advantage. The Kaylon’s could deactivate the Orville and kill the crew anytime they wanted, as where the crew could only take out a few Kaylons, which means nothing to a mechanical race that can simply rebuild the fallen.Furthermore, what makes the Kaylons think that they will be able to take over the Earth with one starship and a few hundred personnel?Because they already did it on their own planet. Captain Mercer says the catacombs all over Kaylon 1 seem to have BILLIONS of dead in them.Finally, after the Kaylons seized the Orville, why didn’t they kill the crew, especially if they intend to kill billions of humans on Earth?That’s a really good question. I’m confused about that as well. Perhaps they have reason to think the extermination will be more efficient if they have the crew as leverage.The episode demonstrated once again the Union’s lack of preparation: they have no idea how an individual Kaylon works, just as they had no clue about the details of Moclan culture.And how is Captain Mercer authorized to withdraw the offer of Union membership?It is nice to see the Union’s misplaced positive ideology bite them every once in a while.In the Star Trek universe, especially with the original series and TNG, there were were too many times where the Federation manages to jump into a full blown catastrophe, and an impassioned plea from Kirk or Picard somehow manages to convince an alien race to overturn their entire culture in favor of Earth’s principles.
I don’t think it was necessarily that they were planning to conquer Earth so much as they were going to get rid of something that could be a threat to their expansion. They also had dozens of those giant sphere ship things so it wasn’t just the Orville and a few hundred personnel. I was also wondering why they didn’t just eliminate all of the crew, though.Maybe this isn’t a “real” invasion at all. The Kaylons want to know how secure the Union is and if it truly will band together to protect itself against a superior threat or fall apart when things get too difficult. They have no emotions so they don’t see anything wrong with potentially killing millions of people just to determine if the Union is genuinely worth allying with. I don’t know if I would find that unsatisfying or if the idea of an entire race willing to commit near genocide to prove a point is also kind of scary on its own.
“the idea of an entire race willing to commit near genocide to prove a point”point: “We didn’t like him because he was BLACK, okay? It had nothing to do with income inequality or economic anxiety, and especially not his actions or policy, because we don’t even follow reality news — we have no idea what ‘Hussein’ actually did as president. The melanated must die!”
Thanks for pointing out the many other ships that the Kaylons launched.
Also, the idea that maybe this is some kind of test of the Union is an intriguing one.
“Furthermore, what makes the Kaylons think that they will be able to take over the Earth with one starship and a few hundred personnel?”
They don’t have just one starship with personnel, they are flying/voyaging an entire fleet to Earth, all those pods shot off and have armament on them (via the preview). Additionally, they are going to Earth because the see the Union as an eventual threat, and Earth is the home/headquarters of the Union.
Right! They did have a whole fleet with them. Thanks for the reminder.
Since we’re asking questions, since there’s no sign of any organic life on the planet, what’s making that nice breathable atmosphere, and why would the Kaylons need it? It’s not like they’re overly concerned about visitors. As a leftover from when there was organic life, all that reactive oxygen would eventually be consumed one way or another, putting a fairly short time limit on how long ago the Kaylons overthrew their organic masters.
How does Coruscant manage to support life when its an entire world thats essentially a city?
That’s a different situation, because Coruscant has to keep a planetful of organic inhabitants supplied with breathable air, not to mention fed, watered and their various organic processes dealt with. I’m sure there’s some bit of technomagic they could whip up to do it, but the real question with the Kaylons is, what does a planet inhabited by robots need with an oxygen rich atmosphere?
You have a great question about the oxygen, might I suggest that oxygen is still being produced by plankton in whatever is left of an ocean and/or giant lakes of Kaylon 1. I don’t think that the Kaylons would deliberately kill off all other biological lifeforms after humanoids because that would be a waste of their time. But, as Kylons grew in number and expanded across their world, the environmental damage caused by their expanison could cause a massive extinction event and collapse the world ecosystem.I would like to know why Kaylon 1 is almost totally covered in clouds??? Are the clouds the remnats of a weapon the humaniods of Kaylon used to try to destroy the robots a la the Matrix???
I assume by design & mechanical enterprise given that it’s intended to support a lot of different respiratory systems & their preferred ambient conditions…a solely mechanical world like this (or wherever transformers hail from, I guess) wouldn’t seem to have a need for a hospitable atmosphere…it’s always struck me as a reason it’s odd skynet goes for the judgement day approach rather than just poisoning the bits of the environment that support life as we know it…less flashy but much more effective & impatience strikes me as both unseemly & counter-intuitive in sentient machines given they’re generally written as being essentially immune to the forces of entropy somehow…
Quick reply: Why Earth? Because Earth is the seat of power of the Union, and they’re flying a Union Trojan Horse (The Orville) to get in there and destabilize the entire Union. From Earth, they will be able to more successfully wage war against the other species in the Union.
Fans having discussions like this prove that The Orville has truly proven itself among Trek fans 🙂
The points that werent answered in the show was how why they didn’t kill the crew and how they could walk around without anyone noticing.As for why they needed to go to Eart, it isn’t about the distance but rather Earth being in the Union makes it an obvious choice since they are mentioned to be ever expanding so need more than the one planet as in the whole union.The planetary defence was a ruse and it was a set up all the time.They aren’t going to take over Earth with one ship, it showed at the the end when countless ships (or possibly drones ?) swarmed behind the ship as it lifted into the sky.
Buh? Did we watch the same show? They have no intention of conquering Earth, the ships were described as incredibly devastating weapons, they’re going to glass the freaking planet.And probably all others.
Bear in mind most of your objections are covered by the advanced aliens “testing” humanity trope. (The organians)
Did you see who the writers for this episode were? Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky, two LONG-TIME writers of the various Star Trek series. By this point in their careers, there should be no excuse for plot holes.
Wow! I did not see that! Those are two expert Star Trek writers; and they wrote what I consider to be the greatest thing that Star Trek ever did, the epic Voyager two-part episode “Equinox”. So perhaps we can be confident that there will be good explanations for all of these questions.
Yes, because if there’s one thing Brannon Braga’s Star Trek episodes were known for, it was always making perfect sense and not having plot holes, especially the later he got into his career. 😛
Did you watch the episode?For starters they commandeered the Orville but then were accompanied by multiple attack vessels from the planet.Then you are looking for answers in the episode to what you rightfully identify as a TWO PART EPISODE!!
You you correctly note that I overlooked the fleet of Kaylon ships that was accompanying the occupied Orville.And we evidently both agree that this is a two-part episode. Splendid!So, I do indeed expect that at least some of the questions that I raised will be answered in part 2, especially now that I have been reminded that the episode was written by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.
Why did the Borg head straight to Earth when there were hundreds of other colonies and biological species between Earth and the Delta Quadrant?
The Borg went to Earth only after the Federation had proved itself able to resist and even defeat the Borg in battle.By contrast, the Union has so far been in no military conflict with the Kaylons.And the Borg wanted to assimilate humans, while the Kaylons want to exterminate humans.
Lighten up Francis.
I think Claire is her name though. ;)The Kaylon chose to make Earth the target because Earth/the Union knows their deep dark secret now, assuming a transmission got out. If not, at the very least Earth would know that a ship was sent there and disappeared, and may have been destroyed by the Kaylon.They probably don’t need a Minshara class planet, l but Earth and the other planets that make up the Union are probably the closest thing to a serious threat in the immediate area might as well eliminate opposition to explanation while expanding. That’s an efficient plan.The Kaylons probably had the Union in mind as target one for a while—as far as we know they didn’t send an emissary/spy to serve with the Krill.They probably expected the Union would try to contact them, but by actually going to the Kaylon system, the Orville may have forced up the timetable.It’s possible that there are no internal defenses because the external planetary defence system is so impregnable. The Kaylon don’t strike me as wasteful or inefficient, and a later of security beneath an impenetrable later of security is rather pointless.The Sphere ships are armed with particle weapons. Weapons that are seriously powerful given what we know of Kraylon tech. I suspect they intend to simple bombard the surface of the planet and build their own civilization on the still cooling glass. The Orville is probably there to make Union defenses hesitate “One of our ships is escorting them in, they must be okay.”They may be more valuable alive, either to coerce or brainwash them to help lower defenses on other Union worlds, to operate the ship’s systems, or as part of some other plan.The Kaylon are basically isolationist. Issac collapsing was probably the first time anytime had a chance to study one in great detail, given he couldn’t exactly decline to be examined from a shutoff state.Captain Ed is likely given envoy or near ambassador privileges as Captain of a Union starship. He was authorised to make first contact, after all. Plus he knows the Union would never knowingly admit a member system which participated in genocide.Like you, I’m looking forward to part two!
