If I were a culture that scorned everyone born under a certain star sign, and invested a lot of time and money into throwing them into camps, I'd make sure everyone would go out of their way to not procreate nine (or however many) months before that star sign period.
Maybe it's just me.
Will there be an egg?
hahahaha that was funny XD
Good episode, just not that wow, it is somehow poorly written!
The flawed notion that you’re going to talk the people out of their own religion struck me as ridiculous and a waste of time.
The tack to take is that the two prisoners that were taken were not born under their stars, not born under the local astrological assumptions, so could not have the native-born deficiencies.
Oh, boy that was almost perfect.. until they dropped the small issue of murdering prison guards. Oh well.
The premise was good and as ridiculous as any Earth's religion really, so it was believable.
[6.7/10] So there’s two big issues with this episode. The first is that the premise doesn’t provide enough incident to justify an entire hour of network television. “What if a technologically advanced species still believed in astrology?” is a solid idea for Star Trek plot, but you need to add layers onto that to generate an actual story. There’s never any deeper layers to the premise, just “These people build their society around astrological signs and that’s dumb.” The reveal happens in the second act, and then there’s no additional interesting developments beyond it.
The second is that the Orville’s solution to the problem is really convenient and poorly thought out. Seth MacFarlane (who wrote the episode) tries to use the locals’ own mythology against them by recreating the star that disappeared from the bad astrological sign three thousand years ago. But it plays as really convenient that, even for a people devoted to astrology, the return of that star in the constellation would result in the locals’ freeing the people born under a “bad sign”, restoring them from the lowest caste in the society, and returning Grayson and Bortus to the Union.
Why wouldn’t they consider it a confirmation that what they’re doing is good? Why wouldn’t they just go into a panic over a star suddenly reappearing? At a minimum, there’s a million ways this could have gone, plenty of them bad, and Captain Mercer rolling the dice and coming up lucky like this feels facile. The show doesn’t come up with a good answer to the “superstitious society has imprisoned our officers” problem, and it’s not as though there’s not dozens of better answers to choose from within Star Trek history.
This is also just another “societal myths are stupid” episode from MacFarlane. And even when I’m on his side about this stuff, he just belabors the point so much to the point of exhaustion. I wish he would find a new hobby horse.
There’s a few nice things in this episode though. For one, I love how excited the whole crew is about the prospect of First Contact. It’s genuinely rousing to see all of the Orville thrilled to build relations with a new species taking its first steps into a broader galactic community. It’s one of those things that becomes plot relevant, since it limits Mercer’s ability to just burst in and recover their people by force, but it also just gives the ship a sense of place.
In the same vein, I like the adventures of Commander Grayson as an alien prisoner. Adrianne Palicki does a good job at playing someone trying to help out the less fortunate in tough conditions while remaining compliant yet defiant with her captors. One of her fellow prisoners giving birth in captivity, requiring Grayson’s help, is a good beat for the character, and there’s an interesting moral dilemma over whether to stay with your child or give them a better life since they were born under the “good sign”.
The only other detail of note is that this episode is the debut of Talla, the replacement Xelayan for Kitan. She’s...fine? The show does a bit too much to try to sell her, and she doesn’t feel like a natural part of the milieu just yet, but I’m doing my best to reserve judgment given that it’s her first episode.
Overall, this is a weaker episode after a string of real winners, but that’s going to happen. Maybe we just need to keep MacFarlane himself away from the pen.
Stupid beliefs or deadly birthday? I believe that the first thing
This was the first episode I actually disliked. The convenient timing of their wondrous star reappearing would've been obvious to literally everyone on that planet. The solution to this seemed way too easy. I think it would've been a better plot element if the first prefect had instead turned out to be secretly born under the bad zodiac sign.
Some of the scenes where they were talking to the admiral were cut in a weird way, too. Sudden emotional outburst by Ed and the new security chief - cut to group shot of everyone looking very stern. There was no natural flow during those discussions.
i dont see any comedy anymore
This might be the first time an episode of STD was better than the Orville episode broadcast in the same week.
Starting to become a bit boring,not finding it as funny as the first season.
Well they really pulled one over that whole society. But I wonder why Kelly and Bortus didn't have to face any consequences for shooting all those guards. That's a slight plot hole.
This story would not have worked as well in Star Trek because they have transporters so they would have to come up with some explanation why they can't use them. I think that is really a big plus for The Orville. Of course you're left here with another moral dilemma. Does the end justify the means. You can argue about whether or not the Rigorians world view is justified but they came there on their own. And it's not a concept alien to humanity itself. We did intern people for a multitude of reasons. And that is why this is another very good episode.
Definitely back on tone this episode, after the first 4 felt kind of lost and going in very different directions. Probably helped that this is the first one Seth wrote this season. It feels like they desperately wanted to evolve the show into something new, but didn't know what and fell back on what they do well in this episode. Be interesting to see if they keep pushing for evolution or not. I miss what Alara used to bring too, that self doubt, innocence and resolve.
"Sir we've discovered a planet with the same military traditions as America, but now they got two of our people". "That's ok, don't intervene. It's totally normal as we know it". "Ok we'll see if there's a diplomatic solution". How controversially contradicting. The first half was fun. The second half totally ruined it being so totally reflective of American traditions.
A premise worthy of Star Trek, but with an execution worthy of Lost In Space (the original one). Too many plot holes. I feel a little bad for Robert Duncan McNeill having to work with a subpar script like this.
I really don't like Talla. Everything about her character grates on my being. She doesn't fit the tone of the show now, but maybe she would have fit in better in the first season. (I still wouldn't have liked her, though.)
come on....
come on....
come on....
come on....
come on....
come on....
Shout by Jitse LemmensBlockedParent2019-01-25T20:26:13Z
Now this is how you make a compelling sci-fi show CBS! The only thing that bothers me is the way too human-looking vehicles, computers, hospital equipment and weapons but I can't fault them for having to stay within their budget.
Great premise, great execution, a coherent, exciting episode instead of a flashy, bling bling mess that ignores any sort of plot there is.