The Orvillle

[SpottyBumPony]

Caught up with The Orville last night and it was about Topa feeling he wasn't right/didnt fit in. My first reaction was that it would be a gender affirming episode but I was really surprised.

Topa who was born female but altered at birth to present as male (for cultural reasons) felt incomplete. A female office, Kelly, took her under her wing and 'helped' him discover he was born female. One of his fathers was in support of Topa knowing and the other not, in the end the crew and Dad 1 supported Topa in reverting the changes to become the sex she was born as, female.

Topa was much happier and more content in her biological body. It was lovely to watch

Thank you!

Love love love the Orville...but the whole Topa/Moclan thing annoys me from a scientific POV. (yes, I know, shouldn't be annoyed when I accept FTL/Time Travel/intelligent machines etc...)

Topa is no more female than Topa's parents are male. Male and female refer to reproductive roles where you need one of each to make a child. Moclans make children from two "males" (bizarrely i think the child hatches from an egg) - no information about whether females can ever be involved in reproduction - if they can why aren't they and if they can't why aren't they "neuters" not "female". Also no information about whether any two "males" can make a child together or if there are some other combination requirements! (I may have overthought this).

Effectively they are using male to mean "acceptably formed Moclan and "female" to mean disabled/deformed Moclan.

Labelling it male/female is a nod to the whole gender debate but it's just biologically wrong - their situation is much closer to the effects of DSDs.

I love the story about Topa being altered to match normal Moclan anatomy and then rejecting it and going back to the presumably abnormal anatomy Topa was born with...and I know that they would have got very different responses if they'd used "able/deformed" or "good/bad" rather than male/female....but it still really annoys me!

Indeed! I had to pause before my head exploded when (a) Moclans are a single sex species and that sex is male, but they produce eggs - if they are single sex that sex is, by definition, female and then (b) they are not single sex at all, but majority male. Why it takes two Moclans to produce eggs we have no idea. Is it biological? Or simply custom that an egg is not produced unless two adult Moclans are paired? We need more information. I liked the way it played out though. Although I'm behind some of you guys, just finished series 2. Quite glad I have more to watch.

BernardBlacksWineIcelolly I wouldn’t say
so. One of the episodes is about porn addiction, including some scenes from said porn.

also an alien ejaculating from his antennae. It’s very much a grown up show, the fact that it’s a comedy might make it look light but it’s deceiving. I guess you could preview each episode and show only some.

I think I read recently about a species of lizard thar reproduces by parthenogenesis, all are female. But they go through a kind of faux mating prior to laying eggs. Presumably they need the stimulus to kick the process off. Perhaps that's what going on with this fictional species in this show I haven't watched yet.

I certainly wouldn't watch it with an 11 year old, no. Lots of adult content in some episodes.

Seth McF is definitely properly GC. In the episode of Family Guy we watched last night, Stewie and Brian were hauled up in front of HR after sexually harassing an unfortunate woman. HR woman said “you are not going to wriggle your way out of this one, have you got anything to say?” Stewie immediately said “I’m trans”. HR went quiet and then said “you’ve just won HR”.

Topa is no more female than Topa's parents are male. Male and female refer to reproductive roles where you need one of each to make a child. Moclans make children from two "males" (bizarrely i think the child hatches from an egg) - no information about whether females can ever be involved in reproduction - if they can why aren't they and if they can't why aren't they "neuters" not "female". Also no information about whether any two "males" can make a child together or if there are some other combination requirements! (I may have overthought this).

The switch from sexual dimorphism is very, very recent (in evolutionary terms) and seems to only have affected one species. So the question is: is that poor Science writing hand waved away as alien or is it deliberate?

----- Spoilers ----

We do know that Male and Female Moclans can produce eggs, but don't actually know that two males can (Topa is the only baby who's parentage is known to us).

Two of the three Moclans we know well in the series (Klyden and Topa) are female but didn't know. There are loads of Moclan women who have avoided being forcibly transitioned and escaped. That makes it likely that there are, at least, many millions of Moclan women who have no idea and live as male.

I think the Moclans are heavily implied to still be sexually dimorphic and half the men are actually women. The entire society is geared to hide this and everyone having a daughter thinks they are fixing a rare abnormality.

I think they are a dystopia where Genderism succeeded and everyone started identifying as men to escape the patriarchy, to the point where being female was anathema.

DH reminded me that Klyten was born “female” which I had forgotten…..hence my thoughts about two “males” producing eggs are (literally) bollocks!

we were (drinking) discussing this over dinner and came to the conclusion that with two “males” even if there gametes are the same there must be something (hormones?) which makes one of them become the gestational carrier when the two gametes combine to become an egg. So at mating time one is one role (we might call that male) and the other is a different role. The interesting question in that scenario is is the “male” role moclan able to be a gestational carrier in other pairings or are they always in the male role?

(two bootles of rose plus dessert wine)

Ho do we know male and female moclans can do Produce eggs??? What have I missed?

I love mumsnet!!! Where else would you find people willing and able to discuss imaginary alien biology!!

We discovered Klyden is female too in the episode where Topa was questioning her sex. He reacted like closet homophobe, with extreme upset to the idea Topa wanted be herself, all because of what he/she had suffered. Im a few epidosde's ahead of that now and Klyden has become incredibly camp, its funny. The relationship between the doctor and Isaac is fascinating too, I sort of get it. Great show and Seth Macfarlane is definitely my celebrity crush.

He's also the kid from "Critters" which makes me weirdly happy for some reason.

The main bounty hunter Terrence Mann went on to play "Bob" the ghost/skull in The Dresden Files.

@Mochudubh OMG!! THATS WHERE I KNEW HIM FROM! Thank you!

I'm now regretting not just IMDBing him instead of always thinking, "Why's he so familiar?"

Such a great show and the Topa story.

Very glad to see this thread.

It was an incredibly well-done episode. I anticipated that transactivists will see their point of view vindicated, because they focus on identifying with Topa's emotions, just as they identify with people with DSDs who only find out about their medical history in adolescence. I of course saw the GC point of view reflected.

But tv series are a form of art, and I have absolutely no problem with everyone enjoying a particular work of art. Pleasing everyone is a rare accomplishment and a deed to be commended!

Exactly what I thought. It was brilliantly done to tread the fine line. Seth McF is a genius; clearly GC from his other work but pitched this just right.