TL;DR – In many respects, this is the most Star Trek-like episode I have seen so far, but in that it feels just okay and that it is missing something.  

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Review –

This is a great time for Sci-fi for tonight I get a new episode of The Orville and Star Trek Discovery. All of this is made all the more interesting because tonight’s Orville feels more like an episode of Star Trek than any so far this season. This gives some characters the chance to shine, but it also feels a bit odd.

So to set the scene, the USS Orville is once again being rerouted to a Starbase to help out rather than exploring, something that is starting to get on everyone’s nerves. But for Ed (Seth MacFarlane) it is all fine because he is using his love smile with Lt. Tyler (Michaela McManus) and Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) can see it. Well, after much thought they decide that it is time to make it public, always a big deal on a ship of this size, and celebrate this by taking some shore leave. Time to get away, see the sights, get harried by some Krill fighters, wait get harried by some Krill fighters. Soon both Tyler and Ed are captured and Ed has to make a choice, will he sit back and watch the love of his life get tortured, or will he give up everything he believes in and hand over his command codes. Now from here on in, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, and as such there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

Now I mentioned that this feels more like a Star Trek episode than we have seen in the past and you can see it in the small nods to episode past. We have the shuttle being captured in a web-like the Tholians, we have a reference to the Corbomite Reflector, and of course one of the issues with filming in California is that there are very few places that they have not been. I mean to the point I am pretty sure I have seen a fight up those same rocks before.

Now I don’t mind that The Orville drops little Star Trek nods, in fact, I find them quite a lot of fun, and I am sure that a lot of the fans think the same. However, it didn’t feel like the story matched the intentions. For example, I hadn’t noticed that the same actress was cast in the same roles, but even then from the way they staged it, I had worked it out what the deal was long before the big reveal. As well as this, from the moment they landed on the planet, it felt like a paint by numbers sequence where I could have told you how it would end up from the start. Though it was a nice touch to explain that Ed gave them decoy codes, which is something that I wonder why more shows don’t use this option.

That being said, I do love that The Orville takes the time to focus in on actual prosthetics, and that leads to some really great character design. Which we see more of today with both the Krill coming back but also in the weirdness of Lt. Tharl (Patrick Warburton) and in the new alien race introduced in tonight’s episode.

In the end, do we recommend Nothing Left On Earth Excepting Fishes? Well, look it is a perfectly fine episode, but it is nothing I have not seen before many times, and there is only so much references to Old Earth media can pave over the cracks. It is not their best episode but it was still fun.      

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 – Jon Cassar
Written by – André Bormanis & Brannon Braga
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 Michaela McManus, Patrick Warburton & Chris Johnson