From Engagement to Honeymoon these three episodes each take up where the last one left off. With the wedding guests still in their finery, Mork & Mindy are packing to head off. Orson it seems has wasted no time. Mindy is both excited and terrified at the idea of being the first human to visit another world (especially for ones honeymoon).
Budget constraints are partially worked around by having the entire trip from the newlyweds POV inside the egg....with Ork looking suspiciously like a planetary outtake from Star Trek: TOS. Eagle eyed SF fans will instantly spot that the Capital of Ork is directly taken from Logans Run.
After 4 years, you had every reason to be excited about finally seeing Ork and other Orkans (beyond Lyle Waggoner's swaggering Xerko), and even by early 80s standards it is a bit of a confusing let down, as until you see later episodes (involving Orkan schooling) you're not sure if witnessing Orkans or not. And you're not. What you get is a weird mix of species, of all shapes, sizes and colours...which would be fine except it feels more like the cast of Barbarella meets a cheap ass Halloween Party.
The best moments deal with Mindy as the fish out of water, talking to penguins, sitting on oddly shaped aliens, before they follow through on the continuing Orkan idea that, as a human, she's a lesser life form. Her indignation (and his mortification) when she's snatched while he's distracted, then returned thinking she went through immigration only to discover she's been through a pet show (and not done very well) is pretty funny and a nice touch.
As is the cluelessness of the 'intuitive' Orkan hotel room that is supposed to design itself to meet the needs of the species using it, only for every room decoration bar the bed (conveniently) being affixed to the wrong surface/in the wrong place. Given Mork initially sat on his face and slept hanging upside down, this works damn well both humorously and Orkan continuity wise, embarrassing the hell out of Mork.
The most out of place thing however is 6&7 the Clones, old friends of Mork, who come to visit and congratulate him. They are nothing but an irritation to Mindy, who only wants to be alone with her husband...and unfortunately they are a massive irritation to the viewer as well. The problem with trying to showcase that Mork is in fact the only Orkan with a proper sense of humour is that you put your audience through painfully unfunny moments to prove it. The image of Mindy slumped face down on the bed is pretty much where you as teh viewer are mentally by the time Mork gets them out of the room. As delaying tactics go this was a poor writing choice.
What they are delaying occurs next as, after four years, our couple hits the sheets, turn out the lights, engage in a little pillow talk about the time having arrived. Only for Mork to turn the lights back on and engage in the ancient Orkan honeymoon ritual. The suddenness of seeing the Chicken visuals and William's crazed African style chanting and dancing while waving eggs over his bride is just laugh out loud funny even on repeated viewings.
An utterly non-plussed Mindy, faced with her chicken head wearing husband back in bed with her (in a non kinky way), has to resort to the "marriage manual" that her father has given her, and which she was full sure (and argued with her Dad that) she would not need for Mork.
And this is where the episode both feeds and then subverts expectations. Throughout the show they have had Mork avoid exploring Sex except in the most tangential of ways. Now Mork flicks through the explicit manual calmly, states he understands it, and then makes a break for it, escaping to the bathroom and out the window before Mindy can stop him. Once she's tracked him down to the set that actually does work (a garden full of roses Mork has sent back from Earth, with a backdrop of the city and the three Orkan moons) they talk, and it transpires his panic is actually about letting her down as a husband, given everything she's sacrificing to marry him (and everything that's gone wrong since they arrived). With her gentle rea-assurances of love and support, and an alarm ringing in their ears after he picks a rose for her, they flee back to the room, where you could cheerfully throttle the writers as they reintroduce two more painfully unfunny clones.
With them gone, they are alone again, and Mork confesses that (thankfully after all this time!) he does fully understands human (marital) customs and cares about them, before making a kinky joke about her wearing the chicken head that night.
Clearly he wasn't kidding about having a handle on things, as we finish with the newly weds on their way home in their Egg a month later, curled up tight and giggling (like newlyweds) having had a blast, reminiscing about pillow fights and waking up together.
Overall a fun and pivotal (for our protagonists) episode, but one that really should have been edited better in writing (or at table read...maybe the clones came off better there, but I doubt it) and definitely given a bigger budget to both aid in the storytelling (and catch more viewers attention)...now this is where things weirdly go Egg shaped.
