About halfway through tonight’s episode, “Home”, Alara Kitan, chief security officer for the Orville, is sitting on a beach at her parent’s summer home. She briefly closes her eyes and indulges in a fantasy where —decked out like a full-on druid princess— she rides a space hippogriff across a shell pink beach at sunset as great arcing planetary rings and moons swirl behind her. The scene, which is part airbrushed conversion van painting, part backdrop for the song title scroll of an as seen on TV, 6 CD/12 cassette collection of rock ballads, is supposed to represent a longing for the freedom that tugs at an otherwise literally and figuratively entrapped Alara. It was also, in its earnest, befuddling cheesiness, the highlight of an otherwise very mediocre episode.
There’s been a lot of online (well, not a lot; a lot within The Orville online community) discussion about actor Halston Sage either leaving the show or at least taking a sabbatical for most of season 2. There hadn’t been any official word, but tonight Alara received enough protracted hugs (and clinical acknowledgement-wave from Isaac) that it sure seems like this is it. For the time being, at least, she’s off the show. In that regard, it was nice that her final episode granted the opportunity to explore her character further and resolve some of the emotional turmoil she’s been bearing. But unfortunately, despite an armed home invasion, some high-gravity can crushing, special guest appearances by not one but two Seinfeld alumni buried under layers of prosthetics, and the return of one Voyager alumni, “Home” was a fairly bland experience.
When Alara breaks a bone from arm wrestling Isaac, Dr. Claire informs her she’s been steadily losing bone density and muscle mass due to all the time she’s spent in standard earth gravity. Her species owe their great strength due to the high gravity of their home world Xelayah, and having been away for so long, Alara is slowly weakening. This throws her into a state of existential anxiety since she still believes her superhuman might is the only reason she’s qualified to be security chief. This anxiety has been explored a couple of times, most notably in last season’s excellent “Firestorm”, but here, her uncertainty ties back into her family’s disapproval of her work. Because, as it turns out, the only reliable way to cure Alien Strength Loss is for Alara to return back to her home planet and reacclimatize to the higher gravity. Unfortunately, this means Alara will have to go stay with her parents, who think the Union is a crude, militaristic organization beneath her. Lacking any other option, Alara returns home, her dignity bruised and her body stuck in a hoverchair until she can gain her strength back. We meet her father Ildis (Robert Picardo) and mother Drenala (Molly Hagan), who we’ve only previously seen on a comm screen. We also meet Alara’s sister and the family’s figurative and literal golden child, Solana (Candice King) who bears all the academic and professional success Alara lacks. Ildris and Drenala resume exactly where they last left off and oscillate between trying to guilt, shame, and reason with Alara to return to school and finish her degree –despite her frequently alluded to inferior intelligence. In an attempt to make Alara’s convalescence more enjoyable, the family flies off to their island beach house. It will be quiet there in the off-season, everyone tells each other at least half a dozen times.
And it’s here where Alara has her Heavy Metal cover art daydream. Earlier in the day she sat and watched as her sister petted some beaked, horse-like creature native to the island. It’s not enough that she be academically accomplished, but like a veritable Disney Princess, Solana exudes such goodness, she can just go around snuggling nature’s creatures. Alara can only sit at the chore and imagine herself living so freely, accompanied only by the wind in her hair and a persistent, unrelenting score.
Somethin’ fishy is happening on this totally empty island, though, that eventually culminates in a couple taking Alana’s family hostage. The invaders reveal they want to discredit and probably also kill Ildis because he used his professional leverage to pull a scientific paper published by their son who couldn’t bear the rejection and committed suicide. While Ildris insists their son’s work was sloppy and it would be unsafe to publish his discovery, it hints at an idea that the value Xelayan culture places on high-mindedness and superior intellect only masks an underlying system just as combative and merciless as the military organizations they decry. We already see some of this, after all, by the condescending way with which Alara’s parents treat her. The Xelayans aren’t Vulcans. They prize knowledge, but they’re not clinical about it. They glory in it and they’re petty about it. So much so, perhaps, that many of them succumb to the pressure to succeed.
What I found most frustrating about this episode is how it set up multiple opportunities for Alara to prove her capacity as security chief weren’t just her physical strength. She could have been the one to discover the plot against her family. But instead they just showed up to the house, Space Funny Games-style. She could have devised some cunning plan to trick her captors, but she just stood up and kung-fu’d them without bearing any indication that until that moment she’d been incapable of supporting her own weight, much less leg-locking a gun-wielding maniac into submission. I’m certainly not above the satisfaction of watching a deserving person getting their ass kicked, and Alara’s calm dedication and perseverance to saving her family are as good traits in a security chief as cunning, Batman-levels of resourcefulness, but I’m just a little let down by how frequently The Orville chooses the narrative path of least resistance instead of playing around with its stories. Actions are all reactive, never active. After all, the hero losing access to what they consider their greatest strength, and either revealing other, less obvious talents —or just realizing that’s not what made them a hero after all— is a pretty well-established character arc. Here, Alara loses what she thinks is her greatest strength (her great strength) and still just beats everyone into submission.
After she murders some people, Ildis comes to his senses and finally realizes how wonderful his daughter is. The two have a tearful heart-to-heart next to the murdered island caretaker who’s been lying dead in their backyard unbeknownst to them for at least a day and Alara finally has some closure with her family. Back aboard the Orville, Alara decides she needs to reconnect further with her family. I was somewhat surprised by this since the show even went through the trouble to create the requisite gobbledygook method that would allow Alara to keep her strength intact outside of Xelayahn gravity. But it’s true. For now, she’s gone. But she remains in one or many of our hearts, depending on what species we are.
Stray Observations
- Cambus forcing Ildris to place his hand in the boiling sauce was brutal. The whole lead-up to that scene was pretty well done, in fact. Ed getting his legs crushed in high gravity was brutal as well. Good job on the physical trauma tonight, Orville!
- I don’t even want to talk about Patrick Warburton’s completely squandered appearance as the interim security chief, Lt. Tharl. Of all the infinite possibilities how you could approach alien behavior, having every single goofy-faced resident of the cosmos talk like Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High will apparently never not be funny to MacFarlane.
- The jar of pickles was a nice call back, and good parting gift.
- Fashion Corner: The Xelayan fondness for rust and hunter green clothes were making me very sentimental for the early 90’s. Between those and The Roxy Music album cover daydream, this episode made me nostalgic for my youth.
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Not just the return of a Voyager alum, but guest star turns from two “Star Trek” doctors, with Enterprise’s John Billingsley as Cambis. When they started talking about the son working at a medical school I was hoping for a meta joke about it, or maybe even Gates McFadden or Alexander Siddig showing up at the very end as a law enforcement officer to investigate the murders, just to cap the meta reference. But that would likely have been too distracting and a gag for a gag’s sake, and really detracting from what is probably the most serious and emotional episode of the show so far. So just seeing Phlox and the EMH actors interacting will have to do.
Maybe next time The Orville visits Xelaya those 2 will show up, prompting the obvious quip: “Everyone we meet on Xelaya is some sort of doctor.”
