[7.2/10] “Shadow Realms” is a tale of two elements. One is the lingering interpersonal awkwardness melded with affection between Dr. Finn and Admiral Christie. It has the sort of recognizable, layered personal dynamic that marked the best of the shows The Orville is aping. The other is the attempt at doing genre-mixing horror movie in the midst of the show’s usual modus operandi when the crew starts being infected and taken over by some spider-like race. And it is...not very good.
Maybe it’s just that I’ve seen my share of horror movies at this point, so nothing here is particularly novel or fearsome. “Shadow Realms” does muster some good body horror, between Admiral Christie’s mid-transformation facial protrusions, to the quick changing of some poor redshirt who gets sprayed with the key microparticulate and transforms much faster in real time.
But otherwise, this episode isn’t especially scary, despite turning over most of the runtime to the horrorshow. The Orville loses power, which is supposed to give the ship a haunted house feel. The problem is that it just looks like the normal “Hampton Inn in space” sets with the light turned low, which isn’t particularly frightening. The monsters themselves aren’t that creepy 90% of the time either. It’s hard for the show to shake the sense of “It’s just a guy in a big rubber suit” vibe of the costuming, and the transitions between the practical versions of the monsters and the CGI versions is conspicuous and immersion-breaking.
That’s all a big problem, because the show moves at an incredibly stolid pace through all of this. A more measured rhythm for a horror story can work, because it creates empty spaces for the dread to leak into. But if you can’t pull off the dread, then the whole thing feels long and boring, which is where “Shadow Realms” lands. If these horror sequences and moments of suspense were any good, I think I’d be praising The Orville for giving the terrifying elements the time and space to unfurl. Such as it is, though, the monster attack sequences and attempts at a Jaws-style “less is more” approach soon become tedious.
I do appreciate the method of defeating them though. The idea that after transition, the alien insectoids haven’t fully developed an immune system yet, to where a common cold virus would kill them, has an intuitively satisfying explanation built in. It made me think of human babies, who (to oversimplify things, which is fine for Star Trek-adjacent stories) have to get their immunity from their mothers until they develop. It’s a clever enough answer to the problem of how to defeat them without just beating them up or otherwise harming the rest of the crew (who presumably have fully functional immune systems).
Plus, as a Trek nerd, there’s some appeal to the Nelvac aliens as a realization of the original conception of the Borg, who were supposed to be more insectoid, hence the idea of drones and queens and such. If I were to speculate, this feels like two Trek vet writers pulling from that unrealized original idea and trying to realize it in a spiritual cousin T.V. series instead. Who knows if these will become recurring big bads, but the show seems to be setting them up that way. I can’t say I’m terribly enthused at the prospect given these early results, but the idea that the Krill view them as possessing demons at least adds some extra juice to the development nod at play here. But the meat of this one to me is the relationship between Dr. Finn and Admiral Christie that complicates the whole thing. Honestly, you could strip away the insect monster attack, and still have a damn good (arguably better) episode about two people who had something meaningful years ago reckoning with what it means to them in the here and now.
The conversations between the two of them where the Admiral is trying to rekindle things and Dr. Finn is more sanguine, even regretful, rather than wistful about their relationship are well-written. Dr. Finn confiding in Grayson about the May-December romance and the way Admiral Christie didn’t treat her like a partner, more like a bed-warmer makes for a writerly scene, but a strong one as well. You can see easily why there would be meaning and attachment there, but also strong reservations and regrets. That adds an emotional contingent when Dr. Finn gets through to the insectified Admiral Christie (and the ring is a nice setup and payoff for how she’s able to identify him). Hell, the whole thing even does a good job of gently nudging Dr. Fin and Isaac back together.