Some interesting theories, especially the idea that, by visiting the Kaylon world, the Union pushed up the timetable for the Kaylons’ plans for them.And Dr. Finn’s first name is indeed Claire. So she should be referred to either as “Claire” or as “Dr. Finn” — not as “Dr. Claire”. Likewise, we say “Beverly” or “Dr. Crusher”; we do not say “Dr. Beverly”.
“Likewise, we say “Beverly” or “Dr. Crusher”; we do not say “Dr. Beverly”.”I can’t access the quote feature on my phone. Anyway, the symbiant in TNG episode “The Host” referred to Dr. Crusher as “Dr. Beverly,” but I see your point.
I dunno if this has been answered but to the question of why the Kaylons did not kill the crew was likely because they want the Union headquarters to think everything is normal when they get there. They will probably have Mercer say it’s a peace mission and they want to join the Union. Like a Trojan Horse.
That is a reasonable guess. If this is the Kaylons’ plan, though, I bet that the crew will figure out a way to rhwart it, and to get a message to Union headquarters about what is really going on.
First of all, kindly stop referring to Dr. Finn as “Dr. Claire”.I stopped reading after that because you’re obviously a complete tool.
It’d be reasonable for Mercer to have the authority to withdraw the offer to any race guilty of something that would disqualify them from membership, such as unapologetic genocide.
Would it? We have seen from the beginning that Ed is a relatively low-status captain within the Union. I think Ed should have said something like “You can expect the offer of membership to be rescinded”, which is what will likely happen once he reports his findings to the Union brass. To me this makes more sense than Ed himself being empowered to make an official decision on behalf of the Union.
Your points are valid, but all things said and done, it’s still poorly thought through Star Trek fan fiction.Still well done and enjoyable if you don’t think about it too much.
The Kaylons don’t need Earth to live on. They perceive Earth as their biggest threat and a strategic position for taking out other biological life forms. As for not expecting the Orville or being surprised about what happened when they deactivated Isaac, keep in mind they already showed they are capable of lying when they admitted they had no intention of joining the Union. These were just lies to put the crew off-guard. They probably let them wander around so they would find the skulls, confront them, and they could take the most important crew members hostage. Everything they did was to manipulate the crew. It was basically a trap.Also, there were only a few hundred of them on the Orville, but thousands more in the orbs which likely have enough firepower in one to take out a major city.The only real question remaining is why they didn’t just kill everybody. That could be so they can use the crew to convince the Union that everything is normal when they get to Earth. Or it could just be that if they had killed everybody, the show would be over.
I wonder if this was always the plan for the kaylons. after all, if you remove the a and change k to a c you get ‘cylon’. And they don’t NOT resemble old school cylons.Also, last season i was hinted at that the alien zoo people knew of the kaylons by rep.
I had forgotten about the comment from zookeeper, but this season I’ve felt they’ve foreshadowed this storyline a few times with the talk about how no human has ever visited Issacs’s planet and how his mission is collect data about biological lifeforms. Another way to interpret the mission is that he’s looking for their weaknesses and the most efficient way to conquer them.
That does seem like what he was doing, doesn’t it? I mean, even the prank on one of his crewmates could be seen as that. He literally removed the guy’s leg. For all we know it was really to see how human biology works.
Have we seen all the bridge crew’s home-worlds this season?Well, you know who’s next then: Lt. Tharl.
Righteous.
Come on now. Wouldn’t you prefer to see Planet of the Yaphits?
I would rather chew off my own leg and have it spontaneously regenerate into my new sister than see the Planet of the Yaphits.What about Dann? Dann probably has a really cool homeworld. You guys should check out Dann’s homeworld.
I bet all the elevators have music on Dann’s homeworld. Somebody should look into that, huh? Also, everyone has cool shirts there.
Dann’s homeworld is going to be shrouded in pot smoke, and their ships emblazoned with unicorns…
“I would rather chew off my own leg and have it spontaneously regenerate into my new sister” Think of the pay-per-view receipts, though!
I want Yaphit to have a baby (split off a piece of himself). He asked for permission earlier in the season. A tiny Yaphit playing with Claire’s boys would be entertaining.
Will Yaphit’s dad be voiced by Yaphet Koto?
If not, I say we start flipping cars over in the streets
Damn, what a twist! It reminded me of mid-2000s Doctor Who, just the kind of corny relationship drama/creepy twist cocktail that all good sci-fi has.
Well, the Kaylons are sort of more polite Daleks…with a great sense of interior design.
…I mean, they’re quite literally cylons storywise and even name-wise.
I think the daleks bit is more by way of referencing the dr who comparison in the comment bring replied to rather than due to any lack of grasping the BSG thing…
This damn show never ceases to amaze me. From the first announcement from Fox, this entire project seemed as though it was going to be a Star Trek parody. So, in all honesty, I really did not want to like it. But because I’m such a nerd, I decided to tune in regardless of my preconceptions. Given Seth MacFarlane’s penchant for bathroom humor, I really didn’t expect much. But I was wrong. And as the seasons have gone along, I have become more and more attached and enthralled with the show. For the most part I do find the writing, the plots, and the overall presentation rather good, especially for network television which usually does a very poor job with science fiction. It’s also no surprise, given the fact that Seth MacFarlane has bought on some great science fiction veterans to write and produce the show. Despite its shortcomings (and there are a number of them), I still think it is an amazingly- entertaining piece of science fiction fare. There is, however, one thing that bothers me more than anything else about the show. It seems highly improbable that Doctor Finn, a single mother of two, would really fall for essentially a robot. She has to think of her sons and having grown up reared by a single mom, I’m very aware of the sacrifices that they make as well as the care that they take. I understand what they are attempting to communicate with the plot line (that is love has no boundaries), it still seems a bit unrealistic to me. Her emotional outbursts and referencing the fact that she’s “pissed at him” really seem very illogical (to quote Isaac LOL). Carry-on. And long live the United Federation Of Planets. Oops, I mean the Galactic Union!
The point that is often made is that everyone on the Orville crew is from the B-team. They are all fuck-ups or slackers. Even Grayson who is a tremendous stoner.Except Dr. Finn, who is supposed be such a super doctor she gets to pick her own assignments. What if she’s actually a bad doctor, that they really only let have minor assignments to keep her out of the way except they keep blowing up.
I take your last point though love is emotional and all that.
This show needs someone not a robot that is not so emotional. Dr. Finn has mostly been evenly keeled but even she now gets all emotional over a robot leaving and turning against them (unless we have a plot surprise).
But, like you, overall I’m impressed with the show.
Same here I ignored the dog banner. Turns out they just called 911 a few doz. times on their owners cell phone.
I’ve read the Kaylon/Cylon commentaries but Orville viewers don’t think of Galactica, they think of the original Trek and Next Generation. They’re the shows Seth borrows heavily from. The big reveal in Identity goes back to What Are Little Girls Made of? with Ted Cassidy’s impressive Ruk: the androids mass-murdering “The Old Ones.” How this is going to play out in part 2 is anyone’s guess. I just hope it’s not a “dream.” We’ve seen that before on TV.
As my wife and I were watching this, I wondered aloud how Isaac could ever be brought back to the show, unless as a permanent villain. My wife then says, “If this is some sort of simulation, by the Kaylon, to determine if the Union is truly worthy enough to join, I will be so pissed.”