It’s THREE guest actors from Star Trek. Molly Hagan appeared on DS-9 as a Vorta.
I’ve always liked Molly Hagan… but she was on a single ep of DS9, so I’m not sure she qualifies. By that logic, Jason Alexander would make it 4.
The highlight was the two doctors. You could throw a stick at any show and hit a couple of actors who have guested on Star Trek. (Heck, three of them are on the main cast of this show).
And THREE two Seinfeld alumni (Molly Hagan was the nun overcome by Kramer’s “kavorka”…)
I mean four if you want to count Penny Johnson Jerald but she’s a regular on The Orville. And Seth McFarlane himself was on two episodes of Enterprise.
Jason Alexander was also on Voyager. But I think we’re just specifying Doctors.
4 technically, Seth had a cameo in Enterprise.
Thank goodness someone noticed there were two Trek doctors.
Speaking of brutal violence, I am soooo happy that no fingers were harmed in the making of this episode (besides Ildris’s).
Reminds me of Darkman and a certain cigar trimmer – 9 more chances.
I was gonna lose it if they let her snip that digit.
I was thinking, “Alara has two uninjured family members, but she sends her dad, with the severely injured hand, to rescue the captain. That’s… not smart.”
Given how the ship has to use artificial gravity, this seems like a weird problem to come up. Finn compares Alara’s situation in Earth-normal gravity to being like astronauts in microgravity, which makes sense. But if the ship’s artificial gravity works like the gravity plating depicted on Star Trek then it would be adjustable (which is a big assumption, I admit).The idea being that Alara could keep her quarters in Xelayan gravity, which would mitigate her exposure to alternate gravity conditions on a fairly regular basis. Now, the show could just as easily handwave this away by saying that Xelayan gravity is so high the ship couldn’t simulate it even in a small portion of the ship without extensive modifications or doing serious damage to the surrounding decks. But they don’t even try, beyond the suggestion that only a handful of Xelayans have been offworld.
It also makes me wonder how Xelaya interacts with outside planets. The anti-military attitude certainly explains why there aren’t more Xelayans in the Union Fleet, as I’m sure Union admirals would love to staff their security teams with home-grown super soldiers. And the elitist attitudes might help to explain why they don’t travel offworld much either, or allow visitors to their planet. Which is odd, given how Gordon calls it the most beautiful planet in the Union. You’d think there would be a healthy tourist industry. Are there resorts surrounded by those gravity shields stocked with bulky iron man suits to let the rest of the galaxy vacation there? (And I won’t even get into how humanoid creatures could evolve on a planet that massive)
That was my first thought, “You got artificial gravity. Turn it up”.Then they showed the bottle get crushed, which means (as you say) the gravity is sooo extreme, it could crush the ship, but that means Alara isn’t nearly strong enough.Her chest press was down 100kg (I think), but her gravity must have been 100x Earth’s, so 100kg shouldn’t be a big deal.When Gordon called it the most beautiful planet, I assumed he meant from orbit.
Mostly they wanted to park Alara for a bit, and the episode accomplished that.
They could simulate the high gravity inside a force field and bypass the possible damage to the ship’s structure.
Simple as that. But, hey: they needed a reason to get her on her home planet.
Agreed ! I’ll only add that all fiction requires the consumer to suspend their disbelief. This is doubly so with science fiction. I’ve always thought the big things in small packages aspect of her character was under utilized.
You can’t just turn it up. It’s gravity, not Freedom Rock.
Sloppy world building. It isn’t an excuse – I think poking holes in poorly built worlds is more than fair. But at the end of the day, it’s just something that doesn’t add up.My biggest problem is that a species from a mega-gravity planet wouldn’t ever evolve like that. They’d be short and squat with thicker bones. Even bipedalism might be a stretch. But I’ll let it slide. It’s a fair criticism. And also, if you want hard sci fi on TV, watch The Expanse, because it is amazing, and because they are more careful in building their worlds. I like this show, but it’s never going to be rigorously internally consistent. It might downgrade it for sci fi fans (like me) but it is what it is.
I also have issues with her just returning to mega-gravity from low-gravity without some sort of gradual compression or increase in g-force. If she was rendered so weak it seems like the sudden increase of gravity would crush her. Maybe this was explained and I just tuned it out, though?
She wasn’t rendered super-weak in comparison with Earth gravity. She was still super-strong, just not as strong as she used to be. In terms of her home gravity she went from normal to slightly atrophied, and just needed the chair to help recover. That didn’t seem like too much of a stretch to me.
Agreed. My only real problem with the episode was that they only brought one gravity suit for two people when they went down to the planet. Even if you don’t anticipate the pilot having to go outside, it’s nice if he’s able to, like if he has to drag his injured and about to be crushed captain back to the vessel.
Not sure folks are ready for a Mesklinite security chief.
Yeah they’d be more like the Elcor from Mass Effect then they would this.
My biggest problem is that a species from a mega-gravity planet wouldn’t
ever evolve like that. They’d be short and squat with thicker bones.
Even bipedalism might be a stretch.
Enter: Mass Effect’s ElcorThey’re from a high-gravity environment and barely move. When they do, they’re very slow and have extremely tough skin and bones. Their speech is monotonous, with extremely subtle facial cues conveying most of their meaning.So yeah, Alara they are not.
I ignored the biological evolution of a heavy world. I didn’t like the architecture evolution. Would a world with 100Gs really have so much glass? (even super-advanced super-strong glass?) Elevated public transit?
Second vote for The Expanse. Best goddamn scifi show out there and it gets the science right (or as right as it can on a television budget).
I had issues with the high gravity world as well. If the gravity was high enough to crush that bottle, my thought was the structures would need to be much more reinforced. There wouldn’t be waves in the ocean and nothing would boil, at least not at a temperature the would just burn flesh. It would be a pressure cooker extreme.I liked the episode. It is rare that I can get sucked into something a feel genuine emotion. The whole abduction story line was disturbing. I like that they used the actors that played the doctors from “Voyager” and “Enterprise”. I also appreciated the social commentary on psycho anti-vaxers. In general I think the writing on this series is really good. The episode last year with an entire society based on social network likes and dislikes was brilliant.
Yeah, the fact that they depicted a high-gravity planet as basically an Earth-like civilization is going to cause a lot of grief for this episode from science nerds. Life would evolve so differently on this planet it would be unrecognizable, if it could develop at all.Plus, those rings would be dropping meteorites on the planet at a fairly constant rate, which would effect things too.I had a similar thought to you on this. At one point when Alara was going to bed I was thinking “those pillows must be super fluffy in Earth-type gravity.”I suppose the Xelayans could have evolved on another planet to be humanoid and then moved here for some reason and terraformed the planet to their needs. I don’t know why they’d do that, and the show doesn’t seem to care either. But the implications of what we see on the screen should be catnip to a sci-fi writer for world-building. But instead, they just said, “It’s like Earth, but with more gravity, but no one would notice unless they aren’t from there.”It’s not unlike the depiction of the Moclans. Instead of really deconstructing how that society could have developed based on a single-gendered species, they just went with “It’s like it Earth had only dudes.” So of course, they’re all aggressive warrior-types who build weapons and fight a lot. Which lets the show hang a lot of jokes on the concept, but it doesn’t bolster their sci-fi credentials.
