The Orville: New Horizon’s Peter Macon defends Klyden

Peter Macon takes a different view of Chad Coleman’s character, Klyden.

Klyden, the character portrayed by Chad Coleman, has always been easy to dislike on The Orville. He was stubborn, set in his ways, unforgiving, and thought women were inferior in every way to Moclan men. So why would it be difficult to hate the character? And when he took his own husband to court so he could change Topa’s gender, it solidified our disgust, but Peter Macon has a different take on the character, according to an interview he gave Slash Film.

Macon said it was easy for everyone to not like Klyden, but the character was a traditionalist. He was a Moclan, from a different planet than those aboard The Orville. Macon wasn’t just saying the character was set in his ways.

"If it’s an interplanetary union and the concept is that we are coexisting with multiple species, who is to say that the human morality barometer is best? It’s easy for us to like dismiss Klyden, but it’s necessary because he represents a reality and a conflict that is honest. We have to deal with that. We can’t just sweep all the morals under the human rug or like the human sensibility of right and wrong."

Peter Macon plays Bortus on The Orville: New Horizons.

But Macon’s character has been written differently than Coleman’s. That’s why it’s easier for us to accept Bortus. He’s more understanding and yielding. He seems to want what’s best for everyone and doesn’t believe that women are the lesser species. It was Bortus who accepted that Topa was a girl and wanted to change her gender, and he did so knowing it would cause his marriage to implode.

Meanwhile, Klyden stomps around like an angry child who hasn’t gotten his way, threatens to leave, and tells his own daughter he wishes she’d never been born. It’s hard for viewers to see that and feel any empathy toward the character. But Macon sheds more light on the reason for Klyden’s actions.

"If you’re going to present different species with different belief systems, different cosmologies, different all these things together, who’s to say who’s right? Because we’re doing this, it’s a human TV show for human beings. I think that’s the most relatable, but we can’t dismiss the actions of other species because that’s what they are. They’re other and they’re different. Different is not inferior. Different is different."

On Moclan, Klyden’s views are right. That was the way he was raised, the belief system that was ingrained in him from birth. Even though he was born a girl himself, years and years of life on his home planet has conformed him to those beliefs. And it’s not realistic to expect that someone who has lived a certain way all of his life suddenly accept a new normal.

Whether or not this will change the viewers’ opinions of Klyden, it does give us something to think about, especially with Macon’s powerful words. “Different is not inferior. Different is different.”