Yes, hitting the famous sci-fi “reset” button on this one will be hard to pull off. My only guess is (short of Mark Jackson is leaving the show), Isaac disagrees with the decision to wipe out biological life forms and does believe humanity is worth saving, but knows he can’t stop his people from carrying out the plan, so he goes along with it until he can save the day in the end, dooming himself from ever returning to his own home world.
There’s a fan theory floating around that it’s an elaborate prank, since they brought up the Mr. Potato head incident. Then they officially join the Union.
OMG, that would be awesome!
The one problem with the prank theory is the number of red shirts that seem to get killed during the boarding.
That’s what I thought too unless they just pull it was and illusion and the Orville gets equipped with new tech they can use outside the holodeck.
Death-simulating stun guns, perhaps.
A clever way around this would be if Isaac planted something on each of the “Red Shirts” at his farewell party. It’s a stretch. Imagine if they showed up at Earth and all the warships went “Surprise!” Even so, Claire would be like – “Thank God it was all a ruse Isaac, but dating you is too stressful. Buh. Bye.”
That would be funny (dumb…but funny!) But I don’t think so.
Interesting theory, though I find it hard to imagine the Union laughing about how funny the prank was, especially the part where they killed dozens of people.
That simulation-as-test thing would be doubly-Trek proficient, as it would be both similar to the Kobayashi Maru test, as well as exactly what the Founders did to the DS9 crew to figure out how the Dominion’s entry into the Alpha Quadrant would go…
It’s all in the eyes, he has blue eyes they have red.If he were irredeemable they would have made all of them look the same.
“Computer, end simulation”
Orrrrrrrr, Isaac is playing along to save Everyone!Geez, between you and your wife!Hint, he’s the only one with blue “eyes!”
You could have wrote MAGA 2000 times and this would be just as an effective review. Garbage. Total garbage
Is the robot invasion of the Orville more or less scary because the Kaylons are so unfrightening? The Borg were super freaky, at least in part because they also turn you into Borg, but is it scary when the danger comes from a seemingly endless number of Mego action figure-looking assailants? I’d say either yes or no is legitimate.I think it is more scary, especially because their unassuming heads fold out into weapons.
They are clearly on a Klayon holodeck. This is a test.
“..is it scary when the danger comes from a seemingly endless number of Mego action figure-looking assailants?” Yes, but only because during a season and half we have grown to see Issac as a friendly figure, even though we have seen how tough he actually is and how hard would be to defeat in battle. If this were Star Trek TNG and we were faced with an army of millions of Datas with red-glowing eyes, piloting what look like Borg spheres, we’d be running behind the couch.
First Nick, I enjoy your reviews, but how in God’s name did you rate this episode anything other than an A or A+?! It doesn’t get much better, man, seriously. The budget for the whole season seemed on display, it looked absolutely WONDERFUL, and the musical score was huge and engaging, VERY much like Empire Strikes Back with a mix of all the good visuals and musical cues from the Star Wars prequels, like Clone Wars space battles. It was just a ridiculously awesome episode; what more did you want?? What could they have done ‘more’ to earn an A from you?Secondly, I really saw the Kaylons as a cross between the Borg and Dr. Who’s Daleks. They were kind of goofy and non-threatening in appearance, but at the same time they were terrifying in their single-mindedness. I really appreciated that blend of design, and felt it gave the Orville one of it’s ‘own’ notches on the post, settling into it’s own identity, especially since the rest of this episode felt SO Star Wars and especially Star Trek: TNG-inspired.Third, damn! This show is just like Galaxy Quest, it really is like ST:TNG but on one of the ships that they resign the fuck ups and goofballs onto. The Trek feeling is so strong and I absolutely am in love with this show. Next episode I can’t wait for, and it looks like we’re getting some awesome man-man on board battles, as well as amazing space battles. The show gets an A+ from me, and the episode is most certainly the best in one and a half seasons of The Orville.
I was wondering if that will be part of the resolution. Why would they put an ambassador on a lesser ship full of screw-ups if they trusted the Kaylons or expected them to join in the first place. Maybe the Kaylons will get to Earth and discover that, unlike the Orville, the main Union fleet is actually pretty bad-ass, and that wiping out the humans won’t be so easy after all?
Yes- I would love that- the Orville is kinda mediocre crew wise, and they meet the real badass Enterprise type starships with heroic captains (please please Jonathan Frakes as one of them lol) who operate a peak efficiency and decimate them – and in captivity Isaac says “my reports indicated that humans are unpredictable and inefficient – we assumed you all were that way” – THAT would be funny
That’s not true at all. Mercer was on the fast track to Captain before his wife cheated on him. Malloy is an excellent pilot – he was able to easily evade the Moclan ship. John is apparently a good engineer (although he doesn’t seem to have much of his old personality left). Everyone is overall pretty competent, and they’ve gotten through some serious stuff – and there’s a reason Furiosa wanted their ship. No one would pay anything for the ship of fuckups.
I disagree that the crew is mediocre. It’s what I expected before I started watching, everybody would be a little stupid and the Red Dwarf comedy would be all over it. But that’s not true at all.The Orville’s crew are all competent and highly skilled, but for one reason or another screwed up somehow. Ed was expected to command one of the big ships before his bad year. Gordon is the best pilot in the fleet but he did some stupid shit that got him kicked down. John pretended to be stupid to fit in. This is not a crew of second rate misfits, it’s top notch people getting a second chance.
Well, it is only the first part of a two-part episode so if he gives the other a B+, will the two make an ‘A’?
I’ve not seen an A+ here ever. I may have missed it though.An A is reserved for something pretty special, the Mad Men finale, that kind of thing.
Or fifteen (!) episodes of Person of Interest.I mean, I love the show to death, but all those episodes aren’t Ozymandias special, nor Mad Men finale special. They’re just really, really good. Maybe three PoI episodes meet your interpreted standard.In the dark days before Kinja, maybe there wasn’t such grade inflation. Who knows. Maybe someone could ask the Olds.
The pre Kinja days were much better days. Disqus, while it had its problems, was, to quote MST3K Preeettty Niiiiiice.
15 PoI episodes got As? I can think of at least 5 that deserve them, let’s check the list…
Season 1: Okay, none got an A, good.
Season 2: Bad Code (A-), Masquerade (A-), Till Death (A-), Prisoners Dilemma (A-), Dead Reckoning (A), Booked Solid (A-), Relevance (A), Trojan Horse (A-), Zero Day (A-), God Mode (A-).
Wow, the reviewer for season 2 was… overzealous. Of those, I would say that yes, Bad Code deserves that. Masquerade, even though it introduces Bear, does not deserve an A-, maybe a B+.Till Death, noooooo, even though it has Sterling K. Brown in a good role, definitely not a A-, it is filled with great guests, but that is a solid B. Prisoner’s Dilemma? Yeah, I can get that – same with Dead Reckoning – that was a great two parter. Booked Solid? No, that is not an A-, that’s definitely a B, though.
Revelance, yes, that is an A. Trojan Horse… maybe. Zero Day and God Mode? Yes.
Season 3: Nothing To Hide (A-), Mors Praematura (A), The Perfect Mark (A-), Endgame (A-), The Devil’s Share (A), Lethe (A-), Aletheia (A-), 4C (A-), RAM (A), Root Path (A), Death Benefit (A-), Beta (A), A House Divided (A-), Deus Ex Machina (A)
I would make a strong argument that the start of the Endgame arc through the season 3 finale is the strongest run of episodes the series had – there were no duds in there. Nothing to Hide is not an A-, though. Mors was good, A is warranted. The rest of those, yeah, they deserved it, that run of episodes was just *great*
Season 4: Nautilus (A-), Prophets (A), Point of Origin (A-), The Devil You Know (A-), The Cold War (A), If-Then-Else (A), M.I.A. (A-), Skip (A-), Search & Destroy (A), Terra Incognita (A), YHWH (A-)
Pretty much all of those are great episodes – Point of Origin I could understand being a B+, though. Skip, too – I don’t think that is an A- episode. The rest of them, though? Yes – though YHWH deserves an A just for the end of that episode alone.
