Such incredible writing once again from Seth and the team. Okay, so here goes again:
Despite the procedure and logical fails of
Ed confirming to the admiral that he'll be extra careful politically, but then deciding it's perfectly fine to send Topa, a female Moclan, into the political minefield in the sanctuary
How Topa getting kidnapped by a gentle hand covering her mouth somehow causes her to bleed all over her necklace and also causes the necklace to fall off
Kelly and Bortus on the shuttle deciding not to leave a beacon/probe behind that would let the Orville know about their situation and last-known direction of the ion trail, or even leaving a deliberately visible trail themselves, but just leaving
Kelly not cloaking the shuttle from orbit, but only after they're directly in front of the Moclan black site
The black site, being a 25th century prison, not having any alarms or emergency doors that lock down, ways to disable weapons via EMP or similar, or any basic security features like, oh I don't know, locks on the doors to prevent outside intruders like Kelly and Bortus from just walking inside. The whole place might as well be a stone temple
The Moclan interrogator being from the 25th century, yet only knowing 2 barbaric and ineffective techniques: punching someone's face, and tazing them. This black site must be run by trainees
The tazer Bortus used on the interrogator somehow physically mutilating his only eye, despite it being an electrical tool that left no marks on Topa
The fact that everyone knows Kelly and Bortus have invaded the facility by the time they rescue Topa, but again the black site has no lockdown features or anything at all to stop or even slow down Kelly and Bortus, intruders, from just walking out
How Kelly, who previously cloaked the shuttle in order to land, for some reason, decides to decloak the ship when they take off, so that all the Moclan fighters can see them leaving. My brain: explodes
Kelly not flying the shuttle straight up to leave the planet and go to quantum
Gordon, who is well-known to have negative diplomatic skills, being allowed to even attend such a politically fragile meeting; even if Ed allows it, the admirals (and president) would not
How Gordon was A allowed to speak at all, and B how it's very clear, based on his face and his first couple words, that Gordon was about to rage, but out of all the highly-trained diplomats who can recognize such hostile intent, not a single one of them stops or interrupts Gordon until after he says damaging words
Kelly, Bortus, and Topa somehow being able to drop in unannounced to a Union council meeting without anyone being notified
How the council was shown literally no direct evidence of Kelly or Bortus' claims as to why Topa was so beat up, yet they all immediately believe Kelly and Bortus' words on faith, even though these two are clearly biased towards the Human and Female Moclan side of the debate (Yes, we the viewers know what happened, but the council saw nothing and they have a duty to be unbiased, plus they're all likely to be afraid of taking action and weakening their forces against the Kaylon)
Despite all these, and although I can't say there were fewer mistakes than the previous episode this time, the overall quality of the episodes have been only getting better on average, in my opinion.
Seth and the team are consistently improving the writing, the acting, and the plot lines, more and more. And since my previous reviews were filled with the problems I noticed, but I didn't mention a lot of the excellence to explain what I like about each episode so much, now I'm fixing that:
I love the political conflict with the Moclans actually being used and is an important part of the Kaylon conflict story arc
I like the fact The Orville is going from being "episodic" to "arcs", because to me, arcs are where the real entertainment comes, where you build things up, go through rollercoasters, and get the payoff. Episodic content I feel is good for "breaks" in between arc episodes so it's not too intense the whole time, something like a work "weekend" but for TV show episodes
I like Topa being involved in the story heavily despite most child characters not getting as much screen time or plot involvement, but she's critical to the plot here, so it's nicely done
I felt nostalgia watching the black site escape scene which gave me a Star Wars pod racing / trench run vibe. They even said to aim for the "exaust port"
I'm impressed with how Seth handles real-world politically-sensitive topics with such grace and fluidity to the story. From what I've been seeing, he doesn't force concepts down the viewers throats like other shows have been doing recently as what some people might call "political ass-kissing" or "woke culture", but he actually manages to find a way to share his own opinion about said political debates in an easy-to-hear way. Now, I'm probably biased because from what I've seen, Seth's opinions on those political issues seem to align with mine, but the point is he's not bashing the viewers or fans at all. I feel he's simply showing them a perspective and leaving it at that, which to me is a great way to do it
But all of this is just my opinion. What do you think?
