Warning: This review contains spoilers for Episode 7 of The Orville. You have been warned.

Thus far, halfway through The Orville’s first season, I have not been disappointed. In fact, I’ve been at least somewhat impressed by various aspects of each episode. From the production value to the handling of sensitive topics, this show is getting better and better. Let’s dig into Episode 7 and see if that trend continues, shall we?

To recap the previous episode, Ed and Gordon were sent in disguise onto a Krill vessel to retrieve the Anhkana, the Krill bible. In doing so, they manage to thwart an attack on a farming colony, at the cost of all the Krill on board minus the children and their teacher. The episode beautifully showed systematic extremism and the impact of religious doctrine on the minds of a civilization. With that out of the way, let’s dive into the next episode!

Episode spoilers begin here!

Episode 7, titled “Majority Rule” begins with a young woman on a planet similar to our own. She gets up in the morning, brushes her teeth, watches a morning news program on TV, and begins making up plans with a friend on the phone. Interestingly enough, this planet seems to revolve around public opinion, particularly in “upvotes” and “downvotes” that determine the social hierarchy.

This episode is clearly going to be a social commentary on social media and cancel culture, which I am entirely here for. This upvote/downvote system even seems to factor into TV news, where people vote on a live feed and can determine the fate of people who have made mistakes. This bit of cultural, social management even causes a man to be subjected to an unknown punishment. We don’t see what he and his compatriot did that had people so overwhelmingly negative in their opinions of them, but we see the direct consequences of the public’s disfavor.

We then see the Orville overlooking the planet. The planet is known as Sargas 4 and according to Union anthropologists, bears striking resemblance to the culture of 21^st Century Earth. Ed mentions that with so many planets in the galaxy, there are bound to be planets with both species similarity and cultural similarity to them.

The Orville is sent to discover the whereabouts of the research team sent to investigate the planet. The team was showing promising results, even going so far as to send back interesting data and images, before vanishing over a month ago. Ed intends to send a landing team to investigate, to figure out what happened to the researchers.

Kelly, Alara, Claire, and John are the landing team, and both John and Alara complain about their required clothing. Kelly points out that Alara can’t go on the planet with her forehead showing Xelayan markings and comments that John looks good in skinny jeans. Ed arrives, commenting on their attire, before giving them money that will work on Sargas since it is a capitalist culture.

Alara’s reaction to this is hilarious since apparently her planet isn’t capitalist at all or perhaps the union isn’t? I’m not sure either way. Kelly warns that they will likely find all sorts of things they aren’t used to down there, so they should be careful. Ed then tells Claire that he thinks Lewis, a member of the research team, is likely okay. Claire mentions that she worked with him a long time and knew he was resourceful, so he is likely fine. Something tells me there is history here and that we’re going to get more background on Claire’s past, or at least her history with Lewis.

Ed then tells them that their mission is to go in, get the anthropologists, and come back while leaving as minor of a footprint on the culture as possible. They are not allowed to interfere or try to change things in any way. If something has happened to the research team, they are to leave quickly and return to the ship as fast as possible.

We then see a bit more information on the culture of this new world. Nice deeds and being personable get you upvotes from people. Kelly and the landing crew talk to a magazine salesman, who sells them four “badges” which come preloaded with 200,000 upvotes on them. He also recognizes the two men they are looking for, which happen to be the men we saw earlier in the episode. This doesn’t bode well.

They go to the café that the magazine salesman mentioned. They hope to find information on the research crew and instead spot the young woman from the beginning of the episode. She refuses a woman service because she has over 500,000 downvotes, which is store policy. The woman mentions that most of them were from her 20’s and that she isn’t that person anymore. However, that doesn’t seem to matter in this society.

Kelly asks the woman (named Lysella) about the two men but before they can get any information beyond the fact that the two men were “corrected”, John’s badge starts getting a large amount of downvotes because of antics he performed outside on a statue that was of a prominent figure on this world. They are asked to leave the shop and are immediately mobbed outside because his actions were disrespectful to this particular country.

John is subsequently arrested and Admiral Tucker refuses to allow Ed to extract him. He says that revealing themselves could cause panic, chaos, or any number of problems for this civilization, despite Ed’s ideas on the contrary. John then meets his “Publicity Officer” who is meant to help him atone for his actions via an apology tour.

Because John got over one million downvotes, his actions are considered a crime by the state. If he can be convincing enough during his apology tour to prevent his downvotes from reaching over 10 million, then he will be free to go. If not, he will likely be corrected. Social correction is a series of treatments to curb any and all negative impulses, which sounds strangely like a lobotomy or electro-shock therapy.

While talking to John, Kelly and the others discuss what happens if the apology tour doesn’t work. After John explains the situation, Claire mentions that at the 21^st century level of technology, they aren’t equipped to do cognitive reprogramming without making John a mental vegetable. Kelly asks Claire if she’d be able to fix it and she mentions that she’d have to examine someone who has had the procedure already.

Alara mentions the members of the research team who were corrected and suggests that if they find them, they can figure out why they were corrected. Claire has no clue what they could have done since Lewis was not a bad person. John’s apology tour begins, on a show called “The Chat” which looks pretty similar to The View. Before it even begins the host is biased, downvoting John right off the bat. Ed and the others are watching the show and discuss that there is no other known type of unstructured democracy in the known colonies. Most have a legal system in place but this one is done entirely by public opinion.

