The Orville: Krill

October 12, 2017 8:12 PM - Season 1, Episode 6

After capturing a Krill shuttle, Ed and Gordon are sent on a dangerous undercover mission to infiltrate a Krill ship and obtain a copy of their holy book.
posted by fimbulvetr (33 comments total)

I think this was the first episode where I really don't have much complaints and it got a decent balance on jokes, the idea of competent but really not fit for duty fuck-ups running a ship and being straight-up Trek. I hope they can do it again with more of the crew involved.

Also, the callback to Gordon's new leg.
posted by lmfsilva at 4:09 AM on October 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Solid. I was moved. Good job everybody. I found it actually impressive, and the last line showed real complexity.
posted by amtho at 9:00 AM on October 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

This was a step forward. Seeing Ed and Gordon continue to talk like idiot bros while looking like Krill got old really fast, though I did like their aliases. But yeah, the leg was hilarious and there was an actual balance between humor and drama. And jeez, that ending line was something else.
posted by Ber at 10:48 AM on October 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I forgot to mention: The acting from the actress playing Kelly was absolutely fantastic. Whatever is allowing her to perform like that, I hope she gets to do it a lot more.
posted by amtho at 10:52 AM on October 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I haven't watched this episode yet, but from the comments here I got curious, so: this episode was the first not written by Seth MacFarlane. It was written by a Futurama and Star Trek: Enterprise alumnus, David A. Goodman.
posted by Automocar at 1:47 PM on October 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

I have to say that Seth MacFarlane's acting seemed to have more depth too. He can legitimately act well with other people's scripts, apparently. I hope we see more episodes like this.
posted by amtho at 3:34 PM on October 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Katniss Everdine made made me smile
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 3:54 PM on October 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

HAIL AVIS! HAIL VICTORY!
posted by Talez at 5:44 PM on October 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

We try harder.
posted by lmfsilva at 6:52 PM on October 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Would they really know that Avis was a car rental place in the 23rd century or whatever? How many 18th century buggy renters can you name?

hmmmph. Perhaps I'm overthinking.
posted by Justinian at 7:59 PM on October 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Naw, sorry, Seth's just coplaying. He has a really good tv-making crew around him though.
posted by porpoise at 10:32 PM on October 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

So, we're not going to talk about how Rana 3 looked like Earth but after some sea level rise? (Like, you could see Mexico, Baja peninsula and all.)
posted by MikeKD at 11:22 PM on October 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I am a but afraid that having told the Krill child about the location of earth will have consequences
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 4:52 AM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

I wondered about that too, thegirlwiththehat. Foreshadowing?
posted by wittgenstein at 5:33 AM on October 14, 2017

this episode was the first not written by Seth MacFarlane.

Was this the first episode without a cringey breakup joke? I won't miss those if they're bringing on better writers.
posted by peeedro at 7:29 AM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

hmmmph. Perhaps I'm overthinking.

Definitely. In fact, thinking of any kind is generally discouraged if you want to enjoy this show. There's a ton of fourth wall jokes that make no sense in universe (like the katniss everdeen shoutout) that everyone just ignores. Once I realized this show was going to play it straight, except for those asides, it became much more fun. It's a comedy-drama, with the drama coming from the situations and the comedy mostly a salting of anachronisms. And Gordon's leg. Glad that one's still going.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 9:27 AM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's funny, previous episodes seemed to be less well-liked, but I really enjoyed them. This one, with the constant Avis jokes, grated on me more than any episode so far. I still enjoyed it, but less. The end was quite good, though.

One of these days, I'd like to see a warlike alien race that isn't designed to look so warlike. Imagine a crew struggling with fighting an alien race that looks like puppies.
posted by jzb at 11:28 AM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Imagine a crew struggling with fighting an alien race that looks like puppies.

Puchuuuuuuu!
posted by lmfsilva at 12:38 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

Imagine a crew struggling with fighting an alien race that looks like puppies.