Review by SabianBlockedParentSpoilers2022-09-01T05:03:49Z
Such incredible writing once again from Seth and the team. Okay, so here goes again:
Despite the procedure and logical fails of
Ed confirming to the admiral that he'll be extra careful politically, but then deciding it's perfectly fine to send Topa, a female Moclan, into the political minefield in the sanctuary
How Topa getting kidnapped by a gentle hand covering her mouth somehow causes her to bleed all over her necklace and also causes the necklace to fall off
Kelly and Bortus on the shuttle deciding not to leave a beacon/probe behind that would let the Orville know about their situation and last-known direction of the ion trail, or even leaving a deliberately visible trail themselves, but just leaving
Kelly not cloaking the shuttle from orbit, but only after they're directly in front of the Moclan black site
The black site, being a 25th century prison, not having any alarms or emergency doors that lock down, ways to disable weapons via EMP or similar, or any basic security features like, oh I don't know, locks on the doors to prevent outside intruders like Kelly and Bortus from just walking inside. The whole place might as well be a stone temple
The Moclan interrogator being from the 25th century, yet only knowing 2 barbaric and ineffective techniques: punching someone's face, and tazing them. This black site must be run by trainees
The tazer Bortus used on the interrogator somehow physically mutilating his only eye, despite it being an electrical tool that left no marks on Topa
The fact that everyone knows Kelly and Bortus have invaded the facility by the time they rescue Topa, but again the black site has no lockdown features or anything at all to stop or even slow down Kelly and Bortus, intruders, from just walking out
How Kelly, who previously cloaked the shuttle in order to land, for some reason, decides to decloak the ship when they take off, so that all the Moclan fighters can see them leaving. My brain: explodes
Kelly not flying the shuttle straight up to leave the planet and go to quantum
Gordon, who is well-known to have negative diplomatic skills, being allowed to even attend such a politically fragile meeting; even if Ed allows it, the admirals (and president) would not
How Gordon was A allowed to speak at all, and B how it's very clear, based on his face and his first couple words, that Gordon was about to rage, but out of all the highly-trained diplomats who can recognize such hostile intent, not a single one of them stops or interrupts Gordon until after he says damaging words
Kelly, Bortus, and Topa somehow being able to drop in unannounced to a Union council meeting without anyone being notified
How the council was shown literally no direct evidence of Kelly or Bortus' claims as to why Topa was so beat up, yet they all immediately believe Kelly and Bortus' words on faith, even though these two are clearly biased towards the Human and Female Moclan side of the debate (Yes, we the viewers know what happened, but the council saw nothing and they have a duty to be unbiased, plus they're all likely to be afraid of taking action and weakening their forces against the Kaylon)
Despite all these, and although I can't say there were fewer mistakes than the previous episode this time, the overall quality of the episodes have been only getting better on average, in my opinion.
Seth and the team are consistently improving the writing, the acting, and the plot lines, more and more. And since my previous reviews were filled with the problems I noticed, but I didn't mention a lot of the excellence to explain what I like about each episode so much, now I'm fixing that:
I love the political conflict with the Moclans actually being used and is an important part of the Kaylon conflict story arc
I like the fact The Orville is going from being "episodic" to "arcs", because to me, arcs are where the real entertainment comes, where you build things up, go through rollercoasters, and get the payoff. Episodic content I feel is good for "breaks" in between arc episodes so it's not too intense the whole time, something like a work "weekend" but for TV show episodes
I like Topa being involved in the story heavily despite most child characters not getting as much screen time or plot involvement, but she's critical to the plot here, so it's nicely done
I felt nostalgia watching the black site escape scene which gave me a Star Wars pod racing / trench run vibe. They even said to aim for the "exaust port"
I'm impressed with how Seth handles real-world politically-sensitive topics with such grace and fluidity to the story. From what I've been seeing, he doesn't force concepts down the viewers throats like other shows have been doing recently as what some people might call "political ass-kissing" or "woke culture", but he actually manages to find a way to share his own opinion about said political debates in an easy-to-hear way. Now, I'm probably biased because from what I've seen, Seth's opinions on those political issues seem to align with mine, but the point is he's not bashing the viewers or fans at all. I feel he's simply showing them a perspective and leaving it at that, which to me is a great way to do it
But all of this is just my opinion. What do you think?