Yeah, I wasn’t super in board with this episode either. It had some great bits, like everything with Alara and Bortus (“YOU WILL BE SILENT!”) and Rob Lowe was perfectly cast. But yeah, there were…problems as well. Might be my least favorite ep after the pilot.
I agree that it was one of the weaker episodes of the show overall, but I still enjoyed it because the humor actually made me laugh a lot.
Oh yeah, there was enough humor that worked that made me enjoy it, but…yeah…
Every Trek series has it’s Naked Time/Naked Now right? This was it for The Orville. I have to say, I liked it better than the other two.
Yeah, now that you mention it, there was a lot of creepy stuff with women too. I just forgot about it when The Orville turned into the Baitbus.
At least the kids weren’t screaming twats in this episode! So for me it was an improvement over last week…
Holy crap Orville, I was JOKING! Thanks for that scene I will never be able to unsee! WTF…
Anyway, I agree that overall the episode was weak, not to mention more than a little gross given the fact that Rob Lowe’s character essentially knows what is happening and just doesn’t give a shit as long as he’s getting laid. On the other hand, perhaps it will finally kill off the terrible cheating jokes and awkward vibe that’s been hindering both characters’ development for too long.
Yeah, that was an awkward episode all around. If it does end the “you cheated on me” line of the ongoing story, it’s worth it.
Still, at a time when sexual harassment and assault are making headlines, most notably one case involving a minor, they bring an actor who had an incident with a 16 year-old (LONG ago, to be fair) to play a part which revolves around the question of consent?
That’s mostly how I feel about it. Bortus and Alara, as usual, made it all worth it.
I had to Google Baitbus. I thought it was a German offshoot of the Bauhaus or something. You sure are into some weird subculture stuff, my friend! Happy sailing!
Getting that on your google search history is my good deed for the day.
I saw a headline in my google feed that the final episode this season is getting pushed to air next season instead. So we’ll get 12 episodes this season, ending on Dec 7, and then the season finale will become the season premiere next Fall, I guess. It’s going to be hard waiting so long.
I’m glad we’re getting more, but yeah, long, rough wait.
Next fall! What???! I’m creating my own Orville. With blackjack, and hookers!
While I don’t think they knew how prominent the issue would be when they wrote this episode, wouldn’t this be a great time to have this kind of an episode? I mean, the whole point is to bring up questions our culture is currently struggling with and try to present a clarifying situation that helps people think more clearly about it (primarily by doing away with any partisan trappings). The basic idea here seems to be more about the idea of an alcohol-fueled one night stand than about consent in a broader sense. Many people have hookups they are not proud of and don’t want to think about, but fully consented to and would never describe as rape. In many cases, those encounters are driven by the chemical effects of testosterone and alcohol or THC at levels that reduce inhibitions but don’t impair higher function. So like with a lot of the material on the show, it obliquely scatters off a hot-button issue by using a science fiction-driven thought experiment.
I viewed it quite differently; people partake in drinking binges, like you say, and it can very much inhibit their decision making skills. If two people smashed out of their minds wind up having sex, sure, I agree; no moral dilemma. But if one person is in control of their facilities and knows the other isn’t, they’re having sex with someone incapable of consent; that’s rape.
In this show, the pheromones were the intoxicant, Ed being the intoxicated, and Darulio as the one fully in control of his capacities (although I’m using alien logic to assume his pheromones don’t intoxicate himself). The question is whether this is just Ed releasing his inhibitions or if he’s really not in control of what he’s doing. I appreciate that grey area, but that’s certainly a question of consent in my mind (which, to be fair, isn’t always infallible, lol).
If that blue race existed they would be hunted by every race in the galaxy for that pheremone. It’s the ultimate date rape drug, as not only does it make the person want to have sex with you, it convinces them, after it wears off, that it was their idea and totally ok!
Actually, it sounded like your description was pretty closely aligned with what I was going for. The episode raises the question of at what point a wild hookup becomes rape-y or clearly rape. If Darulio is in heat, then he’s potentially also not really in control in a way he would be most of the time - he’s completely sex-obsessed as well. Ed and Kelly might have been acting abnormal, but they were also in control of their faculties to an extent we would never associate with, say, being roofied. Does that make it ok, or is it still rape? What if the drug is just pure attractiveness, confidence, and “game”?
A lot of Seth Macfarlane’s jokes have been creepy, on Orville and Family Guy, American Dad, etc.