"I come from a culture where it is rude to turn down sex."
IN THIS ONE... Kelly's old lover Darulio comes aboard and everyone falls in lust.
REVIEW: If there's one story arc that can't be allowed to continue without some changes, it's the Ed-Kelly relationship. Having they rehash the way their marriage fell apart, usually in the most childish way, just happened to frequently in the first handful of episodes. Cupid's Dagger takes a stab at giving their some closure so they can move on. The opening karaoke scene is what I'd rather see from the duo. Ed is obviously into her, but content with being friends, they sit together and share private jokes (shame on the program for not giving us Bortus' My Heart Will Go One). Enter Darulio, the man Kelly cheated with a year ago, played by Rob Lowe tapping into his Parks'n'Recs super-positivity character, aboard to do some important science, and we're right back where we started. Ed being childish and Kelly resenting it. But it will turn out Darulio's people give off pheromones when they're in heat - which of course infects a number of characters - and it's entirely possible Kelly's original tryst was also the result of those pheromones. Though left pleasantly ambiguous, this will allow the command team to move on.
The really interesting thing about the whole Darulio plot isn't that Kelly falls for him all over again (it's certainly our first clue something is amiss, as it's staged with her changing her mind after he touches her), but that Ed later does as well. And no one bats an eye at the captain's sudden(?) sexual fluidity. Malloy expresses concerns because Ed went from hating the guy to crushing on him, but that's played no different than Alara's take on Kelly's similar attitude. In fact, what's really disturbing to the crew is that their superior officers almost let two alien peoples go to war through their negligence as they pursue the blue forensic archaeologist. Even Darulio eventually expresses worry, as if perhaps he hadn't really counted on having THIS much of an effect on humans. But that Ed might want to bang a dude? Not a problem. This is a lot braver than anything Trek was ever willing to do, and yes, I'm including Discovery in that.
Dr. Finn also falls prey to Darulio's magic pheromones, but in her case it's more of a Midsummer Night's Dream thing, and she succumbs to Yaphit's charms, though she had always hated him before. She will also shirk responsibility for extreme inter-species sex, and eventually go crazy when she believes herself jilted. She's a good sport at the end, but some viewers did have problems with this subplot. Icky to think Darulio's magic roofie made Claire have sex with a slime alien that she hated. But if you think about it, that's not all that different from Ed and Kelly's situations. In what I will call here the post-consent world, Darulio is a nightmare. He's flippant about it. The sex is good, it all wears off, but it's just as humiliating for them as it is for Claire. Except, none of them act as if they were humiliated by the experience, so again, the future may be more sex positive. That we ask the questions and discuss how it makes us feel is perhaps more to the point. It's not the first time The Orville has asked a difficult question and not given an answer.
One of the things this episode does is better develop Yaphit, of course, and we learn a little something about his people's life cycle, how he relaxes, and so on. But it also gives us two other alien characters, starting a trend of aliens that look much more extreme than Trek's usual crew members. One of these does not continue on because the actor was too claustrophobic. Kanoot (the karaoke host) might otherwise have become the Orville's answer to Guinan. The bulbous-headed Dann, however, became a regular fixture on the show (in Season 2 especially), here humbly beginning by preparing playlists for elevator music. We'd seen this make-up in the first episode and obviously someone thought it shouldn't go to waste. One of the things the more extreme-looking aliens seem to have in common is a more relaxed way of speaking, as if the galaxy was full of surfer dudes and stoners. I like to think this is aberration of the universal translator, and it makes me chuckle. Dann is of course a Lieutenant.
WHERE SOMEONE HAS GONE BEFORE: The plot about the alien who transmits unwanted emotions to the crew has been done several times on Trek, the most relevant here being DS9's Fascination in which Lwaxana Troi's menopause was responsible for people getting randy on the station. For diplomatic teams that hate each other, one might look to TNG's Lonely Among Us (not that it's recommended). Yaphit's sandbox bed may be akin to Odo's bucket.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Important to the central relationship of the show even if it's a little glib about the inappropriate nature of Darulio's man-stink.
