The Orville

Almost-live-reviewing here, let’s see what we think of each episode as we do the daily(ish) binge watch…

Episode 1 - In the aftermath of the battle there is resentment aboard the Orville about the reinstatement of Isaac to active duty. The initial dream / battle sequence was a bit long and tedious (don’t spend all the budget on special effects for episode 1 guys). The story was OK, and it was a good way to introduce Charly as the new navigator, although again the testing of the new little runabout was too long and ultimately a bit pointless, it didn’t advance the plot at all. In general I don’t think they are making good use of the extra running time so far.

Episode 2 - an opportunty to explore uncharted space leads to an unfortunate alien infection - despite the warnings of the Krill. Mildly interesting little bit of back story between Dr. Finn and Paul the admiral but again this episode was just too long (I did skip some of the corridor chase scenes). Other than the personal relationships this episode was very derivative, which is ironic for a show that derives almost everything from Star Trek, but in this case they also brought in all “The Thing” style horror tropes, which I personally dislike so much. And no-one seemed to give a toss about the loss of all the expendable crew members turned in aliens and then variously shot, virus-ed and broken into pieces by the security chief. All seems to be going a bit heartless and they forgot the fun and banter that made previous seasons so good.

Episode 3 - well, that was much better! The crew investigate a once barren planet now apparently teeming with an advanced civilisation. A genuinely intriging puzzle piece, nicely acted by the various away teams and some clever mis-direction in the plot twists. There were even some funny bits with Gordon almost regaining his season 2 mojo. The big reveal at the end was a nice call back to a previous episode and the motivation for all the illusions was interesting, plus there are hints of further contact with the Q continuum! Sorry, I mean inhabitants of the multi-phasic planet…

Episode 4 - this served to move the story arc along on the grand galactic stage rather than focussing on our favourite crew. The sets and the CGI planet of the Krill were very impressive, as were those of future New York, and I did like the multi-species cast of ‘Annie’. I’m not a big fan of space battles they are cheap in narrative terms (even if expensive in CGI terms). In this case the battle didn’t achieve anything on either side and as usual, no-one seen to care about lives or ships lost. Would have better writing perhaps to have the fleets stand-off facing each other and to extract the landing party by some stealthy means rather than the Star Wars derivative speeder chase - also rather lazy. Too much noise and explosions not enough smart writing.

Episode 5 - that was much better! Tightly focussed on the crew, indeed largely on Topa and his family but with clever call backs to previous seasons’ incidents and to the wider political climate and goings on. Both Moclan parents were great and at last the full running time was necessary; but my main reservation, and it applies to everything I’ve watched so far is that in a lot of cases the characters don’t actually have conversations, they just say their lines to each other with a helpful pause before the next person speaks. This isn’t how conversations really work, especially when folk are disagreeing or thrashing things out! We need a firmer hand from the director I feel.

Episode 6 Well that was a good one! Okay so the setup for time travel was a combination of techno babble and wishful thinking but once we did get back to the 21st century then story (and the acting) was good. Of course, the Orville crew could have just done their mineral mining and skipped back 10 years without searching out Gordon but then we wouldn’t have had those heart-wrenching scenes. And it was nice to see Isaac the actor for real!

Episode 7 Another great (if rather convenient!) premise that really brought the Isaac /Claire relationship onto new levels. The 1950’s TV family homage back on the Kaylon planet was fun, and the planet of Amazon women was a nice contrast to the Moclans. Clever ending, although a bit of a shame that Isaac had to go back to his rather limited previous character.

Episode 8 An episode of two parts that I almost gave up on! Poor Topa was in danger of becoming the annoying “Wesley Crusher” of the Orville (although the scene with “Sherlock” Gordon was great). Eventually re-started my viewer and almost immediately ran into the surprise guest star! OK, it was massively sign-posted but still came as a surprise to me! It picked up from there and even managed to move the overall story arc forward, with the long deserved expulsion of the Moclans (Go Gordon, you said it best). We are obviously shaping up for a big confrontation with the Kaylon for the series finale, I just hope that it doesn’t degenerate into another big space battle like last time. (But yes, I did pick up the hints of a new approach to Kaylon strategy in episode 7 - here’s hoping…)

Watch this space for more…