The Orville dropped a new episode this week and it was probably the most interesting experience I’ve had watching this show so far. I went from zero enthusiasm for this episode to finding it somewhat thrilling by the time I reached the end. I’ll share my emotional journey with this week’s Orville.

As usual, this review will not be a blow-by-blow recap of the episode, but rather, a breakdown of what made the episode tick. Needless to say, spoilers follow.

Another Time Travel Episode

I knew from the title that this was going to be a time travel episode. As a fan of Star Trek Voyager, I have seen my fair share of time travel stories, perhaps too many. So going to this episode, they needed to execute it really well to please me. I was (and still am) a little “meh” on the science behind this week’s incident, but when I discovered that a version of Kelly from the past was brought about the ship, I was not very interested. The episode quickly felt like Voyager’s finale, “Endgame” without the action. Kelly interacting with herself for 50 minutes was not what I wanted to see.

Kelly interacting with herself for 50 minutes was not what I wanted to see.

Another Character Study

Somewhere along the line watching the episode, my expectation changed, and I became somewhat invested in the story as another character study. The Orville has studied quite a few characters this season, but this one was particularly interesting because having a younger Kelly on the ship allows the writers to study the growth of the character in a way that would otherwise not be possible. I started to watch the younger Kelly’s interactions with the crew with greater interest and greater attention, as I juxtaposed every idiosyncrasy with the version of Kelly we know. It was becoming evident how much of a change occurred in Kelly’s character over the 7 years preceding this episode. Nowhere is this more exemplified than in younger Kelly’s interactions with Ed.

Ed sees this new Kelly as an opportunity to have his cake and eat it too. “Older Kelly”, as the crew have been calling her, doesn’t want a relationship with Ed at this stage, but Younger Kelly is open to it because she has just met him and isn’t clouded by anything that has happened, or will happen, from her perspective. (Don’t you just love talking about time travel?) This becomes one of the more interesting aspects of the episode because ultimately, Ed realizes that he can’t substitute one Kelly for the other because all the experiences of the past 7 years, both the good and the bad, have shaped her into the person he is in love with. The Younger Kelly may be genetically the same person, but in personality, she is not, not anymore. This was made abundantly clear to Ed in the party scene. Yaphit, Bortus and Klyden gave me some of the best laughs I’ve had all season, but the crux of the scene was that Ed just couldn’t keep up with Younger Kelly, and just couldn’t appreciate that life any longer.

Ed realizes that he can’t substitute one Kelly for the other.

This is what makes the episode so powerful. When I started to watch it, not as another time travel episode, but as another character study, it hit me hard because it made my introspect. There’s a moment where Younger Kelly lists the 3 most major accomplishments she wanted to achieve and tells Older Kelly that she is a disappointment. If I be honest, I think Younger me would find older me a disappointment as well, so I could understand what Older Kelly was experiencing in that moment. But ultimately, that was not a fair assessment because if we accept that based on the different experiences, older you is not the same person as younger you, that means that some of the things you deemed as important accomplishments would have to change over time with your personality.

Not Just Another Episode

One of the interesting things about this episode is that it is very unassuming. I quickly realized the episode was intended to be a Character Study, but that didn’t didn’t prevent them from delivering a mini-comedy in there with that party scene.









It also didn’t prevent them from delivering a mini-thriller in there with the Kaylon chase scene.

The Kaylon chase scene was a mini-thriller.

I may have been upset about the science behind the time travel, but it was a definite treat to see The Orville hide among the ice chunks of a planetary ring. I’m into astronomy so I love to see such things visualized so seeing The Orville emulate a ring chunk piqued my sci-fi interest and the science was pretty sound for the most part.

Seeing The Orville emulate a ring chunk piqued my sci-fi interest.

The Turning Point

Throughout the entire episode, I was quarreling about the time travel logic.

I was upset when Ed decided to give her the rundown of everything that happened over the last 7 years… correction, I am STILL upset because that was irresponsible!

I am STILL upset about this scene.

However, my major bone of contention was that if younger Kelly was in the future there is no way no for the future not to be impacted. When the prospect of a memory-wipe surfaced, and the revelation that reason her presence hadn’t thus far affected the future is because the memory wipe will work (or had worked… I don’t even know anymore), that saved the whole episode for me. I needed the logic of the premise to be, well, logical, and up to that point, it wasn’t. When that explanation was presented, my entire opinion of the episode changed. I had enjoyed it up to that point as simply a Character Study episode, but suddenly, I was also enjoying it as a Time Travel episode, so it all came together for me.

The cliffhanger was just the icing on the cake. I knew the season finale was supposed to be dealing with ramifications of a previous episode but up until the point of the cliffhanger, the entire episode played out like a standalone piece. They could literally have ended the episode before the cliffhanger and it would have been perfect, but throwing it in there just gives me more hype for the season finale now, and puts the episode into another category in my mind.

They could literally have ended the episode before the cliffhanger and it would have been perfect.

Conclusion

So, as I said, this an interesting journey for me, because I felt very let down by the scientific premise of the episode but by the end, the writers redeemed that aspect of the story and caused me to feel totally different about that I had just watched. It’s very satisfying when a story “comes together” at the end in that way. I’m still upset about Ed’s recklessness in sharing the future with a past version of his First Officer, but I enjoyed the episode otherwise, thought it was well writing, well executed and I will watch it again for sure.

Side Notes:

It was cool to see Isaac interacting with the crew like normal, and with Claire in the end.

Adrianne Palicki did a pretty good job making the two Kelly’s distinct.

This was the first episode to feature a truncated version of the Title Sequence.

Talla’s relationship with Younger Kelly was really cute to watch.

Ed and Gordon’s video game was a nice touch. Simulators are great but it’s nice to see this type of experience survived in some form.

John has been somewhat neglected this season.