John’s ignorance on the significance of their historical figures doesn’t help matters and ultimately, the people aren’t at all swayed by his apology. His first stop on the apology tour ends with over 4 million downvotes. Alara and Claire go to speak to the woman at the coffee shop, hoping that they can figure out where Lewis has gone.

Alara is then accosted by a man who isn’t fond of the fact that she is wearing traditional headwear to cover her Xelayan features. Of course, he doesn’t know that’s why she is wearing it, he just assumes that she is appropriating his culture. Claire takes Alara into the bathroom but before she can fashion her a headscarf out of her pant leg, the young woman walks in and sees Alara’s Xelayan features.

After a glass of wine to calm her down, Lysella tells them that the two researchers were judged for not giving up their seat for a pregnant woman on the train. Lysella also tells them that corrected people are sent home and that they once told her that they lived on Capitalist Street. They enter the residence and discover Lewis, who is almost robotic in his pleasantness.

Back with Kelly and John, it seems his apology tour is definitely not going well. The publicity officer suggests that if he had a talent people would be more sympathetic. In light of that, he says that if he just brings positive energy to the table, things will be okay. He just seems to make it worse though. On the Orville, Claire reveals that the brain damage to Lewis is too severe to treat and that if this is done to John, there will be no saving him. Ed’s plan is to bring Lysella aboard the Orville and she is immediately blown away by having her entire world-view upended.

Lysella explains to Ed and the crew that on her world, the majority decides what is true. Everything from what foods are good for you, to what medicine is effective. It all comes down to the majority vote. She tells them about the Master Feed, which is something that everyone reads and largely affects public opinion. Isaac comes up with a plan and along with Lysella’s help, he influences the Master Feed to keep John from being corrected.

The feed stops with four votes preventing him from being corrected, which is an unprecedented event that even the publicity officer couldn’t predict. Ed thanks Lysella for her help, but she thanks him in return for letting her see space and everything involved with the Orville. She mentions that she wishes she could tell someone the truth, but Claire suggests that maybe she just needs to tell them that their world can do better.

The final part of the episode shows Lysella waking up the next morning, refusing to go along with the majority judgment of yet another offender. This episode of The Orville brings a lot into question about the current state of social media, along with cancel culture. It shows us what a society would be like if we ignored the truth and instead went with public perception. It also shows the dangers of not thinking for yourself, going along with the crowd, and judging people for things without knowing the whole story. My only complaint with this episode is a very small one. They had a black man be the one who was arrested, incarcerated, and judged.

However, he was also acquitted of his crimes, so perhaps that in itself is subversive from what one might expect for how black men are treated in media. Then again, perhaps I’m reading too much into it. Maybe the world of Sargas 4 doesn’t have racial tensions like ours. With the meticulous nature of these episodes, I can’t help but wonder if it was intentional. Maybe it was to show that we can change how we do things too.

This episode of The Orville was very much a cautionary tale for cancel culture. How far can we go demonizing people on social media before we hang them out to dry without knowing the full details ourselves? How many of us simply go with the crowd of a trending topic on Twitter, without thinking for ourselves and using our own moral compass?

Granted, with cases like R. Kelly, Harvey Weinstein, or Bill Cosby, there are always circumstances where overwhelming evidence should lead us to stand against people who do horrible things. Yet, we should be more careful about the causes we champion, and how quickly we grab our torches and pitchforks against people who may or may not have been misunderstood.

This episode exemplifies why I love The Orville so much, so early. They take serious topics and topical social commentaries about aspects of our society, then weaves them into Sci-Fi stories in a way that teaches us something about ourselves. Even if it doesn’t teach us directly, it cautions us about thinking too much in a certain direction.

Social Media can be a wonderful thing, but can you imagine how frightening it would be if it ruled every aspect of our lives? You couldn’t have a bad day without people downvoting you and if there was a misunderstanding, you might not be able to convince people otherwise before being crucified in the court of public opinion.

Even in the case of cultural appropriation, there are grey areas. Yes, there are people who wear things because they want it to be trendy. Yes, there are people who are thoughtless, ignorant, and do things out of idiocy. However, perhaps I am being optimistic by saying that I believe there are also people who want to be respectful of these cultures and raise awareness of their beauty. People can make mistakes. I make mistakes daily, big or small, and I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t.

So we should be careful about demonizing others for their mistakes, especially if we don’t take the time to figure out whether it was done out of malice, stupidity, or out of good intentions that weren’t executed well. There is no perfect solution for all cases, so we should be keeping an open mind before joining the mob.

We have looked at Sci-Fi before as a cautionary tale. Jurassic Park is a tale about not letting science go too far, for example. This episode of The Orville does the same thing, and I could see college classes twenty years from now watching this episode to analyze the effects of mob mentality on a democratic society. Assuming we don’t become Sargas 4 in the next few decades.

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The Orville

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Hard Hitting Social Commentary
• Interesting Character Work With John
• Plenty of Parallels to Our Society
• Overall Solid Episode

Cons

• Having John Be the Persecuted One is a Little Heavy Handed