It might be an actual issue with spaceflight if the ship has a single section at a massively higher gravity then the rest of the ship. Also they would need to retrofit her quarters to be able to handle the Extreme Gravity etc…
It’s Trek-style sci-fi. “tech the tech to the tech to compensate. Blah blah blah”
The reason is gravity is much higher on her home planet. She would have the same problem on Earth.
No one’s suggesting she go to Earth. “Earth-normal” just means the equivalent gravity to Earth as simulated on a Union ship.
The point is the problem was known about but no one in the Union thought about the need to solve it until it became a plot for an Orville episode.
Just because they have artificial gravity doesn’t mean they have total gravity control. I have temperature control in my home, but that doesn’t mean I can turn it up to 500 degrees or make it super hot in just one room and cool in the rest of the house.Considering that the solution to her problem was to figure out a way to jury rig super-heavy gravity in a localized area for her, that pretty firmly establishes that that isn’t something they could do without figuring out a way to jury rig it.
Yeah it’s probably something like their gravity shields providing a uniform gravity for the whole ship in a bubble and not isolated deck plating. But if viewers can have questions about how it’s supposed to work (namely by comparing this show to Star Trek until the Orville gives us an excuse not to) the writers should be able to think of them too, and preemptively address it.Heck, they probably make it vague on purpose and then turn to the chat rooms to read the fan-canon so they can use it later.
You say, “If the ship’s artificial gravity works like the gravity plating depicted on Star Trek then it would be adjustable.” My response to that is yes. That was literally their solution to the problem, they were going to do that with the treatments on the holodeck regularly exposing Laura to more extreme gravity. Laura refused because she wanted to return to her home planet in order to rekindle her relationship with her family.
“But if the ship’s artificial gravity works like the gravity plating depicted on Star Trek then it would be adjustable”This is exactly the treatment they come up with in the end, just that the high gravity treatment isn’t in her quarters. The problem is that to average out after spending her work day at Earth gravity the treatment room has to be even higher gravity whereas the continuous exposure on Xelaya doesn’t.
I thought it needed to be higher to compensate for the years of atrophy she’s already experienced in order to get her back to her normal levels.
Had they simply been exposing her to Xelayan gravity at regular intervals all along I don’t think she would have had that much of a problem.
So we got The Doctor & Phlox together in the same episode. Just needed Crusher and Bashir to show up in some capacity (And maybe Karl Urban).I didn’t realize that this was supposed to be a farewell episode until the very end because it sure didn’t feel like it. Though I guess we’ll see if it’s permanent.I’m not really sure what to say about Patrick Warburton’s character since he kind of just disappeared and I have no idea if he’s going to be a regular thing.
Shit, I hope not. I like Patrick Warburton, but that character is too grating.
I’m pretty sure he’s a temp.
Well still, is he a one episode thing or is he going to be around for a while until the real replacement shows up?
I think this is the episode that finally won me over to this show. I was always slightly put off by the 90s trek retro feel to it but I actually embraced that this week.It was nice having a Bortas lite episode and I will miss Alara now she’s gone.So cool having the 2 trek docs as guests. You describe the episode as “middling” but I think this ep filled it’s niche perfectly. If I want to be blown away by complexity and hard sci fi I watch The Expanse.The Orville excells at being simple, warm and gently thought-provoking.
That’s ironic; I think Sage’s departure is what will sour me on the show. I thought it was fun popcorn, but she was the only character with depth that I appreciated.
Yes to every point!
Yeah, I had the reaction, “Whoa, this just turned into Funny Games. Cool.” – instead of – “Aw, they’re ripping off Funny Games. Lame!” (The dude-speak is contagious. ‘Think I need a hypo-spray.)
Funny that our reviewer managed to spot two Seinfeld alumns (and I don’t even don’t know who the second one was (Jason Alexander was in an episode last season – but I don’t think in this one), in addition to Warburton under deep prosthetics), but didn’t recognize that Billingsly was also a Star Trek alumn. And more than that, that both he and Picardo were Star Trek doctors.
There were 4 Star Trek alumni that I saw in the episode: Jason Alexander was the spokesperson for the Think Tank, in Voyager’s “Think Tank”, Billingsly was Dr. Phlox in Enterprise, Picardo was the EMH, and Molly Hagan was a Vorta in DS9.
I wasn’t sure at first if it was Billingsly. Once I figured it out I got a real kick out of the casting.
Molly Hagen played a Vorta on DS9, as well.
I give more weight to the series regulars. Across 25 seasons (I think?) of TNG , DS9, Voyager and Enterprise, the pool of people who appeared on 1 or 2 episodes is f’ing enormous. That’s like tracking Law & Order alumns.
I missed Jason Alexander as well, but then realise he was there right at the start – he’s the barkeep and he was the one calling for bets on the arm wrestle. But there was a THIRD alumni in this episode: Molly Hagen played Sister Roberta, the nun that falls for Kramer.
Molly Hagan had a small role in one episode of Seinfeld. Which I only know because I IMDBed her to see where I knew her from. The answer is Star Trek but I saw the Seinfeld credit while scrolling. -Mel
Science problems aside, I thought it was a good episode. Everything from when Phlox asked the EMH to put his hand in the boiling sauce was very tense and well done. I had some of the same quibbles as the reviewer (the story should have shown her putting everything together before the reveal) but the rest of the episode worked well enough to compensate. And though I agree the beach fantasy was cheesy it was a very nicely rendered effect.
in a way its tng’s heir, but with a difference, tng, or most trek shows would solve problems with a miracle cure. take last weeks episode, they could not save everybody, that would not have happened on a roddenberry show.
There is a difficulty in this show because its hard to place, is it comedy, is it drama, still pity alara left, she is a good character with plenty to tell about
Did I miss what grade this episode gets?edit: nope, looks like the “C” just got added. 🙂
this is a test
I liked the episode well enough and it was great to see the two Trek doctors in a surprisingly dark turn, but yeah, some missed opportunities (since Alana is gone, will Patrick Warburton put in more appearances…. and yeah, the dudespeak has become lazy and annoying) I’ve pretty much handwaved issues involving Alara’s appearance vs. high gravity environment on “It’s A Comedy” grounds, but after seeing a demonstration of the crushing gravity she should look more like Bortus.
Yeh definitely should be more stocky. And if the character was male they wouldn’t hesitate to do that. But as a woman they tend to want them to be alien, but still conventionally attractive. They also couldn’t have everyone she comes across underestimate her based on appearance allowing her to get the upper hand if she looked like Bortus. You see someone of that build you assume strength.