REVIEW: If there's one story arc that can't be allowed to continue without some changes, it's the Ed-Kelly relationship. Having they rehash the way their marriage fell apart, usually in the most childish way, just happened to frequently in the first handful of episodes. Cupid's Dagger takes a stab at giving their some closure so they can move on. The opening karaoke scene is what I'd rather see from the duo. Ed is obviously into her, but content with being friends, they sit together and share private jokes (shame on the program for not giving us Bortus' My Heart Will Go One). Enter Darulio, the man Kelly cheated with a year ago, played by Rob Lowe tapping into his Parks'n'Recs super-positivity character, aboard to do some important science, and we're right back where we started. Ed being childish and Kelly resenting it. But it will turn out Darulio's people give off pheromones when they're in heat - which of course infects a number of characters - and it's entirely possible Kelly's original tryst was also the result of those pheromones. Though left pleasantly ambiguous, this will allow the command team to move on.
The really interesting thing about the whole Darulio plot isn't that Kelly falls for him all over again (it's certainly our first clue something is amiss, as it's staged with her changing her mind after he touches her), but that Ed later does as well. And no one bats an eye at the captain's sudden(?) sexual fluidity. Malloy expresses concerns because Ed went from hating the guy to crushing on him, but that's played no different than Alara's take on Kelly's similar attitude. In fact, what's really disturbing to the crew is that their superior officers almost let two alien peoples go to war through their negligence as they pursue the blue forensic archaeologist. Even Darulio eventually expresses worry, as if perhaps he hadn't really counted on having THIS much of an effect on humans. But that Ed might want to bang a dude? Not a problem. This is a lot braver than anything Trek was ever willing to do, and yes, I'm including Discovery in that.
Dr. Finn also falls prey to Darulio's magic pheromones, but in her case it's more of a Midsummer Night's Dream thing, and she succumbs to Yaphit's charms, though she had always hated him before. She will also shirk responsibility for extreme inter-species sex, and eventually go crazy when she believes herself jilted. She's a good sport at the end, but some viewers did have problems with this subplot. Icky to think Darulio's magic roofie made Claire have sex with a slime alien that she hated. But if you think about it, that's not all that different from Ed and Kelly's situations. In what I will call here the post-consent world, Darulio is a nightmare. He's flippant about it. The sex is good, it all wears off, but it's just as humiliating for them as it is for Claire. Except, none of them act as if they were humiliated by the experience, so again, the future may be more sex positive. That we ask the questions and discuss how it makes us feel is perhaps more to the point. It's not the first time The Orville has asked a difficult question and not given an answer.
One of the things this episode does is better develop Yaphit, of course, and we learn a little something about his people's life cycle, how he relaxes, and so on. But it also gives us two other alien characters, starting a trend of aliens that look much more extreme than Trek's usual crew members. One of these does not continue on because the actor was too claustrophobic. Kanoot (the karaoke host) might otherwise have become the Orville's answer to Guinan. The bulbous-headed Dann, however, became a regular fixture on the show (in Season 2 especially), here humbly beginning by preparing playlists for elevator music. We'd seen this make-up in the first episode and obviously someone thought it shouldn't go to waste. One of the things the more extreme-looking aliens seem to have in common is a more relaxed way of speaking, as if the galaxy was full of surfer dudes and stoners. I like to think this is aberration of the universal translator, and it makes me chuckle. Dann is of course a Lieutenant.
WHERE SOMEONE HAS GONE BEFORE: The plot about the alien who transmits unwanted emotions to the crew has been done several times on Trek, the most relevant here being DS9's Fascination in which Lwaxana Troi's menopause was responsible for people getting randy on the station. For diplomatic teams that hate each other, one might look to TNG's Lonely Among Us (not that it's recommended). Yaphit's sandbox bed may be akin to Odo's bucket.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Important to the central relationship of the show even if it's a little glib about the inappropriate nature of Darulio's man-stink.
Comments