The Orville: New Horizons (Season 3) – TV Review

TL;DR – The terrain constantly shifts out from underneath the crew of the USS Orville, as enemies become friends and friends become enemies.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I streamed this on SBS OnDemand

Ed and Kelly look out over Earth.

The Orville Review

A few years ago, it was announced that Seth MacFarlane, most well known for Family Guy, would do his take on a Space Opera, a show like Star Trek but with more jokes. It was a premise that had me both intrigued and concerned. That is because I was sure you could make that balance work, just that it would be hard, and Season One was rough at times. But by the time Season Two drew to a close, it had wholly found its feet and was soaring forward. Now it is time to dive into the much delayed and possibly final season, titled New Horizons, and if it is the end, at least it went out on a bang.

So to set the scene, in The Road Not Taken, the threat that the Kaylons pose is shown when we see a universe where the crew of the USS Orville never came together, and the galaxy is in ruin. But there is hope, and the team come together for some last-ditch time travel shenanigans to set the timeline right. It worked. But now, everyone on the ship has to work to get it ready for the next attack, and while the refit takes place, there is a lot of resentment brewing on board, with most of it landing square on the lap of the ship’s lone Kalon crewmember Isaac (Mark Jackson). While captain Ed Mercer (Seth MacFarlane) and first officer Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) work to keep the ship together, there are crew members like new navigator Charly Burke (Anne Winters), who lost people in the war and have legitimate reasons not to trust. But they will need to find that trust because the galaxy is on the precipice of collapse. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.     

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TV Review – The Orville: Deflectors

TL;DR – Today we find yet another side of life on Moclus, and it’s not great, to be honest.    

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

The Orville: Deflectors. Image Credit: Fox.

Review

Well, tonight’s episode of The Orville was an interesting one because it was an episode full of contradictions. It is an episode trying to shine the light of prejudice, but in a really ham-fisted way, but then it works when it really shouldn’t. It also contrasts this really serious storyline with a really silly one, and still all works.  

So to set the scene, the USS Orville is preparing itself for a long-term mission into unexplored space by returning to Moclus to get a deflector upgrade. This involves a Moclan engineer Locar (Kevin Daniels) coming on-board to assist, which is a bit awkward because he is Bortus’ (Peter Macon) ex. While this is going on Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) realises in a conversation with Cassius (Chris Johnson) that they both want different things out of the relationship, so she decided to end it, which does not go over well. This is all before Locar reveals a secret that rocks the ship to the core, and may have set in motion something uncontrollable. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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TV Review – The Orville: All The World Is Birthday Cake

TL;DR – It explores what you would do in a First Contact situation when everything is taken out of your hands.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

The Orville: All The World Is Birthday Cake

Review

First Contact is one of those big deal moments in Science Fiction, it can be a moment of pure joy or a moment of devastation. When you first put that call out into the universe you do not know who will answer it and indeed, for those answering the call what will you find when you make planetfall. Today we explore one such scenario, with of course The Orville’s unique spin on it.

So to set the scene, we open on the planet Regor 2 as the scientist and First Prefect (John Rubinstein) send a simple message into the void asking if there was anyone else out there. A couple of years later the crew of the USS Orville were doing another run, this time picking up their new chief of security Talla Keyali (Jessica Szohr), and discussing upcoming birthdays when they receive a faint message. Quickly finding out that this is an unknown civilization the whole crew jump with the excitement of going on their first First Contact mission. After some initial pleasantries, everything was going fine until Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) mentions her upcoming birthday and everything falls apart. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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