Dudespeak is basically Warburton’s shtick. I hope this was just a one episode cameo because I found his character annoying from the moment he walked on. “Oh. Its Patrick Warburton doing Patrick Warburton in prosthetics. It does surprise me how many famous names want to make appearances on this show. I guess spending hours in a make up chair to hang out all day with McFarlane must be worth it.
As annoying as his comedy can be, he strikes me as a genuinely good dude, so I’m not surprised that lots of people jump at the opportunity to hang out with him on his projects.
I assume the same reason McFarlane is able to get these people is the same reason so many big names show up in Adam Sandler movies: they’re both genuinely charming people who are fun to work with.
Warburton is a regular on Family Guy. He’s already a close friend of Seth.
McFarlane must have pictures.
Maybe all the dude-speak will coalesce to this one character and kill it for the rest of the cast. Optimism here people.
I enjoy the kind of nerdy dude-speak from Dann but that’s enough. And he’s been used sparingly so far. I hope it stays that way.
there was actually 2 star trek doctors since we were counting cameos, jason alexander is in the opening credits and was in the last episode as well so i think he is past cameo and more of a recurring
So now The Orville emulates Star Trek: TNG in yet another way, by using a flimsy and unsatisfying excuse to say a premature goodbye to a female security chief. I like this show a lot more than I thought I would, but am not very pleased with this episode, or the loss of the character.
At least she wasn’t killed randomly by an oil monster.
Then we hear Alara being name-dropped after a year or so and then we see an alt-universe Alara offspring who also played by Halston Sage.Seriously though, I hope Halston does a Dr. Beverly Crusher and comes back later in the season or next season. I liked her character who can confidently knock down a steel door in the first episode but not so confident in other areas of her life like being in command or overcoming her fears from Season 1.
To be fair Denise Crosby has always been honest that she wanted off the show. She felt it was going to be a one season deal and she would end up being typecast. In her defense the first two seasons of TNG are mostly terrible with a few good episodes showing the potential of the show. Season three is where it becomes the TNG we know and love. Ironically in the end I think she still ended up mostly typecast and stuck working in genre stuff but without at least getting seven seasons and three movied to show for it. Ultimately her departure was good for the show as it gave the writers more to give to Worf but an alternate universe where she stayed is an interesting thought experiment
Pity as i would have liked to have seen them actually do something with the character and the actress was good enough.I had heard there was another Xelayan joining up though to replace her. Would any stories still laying around be transferred to the new character?
True. The character’s name is Ezri.
How very DS9.
Brutal.
Alara’s out? Guess Seth found a new toy; Lord knows he gets bored fast with these pretty ingenues.
I kinda hate people that love to hate people like MacFarlane. They always seem to make up crap that isn’t even true.
Now why exactly couldn’t they have just turned up the artificial gravity in Alara’s quarters to keep her toned up? (Other than bouncing the actress off the show being what was really going on.)
jeeez, what a waste of patrick warburton potential. and now the orville’s got their tasha yar.
Sure it’s not the translation device that makes everyone talk like bros?
I loved this episode and I’ll tell you why. It’s not that I think it was a perfectly well written episode and I agree with many of the criticisms (Why didn’t they just turn the artificial gravity up?). But if you were to replace the actors with Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, etc., this was 95% a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. Not one of the best,(Maybe even more Voyager than Next Gen) but a Next Gen episode none-the less. Even if it was a little dark at a few points for Trek (hand in the boiling soup). I believe the Seth McFarlane wanted/want’s to make his show fully in the Next Gen universe but the only way he could sell it to Fox was to sell it as a spoof show (Which it very much started out as). As the show has progressed he has been slowly weening out the schtick for more drama but I don’t think Fox will let him unload all of it which is why you end up with a Spicoli Patrick Warburton but I’ll take it if I can get a 95% episode every week.
So has anyone explained WHY Halston Sage is leaving the show? I haven’t seen anything about the rationale behind this change.
Her departure might be related to her breakup with Seth Mcfarlane?
Apparently it’s because she’s busy with movie work.
How about, ‘It’s not a very good show.’
They drew straws for Tasha Yar and she lost?
All I saw was that it looks like she’s getting pretty popular and has a starring gig on another show where she doesn’t have to have shit glued to her face every day.
i wondered as well and the only thing i could find is that she was filming another show or movie.
I don’t think there’s any official explanation, but there’s been rumors that she and Seth MacFarlane were dating and broke up. Also, some people think it has to do with her shooting a movie last year, but the timing doesn’t quite match up.
She left to do a movie
They are pretty adamant about blatantly copying TNG as much as possible. Female security chief leaving around the end of the first season is just one more unoriginality point for them.
My guess is that new female officer is going to be more prominent in the show. Maybe the producers don’t have the budget for more full time cast members?
The rumored reason is because her and Seth broke up and that is why she left but I think it was amicable one of perils of dating at work
I’m not sure she is gone if previews for this show are any indication.
Maybe they’ll pull a “Florence on The Jeffersons” situation and have her show up back on the ship explaining that her planet burned down.
Her filming schedule for The Last Summer overlapped with the Orville shooting schedule.
Maybe she has a movie project in another city?
I saw a youtube channel stating that she and MacFarlane weren’t getting along on set. Also, there is another actress that will replace her in 2 episodes. Different character, but same species.
She is on another TV show.
She’s filming a movie in a place far enough removed from the soundstage of The Orville that it wouldn’t be practical for her to do both. I really like Alara so I hope she returns when she’s done.
I believe she has other career opportunites that she decided to take.
I think her and dating Seth McFarlane were dating, and now they are not. May not have anything to do with her leaving though.
Are you suggesting Seth has a hard time working with his ex?
Maybe it’s totally unrelated. If she had to decide on staying with the show or pursuing other projects, I doubt it helped the show’s cause.
Holy shit- Seth’s a motherfuckin’ method actor?!?
Wait they dated?
*Officially: She got other acting gigs including a movie deal that overlapped production schedules.
Unofficially she probably wanted to distance herself from Seth McFarlane after the breakup.
From what I’ve gathered from online scuttlebutt, it’s two-fold: 1) she was dating Seth, it didn’t work out and she thought it best to leave, and 2) she was offered some film work recently and wanted to focus on those films instead of the show. Either way, I wish there was more clarity on why she left and if she’d really return. If she’s done, I wish they would’ve done some sort of body swap episode so we could keep the character with a different actress. That seems more sci-fi’y, and we wouldn’t feel let down getting to know a character only to have her pull a Tasha Yar. I mean I had shades of “Skin of Evil” right up until the Jar of Pickles.
I haven’t seen any spoilers but it felt to me like this isn’t going to be permanent. Patrick Warburton’s character is definitely a placeholder. My guess is they’’ll save her return for a later episode where she’ll have to do something to save the ship or the captain.
No matter how many other things I see her in when I see Molly Hagan on screen my 1st thought is “look its ‘Angel’, the sensitive one, from inside Herman’s Head”
She also played a Vorta on Deep Space Nine.
I thought she was Sally Field all the time I was watching the show.
She was also a Vorta on DS9.