Or whatever Kes' species was from DS9. Clean, healthy, attractive, fit, wide-eyed, blonde, friendly-looking humanoids with no obvious "deformity", who just happened to believe humans are evil.
posted by amtho at 7:32 PM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Or whatever Kes' species was from DS9. Clean, healthy, attractive, fit, wide-eyed, blonde, friendly-looking humanoids with no obvious "deformity", who just happened to believe humans are evil.

Kes was a crew member on Voyager and her race was the Ocampa (Ocama?) and it wasn't the entire race but a splinter group that resettled another planet that had an issue with other species. They were able to transcend their normal lifespans of a few years to a couple of decades which made them la-dee-da and whatnot. And it was more as though they saw all humanoids (not just humans) as almost pet-like (not evil). Oh. And they had pointy ears, those Ocampas.
posted by Johnny Hazard at 8:30 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

My point was just that she was cute.
posted by amtho at 4:28 AM on October 15, 2017

Bloom County did that once.... aliens were capturing and eating humans. When they finally put one on trial for crimes, it ended up looking like a cute puppy. My Google-fu fails me to find a link to the right strip.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:18 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

I was only able to find one of the relevant Bloom County strips... it was a satire of the Iran-Contra hearings, with the space puppy standing in for Oliver North.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:33 PM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

I generally enjoyed this episode, but I also found the continual Avis car rental jokes something of a drag on the episode as they went on and on. Also, those two guys are horrible at going undercover. I mean, seriously awful. Thank goodness this is The Orville, because I would have otherwise passed out from disbelief that they were not immediately discovered and executed. This only goes so to show that the Krill Society has some very awkward and bizarre members in it.
posted by Atreides at 8:02 AM on October 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Imagine a crew struggling with fighting an alien race that looks like puppies.
Not warlike but definitely cute and evil: The "mineors" in Galaxy Quest.
posted by elgilito at 10:04 AM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Here ya go... the human-eating-puppy-alien story started on 30 July 1987 with the arrival of the Zygort Death Ship.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:48 AM on October 16, 2017

Yeah, I've generally liked these, but this one had me wincing. You tell a random kid Earth's location? And come on, you aren't even trying to fit in?
posted by corb at 10:53 AM on October 16, 2017

I thought it was funny that they were doing a terrible job at fitting in, but the Krill just rolled with it. I cracked up when the Krill guy agreed a black velvet painting of Avis would look great on the wall of their ship. I think the fact that the Krill were okay with the goofy antics of Ed and Mercer gave them more depth a character, rather than being one-dimensional alien evil-doers. Little details, like agreeing it is interesting to see what other Krill wear when they are out of uniform.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:00 AM on October 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

I did appreciate, or maybe I didn't, when the Captain was all, "There's nothing wrong with those two very odd birds, high priest, but since you've been right in the back, I'll go ahead and send a guard to keep watch." But, I do agree, it does actually give them more depth, and in a way, a bit more frightening - these are a people who are willing to accept weirdos in their midsts, but also enjoy religious ceremonies where a severed human head is repeatedly stabbed and don't believe humans have souls.
posted by Atreides at 2:05 PM on October 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

My favorite part of this episode was how clumsy the rubber alien suits were.
posted by Nelson at 10:25 PM on October 29, 2017

The 20th and 21st century references can be linked directly to TOS and TNG doing the same.

Complaining about this show deviating from realism is a bit odd. It's a parody of Star Trek. Star Trek deviated constantly from realism, and parodying that requires jumping into an abyss of absurditiy.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:18 AM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

Would they really know that Avis was a car rental place in the 23rd century or whatever? How many 18th century buggy renters can you name?

Months later is occurred to me that maybe it was a joke about the name of another national rental car company, Enterprise.
posted by peeedro at 8:29 PM on April 19, 2018 [9 favorites]

Mind blown peeedro.
posted by Carillon at 7:57 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]