Season 5: Truth be Told (A-), SNAFU (A-), 6,741 (A), Reassortment (A-), The Day The World Went Away (A), return 0 (A)
Honestly, all of these are pretty good – I would not be annoyed if Truth Be Told and SNAFU were B+, though.
So if I counted right, there were 42 episodes rated A- or better.
Yeah, I was not including A- grades in my count, and agree wholeheartedly that the 3rd season from Endgame on to the 3rd season finale was freaking amazing; the double arc in the back half of the season is legitimately some of the best TV ever. Dinging The Crossing with a ‘B’ was unjust.But of the episodes that were given a straight ‘A’, I would say only Relevance, The Devil’s Share, If-Then-Else and Return 0 reach the level of transcendent awesomeness that the ‘A’ grade is supposed to indicate. The others are solid “A-”s, and I think it was the novelty of having a great sci-fi show on network TV doing things nobody thought network TV could do that pushed the enthusiasm of the reviewer to give the extra half-step grade. I for one never thought I would see a thorough exploration of the Paperclip Optimizer Problem and the Off Switch Problem on a network TV show, so maybe Prophets gets its clean ‘A’ from how impossible it is that it ever came to exist.
The Crossing getting a B is a *crime*
The Day The World Went Away deserves an A – might just be final season excitement, but TDtWWA was a great episode.
I could definitely see Terra Incognita not getting an A, but it was a very enjoyable episode.
I stumbled on AV club a year ago looking for reviews of The Americans. That show got As every other week.
To be fair, it was a pretty special show. The final couple o seasons of Mad Men were like that too, lots of As.
I also noticed the music was on point.
I’ve described it as a loving TNG homage, with dick jokes. And less competent characters.The production values are top-notch, the acting is pretty good and the actors really seem to have grown into their characters. They have pretty good chemistry together. They clearly love what they are doing. The only thing keeping it from being really great is that it is a little superficial. They are tackling classic SF themes like they are brand new when most of this stuff wasn’t especially ground breaking when Kirk, Spock, and McCoy first encountered it. They do a competent enough job, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of new insight into any of it. It makes it a bit derivative but I still think this is still the best Trek since DS9 and a pretty good show overall.
The grades for every episode are lower than they should be. This was an excellent episode, and I’m glad it airs on network TV because there’s something to be said for having to wait a week. I loved the look of this planet – much more impressive than Xeleya. I guess it was inevitable that these Cybermen-looking robots turn evil.
Personally I think a show needs to have some level of originality to get the highest grades – it needs to add something to the genre. The Orville has yet to have any sci-fi idea or concept that hasn’t been done before.
My wife commented, and I quickly concurred, that the music as the Orville passed through the Kaylon megacity was very much like the very first Star Trek movie, when the Enterprise explored the interior of V’ger. I actually suspected the episode’s “twist” would be that the entire Kaylon race descended from an old Earth probe like Voyager 6 (or Nomad from “The Changeling”): Cheesy and very MacFarlane-esque.While I was glad to be proven wrong, what we get instead are clomping Cybermen mixed with the Toclafane spheres on their way to swarm Earth’s defenses.
I am distracted by – and not buying – that the doctor would ever have fallen for Isaac. She is a woman of science and presumably living/working among other robots for some time, and he had really give nothing to indicate he was interested until she (as you say) anthropomorphized him. He doesn’t even have a mouth! That alone should have been a nonstarter (before she realized he could morph into a human shape). It just doesn’t ring true.
She keeps getting upset that he’s a robot, so he says he’ll try to pretend better.How many times does it take for her to get that he’s always pretending, cause that’s all he’s capable of.He’s apparently a really good sexbot, so get over it.
Then she can’t be mad at (the sexbot) because her kids got attached. That’s all on her bad judgment.
So mom’s in the 25th-century still don’t know how to hook up a stereo?!
I thought using that trope was kinda bullshit. Admiral Halsey should have come back with “My mother invented octophonic audio reproduction. She *built* my stereo.”
Yeah, but how complicated are 25-th century stereos?
That joke is almost dated today, with Alexa et al.In the 25th century, it won’t make any sense at all.
Not to mention that there’s still stereo’s in the 25th century.
While it would have been nice to have given it more of a simmer, I don’t doubt that Isaac’s relationship with Claire will come into resolving this, and it’s great to see a relationship with a non-human pay off like that in a science fiction show.For nitpicky stuff though, I assume the Kaylons originally had their humanoid forms because that’s what the people who created them gave them, but that they’re all still humanoid makes no sense. You’d think that it would be logical to have different body configurations for different jobs – and only for jobs that require a body (maintenance etc). Those Kaylons at the light wall looked neat, but I’m curious what they were doing that couldn’t just be done in a computer.I’m also curious what the Union thought their origins were. At some point an organic species would have had to have created them so questions should have been asked before allowing one to serve on a Union ship. But as has been brought up, they also keep getting caught off guard by Moclan society and there was that first contact they made a few weeks ago where it never occurred to them to learn even a little about that society through their version of the internet. Honestly, the Union is so inept at this that I don’t blame other species for not wanting to join and that ineptness is probably the biggest flaw in the show.
I don’t think that the Union is inept, but Captain Mercer fits the bill for being inept, but yet keeps on winning despite himself. I’m sure that creates a lot of tension and jealously, not only within the Admiralty, but also among the other fleet captains as well.
My assumption about the Union cluelessness is that it makes sense if we think of them as less of a completely integrated society like the Federation, but more of a loose alliance. With each world in it still pretty much on its own. More like the European Union, than the United States.
Though of course the real reason is just the show’s writers not always thinking through their plots.
I think you’re right but it can be both things -as they like to say around here- The Union is in the earlier stages of putting things together in their timeline. The Federation timeline, if overlayed with the Orville timeline, would show the Union lagging in advancement, perhaps, sociopoliticly. They’re bigger fuck-ups in other words. I think this scans fine. The fact that it helps the writers get away with this or that or whatever laziness may be true, but who cares as long as it’s true to the DNA of the show?
I think that they could be more like NATO, basically a league of “We don’t attack each other, and if anyone attacks any one of us, they’re attacking all of us.”
They said in this past episode that the union is a group of planets that have pledged not to invade each other. They’re not committed to sharing information apparently.
I mean, the Federation didn’t know anything about Vulcans’ mating habits even after Spock was on Enterprise for years, either. They had very little clue about Worf and Klingons’ customs after multiple wars and all of TOS.
While on one level, we can say TOS was equally “making-it-up-as-they-went-along”-y as Orville. But on another level, species can also be very secretive about the less friendly elements of their cultures, too, and I think that fits for Moclans and certainly Kaylons.
This was a really great episode, one that would not have been at all out of place compared against some really good TNG episodes. A all the way for me. I hope they stick the landing on the second part, because the first part was an excellent and engaging hour of television.If someone had told me in Season 1 that the Isaac story arc would be Data plus Terminator with a dash of Singin in the Rain, I would have probably checked to see if they were feeling ok. But that is where we are, and it works.Considering that a number of the Orville crew are dead (not to mention the billions who died at the hands of the Kaylon), it may be difficult to get Isaac back “into the fold” after this(I just realized what I did there, so I went back and added the quotes!) but I hope this is not it for him on the show. He is a great part of the crew, and the Orville stories are really coming together.
I would create another profile to upvote this again if I weren’t so lazy.
Thanks so much for the kind words, and I’m glad you enjoyed the episode too!
We don’t know if Isaac himself was around during the time of the genocide. I suspect he was made recently for the sake of being an emissary.
Note to self: more carefully vet machine beings from planets you know absolutely nothing about before offering them a position on your starship with full security clearance, access to every system record and intimate data re: all other ship personnel, while never getting a bit of anything back from them. Also, call before dropping in. But I still love this show; easy to spot holes in retrospect. I love the balance of humor and maintenance of awe and coolness and respect of exploring space. Plus I love the cast; I’ve gotten attached. It reminds me of Gilligan’s Island, one of my favorite shows ever. The cast was great, the show hilarious. If you tried to disect the technical aspects (well honestly not much dissection was required-it slammed you in the face) for lapses in realism, you were missing the point, or at least some hilarious schtick.
