"The Orville" , "Majority Rule." "Down votes"

[Guest]

Since the start of this week, I've been going through Season 1 of The Orville from Netflix. As a former Star Trek fan, I wasn't sure how I'd like it, but I've been really loving this series. It reflects on a lot of our society's problems with a large dose of humor. In a former string, I commented on how I found the concept of giving a post a "Thumbs down" without having to discuss what it was one disliked about the post rather bizarre. So in the episode "Majority Rule," they land on a planet, trying to find a previous landing party, which had disappeared. On this planet, everyone is subject to "Likes" and "Dislikes," and everyone gets to vote without having to give anything any thought. This is a brief description of the episode from Wikipedia:

Grayson and an undercover team land on Sargas 4, a planet with a culture similar to 21st-century Earth, to search for two missing anthropologists. LaMarr is arrested after what is considered inappropriate public behavior and receives more than a million "down" votes by viewers watching a televised clip of the film footage. LaMarr must persuade the public to pardon him or else be subjected to "treatment" for his actions. Meanwhile, Alara and Claire locate one of the missing anthropologists who is in an irreversible lobotomized state. With LaMarr facing a final vote to determine his guilt, Mercer brings one of the planet's inhabitants, Lysella, aboard the Orville after she witnesses Alara's true appearance. She explains that the "Master Feed" works by the public watching the film footage and then mass voting on it. Isaac is able to hack into the planet's system and upload doctored sympathetic images of LaMarr that narrowly swings the vote in his favor. LaMarr and the crew return to the ship and depart. Lysella decides against taking part in a public vote, contemplating the advice the Orville crew gave her about the difference between opinion and knowledge.

So the missing anthropologist was filmed with a cell phone, not giving up his seat to a pregnant woman (he had not noticed her). The video was uploaded to an equivalent of "YouTube" and he got enough "down" votes that he ended up being lobotomized. LaMarr does a sexy dance with a statue, and almost suffers a similar fate. One of the landing party asks one of the planet's inhabitants how anyone on the planet knows what the truth is, and she says "The majority are the truth!"

At another point one of the landing party is wearing a hat, and someone comes up to her and says that he finds her wearing that hat a "disgrace to his culture," and that if she doesn't take off the hat, he's going to film and upload the video to the internet, potentially subjecting her to lobotomy as well. Sometimes it seems we're heading down that path. The truth, thoughtful discussion, and facts don't seem to matter. It's all sound bites, and the public opinion of the moment. Does it seem that way to you, too, sometimes?

Edited February 10, 2019 by Unicorn

[Guest]

 

"I think you're confusing opinion with knowledge." Words to live by.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Unicorn

[Guest]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvyLwUHlSw Edited February 10, 2019 by Unicorn

[Guest]

[Guest]

[kevininsa]

I agree with you first on The Orville and I agree with you on your point of the whole point of the post. We have too many sound bites and not enough facts. What makes it worse is the stupid people believe the sound bites. It's the same problem we have with Congress. 20 years ago Congress could come together and compromise and govern. Now the media is putting out all the sound bites of "this is how he voted" and "this is how she voted". Never mind the reasoning or how they compromised for the common good, just they voted against this one little fact that I support so I'm not going to support them anymore. The worst part is that there's no turning back.

[samhexum]

I thought INTO THE FOLD was the best episode of season 1.

[Nvr2Thick]

I thought that the "Majority Rule" episode was a bit too obvious; it was a heavy-handed "statement" about our society. It was one overly clever idea with no nuance; kind of like the TNG episode where Wesley was to be executed for not keeping off the grass (and BTW: damn Captain Picard for circumventing the Prime Directive for that incident).

 

The Orville does seem to be refining their overall concept with better scripts in the second season. I'm glad they split up Lamar and Malloy as the jerky bros on the bridge driving the spaceship.

 

I've enjoyed most of the second season episodes. The one where Dr. Finn pursues a relationship with Isaac parallels a TNG episode where a throwaway character dates Data, but The Orville took it in a different direction. Last week's episode where new security chief Keyali becomes romantically involved with a Moclan whose sexual deviance is culturally forbidden also parallels a TNG episode, but I liked the way The Orville represented this story.

[Guest]

Well, I agree it was heavy-handed, but such a perfect picture of the way our society is going. What will we do if all newspapers go under, and there is no independent press to investigate what's going on in society and in politics? It's becoming all about opinions and what "feels" right. 15 years later, I still hear parents fearful vaccinations cause autism because they heard it on Oprah, even though the "investigator" who made the allegation admitted he made up the data, and that autism-vaccine link has been completely debunked. It's all about sound bites on TV. It also reminded me of how people often "vote" on all sorts of things on-line without having to give a single thought as to why they do so, let alone having to explain themselves. People are just believing what they want to believe, and facts, data, and science seem to become irrelevant.