The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful

Completing my catch-up with The Orville, the immensely enjoyable take-off on Star Trek, I watched episodes 1.6-9 last night.  They each were superb.

• 1.6 is a classic undercover story, that was done so well on Star Trek: TOS.   The worst enemy (so far) in The Orville universe are the Krill, who don't look like Klingons but resemble them in penchant for aggression.  Interestingly, Bortus and the Moclans look more like the Klingons, and have some of their ferocity, but are more like the Worf-kind of Klingon on the bridge of Star Trek: TNG.  But neither are the Krill like the Romulans, who in effect are evil Vulcans not evil Klingons.  In any case, 1.6 was a great hour, and even had some tenderness with the Krill teacher, who also provided a great parting punch with her remark that the children Mercer saved will grow up to hate humans.
• 1.7 with its Like and Dislike buttons and their life-and-death impact is a little masterpiece in itself, and could have been a episode of Black Mirror, or even a satirical movie about life on Earth in 2017.  The Orville is doing a great job of reprising, updating, and injecting with humor the full range of Star Trek tropes, ranging from immersion in 20th (now 21st) human cultures to undercover missions on enemy worlds.
• 1.8 also delivers on another Star Trek staple, giving major characters their own episodes.  We saw this with Bortus in 1.3, and with the doctor and her boys in 1.8, as well as Isaac (LaMarr had the limelight in 1.7).  We also get a good post-civilization reduced to barbarity in 1.8, an always-necessary warning about our own world.
• But 1.9 was the most important of the foursome I saw last night.  The revelation that Kelly slept with Darulio because she was under the influence of his pheromones is a game-changer for The Orville, because it tells Ed (who was also under that influence in this episode) that Kelly's dalliance with Darulio was beyond her control.  Since I think Ed and Kelly are a great couple, I was glad to see that.  It was also good to see poor trodden-upon Yaphit finally get some with the doctor, for the same pheromonic reasons.

The Orville is firing its quantum drive on all cylinders, and I'll be back with a review for every part of the journey.

See also The Orville 1.1-1.5: Star Trek's Back ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns

1st starship to Alpha Centauri ... had only enough fuel to get there

Why Brexit and Waldo Won't Play as Trump in the U.S.

A lot of bitter-end Trumpists, clinging to any last hope they can find as their candidate goes under, cite Brexit as what will happen in the United States on Election Day.  If they were more literate, they might also find comfort in Black Mirror's science fiction episode, "The Waldo Moment," in which a cartoon character disrupts the political process in the U.K., and comes in second in a three-way heated campaign.   Indeed, Black Mirror creator and Waldo writer Charlie Booker has gone on record saying that Trump could well win.

Here's why I think not -

First, as far as Brexit is concerned, although the pro-Brexit "leave" vote was trailing the anti-Brexit "stay" vote in the lead-up to the U.K. referendum, the two were closer (just a few points in the polls) than Trump is now to Hillary Clinton in the United States (he's ten or more points behind in many states, including some swing states).

But those numbers aside, the electoral system in the U.K. is very different from what we have in the U.S.  In the U.K., everyone voted once, pro or against, Brexit.  The potential for surprise that goes against the polling is much greater in that kind of system than in the U.S., in which the Presidential election takes place months after the conclusion of a series of primaries.

Why is that important?  Well, not to be too cynical about it, but our U.S. system gives more people more time to come to their senses, and not vote their first impulses.   Indeed, Trump won the primaries because people were indeed voting their first impulses, which they didn't have all that much time to think over, and in the Republican Party were not all that antithetical to Trump in any case. But Americans including Republicans now have had lots of time to find out about Trump's treatment of women, his refusal to say he'll abide by the election results, and lots of other very disturbing factors not many people knew about during the primaries.

Nothing is impossible in elections.  But John Milton and Thomas Jefferson's belief that if truth is in the market place of ideas with all the falsity, sooner or later a majority of rational human beings will recognize it, seems to be at holding sway in the United States, where the truth about Trump has had time to get known.

We all have to vote, but I'm looking forward to watching Waldo where he belongs, not in the White House but on Black Mirror's darkly satirical television.