Budget constraints are partially worked around by having the entire trip from the newlyweds POV inside the egg....with Ork looking suspiciously like a planetary outtake from Star Trek: TOS. Eagle eyed SF fans will instantly spot that the Capital of Ork is directly taken from Logans Run.
After 4 years, you had every reason to be excited about finally seeing Ork and other Orkans (beyond Lyle Waggoner's swaggering Xerko), and even by early 80s standards it is a bit of a confusing let down, as until you see later episodes (involving Orkan schooling) you're not sure if witnessing Orkans or not. And you're not. What you get is a weird mix of species, of all shapes, sizes and colours...which would be fine except it feels more like the cast of Barbarella meets a cheap ass Halloween Party.
The best moments deal with Mindy as the fish out of water, talking to penguins, sitting on oddly shaped aliens, before they follow through on the continuing Orkan idea that, as a human, she's a lesser life form. Her indignation (and his mortification) when she's snatched while he's distracted, then returned thinking she went through immigration only to discover she's been through a pet show (and not done very well) is pretty funny and a nice touch.
As is the cluelessness of the 'intuitive' Orkan hotel room that is supposed to design itself to meet the needs of the species using it, only for every room decoration bar the bed (conveniently) being affixed to the wrong surface/in the wrong place. Given Mork initially sat on his face and slept hanging upside down, this works damn well both humorously and Orkan continuity wise, embarrassing the hell out of Mork.
The most out of place thing however is 6&7 the Clones, old friends of Mork, who come to visit and congratulate him. They are nothing but an irritation to Mindy, who only wants to be alone with her husband...and unfortunately they are a massive irritation to the viewer as well. The problem with trying to showcase that Mork is in fact the only Orkan with a proper sense of humour is that you put your audience through painfully unfunny moments to prove it. The image of Mindy slumped face down on the bed is pretty much where you as teh viewer are mentally by the time Mork gets them out of the room. As delaying tactics go this was a poor writing choice.
What they are delaying occurs next as, after four years, our couple hits the sheets, turn out the lights, engage in a little pillow talk about the time having arrived. Only for Mork to turn the lights back on and engage in the ancient Orkan honeymoon ritual. The suddenness of seeing the Chicken visuals and William's crazed African style chanting and dancing while waving eggs over his bride is just laugh out loud funny even on repeated viewings.
An utterly non-plussed Mindy, faced with her chicken head wearing husband back in bed with her (in a non kinky way), has to resort to the "marriage manual" that her father has given her, and which she was full sure (and argued with her Dad that) she would not need for Mork.
And this is where the episode both feeds and then subverts expectations. Throughout the show they have had Mork avoid exploring Sex except in the most tangential of ways. Now Mork flicks through the explicit manual calmly, states he understands it, and then makes a break for it, escaping to the bathroom and out the window before Mindy can stop him. Once she's tracked him down to the set that actually does work (a garden full of roses Mork has sent back from Earth, with a backdrop of the city and the three Orkan moons) they talk, and it transpires his panic is actually about letting her down as a husband, given everything she's sacrificing to marry him (and everything that's gone wrong since they arrived). With her gentle rea-assurances of love and support, and an alarm ringing in their ears after he picks a rose for her, they flee back to the room, where you could cheerfully throttle the writers as they reintroduce two more painfully unfunny clones.
With them gone, they are alone again, and Mork confesses that (thankfully after all this time!) he does fully understands human (marital) customs and cares about them, before making a kinky joke about her wearing the chicken head that night.
Clearly he wasn't kidding about having a handle on things, as we finish with the newly weds on their way home in their Egg a month later, curled up tight and giggling (like newlyweds) having had a blast, reminiscing about pillow fights and waking up together.
Overall a fun and pivotal (for our protagonists) episode, but one that really should have been edited better in writing (or at table read...maybe the clones came off better there, but I doubt it) and definitely given a bigger budget to both aid in the storytelling (and catch more viewers attention)...now this is where things weirdly go Egg shaped.
