Reviews

A great concept to have a main storyline which allows for smaller sidestories inside the larger whole. It's been done before of course, with other great series; comes to memory is Star Trek Voyager. That's the chosen format for The Mandalorian. If you take for example another popular series from the past 'Breaking Bad', this works slowly and constantly towards the conclusion. But this is a completely different framework here.

I find this episode one of the best. It has all the elements which build up to great entertainment. At the same time, it's never lame. This episode clearly focusses on further character deepening of The Mandalorian. We see how he kills the Jawa without any remorse, which even makes Baby Yoda frown, and he shows a great part of selfishness when he's hold by the pilots of The New Republic. Hearing the words 'May the force be with you' coming from the mouth of Mando, a phrase he clearly not believes in, is only spoken by him to mislead the fighterpilots of this huge New Republic, making it almost sound like 'Heil Hitler' in the haydays of Nazi Germany. When finally he is saved by the same fighterpilots later in the episode, it is clear these pilots were in fact goodhearted, whereas Mando comes to the fore as a biased, selfish loner who has lost fate in the goodness of people.

What also further adds to the ongoing, greatly entertaining element of 'incorrectness' in this series was the moment wherein Baby Uoga eats the eggs of the Frog-lady. As soon as Baby Yoda lay his eyes on the eggs of this sweet frog, you were hoping the eggs would be safe, which of course was never the case. Despite all that, the Frog-lady remains sweet towards Baby Yoda, making her already one of the greatest characters of this series for me!

These character sketches are for me the most interesting parts in this episode, although I really love all the entertainment, from the über-cute Frog-lady, to Ice-spiders, to a great spaceship chase, to the dreamlike sequence in which Baby Yoda walks through the field of spider eggs..

Also love that DR Mandible is an insect, which by itself alone holds material for an entire new series.

Overall, I find that what makes The Mandalorian such a great watch and so much better than all Star Wars films (except for the first three) is that it pairs good entertainment with character building. All characters have a certain level of depth, whereas all recent SW films, the main characters were flat, without any depth of character. For me this is the main key why The Mandalorian works so well.

Quite a dissapointing episode after the promising part I. The behavior of the Kaylons is inconsistent and not very credible. The writing of McFarlane is simplistic. Entertaining and boring in one go.

I'm glad my life is pretty eventful and full with nice exciting and invigorating things. So when I want to have a boring evening, I'm happy it is time for Better Caul "How we spread the story over 5 seasons what we could have said in one episode" Saul. It's soo boring. It could have been said in one episode. But, then they spread it over 5 seasons. Probably there will be a Better call "How we spread the story over 5 seasons what we could have said in one episode" Saul OFFSPRING; the son's nephew of Better Call "How we spread the story over 5 seasons what we could have said in one episode" Saul. Looking forward! <3 <3 <3

NB: This review contain spoilers. Namely: Boring

As I understand it, this series is going to be 5 seasons in total. We can now already see a sort of a storyline-curve of the entire series, since we know where it will end- in Breaking Bad. I'd say the tension curve of the series is rather weak. It was till now mostly a depiction of a series of events which didn't have a direct link with the series of events in Breaking Bad. Unless you see it as a psycho-analytical explanation why certain characters (especially Saul) became the person he became in BB. In that perspective the series isn't even very coherent, because for instance the character of Mike rarely sees any character development. Nor does Gus or Lydia. In Episode 2 of season 4 there was finally a strong move towards the BB storyline, but this episode totally breaks this down again. I find the BCS series very disapointing in the overall storyline and weak in tension curve. It may still go closer to BB, but for me the moment wherein it should have happened was somewhere in Season 3. They can never make this up again in 1,5 season.

Overall, it all is just too casual. Self indulgent and forced arty. But by that, it totally missed the point.

After seeing this episode I'm afraid to rate The X Files negative ever again. Rate a 10.

Nice Episode. I'd only like another ending better; when Alara is finally lying in her bed peacefully, she turns to her other side to see the clown AGAIN! Fade out... Nonetheless, a top rate episode & gets a 10... NB: I can see a whole new SF-Horror genre of clowns in space! This episode is a good crossover of genres. I also liked the previous episode a lot. Star Trek Voyager's holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo) plays Alara's self-centred father Ildis Kitan.

I thought The Orville series had a pretty good start, but now after 7 episodes I've also seen a couple of episodes with a bit of a boring content. The series has so much more potential but the writer chooses often for an easy option.

I find it really very unlikely that there will be a planet anywhere in the system which looks so familiar to 21st century earth like the planet which was pictured in this episode (they even wore jeans? common...). If this was meant in a humorous way, the writer clearly failed to be clear about it.

Jack of all trades Mc Farlane is the writer. Does anyone ever acts as a mirror to this American guy? In my opinion he could definitely use a writers group to help him brainstorm about better ideas. I like to compare it to the series Breaking Bad, in which the main writer Vince Gilligan had a whole group of writers helping him to see the full potential of the series and make the series better as a whole. At this point I find the full potential of the series The Orville is by far not being approached. Mc Farlane surely is a gifted writer, but it will be better to have some other writers reflect on (his) ideas. I personally doubt this has happened thus far.

Hopefully in a second series of The Orville (if it ever happens), a writers group will help him to create the series.

About the series as a whole thus far, I haven't seen a really bad episode yet. One was pretty good (ep4), some fine, but some where rather mainstream and boring. At the beginning of the series I gave it a 9, but since my rating of the series has dropped to a 7. I hope next episodes will be better.

Not the best episode of The Orville thus far. Some decent writing but a bit on the conservative side. I'd rather have seen the Orville being trapped in the future and to see how a 25th century crew will survive in a 30th century environment from this episode on. Would have been a nice nod to ST voyager with potentially interesting writing possibilities. Instead I found the ending disappointing and a sort of an anti climax.

Charlize Theron is a fine actress, but not a spectacularly good actress. A bit overrated in my opinion.

Overall, disappointing.

Excellent episode of The Orville which comes very close to some of the older Star Trek series, only with much better CGI. Beautiful bright colors and the judicious use of colors make it look like there's been put a lot of thought in the visual attractiveness. It's like a warm bath for your eyes, all the saturated blues and reds...

That said, the show does raise a few questions. Like, why did I see an actual 3 wheeled Piaggio in one of the scenes on the planet / starship? Why does the city look like a 21th century city (like New York) on earth? Why do the people basically look like humans? Since the starship is approx 2000 years old it should be from around 417 AD (since the story of The Orville happens around 2417; 2417 minus 2000=...) So how's about the New York look of the city and the Piaggio than? Unanswered questions here...

For the rest, an excellent show.