On the whole though, the episode is much more focused on its monster mash than on the human elements here, which takes a promising episode and turns into a B-grade imitation horror flick. Star Trek has done horror well in the past. (Hell, one of the writers of this episode oversaw one in Enterprise’s “Impulse”), but with cheap-looking effects and direction that can’t make the most of it, this one doesn't measure up.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-06-21T02:32:04Z
[7.2/10] “Shadow Realms” is a tale of two elements. One is the lingering interpersonal awkwardness melded with affection between Dr. Finn and Admiral Christie. It has the sort of recognizable, layered personal dynamic that marked the best of the shows The Orville is aping. The other is the attempt at doing genre-mixing horror movie in the midst of the show’s usual modus operandi when the crew starts being infected and taken over by some spider-like race. And it is...not very good.
Maybe it’s just that I’ve seen my share of horror movies at this point, so nothing here is particularly novel or fearsome. “Shadow Realms” does muster some good body horror, between Admiral Christie’s mid-transformation facial protrusions, to the quick changing of some poor redshirt who gets sprayed with the key microparticulate and transforms much faster in real time.
But otherwise, this episode isn’t especially scary, despite turning over most of the runtime to the horrorshow. The Orville loses power, which is supposed to give the ship a haunted house feel. The problem is that it just looks like the normal “Hampton Inn in space” sets with the light turned low, which isn’t particularly frightening. The monsters themselves aren’t that creepy 90% of the time either. It’s hard for the show to shake the sense of “It’s just a guy in a big rubber suit” vibe of the costuming, and the transitions between the practical versions of the monsters and the CGI versions is conspicuous and immersion-breaking.
That’s all a big problem, because the show moves at an incredibly stolid pace through all of this. A more measured rhythm for a horror story can work, because it creates empty spaces for the dread to leak into. But if you can’t pull off the dread, then the whole thing feels long and boring, which is where “Shadow Realms” lands. If these horror sequences and moments of suspense were any good, I think I’d be praising The Orville for giving the terrifying elements the time and space to unfurl. Such as it is, though, the monster attack sequences and attempts at a Jaws-style “less is more” approach soon become tedious.
I do appreciate the method of defeating them though. The idea that after transition, the alien insectoids haven’t fully developed an immune system yet, to where a common cold virus would kill them, has an intuitively satisfying explanation built in. It made me think of human babies, who (to oversimplify things, which is fine for Star Trek-adjacent stories) have to get their immunity from their mothers until they develop. It’s a clever enough answer to the problem of how to defeat them without just beating them up or otherwise harming the rest of the crew (who presumably have fully functional immune systems).
Plus, as a Trek nerd, there’s some appeal to the Nelvac aliens as a realization of the original conception of the Borg, who were supposed to be more insectoid, hence the idea of drones and queens and such. If I were to speculate, this feels like two Trek vet writers pulling from that unrealized original idea and trying to realize it in a spiritual cousin T.V. series instead. Who knows if these will become recurring big bads, but the show seems to be setting them up that way. I can’t say I’m terribly enthused at the prospect given these early results, but the idea that the Krill view them as possessing demons at least adds some extra juice to the development nod at play here.
But the meat of this one to me is the relationship between Dr. Finn and Admiral Christie that complicates the whole thing. Honestly, you could strip away the insect monster attack, and still have a damn good (arguably better) episode about two people who had something meaningful years ago reckoning with what it means to them in the here and now.
The conversations between the two of them where the Admiral is trying to rekindle things and Dr. Finn is more sanguine, even regretful, rather than wistful about their relationship are well-written. Dr. Finn confiding in Grayson about the May-December romance and the way Admiral Christie didn’t treat her like a partner, more like a bed-warmer makes for a writerly scene, but a strong one as well. You can see easily why there would be meaning and attachment there, but also strong reservations and regrets. That adds an emotional contingent when Dr. Finn gets through to the insectified Admiral Christie (and the ring is a nice setup and payoff for how she’s able to identify him). Hell, the whole thing even does a good job of gently nudging Dr. Fin and Isaac back together.
On the whole though, the episode is much more focused on its monster mash than on the human elements here, which takes a promising episode and turns into a B-grade imitation horror flick. Star Trek has done horror well in the past. (Hell, one of the writers of this episode oversaw one in Enterprise’s “Impulse”), but with cheap-looking effects and direction that can’t make the most of it, this one doesn't measure up.