I have a real soft spot for this show. It reminds me of all the 90s shows growing up, especially the cuts to commercials. I love it for what it is. It doesn’t need to be the greatest show ever written (there’s plenty of shows that are great). Plot holes and missteps can be forgiven (to a point) because it has heart. To me it’s like a little dessert at the end of the week.
Maybe she was written off to keep up the TNG parallel of getting rid of the female security chief after a dozen or so episodes…
Wasn’t Halston dating McFarlane up until recently. Plenty of internet gossip that they were (and parted ways in September) and that she is now dating singer Charlie Puth.
Is it possible to tell from the internet who is really dating who anymore? Any time the tabloids see two actors together (I note, only of opposite genders, if Seth goes to lunch with a younger male colleague, they aren’t assumed to be dating) there is an article published that the two are secretly dating. Maybe they were just getting together a bunch to try to work out the details of her departure/return to the show at a later date, or maybe they are *gasp* friends? Not that I put it past McFarlane… just saying.
I don’t even want to talk about Patrick Warburton’s completely squandered appearance as the interim security chief, Lt. Tharl. He’ll be in other episodes, though, yes… I think they’ll have plenty of time to explore that.
Isn’t every episode “middling” tho?
No mention of the Doctor vs Doctor confrontation in your guest star list?
Either he never watched Enterprise or couldn’t see past Phlox’s prosthetics, which is funny considering the prosthetics-heavy show we’re discussing.
It was actually ok (and much less creepier than last week’s episode), until I realized Alara was leaving. Her and the Doctor were my 2 fav characters and I really don’t like she left (for good?) the show.
Anyway, at least it was a better send off than Tasha Yar’s .
Overall not very excited about Orville’s 2nd season so far. Something is off.
Disagree about Lt Tharl. Warburton was hilarious.
Enjoyed the episode overall but…Hated Tharl. Hated everything about him from the way he looked, to the way he spoke, to the way he acted. I really really hope that he’s not a permanent ongoing character.Loved Alara’s and the clothes fashion of Xelaya in general. I wish we could wear those clothes for real (and not get laughed at for doing so)I wondered why they can’t just have local adjustments to the artificial gravity of the ship? Alara’s room could be set to that of her home planet so she gets a dose of high G every time she’s off duty. But then that’d remove the whole McGuffin point of the episode I guess.I wonder if the way Tharl, Lt Dann (I’m so waiting for a (not very smart) alien to turn up named Gump or Forrest that Lt Dann has to interact with…) and other aliens speak is because they learn English (standard?… whatever it’s called in this sci-fi universe) through ‘ancient historical and cultural media’ such “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”..?
Do I watch this show first run or wait for the inevitable reruns, which will be around for years? The debate arises because this show is basically boring. They need to have more badass alien killers or more sciency stuff. I could care less if a certain character or another has a hangnail or harbors secret foot fetishes. Shoot more aliens or discover wonderous, but deadly things, but I don’t need backstories to become the story.
I think the thing that really appeals to about the Orville over so many recent scifi TV offerings is that it still retains a sense of wonder. As messed up as the crew may be, they still ooo and ahh over landing on an alien world. Sure the comments about Xelayan physiology are correct, and when you get right down to it, both Xelayan plant life and architecture look pretty spindly for something that’s supposed to be in a gravity that squashes humans. Sure the beach scene looks like a Yes album cover, but is there anyone here who wouldn’t want to ride an alien hippogriff on a pink beach under an alien sky, just a little? I know I do.For all its shortcomings, the Orville continues to show that McFarlane gets what got people excited about Trek in the first place, in a way that the current Trek showrunners, and even a lot of Trek fans, don’t.
I think claiming he “entirely” gets it would be going to far…& I feel like the bones of a better show are visible beneath the saggier bits of the one we get but I’m hoping when it’s all a little more fleshed out it might find a groove that would, if I’m honest, more or less entirely flip my expectations…I assumed going into season 1 that it would be more of a blend of family guy & the-office-in-space dressed up in cast off costumes/sets from galaxy quest rather than take itself as seriously as it does in places…& I still think I’d watch that show more likely than not…but the sheer earnestness that is involved in the tone they seem to be aiming for in terms of backdrop is growing on me in a fashion I initially found comically unlikely & the number of jokes that don’t really land (with me, that is) seems to be dwindling at an encouraging pace, particularly if this episode is a reliable indicator…a boor-ish temp replacing her on the bridge (at least on paper) seems like a fair way to try & emphasize the void felt in her absence but in context, as others have pointed out, it comes off as lazy…& it’s never going to be hard sci-fi if the only design-concession for a super-high-gravity environment is that the transit tube network has a triangular cross-section…but I find I like the show overall at least enough to keep giving the next episode a shot…even if it feels almost against my better judgement each time I do…
It’s pretty much settled into “TNG with McFarlane’s sense of humor” which is fine, but it still kind of irks me that they haven’t done more to distinguish themselves with the baseline premise . . . that the Orville is NOBODY’s first choice of assignment. It’s the island of misfit toys of the fleet, doing the kind of low-stakes, busy-work, keep-them-out-of-the-way type of missions suitable for their place on the food chain. Anybody who lands there should have screwed up or be undesirable in one way or another. They kinda did that in the pilot, (Kitan is basically an affirmative action hire and too young for the job, Isaac is racist, Malloy is an idiot, etc) but it hasn’t really come up since.
I still think you could have the ooh, ahh factor. Like Mercer, a lot of the crew is just happy to have ANY kind of a shot at being in the fleet. But there should also be some disgruntled officers who really fucked up and the Orville is their penance, and some who are just bad at their jobs or are completely checked-out and trying to coast to retirement (whatever that looks like in that future). Like, their chief engineer is kind of a drunk, hasn’t maintained his knowledge-base, and is mostly worthless. But his tour is almost up, so everybody just kind of covers for him and gets the job done anyways.
Every damn TNG-era show had all sorts of “This is the finest crew in all of Starfleet and I’m proud to work with each and every one of you!” kinds of speeches. Not every crew on every ship is awesome, and I’d love for the Orville to have a shitty reputation and be more along the lines of, “We are a crew. And you’re reasonably competent, for the most part. Now lets go out there and not fuck things up too badly!”
Like, when Warburton showed up I would’ve loved for his initial impression to be, “So this is the Orville, huh? Not as bad as I’ve heard. I figured you’d all be drunk or stoned or drooling on the carpet.”
Just thinking of the storylines and gags that would work. The conflict between “I’m too good for this shitty ship” and “I’m happy just to BE here!” between crewmembere has a lot of mileage, both as gags and actual storylines. Not to mention the myriad of ways otherwise good officers might have fucked up to get this shitty assignment. Plus, McFarlane gets to do the put-upon schmuck when every other Union ship they run into treats them like shit, which he’s pretty good at. Every OTHER ship are these perfect, Starfleet-like vessels, with the scumbags and castoffs all shuffled off to the Orville.