I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted or even suspected Isaac’s true intentions early on in the show since the episodes leaned more toward humor but as the show came into its own and began taking on more serious and explorative stories, I just found Isaac’s blank face with flashing blue dots to be a little creepy at worst.The Orville has been touching on some really dark shit this season. I’ll give ‘em that.
I like how all the “herp derp Isaac is just a Data rip-off” folks are now confronted with the fact that nope he’s from a planet of cold-blooded murderers.Just like all the “herp derp Lt. Tyler is just an empty role manufactured so Seth MacFarlane can get some personal eye candy on screen” folks were confronted with the fact that nope she was manufactured to attract the *character* because she’s actually an undercover alien.
Can we talk about the stealth-MVP of this episode (which was fantastic): the music.I think I heard covers/snippets of the V’Ger music when landing on the planet, some Independence Day alien-invasion music at the end there with the scene of the particle beam weapons rising up to take off, I think some Bespin music when looking at some of the towers in the clouds… Just an amazing job this week…
Yeah whoever does the temp-tracks is really at the top of their game.
Seth has a heavy hand in the music from all accounts. Sort of the opposite of Rick Berman’s “Sonic Wallpaper” edict.
The liner notes for the season 1 soundtrack suggest Seth MacFarlane himself has a huge hand in setting up the temp track. Bruce Broughton says Seth set up the temp track for the pilot episode (that episode used a lot of Broughton’s “Lost in Space” movie score and some Jerry Goldsmith for the temp track).
As someone who has scored indie films I noticed the great cues more in this episode than the others, I immediately thought of TESB score, especially the flight or the Orville to the docking bay.
The Kaylon designs are B-movie-ish, but their human design adds a level of creepiness that would be lost in more advanced special effects. Reminds me of the Mondasian Cybermen of Doctor Who (its nice to see that The Orville continues the Star Trek tradition of adding new layers to concepts introduced by Doctor Who)
This was good, you almost forget it was the goofy parody the show was when it started. Most episodes have one or two gags crowbar in but this was like a straight Treklike episode. It has personal stakes will The Doctor win Isaac around, can Isaac be redeemed and wider stakes ie we rarely get a feel of who the Union are and now we are seeing them faced by war/invasion.I’m not quite sold on if this is The Orville equivelant of Best of Both Worlds yet, but if it is used as a soft reboot where the take a more serious tone that wouldn’t be the worst thing.That being said it was kind of phoned ahead the robots would be evil, they had red eyes… how could anyone not tell?!
This is just the sort of observation that actually might show up in the show’s dialogue at some point.
10:1 Malloy makes that exact comment i the second half.
It did still have it’s silly moments though. Poor Bortus and his corner piece of cake with the flower, the boys reaction to Issac dating their mom before he was deactivated, Ed asking if they had chairs on their planet.
Yeah, but I could see Worf wanting a corner piece of the cake, too.
Bortus has a lot of the same deadpan humor beats that Worf would have on TNG. I have no issue with that at all.
See I seen the Bortus thing as more of a character thing along the lines of Worf and his Prune juice. At this point his character is just that of a stoney faced yet secretly big hearted goofball and they will alsways lean into that.
“A warrior’s drink!”
I love that there’s always something like that no matter what’s going on with the rest of the episode. I think my favorite aspect of Family Guy is that it never, but never goes serious, preachy, or maudlin (ok maybe it did once or twice).
I thought Isaac said his “eyes” were just to make humans more comfortable.I didn’t think the others would even have them. Why would they?
This actually kind of ties into what I’m thinking the Kaylons meant when they said their creators, and ultimately all biological life, were “holding back their evolution”.
What if the Kaylon creators were just trying to get their creations to be softer, kinder beings? Politeness, courtesy towards others (i.e., bios), emotional displays and attachments, etc. I’m betting Kaylons are a bunch of Ultrons: utterly confused by ‘soft’ emotions, absolutely overwhelmed and compulsively obsessed with ‘dark’ emotions and their extremes. In their own way, Kaylons seem fearful, almost terrified of it all, and that’s why they’re lashing out.
Isaac says a lot of things that turned out to be false.
good point
The Biologicals that created them gave them eyes to make them more comfortable for themselves so that is why they all have them, maybe the blue eyes were to make humans more comfortable..
I’m not quite sold on if this is The Orville equivelant of Best of Both Worlds yet, but if it is used as a soft reboot where the take a more serious tone that wouldn’t be the worst thing.I would be kind of sad if they jettison all the humor tho. Moments like Bortus getting cake humanize the characters in addition to being funny.“I hate this party.”
I think we all knew Kaylons are not going to be friends as soon as we heard the music. On top of the Kaylon name being just barely changed Cylon and the look reminiscent of Cybermen the revelations were not exactly that surprising. Theirs is the story of the Robot Uprising that robots won.I don’t think they are supposed to be evil here. From their point of view they did their due diligence on checking if these new biologicals can be co-existed with any better than their creators. But how can you trust the creatures that keep going through cycles of enlightenment and tyranny (not to mention turn your envoy into Mr. Potato Head – it’s all Gordon’s fault)? So it only makes sense to get rid of them first before proceeding with expansion.
And now it looks like show is giving us their version of Borg Wars.
Sally Field should be pleased to know that in the future her Oscar acceptance speech will be in a database as a generic platitude.
I don’t think the Isaac who ends this episode is the same Isaac who begins it. Two reasons for that: one, on a meta level – the episode is called ‘Identity’. The Orville is generally not subtle with its episode titles. In fact, the title of a given episode is often notably dropped within the span of that episode – see “If The Stars Should Appear” and “Nothing Left On Earth But The Fishes”. But even if it’s not specifically invoked, the title generally tips off a central element of the plot. So…what did any of that have to do with identity? This is The Orville’s first two-parter. I expect a question of identity will be key to Part II.
Two: The Isaac who first speaks to Kaylon Primary seems to have a substantially different attitude compared to the Isaac who spends the rest of the episode interacting with the crew. If anything, in later scenes, Isaac seems to have regressed in his demeanor and characterization. He remembers the things he has done with the crew and the things he has told them, and he has access to Earth’s cultural database…but he’s just a bit off.So to my mind this opens a couple of possibilities. The simplest, and perhaps most pat, is that this is literally a different AI posing as Isaac, something it can do easily because human beings will see blue eyes in a sea of red and, well, they’ve only met one blue-eyed Kaylon and he says he’s Isaac and has his memories, so why not? Isaac has literally transmitted all his experiences to Kaylon – they even know about the Mr. Potato Head incident. It would be quite easy to load up another AI with that data. If this is the case, I expect the original Isaac has stowed away in some fashion – either physically, on the Kaylon fleet or on the Orville proper, or in software format. We saw in “Pria” that he can exist as a conscious entity within the ship’s computer and return to his mobile shell from there. He could very well be using the Kaylons’ computer network to get to the ship he now considers home.The more complex possibility is that this is Isaac, but just as he was created with a specific task in mind, he has now been reprogrammed to better fulfill a new task. If this is the case, I suspect the solution will involve somehow reaching and reviving the version of Isaac that has developed feelings for the crew – romantic attraction and friendship with Dr. Finn, fondness for her children, camaraderie with his shipmates. Perhaps Isaac will even pull a Hugh and somehow propagate the capacity for these attachments to the rest of his people.There’s a broader question of identity I’m thinking of here – why is it that Isaac has blue eyes while literally every other Kaylon has red? Did they change the color of his purely aesthetic eyespots (which, for that matter, why do the Kaylons bother with eyespots on their own world…ah never mind) to something that they thought organics would consider friendly? Or do the red eyes signify that some sort of virus has overtaken the Kaylons as a species? Is it possible we’re not dealing with the Kaylons as they usually are? I mean, honestly, this is kind of a bad plan – yes, Earth is the seat of the Union, and yes, the Kaylons are more advanced technologically, but the Union has been busily adapting tech it picked up from more advanced societies throughout the series (the Calivon imaging technology, for instance), and it’s an alliance of THREE HUNDRED planets up against the Kaylon’s one. This is like a giant hornet infiltrating a beehive. It’s gonna kill some of the bees, but it stands a good chance of getting cooked before it can kill them all. So is someone else pulling the strings? Another species, or perhaps a handful of survivors from their purge of their creators? What if the movements of the Orville crew weren’t simply missed – what if they were actively ALLOWED by some background force seeking to expose the Kaylons’ secret and ultimately bring the Union down on them like a hammer?All in all, I’m excited for the conclusion, and while I don’t think this was the best episode the show has ever done, I think it generally worked well. The music, in particular, was very much on point, and while I found the office lobby set of Kaylon Primary’s facility rather disappointing, the exterior shots of Kaylon as a planet were stunning. The only thing that could have made it better was Majel Barrett’s voice saying “To be continued” as in the classic TNG/DS9 two-parters. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
This was their game-changer episode and wow! it was really well done. No one saw that coming after the whole Dr. Finn “romance”. I was rolling my eyes the last several episodes how they anthropomorphized Isaac and kept demanding he act like a human being. Dr. Finn looks like an idiot to allow herself, and worse, her kids, to get attached to something everyone knows had no feelings. But the brilliant this is they actually used this as the Orville’s weakness and they just refused to see what was in front of them because everyone wanted Isaac, an unfeeling robot, but be cute, a boyfriend for Claire and a member of the crew. They threw him a bon voyage party and the Kaylons murder a bunch of them 15 minutes later..cold. I also now think, and this episode was so well done I think it is intentional, the Kaylons plan included the Orville getting worried about Isaac and taking him home, because Isaac told them how they are and what their probably emotional response would be. ..because they now have a union ship as part of a sneak attack. I always thought “kaylons” was just an homage to “cylon”, but, nope, they went full cylon..lolI don’t think they can bring Isaac back without a memory wipe. After throwing the kids picture away, they pretty much confirmed he is as bad as the rest of his species. (no one was there to see it, so he was not “acting”) Just a total series long head fake. I can’t remember a show where a character this established for over two years just suddenly was revealed to be the villain. Definitely up there with the very best of Star Trek. If this show does nothing else, this episode will be considered an all time great. This is an A +. the reviewer is being way too stingy with the grade.
