THE ORVILLE 1x03 - "About A Girl"

You can't change everyone's minds, not even if you blow those minds by giving them definitive proof to contradict their standpoint. So it was in "About A Girl" when Bortus and Klyden decide their daughter must undergo a "corrective procedure" to transform her into a male, as is the overriding and near-unanimous gender of their Moclan species. Where in "Command Performance" we had a story moral highlighted for just a couple of lines of dialogue, "About A Girl" delved deep into both sides of the argument regarding sex changes, asking questions like

• What defines a "life-altering" procedure?
• What defines "corrective"?
• Can you judge another culture by your own standards and can you consider your opinion the valid one?

These questions and more permeate the heavy writing of a storyline based on a contemporary, hot-button topic - and this is exactly how such a topic should be examined. Whether you're on the liberal or conservative side of the argument - or any colour in between - a show posing the question and leaving the moral up to each individual audience member's interpretation is how this type of debate should be held.

   Of course, the question was half-answered when the Moclan tribunal finds that there is insufficient evidence to rule against the transformative procedure, even when their world is rocked when one of the greatest writers of their time is revealed to be a woman. And so Bortus and Klyden's baby is eventually changed into a male. It's a sad ending, but it's the right ending. It would have been a bit of a cop-out if the humans' arguments at a tribunal had managed to convince an entire species its beliefs, rooted in their biology and held presumably for as long as they have existed, were erroneous. As such, perhaps that's the most important point of them all, one we need take note of.

   But there were other successes in this episode. The humour was even more finely balanced with the episode's earnest topic than the previous two installments. Using Gordon Malloy as proof that not all males, talented though they may be, are intelligent was brilliant (and Scott Grimes plays lovable dummy flawlessly), while gelatinous blob Yaphit's rather risqué visit to Dr. Finn was a smart segue into the show's main plotline, while also reminding us of Yaphit's existence, providing some early humour (now we know what a gelatinous penis looks like) and showing us around more aesthetically pleasing areas of The Orville ship.

   Still, I think the strongest gag of the episode was Bortus coming round to the idea that a female Moclan may not be an aberration; only Seth MacFarlane could use the tale of Rudolph, due to his unique red nose, being asked to guide Santa's sleigh as a metaphor for the argument of whether changing a baby's gender could alter a future potentially full of world-changing accomplishments.

Bortus: "We do not know what kind of future we are taking from her. She may be destined to do great things as a female!"
Klyden: "IMPOSSIBLE."
Bortus: "Klyden, you MUST hear the tale of Rudolph. You will rethink your conviction!"

There are far too many quotibles from Bortus and Klyden's early debates to post, though I wish I could post them all. I wish, too, that I could post all Malloy's heavenly but idiotic answers to Kelly's trivia questions, when Kelly played lawyer at the Moclan tribunal.

   However, that brings me nicely to another point: in a Bortus-centric episode, nearly all of the characters got fair screentime. Ed and Kelly quite obviously featured heavily, but Finn, Alara and Malloy all served significant plot functions. Arguably, John and Isaac had the least to do, but they had little to add that the other characters couldn't, although I would have quite liked to hear Isaac quip about the inferiority of the Moclan species debating over gender. But then again, perhaps he's next in line: do robots have genders?

RATING: 9/10

POINTS OF NOTE

• Aesthetics is important to The Orville - it's always very visually pleasing. But I'm yet to find anything in the show that I like the sight of more than the Moclan make-up. Those little symmetrical tendrils on their head are just so satisfying.
• More differences between 2017 and 2417 include boxing having vanished "a few centuries ago". References were made to other differences; pop back to this article regularly, for I'll rewatch this episode soon and add more.
• Yaphit is perfect, but while watching his scene with Dr. Finn I could only visualise in my head an image of him just munching away on a giant wad of The Orville's budget.
• Speaking of budget, all these killer graphics must have been crazily expensive. It's likely that will factor into a renewal decision ... if The Orville gets good enough ratings to give FOX a headache deciding. Here's to hoping!