Oh no. It appears you have a case of Orville Syndrome. It’s a little known mental disorder first diagnosed in 2017 after the premiere of a lazy homage to early 90’s syndicated science fiction. It’s main symptoms are irrationally hating Star Trek Discovery, ignoring glaring flaws in writing, sfx, acting and set design and an inability to accept that franchises need to grow beyond their late 80/early 90s origins and reflect contemporary society and storytelling conventions.Sadly it’s incurable.
Bwahahahaaaaa…so how is it living in Dweeb Land?
Jesus dude just let people enjoy things. You don’t have to insult them because they get joy from watching a specific show.
I just read through the comments here in disbelief, and yours takes the cake. How did everyone here get so bitter and joyless? How could the reviewer give this episode a C?This was a great episode of TV, full stop. My girlfriend and I couldn’t stop talking about it for at least a half hour. We don’t follow any news about this show so we were blindsided when Alara left. But more than that, we were stunned to discover we had actually become invested in these characters.Anyways, the guy above you is 100% right, and you’re a huge idiot. Whatever flaws this show has, it does understand what people loved about Star Trek: an optimistic view of the future, a sense of adventure, discovery, exploration and joy. So it’s not just that people are clinging to Trek for no reason, it’s because all those things are *awesome*. Our souls need that stuff, man. I can’t believe I just wrote all this. Seeing you smugly mock the one sane person in this thread triggered my nerd rage. Though, if you’re trolling (‘irrationally hating Star Trek Discovery’ does make me wonder…), then masterfully done.
I bet you’re a lot of fun at parties.
My thoughts exactly (though expressed more pithily than I did in my still-pending missive from last night). I am utterly baffled by the whole “this is what ‘Discovery’ should have been” nonsense. It’s sort of fun in a nostalgic sort of way, but the novelty is quickly wearing off. I swear, Next Gen would have been chased off the air by trolls if the Internet had existed then.
Double oh no. It looks like you have caught Discovery Dementia. It is a well-known condition where some one thinks that just because a show is new and modern it must be good, even if it differs in the very ways that made its predecessors excellent. Sufferers usually defend shows like Star Trek: Discovery despite its glaring shortcomings in writing, continuity, and darkly unappealing special effects simply because it is “new” and “different”, even if many of those differences are its fatal flaws. Under this condition people seem to eschew 80s and 90s television shows and those based on them for no good reason; all they can muster is to say they are old and they think that is enough to invalidate them. People with this condition seems to have no memory of how ancient the best story-telling traditions really are and, especially, how they immediately doom their own beloved modern stories since it will only be a matter of time before those very stories get inevitably old and, by their own poor reasoning, not worth enjoying.Luckily the cure is to simple: stop, think, and judge something on valid criteria, not simply how many years it has existed.
to be honest you could say the same of most trek series, plotholes,acting etc. People remember tng for its later seasons, so go and watch season 1. Check worf, little substance apart from grumpy, check picard, not that much except grumpy against kids, check riker, well pretty boy a recurring redshirt.Sure there is a lot to say about the orville but its not bad.
as for discovery, it ripped a few holes in the established timelines, it reimaged a lot of things incl the klingons, it deserved what it got. And my gripe the over jj abramsing of space.
There’s a Trek-tard in every crowd.
If liking pointless fun shit is a mental disorder, I’m pleased to have it. And it certainly doesn’t interfere with my love of Discovery, either.
Sure Ted 2 in space is fun….if you like hate watching.
Your life sounds devoid of joy.
Joy is not defined by lazy Seth McFarlane vanity projects. Plus its fun figuring out which episodes of TNG the writers of The Orville were watching when they were writing each episode.There is one thing I do have to give the people behind The Orville credit for: They manage to incorporate the bridge crew into plots while still keeping these characters as distinctly 1 dimensional. They feel even less fleshed out than those on Discovery. I mean who can forget redhead pilot guy, klingon knock off, robot, it’s funny because she’s a small woman security person, and the black dude.
So you’re reading a reveiw of a show you don’t like just so you can go the comments to let everyone know how much you don’t like it? You must be real fun at parties.Neck beard’s gonna neck beard I guess.
It is amazing how whenever someone points out The Orville is a festive hot tub filled with chunky diarrhea, at least one basic individual feels obligated to point out that they are “fun at parties”.Even the fans of this show can’t help but indulge in derivative anachronisms.
ST: Discovery peeps can talk all the shit they want, but when it comes down to it, which show would Roddenberry like better if he were here? Disco or The Orville? I think the answer is obvious, even if folks don’t want to admit it. We know Gene wouldn’t even have liked DS9.
lol…I’d say “eat shit, kid”, but it looks like your life is already miserable
Fascinating how your kind always assumes that individual critical of garbage have a miserable life.
“ my kind”
“your kind”
Retaining a sense of wonder and getting what got people excited about Trek in the first place is no substitute for quality writing.
See the recent series of Doctor Who, and its attempts at making a more educational show for kids like Doctor Who was originally conceived.
I can’t say I was ever invested in Alara, at least not until this season’s premiere episode, ‘Ja’loja’, when she’s trying to find a date to take to Bortus’s ‘Great Release’, and she ends up with a blind date with Dan ‘The Man’.Their awkward exchanges were pretty amusing.
I could really do without Dann.
And explains her knowledge of poetry, as even a Xelayan of modest intellect and education is still above most of the crew.
Her father was the doctor from Voyager, the neighbor was Dr Flox from Enterprise (the short lived prequel show) and the mother is a very good character actress. The mention of Seinfeild……please…gag. I got misty-eyed at end. Orville always has little and big surprises. Alara….sweet young daughter-like…who could rip an airlock off it’s hinges….great character. I hope Halston comes back. They side stepped the controllable gravity thing but it was all for the story line. Episode grade A…. I laughed I cried it was a part of me……new security guy…C-. Awful alien…..unless it was just a one episode joke.
You didnt mention that this episode had not just one previous ship doctorsdoctors but TWO. The villain Male in this episode was also a previous Star Trek ships physician…my favorite in fact.
Wait, wasn’t the son’s shitty anti-vax paper actually published, then discredited because it was shitty, and that’s why his life fell apart and he killed himself?
While Ildris insists their son’s work was sloppy and it would be unsafe
to publish his discovery, it hints at an idea that the value Xelayan
culture places on high-mindedness and superior intellect only masks an
underlying system just as combative and merciless as the military
organizations they decry.
Wasn’t the dead son just an anti-vaxxer? Were there any evidence to show it otherwise?
What’s the “hints” you saw?