I lost it when Seth, well captain Mercer asked: So… Do you guys have anything like a chair around here? Great episode, loved it!!
How could Ty, a child, leave the ship? Shouldn’t there be a parental lock of some sort in that respect at least? I understand perhaps the planet not caring if he’s there. But, you can’t have people willy-nilly leaving the ship like that. More so children. That annoyed me.
He enters a code into the door lock to open it. Someone gave him the code.
That’s interesting. I wonder if early in the next episode we’ll get another look at that picture Ty drew to see if Isaac added some sort of message. I mean, why would he just drop it on the floor of the corridor like that? There would surely be waste disposal units all over the place, and to just dump it there would be actively dickish rather than roboticly indifferent.
The Orville is kicking so much ass. Seriously finding ways to build the entire galaxy you will care about while creating these intimate details that grip and interweave through everything. Issac and the way this was pulled off has been great. It’s actually been my massive worry all season, what would an entire AI culture want with biological life forms? To get to the point they are now either they outlasted, merged with their creators and evolved into what they are now or destroyed them. Or a remote possibility that their original progenitors are still there somehow. Now we are going to find out. Frankly AI is something we need to deal with now ourselves, to put proper protections in place so we can live together with it. So this kind of thing doesn’t happen to us in the coming few years. On one hand I’m hoping this ends up a vast joke in response to the Mr Potato Head jokes and it’s their way of joining the Union by pulling a big prank first but I don’t see them being so clueless. This is going to be a huge fight. There are already several very frightening enemies in the galaxy we’ve been introduced to. The zoo keepers should scare the sh*t out of anyone as that’s a very real possibility for any species. We already do it to others right here, on a galactic scale it’s even worse. The Krill though have already been shown in ways that’s evoke sheer terror. Think of what Ed and Malloy saw on their mission with the way the Krill worship. Stabbing human heads. The sheer terror Ed must have felt when he was captured this season knowing that was palpable. For all that you hear sloppy writing and plot holes the writers and actors actually take these small things and weave them together each episode, you just need to watch for them. They build in huge ways. All that terror set the stage for this episode. When they find the bones after the cues of ominous music, weird actions and statements from the Kaylon it was extra chilling. Isaac’s actions since the show started take a new nuance. Even if they don’t end up the new enemies of the series each action seriously is more chilling. His statements instead of being clinically seeming are more important and insidious in retrospect. It shows the folly of unrealistic trust of a new contact without proper information in a galactic setting where cultures and technology can be so vastly different. That being it could also explain why an emissary from a potential new ally is assigned to a mid level ship and not a flag ship or on earth. Could the Union already have concerns? While there are over 300 planets in the Union we know there are 100s more known but not in the Union for whatever reason. So there is a much bigger galaxy political arena along with actual military and defense stuff we’ve only had hinted at. So this is going to be huge depending on where they take it. I’m really excited, The Orville is like the show I always wanted Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5 and Battle Star Galactica to do, which was take things that little bit extra length. The extras are those intangibles we’re getting with things as simple as the almost office dynamics of banter on the job and jokes to actually dealing in some ways with the PTSD of what these people go through just doing their jobs. Look what they go through, we’ve seen it before but now we see it in even more visceral ways. The Kaylon storming the ship was a perfect example. The security personnel and officers are fighting and dying while the rest of the crew is herded together. The rest of the personnel can only stop and watch as their friends and family are gunned down in front of them. The security personnel and officers are stuck having to do their duty while their families and friends are being rounded up and who knows what’s happening. Usually much of that is offscreen. Borg captures and such. Here we see it in stark reality. The little details really draw you in. Thank you Seth Mcfarlane and the team that make The Orville, I love it.
Why why does a planet full of robots need a reception desk?
And why would you have all those robots pushing buttons(?) on a wall?Don’t they have WiFi, or why wouldn’t they just connect a USB cable from their robot processor to their mainframe or whatever the wall’s connected to.
It’s like putting robotic hands on my computer to type data into the keyboard of my other computer.Hell, a couple floppy disc drives would be way more efficient.
Having them push buttons on a wall was a way to show that their technology is so far advanced as to be incomprehensible.
“And why would you have all those robots pushing buttons(?) on a wall?”They’re playing a game with colored lights much in the same way that Isaac was playing a game with colored lights with Dr. Finn’s kids… just connecting some obscure dots.No sex, no alcohol, no drugs, no music, no art, yada, yada… Kaylons gotta relieve stress and make a core dump somehow, right?
Brilliant episode overall.The shot of the Orville flying into land over the city reminded me of the scene in Star Trek TMP when the Enterprise flies endlessly over V’Ger’s technology to get to the core.I’m wondering if that planet they visited back in season 1 which pops in and out of our universe with an accelerated space time won’t make an appearance and save the day? Issac did spend ‘700 years’ relatively on this planet and helped them with their technological development. By now this planet must be far in advance of anything in our universe, including the Kaylons.
