On Thursday night, The Orville, the inconveniently popular science fiction series by Seth MacFarlane, finally returned after three years for its third and probably final season. And it was a really good premiere, directed by MacFarlane, with action sequences that were both lavish and composed with real tension. It also featured again the kinds of conversations Star Trek used to be best known for--using its remote, sci-fi setting to engage in discussions you really couldn't have with a story with a contemporary setting. In this case, mostly the conversation was about suicide and hatred.
Picking up after the brutal Kaylon war in season two, the episode finds the Orville's resident Kaylon, Isaac (Mark Jackson), finding many of the rest of the crew deeply resent him for his part in the conflict. He ended up saving the day but only after he'd collaborated with the Kaylons.
Among those who bear him a particularly potent grudge is a new character, Charly (Anne Winters), who replaces LaMarr (J. Lee) as navigator. Like Halston Sage, who left the show after the first season, Winters seems suspiciously like a young party girl who just possibly could be sleeping with MacFarlane. But I have no proof. Anyway, she's not giving a particularly interesting performance but she's not distractingly bad.
At first, Isaac takes it all in stride, seeing it as an opportunity to observe a new aspect of human behaviour. But then he very logically concludes his presence is too harmful for morale and decides to kill himself. His recorded suicide note is a laundry list of potential improvements to mechanical efficiency aboard the Orville. His character has always been modelled on Data on The Next Generation but in this case he's doing a much better job of coming across as a being totally devoid of emotion. So this provides a nice springboard for a very rational discussion over the ethics of suicide.
It leads to a scene that perfectly highlights the show's strengths. We find LaMarr in bed with a pretty alien woman covered with short spines. She casually mentions how in her culture suicide isn't stigmatised, that the decision that life might not suit one's tastes is regarded as simply a valid personal decision. The scene, which begins as comedy, unobtrusively slides into a real and provoking philosophical discussion. I mean, it's not Socrates, but it gets viewers thinking who otherwise might not bother thinking at all.
The episode is interspersed with some exceptional action sequences. I particularly liked a scene where Mercer (MacFarlane) uses what Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) describes as "submarine warfare" tactics.
The show really does feel like Star Trek: The Next Generation with better special effects at this point. It has many of the strengths and weaknesses of TNG, the latter being a general feeling of being too clean and easy. But its strengths are otherwise totally absent from television and film nowadays and MacFarlane succeeds in demonstrating that a truly great form of storytelling has been largely lost in the medium.
This is the first season to air after Disney bought 20th Century Studios and it's been recently announced MacFarlane has begun work on a Ted television series for Peacock, the NBC streaming service. This follows after many years of MacFarlane working for 20th Century Fox despite how vocal he's been about his dislike for Fox News. One would have thought he'd be happy to be working for Disney now so perhaps it's Disney who doesn't want to work with him. Maybe the company feels they're full up on space opera franchises having both Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy. Maybe MacFarlane wants too much creative control. Maybe he wants too much money. It could be all of these things.
All of this makes The Orville even more of an anomaly, a fly in the soup of the modern corporate smugness that controls the entertainment media. It's more popular than the ultra-expensive, zombified version of Star Trek that's somehow continued to lurch along at Paramount, and it's better written than Disney's Star Wars series. But somehow, this massive show has found a very precise crack to fall through. I suppose it will always stand as an edifying example of just how tough it is to get something interesting made for film or television.
The Orville is available on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ in other countries.
Twitter Sonnet #1587
The silent voices push the helmet off.
Above the hill, a flying tree abides.
Polite but forceful corpses start to cough.
Beware the cut of apple whips on hides.
Above potato houses roots descend.
We checked the exit twice but lost it still.
On all the doors our rangers now depend.
With little hands we built the mental hill.
With burning flags the guard has held the fort.
The dusty slope was flat beyond the rise.
A heavy head was lightened thanks to port.
But sherry saves the driest apple pies.
With normal flowers floating down the stream
We try again to live inside a dream.
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