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The Orville: New Horizons

The Orville has long been an entertaining science fiction show that got even better with its third (and possibly final) season. With shooting on the third season getting held up by the pandemic, Seth MacFarlane--who created the series, as well as stars as its Captain, Ed Mercer--seemingly took the added time to rework the scripts. And that was a very good thing. When The Orville first debuted, it was seen as a comedy that offered a funny, satirical view of Star Trek, the classic series from which The Orville was inspired by. The humor was very broad and bombastic, sometimes going a little over the top.

But even in the first two seasons, the slapstick humor began to slowly be replaced by earnest storytelling as MacFarlane and his writers fleshed out their characters and the universe they lived in. And by doing this, The Orville only got better. While there’s still humor in the third season, and it’s much welcome (because the humor here is still genuinely funny, emerging from the situations, instead of being forced), this new, dramatic version of The Orville: New Horizons is now a far more confident series that tells its enthralling stories in a stately, detailed-filled manner that’s ultimately very satisfying.

The average run-time of the third season episodes is well over an hour each--with one episode, Midnight Blue, clocking in at just under ninety minutes! That’s an Orville movie, kids! The episodes are self contained, with the main story wrapped up by the end, yet they still all fit together in a mosaic to inform us about the ongoing war between the Planetary Union and the cybernetic Kaylon--which leads up to Domino, an episode with a marvelous ‘eye candy’ space battle showdown that is so sweeping and epic that it easily put the recent bunch of lethargic Star Wars TV series on Disney+ to shame (although I’m still holding out hope that the upcoming Andor might be good).

There are still some cringe moments here, like having a computer simulation of Dolly Parton (played by the real Dolly Parton) talk some sense into an alien aboard the Orville, with Dolly even breaking into a song to prove her point. But, on the whole, the third season of the Orville is extremely well-done, with its stand-alone adventures (such as Gordon getting trapped in the past, or strange, shadowy creatures taking over the ship) being just as gripping as the overall Kaylon war saga. And, the season finale, Future Unknown, wonderfully wraps things up in such a way that it can also serve as a series finale. Even if this is the end, I’m grateful to the cast and crew of The Orville for the fantastic ride. --SF

All three seasons of the Orville can be seen on Disney+. The first two seasons are available on physical media (and hopefully the third season will be on physical media very soon, too).
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