Is it just me, or isn’t it obvious that the Kaylon are really the digitized versions of all those billions of humanoids? Once they ‘ascended’ to digital form, they were either programmed to forget they were ever biologicals, or some glitch in the system caused them to forget.And some clue from the past will come up next week, proving that the Kaylon aren’t genocidal, just in time to stop them from attacking Earth. At least I think so…
Is it just me, or isn’t it obvious that the Kaylon are really the digitized versions of all those billions of humanoids? Once they ‘ascended’ to digital form, they were either programmed to forget they were ever biologicals, or some glitch in the system caused them to forget.And some clue from the past will come up next week, proving that the Kaylon aren’t genocidal, just in time to stop them from attacking Earth. At least I think so…
Is it just me, or isn’t it obvious that the Kaylon are really the digitized versions of all those billions of humanoids? Once they ‘ascended’ to digital form, they were either programmed to forget they were ever biologicals, or some glitch in the system caused them to forget.And some clue from the past will come up next week, proving that the Kaylon aren’t genocidal, just in time to stop them from attacking Earth. At least I think so…
Is it just me, or isn’t it obvious that the Kaylon are really the digitized versions of all those billions of humanoids? Once they ‘ascended’ to digital form, they were either programmed to forget they were ever biologicals, or some glitch in the system caused them to forget.And some clue from the past will come up next week, proving that the Kaylon aren’t genocidal, just in time to stop them from attacking Earth. At least I think so…
I don’t watch The Orville or Star Trek: Discovery, but I wanted to comment on the complementary review titles this week:Saru goes home on a shallow vsThe Orville
When they found all the remains of the organics on Issac’s homeworld I thought they were going to pull an Animatrix and have it ultimately reveled that Robots tried to live in peace with the Organics but in the end they had to kill them all in the name of self preservation.Then have the crew of the Orville ponder over the ethics etc and if the Kaylons could or should be allowed into the Federation (or whatever it’s called)BTW if you loved the first Matrix movie and hated the sequels and haven’t seen the Animatrix go watch it. It was by far the superior followup to the original movie, outclassing Matrix 2 and 3 by a huge margin.
Anyone else pretty sure that Isaac is fundamentally different than the other inhabitants of Kaylon and will save the humans while sacrificing himself? Pretty sure that’s what will happen next week. But it’s just a guess.
Isaac did not drop the drawing for no reason. He has a history of playing strategy games with the boys. The episode did not commence with this by accident. Watch back at how after he takes the drawing from Ty and states that he does not need it because “I will not forget you,” the boy runs off. He actively turns to watch this, then back at Claire, then at all of them leaving, pondering. In other circumstances, this would not have merited a trailing look. Certainly not the beat for reflection at the end of it.Then, in the next scene he is leaving the ship. He looks down at the drawing for a loooooong moment he considers a moment before tossing it away. Without a doubt, he was leaving a bread crumb on the path for Hansel. I expect we’ll also learn how the kid knew the access code to open the outer door. Because Isaac had been giving Ty piano lessons, I bet he told him it matched the notes to a certain song.Later, consider how that access hatch opened conveniently for the boy to descend to the caverns. Isaac knew the boys would be the only ones curious/frightened enough to discover the bones. Mercer and the crew had no reason to be walking around town in hopes of seeing if the place had a “basement.” Oddly, based on the landing berth, I never had the impression that the Orville had parked at ground level. Because of the way the bottom tail flares out, it needed to be suspended in free space.Further supporting the position that Isaac is on the side of the Humans is the precise moment that he is deactivated. Claire has just finished saying: “You two are the best kids a mom could ever ask for!” Isaac conks out in the next breath. Why? Because his programming was conflicted by “emotion” in the same manner he realised he was better off in a relationship with Claire (in the previous rom-com episode).I don’t believe Isaac expected the Orville to go all the way out to Kaylon One just for his sake. But once he was reactivated, he had to use his wits to play the biggest and most important game of his life. If he did not get back on board the Orville as part of the attack team, he would not be able to stop it.
It’s understood that we anthropomorphize everything: Animals, our most beloved possessions, our most hated possessions.This sentence is clear evidence of insanity. First of all, we don’t anthropomorphize everything. Also, that doesn’t lead naturally into the next sentence at all. Also, he apparently hates his pets. Mental illness is a serious problem, Nick. There’s no shame in seeking treatment.
I didn’t read through everything, so probably missed it. I was reminded of ST:V Prototype. Anyway, this was one of my favorite episodes of The Orville.
The non-Isaac Kaylons have both red OR orange eyes. Look closely to see they’re not all red-eyed.
Reminds me of my old English teacher… “Outstanding work! Truly amazing! Here’s a B+.” Would just an A- actually kill you?
The Kaylons marching into the ship with their head cannons gave me a serious Doctor Who vibe.Anyway, Isaac seems to have had a wardrobe malfunction in the first scene. Just before he deactivates, the blue filter covering the little circular light on his right arm is very visibly dislodged, so you can see the white light under it. After he collapses it’s back to being flush with the light like it’s supposed to be. My guess is it popped out filming multiple takes of his fall and the editors either missed it or decided to ignore it to use the best take.
I noticed that too. Whoops! I’m surprised they didn’t write that in as part of Isaac malfunctioning.
My burning questions are: what defenses and war ships/capabilities do this particular universes “Planetary Union” have? Anything as robust as the Federation (Star Trek)? Do we even know? There’s been minimal backstory development in that area, I believe? How robust are Earth’s extraterrestrial allies? How many ships? Capabilities? Distance away? Willingness to help? Is there a NATO-like treaty? (“an attack on one is an attack on all”) Since the USS Orville is merely a “small exploratory” class vessel…does the Union also have full-on heavy battlecruisers, destroyers, intercepters in the fleet…and nearby? I hope so! (They’re gonna need some!) Inquiring minds…and the WW2 historian in me…wish to know! 😮
“Coexistence is impossible” = “Resistance is futile.” Cool symmetry.
Also to answer the question of why the Kaylons didn’t send anyone to stop the crew from seeing the catacombs- remember that the Borg ignored people on their ships until they became an actual threat. Figure that nothing the Orville could do would threaten the Kaylons, so they weren’t worth stopping. My theory is that the episode is more “Inner Light” than Locutus. The scan beam knocked them out and put the Orville crew in a simulation, as the Kaylons want to see how the Union would react in a similar situation. The crew has to find the catacombs to move along the simulation scenario.
The premise of the invasion is to further the evolution of the Kaylons, which they interpret as an expansion of their population. I predict that Isaac will conclude that in order for his race to evolve, the change must come internally, by the expansion of their perceptions and the development of emotions. He will betray his species to bring this about and fail, leaving him as the sole survivor. ISAAC: I Stand Alone As Cyborg. Just like Data, who, by the way, should have been named Datum, since he was an individual, which always bugged me about the series…
I guess we’ll never see that special episode of Bortus’ search to find a urinal….
The best episode to date, in terms of production and effective combination of Orville drama and Orville goofiness. The scenes with the kids were spot on. The party with Bortis’ cake scene was perfect. Grimes singing was amazing and explains how such an average dude has such a hot girlfriend in real life… 🙂
The scenes with the Kaylon and Orville crew were great (“Chairs on this planet?”) The whole story is compelling with a nice sense of dread hanging over it because of all the “information” Isaac has been gathering, but that makes for some serious plot holes that many are picking up on.
It had it’s usual set distractions; in this case filming in another office building lobby and promenade probably on an unoccupied Sunday afternoon or two – it overcame that with stunning visuals and atmosphere. And the lobby was effectively barren and harsh and machine-like. But can’t they at least After-Effect some different atmospheric color in the skies on these different planets? That would help a lot with the fantasy…
They dressed up an adequate number of Kaylons in legit costumes and added some freaky hi-quality looking hi-tech effects to some of them as well. Much better than the ridiculous monkey-troll masks of a few weeks ago. They projected a nice subtle sinister edge simmering under the surface with their manners and cold, hard machine like interiors, all on the budget of a weekly TV show. Pretty impressive.I continue to find their action scenes to be particularly awful, to the point I guess they’ve decided to be so cheesy on purpose. They handle goofiness and parody and messaging pretty well, but man, when the guns come out the show just goes to hell. The camera work is incredibly static, and the scenes are staged like things out of a B 50’s Western. They probably like that aesthetic, but IMO I think it goes over like a lead balloon. It’s the 25th century but everyone is basically still shooting rifles with no self-defense shields or anything else.