A quick check on IMDb (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5691552/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) will reveal that Halston/Alara is slated to appear in every episode of season 2. So maybe wait a week before declaring her dead.I agree they could have given Alara a more satisfying way to prove her self-worth but I have a theory about this show. In the tradition of the original Star Trek, which hid it’s social commentary behind a sci-fi filter, I believe The Orville is hiding an honest Star Trek series behind a sit-com filter. I think McFarlane really wanted to make an honest Trek but couldn’t, so he told the studio he was just making a parody. But the humor took a back seat after about 2 episodes. “Home” would have been just about par for ST-TNG episode, story-wise. I also think McFarlane plans pretty far-ahead. I was surprised (and delighted) when Rob Lowe showed up as Darulio, but even more surprised when I looked at the pilot again and saw that it had been Rob all along. I doubt Rob would have agreed to do just that one cameo with no lines and with this face all but obscured — Darulio’s return 9 episodes later was planned from the start. I’m sure both Jason Alexander and Patrick Warburton, and even Will Sasso, have bigger parts coming up.Thanks for the fun article.
a. IMDB doesn’t necessarily have much advanced information about the per episode cast, so they may be just copying boilerplate for the regulars for each entry when they get the episode titles.b. It may specify in her contract where she gets billed in the up front titles for the season, so that may not change at all.c. They may not re-cut the title sequence immediately.d. She may in fact be back right away and they’ve just done a better job of keeping that out of the “next time on” clips than any show ever produced. 😉
Alara could have had to stay in her wheelchair and solve crimes in a sci-fi reboot of Ironside.Also, I think there might have been a slight shot at the anti-vax crowd in this episode.
This was a great episode. It was great not so much because of the story, or even because of the acting. (Though it did indeed feature great acting from Star Trek veterans Robert Picardo and John Billingsley.)The episode was great primarily on account of its pacing. It was a show that told a story through dialogue — and, sometimes, through silences. The special effects were purely secondary.
That sort of production is what made The Next Generation a joy to watch; and I hope we get a lot more stories like that on The Orville.
That sort of production is what made The Next Generation a joy to watch
I know what you mean. But this sort of production didn’t work so well in Voyager because the characters weren’t as memorable and the stories weren’t as compelling. Basically, the writing wasn’t as good. The Orville is more like Voyager than TNG in this regard, with the added problems that it fails to maintain a consistent tone and that both its science and humor break my suspension of disbelief.
Well, I loved Voyager. Even though I know that The Next Generation was better written and that Voyager has more than its share of clunker episodes, Voyager has become my favourite Star Trek series. It has aged remarkably well, as I have enjoyed discovering during recent marathon viewings on BBC America.Voyager had the best acting of all the Star Trek series, and also brilliant characterisations. On top of that, it was the best-looking of all the shows, with the most beautiful uniforms and the most beautiful ship.So, even though I compared this episode to The Next Generation, if The Orville is like Voyager, I’ll happily take that. Indeed, the ship reminds me a lot of the ship on Voyager; and The Orville’s theme song is very reminiscent of the Voyager theme.
That explains a few things. I knew The Orville wasn’t for me, but now I’m closer to understanding why. Voyager was too many trips to the well for me, and the less said about Enterprise the better, so The Orville just seems like scraping the bottom of a long disused well for ideas.
But you’re right. Like Voyager it’s a good looking and sounding show, good costumes, good performances. I preferred the acting and characters in DS9 overall, and consider any good Voyager episodes to be the exception rather than the rule, but I can understand if your tastes are different then The Orville could appeal to fans of Voyager.
Now we just need to get the word out to anyone saying The Orville is a TNG clone.
I think The Office was much better than any Orville show.
Star not enough. Want to say +1. Really good episode. One of my favorites, because it’s what The Orville is for. Personal stories. Told rather well. I also like the good hard SF (Expanse!) and can go for some candy like silly SF sometimes, but we need this show also, and it’s good that it is the way it is.Also totally disagree it would have been helpful to have Alara smartypants her way out of the situation. It demonstrated that sometimes you need to shoot someone in the face to save everyone, and she’s good at that stuff. It worked.
Have they explained how a being with low mass, no matter how strong, can kick down a wall?
What bugs me is the assumption that she could quickly reacclimate to Xelaya and then return to the Orville. Wouldn’t she have the same problem all over again? And, one does regain 20% muscle mass and 5% bone mass in a few days. That would take quite awhile.
I’m pretty much done with this Next Gen cosplay show. I am baffled by the fact that it gets lauded as “what Discovery should have been blah blah blah.” It’s a lame, derivative, poorly-paced snoozefest and every episode seems interminable. The stories all seem like rejected TNG scripts that got some punching up from MacFarlane. It doesn’t even pick up where TNG left off; it’s more like it picks up around season 2. I wanted to like it, and I enjoyed some of the first season, but it just feels so…boring.
I’m also sick of hearing how it’s so much better than Discovery. It’s not. Discovery is something different, something that moves the ball down the field, and brings a new narrative approach and thematic perspective to Trek. If you want safe-as-milk nostalgia, then Orville is the show for you. I suspect that if the Internet had been around when TNG first started, however, it would have been chased off the air by trolls. Don’t take my word for it; go back and read the real-time reviews of TNG. The complaints are literally verbatim to what I hear about Discovery: it’s not “real” Star Trek, it’s too different from TOS, etc. Now it’s lauded as possibly the best of all the series, but that wasn’t the case at the time. S1 of Discovery is arguably the strongest first season of any Trek since TOS, and it’s only going to get better.Despite its shortcomings, I loved S1 of Discovery. All the blathering about how it contained plot elements that were too un-Trek-like was ridiculous. Starfleet would never treat a living thing the way they treated the tardigrade? Really? How about the HILARIOUS moment when they beamed hundreds of thousands of tribbles to their deaths on a Klingon ship in “Trouble with Tribbles”? That was a real knee-slapper. Or the way they destroyed hundreds of Horta eggs on “Devil in the Dark”? Etc.
I think the complaint that bugs me the most, though, is the “Spock can’t have a sister because we never heard of her!”Seriously??? If anything, introducing previously-unseen members of Spock’s family is a classic Trek trope at this point. Hello, Sarek, T’Pring, and Sybok, I’m looking in your direction!
What I like the most about Discovery is that they’re trying something new. The whole “Weekly Adventures of the Bridge Crew and Their Magical Reset Button” is SO played out, and it’s interesting to see what some other crew members do besides reporting to the bridge, opening hailing frequencies, and standing around while the Captain pontificates. Was S1 of Discovery perfect? No, it wasn’t. But it was a hell of a lot more interesting than dreck like the Naked Now and some of the other garbage Next Gen served up in its first couple of seasons. So I’m glad for you Trek fans who enjoy reveling in the faux nostalgia of Orville, but I doubt I will watch anymore after this last bore-fest.
I’ve noticed The Orville bashers (Who happen to be big Discovery fans) are mostly in the greys; does the opposite happen over at i09 with presumably Disco bashers and Orville stans?
I don’t understand why folks don’t have love enough for both of these shows. I certainly do.
Are we not mentioning the Enterprise alum? I feel like that’s worth mentioning. Not as cool as a Voyager alum and Seinfeld, but relevant.
They made the right call…her character is a weak spot. Even Dale is more interesting, and their date really showed it. Also, is her arm-wrestling an homage to Bobby Draper from The Expanse or stealing it, keeping in mind Seth MacFarlane’s reputation for the latter.
