TL;DR – With Primal Urges we see how The Orville is not afraid to tackle really important issues, but that it has yet to quite get that balance right  

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Review –

One of the issues facing the world today is porn addiction, free porn is literally at most people’s fingertips if you have an internet connection and it can be devastating to a relationship. The Orville looks at Porn Addiction in the context of a relationship that has completely soured but there is still a child involved, which is a situation that is very familiar in the world today.

So to set the scene, the USS Orville has arrived a once in a lifetime stellar phenomena of a red giant consuming one of the planets that orbited it. As the atmosphere of Nyxia starts to be ripped off it is beautiful if haunting visage. However, Lt.Com. Bortus (Peter Macon) does not wish to stay and askes to be relived early only to arrive home very late explaining to his husband Klyden (Chad Coleman) that he had to work late. Indeed, what he has been doing is spending time in the simulator in numerous scenarios of an erotic nature. All of this comes to a head when Klyden decides to divorce Bortus, but as always on Moclus they do things very differently that puts Cpt. Mercer (Seth MacFarlane) in a bind. A reminder that we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.   

While it does not stick the landing it is good to see The Orville start to explore these important issues. There is also a little bit of light to their depictions as they sort of lampoon many of the common tropes of pornography, hitting most of the major beet bar maybe being caught stealing lemons. As well as this, this episode serves to give a continuation to the fallout of About a Girl back in season one. Episodes like this should reverberate through the show, rather than just being a one-off and I am glad that they are taking their character development to the next level.

However, one of the core parts of The Orville narrative landscape is this juxtaposition between the absurd and the serious. Now you can 100% have a show that is at times very silly and at times very serious, indeed Scrubs did it for eight seasons. In here we see that The Orville just does not quite have the balance right. The B-plot is that there were still people on the planet and in the end they could not get all of them out. This was probably the strongest moment of the show so far, but it felt undercut because there was not enough space for both plotlines and the jokes about porn viruses. All of this does undercut the resolution a little bit towards the end.

In the end, we do recommend Primal Urges because even though it might not stick the landing, it is taking risks, and I will always give the benefit of the doubt to something trying to take risks. As well as this, getting that balance right will continue to improve as people become more comfortable with their characters. Which is good news for the season ahead.               

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen The Orville yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Trailer – Click Here to View (all trailers have heavy spoilers)
Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of The Orville
Directed by – Kevin Hooks
Written by – Wellesley Wild
Created by – Seth MacFarlane
Starring in Season Two – Seth MacFarlane, Adrianne Palicki, Penny Johnson Jerald, Scott Grimes, Peter Macon, Halston Sage, J. Lee & Mark Jackson also Chad Coleman, Kelly Hu, Lesley Fera, & Mike Henry