The Orville Season Two - Thoughts?

[Ryujin]

Fer giggules, I checked out the show’s fan wiki.
http://orville.wikia.com/wiki/Krill

According to it, The Union has yet to declare war in the Krill, but that “the conflict” has gone on for a few years, and that the nature of the disagreement means it “could last decades”. The wiki doesn’t detail much in the way of ship-to-ship skirmishes, instead noting that the Krill have done raids in installations & colonies over the past year or so.

In a way, the dynamics between the two is less like tahat of the Federation-Klingon interactions and more like the earlier back and forth between the Federation and the Romulans. The Romulans started off nuking Fed colonies, and both sides were still in the earliest stages of gathering intel about each other. Remember, the Feds were surprised to note the resemblance between Romulans and Vulcans.

To me, at least, the Union-Krill fight seems inits earliest stages as well. So, like I said, this episode may mark the first capture of a Union officer.

IIRC the Romulans were supposed to be a stand-in for Communist China and the Klingons were the Soviet Union analog. During the Romulan conflict neither the Federation nor the Romulans had video capable FTL radio so all contact was via voice or text. No one had seen a Romulan until the incident. Of course "Enterprise" threw that all out the window.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

IIRC the Romulans were supposed to be a stand-in for Communist China and the Klingons were the Soviet Union analog. During the Romulan conflict neither the Federation nor the Romulans had video capable FTL radio so all contact was via voice or text. No one had seen a Romulan until the incident. Of course "Enterprise" threw that all out the window.

I don’t remember a Romulan-centric episode in that series.

 

[Ryujin]

I don’t remember a Romulan-centric episode in that series.

The original series episode I referenced is "Balance or Terror." In "Enterprise" they already had FTL visual communications, prior to the Romulan War, which shouldn't have been the case. There actually were a few Romulan-centric episodes in which the Romulans used an Andorian to control drone attack ships, that were capable of masking their appearance, and in which the Enterprise had to deal with a cloaked Romulan minefield, for example.

 

[Deset Gled]

I am nitpicking a show that I love. I am clearly displaying the capacity for handwaving certain tropes - such as "Captain Away Mission". I have refrained from commenting about the mind-boggling stupidity that is to have a light-sensitive race whose weakness can be overcome by a mere leather jacket...?

On the subject of nitpicking...

I was okay with the jacket thing, because it was clearly a short term emergency fix. Like a human running through a radiation field with a lead blanket. Sure, spend 5 minutes there and you'll get (literally) burned. Spend 20 minutes there and get cancer that kills you. But when you're being chased by someone with a gun, you take that calculated risk for 30 seconds to try and escape. Very believable.

What I found harder to take was the earlier Krill infiltration episode where they incapacitated the ship by hacking the lights to turn everything too bright. Why would lights in working area's of ship even have the ability to be bright enough to hurt the Krill? That's like humans putting 1000W light bulbs in all our lamps, and just running them at 60. Why would there be a remote control that even allow the lights to be programmed to kill? Why would the infrastructure allow that much power to go to a light (one of the basics of electrical safety is that when a devices pulls too much power, you assume it's shorted and cut the power)? It was definitely one of those little things that blew my suspension of disbelief for me. I needed something with more technobabble to hand wave the problems.

That episode was also weak for me because of the dialog. It just had excessive non-Krill-like joking while undercover. I feel like this season, so far, has done a better job of figuring out when it's okay for the characters to be joking and when they're supposed to be serious.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The original series episode I referenced is "Balance or Terror." In "Enterprise" they already had FTL visual communications, prior to the Romulan War, which shouldn't have been the case. There actually were a few Romulan-centric episodes in which the Romulans used an Andorian to control drone attack ships, that were capable of masking their appearance, and in which the Enterprise had to deal with a cloaked Romulan minefield, for example.

I know “Balance of Terror”.

But I simply don’t recall the Romulans in Enterprise. Mental block, perhaps.

 

[Ryujin]

I know “Balance of Terror”.

But I simply don’t recall the Romulans in Enterprise. Mental block, perhaps.

Apart from seeing a brief glimpse of Andoria, it wasn't a great arc. Easily forgettable. Since they were using mentally controlled drone ships they didn't show the Romulans a lot. Perennial tough guy Brian Thompson plays the Romulan commander who is in direct control of the drone ship programme.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Apart from seeing a brief glimpse of Andoria, it wasn't a great arc. Easily forgettable. Since they were using mentally controlled drone ships they didn't show the Romulans a lot. Perennial tough guy Brian Thompson plays the Romulan commander who is in direct control of the drone ship programme.

Damn. I watched that entire series, and have ZERO recollection of that at all.

I’ll have to contact my buddy J.D. Edwards- we often watched the show together.

There were no Romulans in that series.

 

[Ryujin]

Damn. I watched that entire series, and have ZERO recollection of that at all.

I’ll have to contact my buddy J.D. Edwards- we often watched the show together.

There were no Romulans in that series.

[video=youtube;v9ospnoQvdI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ospnoQvdI[/video]

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I vaguely recognize the flea shaped ship and that actor...but not that scene.

 

[Umbran]

That clip makes me want to go back and rewatch Enterprise