One thing that’s been bothering me, and forgive me if I missed something, but if Xeleyans are known for their super strength, why did Ildris have such a difficult time pulling Ed back onto the shuttle? He should have been able to lift him in the air with one hand (which is all he had available to him) based on what we’ve seen Alara do.
Xeleyans are strong under Earth gravity because it is much less than the gravity at home. On Xeleya Ed’s body would also weigh more, so Ildris being strong just means the effort would be about the same as an Earther dragging Ed on the ship or on Earth.
This episode redeemed itself in a strange way. Partway through the episode I just starting cringing at Halston Sage’s performance, it reminded me of every bad Westley episode of TNG. So it was a relief to see her character written off at the end.
Anyone catch how the kidnappers’ son used flawed methodology to show the vaccine Ildis developed caused a disorder in children sounds a lot like real life?
I hated to see her go. 😭 That being said, this episode was the best thus far. The CGI was awesome !!!!! And in case you missed it, her father was played by actor Robert Picardo, the Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager
You missed another important alumni from Enterprise. Dr. Flox.
Somebody snapped up Halston, no way she left the show just because of breaking it off with Seth (unless … something “Let’s not go there” happened). Even last season, I was thinking, “Get that girl out of prosthetics and into a horror movie, so she can become a superstar already.”
Someone either really hates or really gets off on hand trauma. I was grinding a ton this episode
I liked Alura and as a pretty dude-heavy crew, I’m disappointed the replacement (if he hangs around) is another bro-speaking alien. Happy to see Bob Picardo and John Billingsley guest star – those Trek actors getting to join in the Trek pastiche is a nice touch. I thought it was a good episode, probably a B for me
This was almost the exact plot of that Melora episode of DS9 only that character was disabled on DS9 because the gravity was too high. She stops a criminal. Decides not go through a procedure that would help her adjust to the gravity as she wouldn’t be one of her people anymore.
I found it quite wonderful that the “villains” were literally just anti-vaxxers, who cannot handle being proven wrong – you know, like normal anti-vaxxers.
“After she murders some people, Ildis comes to his senses and finally realizes how wonderful his daughter is”She didn’t murder them. She “self-defensed” them to death.
Big Difference.
So the episode where we discover Poochie is an interesting and cool individual, is unfortunately the one where he has to return to his home planet.
“She could have devised some cunning plan to trick her captors, but she
just stood up and kung-fu’d them without bearing any indication that
until that moment she’d been incapable of supporting her own weight,
much less leg-locking a gun-wielding maniac into submission.”I disagree. They showed she was moving slowly and poorly. Evil Wife was clearly much stronger than she was and was physically overpowering her. Alara won because of training and technique – training that her dad and family had looked down upon.
“I disagree. They showed she was moving slowly and poorly. Evil Wife was clearly much stronger than she was and was physically overpowering her. Alara won because of training and technique – training that her dad and family had looked down upon.”I am here a year later to say: YES, THIS. As intellectually superior as mom and dad and sis were (or at least thought they were), they were in dire straights without Alara’s training, technique and, most of all, her bravery. Dad was not going to be able to save his family, and he was blown away by his daughter – the daughter he felt was lesser – being capable enough to save them all. He was ashamed for underestimating her worth and her value, and the fact that strength and military training and courage are things to be revered just as much as intellect.
Wow. Were we even watching the same episode, because I could not disagree more. That was equally as good, if not better than “Family” from TNG. This show is clearly meeting, if not exceeding, its potential with this episode.
“I’m just a little let down by how frequently The Orville
chooses the narrative path of least resistance instead of playing around
with its stories. Actions are all reactive, never active. After all,
the hero losing access to what they consider their greatest strength,
and either revealing other, less obvious talents —or just realizing
that’s not what made them a hero after all— is a pretty well-established
character arc. Here, Alara loses what she thinks is her greatest
strength (her great strength) and still just beats everyone into
submission.” Excellent commentary.
In reference to the departure of Alara/Halston , I have
constantly seen the same 3 issues crop up over various websites – film offers (
and being typecast) , the breakup with Seth and the prosthetics/makeup. Considering the Orville seems to be concentrating on quality
over quantity ( or perhaps due to finance limits) resulting in only a dozen or
so episodes per season, about half of that compared to the average number of
about 25, I think being typecast is a bit premature. Any experienced agent should
inform their actor client accordingly. As for the break up, Seth is in his mid-forties , combine
this with the current climate of metoo I can’t see this being a factor, IF they
were dating he should surely have had the sense to tread very carefully. It
would be very daft of him to mess things up to such an extent he loses out on a
solid fan favourite character. Besides aren’t Scott/Gordon and Kelly/Adrianne
hooked up ? Seems ok by the tv bosses. I initially ignored the makeup issue thinking it was too
trivial but you make great points about the 2 hrs plus time period taken
applying and similar time for removal, meaning early arrival and late departure
times, certainly at that age its going to be an annoying factor and the feel of
a glamorous job will inevitably turn into the daily ‘grind’ feel. It could also
possibly explain why Seth / Halston have not officially spoke about exit
reasons too much, if the makeup was the official reason Halston would face a
backlash from fans, be the butt of jokes from social media not to mention harm
her movie career ambitions, I don’t think casting people would like too kindly
an actor leaving their steady, established job for a ‘trivial’ reason. It is interesting to note that out of all the hairstyles the
new character Talla could have had, instead of Alara’s centre-part showing her
full forehead, she has half of her hair coming forward and then to the side.
Therefore only showing half the makeup therefore half the time in the makeup
chair perhaps? Or just a coincidence? But in the interview by tvline.com she
does state she was specifically asked by Seth about the lengthy time periods in
the makeup chair. As a veteran of numerous tv shows including sci-fi, I am
surprised by how much feeling the departure of Alara has generated, personally
and amongst fans in general. In such a short time there has been notable
character development, even in the last episode, and what a send off ! For
Alara a bit of mystery, drama , suspense, horror, action , comedy and heroics . You could understand the
creators and writers being a bit peeved off with her going, after putting so
much into her character and with three to four Alara centric episodes in such
short seasons, but they really showed their class by giving her such a memorable
exit. Perhaps they are hoping as much as the rest of us , that she will return.
Ironically for an alien she had very relatable issues and I thought gelled well
with all the other actors. Off the top of my head, I don’t remember long established
characters like Neelix/Kes exits generating the same feelings.At her young age, and the attention she’s getting, it means
she has a nice ‘headache’ – continue with tv or try for the movies ? It’s like
football managers who have 3 good strikers but can only play 2.I want her to return asap also, like a Dr Crusher rather
than Tasha Yar, but considering how much weight they put in her final episode,
how real it looked from all the other actors , I have a bad feeling it could be
either a final finish or a long wait with some cameos. But then again, this is
Seth , he hasn’t followed the norm so far, and I like that, mixing all types of
genres in his ‘official ‘ sci-fi show so who knows, perhaps a massive prank ….
SO , nobody noticed it was the battle of the Voyager doctor vs the Enterprise Doctor then?(Robot Picardo who played Voyagers EMH vs Peter Billingsley who played Dr. Phlox on Enterprise)