'The Orville' Recap: 'Majority Rule'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Social media has in many ways, revolutionized the world and our society. It's not only allowed for us to get in touch with people we haven't spoken to in years, it's allowed for us to in essence, follow the pulse of the planet and the lives of strangers at any given moment and really, there is something beautiful to be found in being able to experience other people's lives from afar, or share our own when we so choose. But like anything in life, while social media has done plenty of incredible things for us...it also has its dark side.

Unfortunately, the power of this platform has given less honorable people a voice, and allowed for hate to spread and its even managed to erode the logic of science from time to time as people push beliefs over facts and some folks have flat out become obsessed with the various social media programs out there, believing that the like button is the only form of validation they need. Thankfully though, a fair majority of us know when to ignore the noise and when to simply put our phones down and go about our day, but what would our world look like if social media ruled all things? If everything in our lives, including our destiny was decided by a like? Well that chilling scenario is something that Seth MacFarlane decided to explore in brilliant fashion by way of last night's episode of The Orville, 'Majority Rule'. 

Now I call this episode brilliant, simply because Seth MacFarlane's screenplay for this episode is in essence, flawless science fiction. It not only had something to say our about our world and its current love affair with social media, but it also explored the dangers of it as great sci-fi is wont to do. So really, let's examine those two elements in depth today, starting with those real world parallels because let's be honest, the whole mess with John and how quickly he went viral on this distant world was chilling in its similarities, wasn't it? I mean think about it, these days when a faux pas from an elected official or a celebrity happens in front of a camera, it's all over our feeds in a matter of seconds and we're instantly discussing it and sharing our opinion of the matter with our friends and family. 

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Yet despite that being the most obvious commentary on social media's power in this world, the story found a way to integrate those parallels into just about every moment, since past that particular point the dangers of letting social media control our days and our lives were on full display and really, there were two key things that stood out to me when it to came to the darker side of social media that this story explored; specifically...how some firmly believe that their opinion online is above the opinion of anyone else, and how some truly believe that everything they read on these platforms is fact and really, the first part of those two storytelling elements was just about everywhere in this story because as John tried his best to explain his side of the story, and that he made an honest mistake, he quickly found himself in a proverbial no win scenario because every host of every show pointed out his mistakes, or expressed their disdain for him, making his life all that much harder, which brings us back to those little slices of the real world since we've definitely seen that happen on our feeds before when the court of public opinion makes up its mind.

Not to mention, we even saw opinion/individual perspective take charge in the everyday world for this society, since Alara took some serious heat for wearing the wrong kind of cultural clothing and she was quickly informed that in doing so, she was insulting and offending one particular man's perspective in how said clothing should be worn to the point where it was either remove the hat, or face the same fate as John. As for the whole element of using social media as a guide to life, well that was handled in brief but powerful fashion when we came to learn that everyone on this world follows the Master Feed's collective opinion, whether it is right or wrong and Captain Mercer asking simple questions such as 'how do you know if a medicine is safe to take?' spoke volumes to the posts we sometimes see in a similar vein that leave us shaking their head and really, what made this episode so brilliant, is that it wasn't trying to sway your opinion on social media or make you believe that it's bad...it simply wanted to point out its power and that if used properly, it could achieve wonders. 

After all, once the people of this world saw and read good things about John, their opinion suddenly swayed and fake memories or not, it reminded us of the fact that we let negativity on these platforms speak louder than anything else, and if we took just a moment to think before we react...we would find beauty and wonder and perhaps we would be a touch more understanding and willing to look at the facts first when people make harmless mistakes online. Either way, this was another beautiful episode from a series that quite frankly, seems to have its pulse on our world and our lives week in and week out and my goodness, this really has become my absolute favorite television series of 2017 and once again, I'll be counting down the minutes until next week's episode to feed my brain another powerful and intelligent story that will no doubt leave me thinking long after the story has come to an end. Until next time.

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