Now, plot holes: They continue to blunder in to planets with no knowledge of the inhabitants customs and motives- and that includes those of their own officers?? That’s just ridiculous. They knew THAT little about Kaylon, a non Federation member, but granted Isaac full access to the entire workings of the ship? Kaylon is supposedly beyond the borders and so far away but the show doesn’t impart that at all. It’s “warp drive” and you’re there in a blink same as anyplace else. They need a set piece, like the equivalent of traversing the dangerous foggy woods and moat before you get to the castle. This was just “whatever” and we’re at the genocidal planet we know nothing about. …
They could have at least engineered a machine-coup story back on Kaylon in Isaac’s absence to explain the genocidal hostility, while offering some plausibility to Isaac’s seemingly innocent role on the Orville. If not, the Federation has THE worst HR employee vetting in the universe judging form this and past episodes…Doctor Finn, a brilliant woman of science and counselor, falling so in love with a heartless machine is also beyond the pale, but whateverThe Kaylon could scan the interior of the Orville in space, but had no idea humans were running around un-escorted, discovering their dirtiest secrets? They are going to annihilate Earth but they keep the crew alive? The idea that they are “pranking” them on grand scale is out with so many redshirt deaths, although that would be Orvillian of the writers..
Overall a great episode. I hope the second half doesn’t fall apart. They’ve set up a lot to answer to.
“Kaylon is supposedly beyond the borders and so far away but the show doesn’t impart that at all. It’s “warp drive” and you’re there in a blink same as anyplace else.”
Isaac referred to having been deactivated for 32 cycles, suggesting days, and that’s a long trip at high warp (or whatever the quantum drive equivalent is).
I’m pretty sure a cycle is an hour.
“Doctor Finn, a brilliant woman of science and counselor, falling so in love with a heartless machine is also beyond the pale, but whatever”Is it any different than a person’s love relationship with their “Android” 4G? Or, a guy and his love relationship with his car? I always saw the Dr Finn – Isaac relationship as a social commentary/metaphor on the obsessive relationship we humans have with our personal, hand-held computing devices.
Yes, it is different. Most people don’t put a picture of a sexy person on their phone, then rub their genitals with it, and expect to marry the phone because it dispenses instructional music videos to their children.
When they got scanned upon arrival to the planet ; after that they were in a giant holodeck being tested.
So…we’ve taken a right turn from copying ST:TNG and gone for copying BSG.(tbh, I just realized how close-sounding Kaylon is to Cylon). Can’t say I’m a huge fan of this plot development…this just seems both cheap and lazy, and I find it very hard to believe that there is a 60 minute resolution that will not stretch credulity or the show’s original premier of comedic Saturday.
If you paid any attention to the title of the episode when it was on, you would have saw that it said “Identity pt.1″ which would have made it easierfor you to follow that it was going to be a “to be continued” episode.
At first I was wondering why Issac would want to stay on Kaylon because he was supposed to be deactivated since is task was done. It seemed like his reactivation was a courtesy for the Oriville to decided what to do. It would have seemed to make more sense that Issac would try to stay on board since he would be deactivated staying at home. However, now it seems like he was privy to the whole plan as a scout and they are using his familiarity with the Orville and the Union to help with the invasion. Issac is kind of the Locutus of the Kaylons. He probably does not know Mercer’s knowledge or clearance levels but it is likely that hacking that info wouldn’t be too hard for him.To address those wondering why the kept the humans alive. It’s likely that the Kaylons want the Union to think everything is fine while they have their “guns” pointed at the crew.
This episode proves that The Orville is the complete opposite of Discovery. The longer Discovery goes on, it gets worse and worse. And the longer The Orville goes on, it gets better and better. This show is carrying Trek’s legacy well.
Am I the only one who thinks that the Union may have been suspicious of the Kaylons from the beginning and have a contingency plan for this very scenario. It seems a more realistic solution that leaves the Orville on top.
I’m hoping that Isaac is actually a double agent working undercover for the Union. I don’t think they’d get rid of him as a character if he were just a turncoat. Besides, he still has those (not really big) blue eyes. As for attacking Earth, it’s probably the world they’ve had the most contact with. Although you’d think the Union would notice a huge fleet coming towards their territory.Why do robots need an atmosphere: for the convenience of other species? They might trade with others, even if they consider them inferior. A better question might be why they didn’t get rid of all (or at least most) of those incriminating skeletons?
I “Like” The Orville. But I’m not “In Love” with it. It’s fine. I don’t regret watching it every week. And I will make an effort to watch every week. But it falls into the category of show that I’m happy is on the air because it entertains me, but if it were cancelled tomorrow I’d simply move on with my life. So…good…but ultimately forgettable…I guess is what I’m saying.But Bortus and the corner piece literally had me laughing out loud. It was just such a….perfect…piece of character humour in a way that Seth McFarlane rarely achieves.
For once, I’m inclined to agree. The Orville reached for something, here, and by and large managed to grasp it. Sure, it was something Star Trek has done a bunch of times, but if we count that against The Orville, it would never get out of the gate. They took the one set of characters with any development and turned them on each other, and left you guessing where one of them stood, though with heavy implications it’s on the wrong side. Finally, The Orville played to its strengths and turned out its best episode so far. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go light reddit on fire by mentioning that this episode most reminded me of another show with an epic scope: Star Trek Discovery.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. BTW my wife asked me during the show why did she fall Dr Finn for a lawn mower? HA HA. I said dear the correct term is appliance. Who is right?
Fantastic episode!
a special mention to the little guy playing Ty, what an amazing acting job.
I think their arrogance will be their downfall. They’re convinced they’re more intelligent than any other species (Isaac certainly says it enough), so they think it will be easy to defeat such inferior life forms What they’re not taking into account is that intelligence is more than knowledge and logic. Biological life forms have something they don’t: creativity and wit.The show even alluded to this when Isaac said he didn’t know any speeches and a human had to tell him to pick one from his database. He didn’t think of such a simple solution.
“some really stunning set pieces, sharp dialog, legitimate questions about our projection of our humanity”Really? Really? What show are you watching? Because The Orville is the lamest, most lazily produced, horribly written and nauseatingly acted show on television. I’ve given it multiple chances and I find the only, and I mean ONLY saving grace is the under-utilized Norm McDonald. It’s corny. The stories are funny when they try to be serious and vice versa. It looks like it was filmed on rejected sets for the Original series Star Trek. The production value is non-existent, unless you like 1980s style special effects and campy 1950s style scripts and not in the good, ironic way. They must use that money for the lawsuits from Paramount. I’m a huge Seth fan and sci-fi fan. TED, Family Guy, even that western movie are incredibly funny and well done.
Obviously McFarlane is a sci-fi guy but, dude, get a second opinion. Only FOX would air this crap. Here’s a hint: Don’t cast yourself in a role you obviously have no chance of pulling off. You’re not the leading man in a sci-fi anything. This show is so derivative and so badly paced that it seems like its a parody of itself. Ughh.
Superficially, Isaac resembles classic ST characters like Data or Spock— constantly reminding us that he is incapable of emotion, which leads to all sorts of interesting interactions with crew members (most of whom are trying to encourage him to discover his “human” side). But the resemblance is superficial. Data and Spock were interesting because they clearly did have the capacity for emotion. As far as we can tell up to this point, Isaac is exactly what he says he is— an unfeeling machine.
Which is why I found some of this episode to be frustrating. Why *does* Dr. Claire feel attached to Isaac? Why do her children want him as a father? Why do the crew members express fondness for him? I get it that the storytellers are exploring the ways in which we “project” our own feelings, but this theme has been handled better— and very differently— in the episodes where people become attached to holodeck characters (Bortus in The Orville, Barkley in TNG).
Anyway, here’s a prediction. I don’t think Isaac will leave the show or become a villain (even though either one would be an interesting plot development). I think we’re going to learn that Isaac’s programming was changed while he was off meeting with the other robots— either the revived Isaac isn’t “really” Isaac, or his programming has been affected by some kind of executive override. (Remember, in the scene where he met with the other robots, they did more than just talk— they were messing around with his innards.)
To be honest I’ve just read only this episode but now I am thinking to read your all episodes. Thank you
I’m only just catching up with this season, and yes this was a great episode. My only small gripe was how ridiculous Isaac’s decommissioning was. You’d think an advanced sentient race of robots would have the foresight to maybe have his programming make him just return to his planet? He just… collapsed. What if he was piloting the ship, or in some precarious situation? That was just silly, dammit.
I did not see that coming. What an episode. That skull cavern reveal actually sent chills down my spine, which doesn’t happen often unless I’m taking a cold shower•