TV Rewind: The Orville Is the Most Heartfelt of TV Love Letters
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Editor’s Note: Welcome to our TV Rewind column! The Paste writers are diving into the streaming catalogue to discuss some of our favorite classic series as well as great shows we’re watching for the first time. Come relive your TV past with us, or discover what should be your next binge watch below:
I have been on something of a Seth MacFarlane journey as of late. Before watching Ted earlier this year, I had written off his style of humor (and, admittedly, his entire film and TV repertoire) as just not my cup of tea, and had been content to live my life completely Family Guy-free. But then I watched Ted, Peacock’s hilarious and surprisingly heartfelt talking teddy bear prequel, and absolutely loved it. Craving more from this creator that I had completely written off—and after eating a healthy dose of crow—I jumped into FOX and Hulu’s The Orville.
Following Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) of the USS Orville, The Orville catalogs the adventures and exploits of the titular starship, its patchwork crew, and the trials and tribulations of the Planetary Union, a combined alliance of numerous planets, alien species, and outer space territories working together 400+ years in our future to insure the universe remains peaceful and progressive. Joined by his incredible crew—which features his adulterous ex-wife and Second Officer Kelly (Adrianne Palicki), Lieutenant John (J Lee), security chief Alara (Halston Sage), helmsman Lieutenant Gordon (Scott Grimes), Dr. Claire (Penny Johnson Jerald), Lieutenant Commander Bortus (Peter Macon), Kaylon Issac (Mark Jackson), and eventually security chief Talla (Jessica Szohr) and Ensign Charly (Anne Winters)—Ed and The Orville venture to far-off worlds and do their best to help those they can, all while becoming better people themselves along the way.
On the surface, The Orville seems like a run-of-the-mill Star Trek parody, and the first season’s push-and-pull between humor and its more Trekian plotlines is potential evidence that that’s what FOX originally wanted it to be. But it quickly becomes clear that this show, despite engaging in some lighthearted jabs at the conventions of The Next Generation and series like it, is more of a love letter than a hit job. And by the time it airs its final outing (a network change and 36 episodes later), it’s more apparent than ever that MacFarlane and crew have created a world just as rich as the one it originally aimed to parody, becoming an earnest yet lighthearted take on the problems that ravage humanity, set across a backdrop among the stars and led by a crew that aims to leave every place better than they found it. The series deals in moral quandaries but never absolutes, highlighting the very best parts of humanity while holding up a mirror to the undeniable worst.
The Orville’s first season utilizes nostalgia and humor as a gateway, a foot-in-the-door to allow new viewers to become acclimated to this Trek homage, before it finally sheds that skin in its second and third seasons by doubling down on the worlds and people we have come to know and love. The consequence of that early push-and-pull is a bit of a tonal mish-mash as it attempts to balance that humor with its more grounded and earnest ambition, but the second and third seasons finally allow it to blossom into the poignant, simultaneously heartwarming and heart wrenching series it was always meant to be. New Horizons in particular utilizes its shiny Hulu budget and expanded runtimes to thrive as a fully-realized, affecting space drama.
There is just something so undeniably delightful about watching a series where you can feel the love for the medium of television just emanating from the screen. The Orville is unabashedly episodic, but, in that same rewarding way that TV seldom feels in this post-Peak TV era, each episode is deeply impactful on the overarching journey as well. It’s a series that unashamedly lives within the moments and details sprinkled throughout each episode, where the tiniest beats have ripple effects in ways that are deeply satisfying as consequential story moments, but also aid in our investment into this world—even without some kind of movie-esque storyline split into eight “serialized” parts that current TV favors so much.
In Season 1, the goofy one-off adventure where Ed and Gordan pose as Krill to invade their terrifying enemy’s ship and learn more about their mysterious religion is the first domino in one of the series’ most impactful stories about belief, connection, and radicalization that comes to a head in Season 3’s ninth episode. A heartbreaking decision made against Bortus’ wishes in an early Season 1 episode continues to have ripple effects on the life of his daughter, showcased in one of the series’ best episodes (Season 3’s “A Tale of Two Topas”). Every relationship and interaction that was played for laughs in the early days becomes the grounding force for its beautiful character development and delightful dynamics that allow these episodic issues to feel tangible and real, even if the situations and players are otherworldly. When Ed and Kelly finally hold hands once again at Claire and Issac’s wedding or Charly and Issac finally find common ground before her grand sacrifice, The Orville cements its humanity in the tiny, quiet moments between its central players—shipmates that begin to feel more and more like family as the episodes tick by.
Whether it be through a classically sci-fi “road not taken” alternate timeline story or the rousing battle cry of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” The Orville’s hope and ambition for a better and brighter future for us all is near-intoxicating and delightfully earnest, free of the sardonic, doom-stricken nature we have been inundated with as Peak TV has continued to march along. In the series’ final episode, Season 1 guest star Lysella (Giorgia Whigham) returns seeking asylum on The Orville, desperate to leave her home planet, which is governed by a Reddit-esque system that employs up and downvotes carried out by the masses to lobotomize anyone who does something the ‘feed’ doesn’t like. She attempts to sneak The Orville’s advanced food synthesizing technology back to her planet, in hopes that the introduction of this game-changing machinery will change her world for the better. But through a long talk between Kelly and Lysella, The Orville employs its most hopeful message: change is coming, it just might take some time. And even though Lysella chooses to stay on the ship and leave her world behind (who could blame her?), the intent remains the same—the future is so bright, we just have to hold out long enough to see it come to fruition. Aided by the wonderful wedding between Claire and Issac (another true TV classic, bookending the show with nuptials for a fan-favorite relationship), the series fades to black with hope in its heart and a tear in its audience’s eye.
And even though MacFarlane has cryptically stated that Season 4 is not totally out of the question, The Orville’s ending is still deeply satisfying, loose ends and all. The series-long storylines are the kind of daunting and universal problems that were never truly meant to be solved within its runtime. When all is said and done, we can all just rest assured that The Orville and its incredible crew will continue to try to find solutions for these issues and make change for the better, even if we never actually get to see them play out on screen.
More than anything, The Orville is a series that unabashedly wears its heart on its sleeve, and understands that the happenings within the halls of the ship are just as important—if not more so—than intergalactic space battles and alien worlds. It basks in a rare kind of radical optimism, all while embracing the gravity of its larger questions of morality and mortality—and never loses that sense of humor along the way. It’s a delightful watch, and undeniably a series worth falling in love with, knowing that it loves the medium and its audience just as much.
Anna Govert is the TV Editor of Paste Magazine. For any and all thoughts about TV, film, and her unshakable love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you can follow her @annagovert.
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