This feels much more like mid season episode. That's not saying it was a bad one. Quite the opposite. I had a lot of good laughs and a lot of smiles.
One small point of critique: the whole Lysella story was too predictable. I love the dialogue between her and Kelly. It's obvious where that's aimed at. But why not show her the simulation earlier ? Could've made her understand and accept without all the back and forth.
As for the Clair/Issac relationship - who would've thought it would end in marriage when that started way back. But it works, it makes sense and it doesn't feel forced.
Final thoughts on the season:
"Future Unknown" refers as much to the episode as to the show itself. There still is no news about a renewal. It would be a loss to not have another season. I'm sure they could come up with interesting stories. Ed's daughter, his relationship to Kelly, how Claire and Isaac work out, Lysella - there is tons of potential. But they also made sure we get closure if it ends here. I would miss the characters as they have grown on me. I want to see them again and learn more about them. Experience some more adventures with them. That's a feeling no show has given me for quite some time.
Please come back.
(No spoilers)
I should have known MacFarlane would do something like this. No cliffhanger, nay, rather an anti-cliffhanger. Last week was the season finale, this was a tribute to the series thus far. And it was earned.
Instead of going into specifics for the episode, I'll just summarize how I feel about The Orville as a whole. This show started in 2017, almost at the exact same time as Star Trek Discovery. I was eagerly awaiting both for what I thought were similar reasons. To say that these two shows are the exact opposite of one another is an insultingly tremendous disregard to the scope of the reality that surrounds the existence of both series.
Both The Orville and Discovery shamelessly lied to its viewers. Discovery was suppose to bring the ideals of Star Trek back in the first of many new series, and The Orville was suppose to be Family Guy in space. Here we are, five years later, and I don't think anyone correctly predicted what either of those properties would actually end up being.
For all the terrible things that have happened in the world (most notably during these last five years) and for all the personal hardships I've endured during that timeframe, The Orville has defied everything (including Star Trek itself) and chosen to believe better of humanity. Much the same way a chintzy, low-budget sci-fi show did back in the 1960s, when many were convinced the world was going to burn in nuclear holocaust. And even though that little sci-fi is now a cultural giant with the power to be whatever it wants, it wants to be something else for now. Like we needed that campy, optimistic, character-driven show then, we need shows like The Orville now.
We'll always have classic Star Trek, we'll always have three seasons of the best send-up to Star Trek ever created, but we need more. We need a continuous drip of positivity and introspection this concentrated because things really have gotten that bad again and it feels like no one else is willing to try - not even those best positioned to do so.
Disney would be brainless not to renew this show for multiple additional seasons. Even from a purely self-serving position, it would be stupid to not use The Orville to their advantage. Yeah, they already own Star Wars, but the Venn diagram of the Star Wars and the Star Trek fanbases looks kinda like the Mastercard logo. Now Disney owns the only real contender to Star Trek. Just keeping this show going as is would bring in droves of Trek fans old and new.
Rest in peace, Norm Macdonald.
#RenewTheOrville
In case this ends up being the series finale, I'm glad they didn't end it on a cliffhanger, but I hope Disney renews it.
I think the episode was good. It was nice to have a fun episode again after so many serious episodes. I don't think it was as good as those, but the last episode felt more like the epic conclusion to the season while this was more of an epilogue, so that was fine.
Was happy to see Alara return! If the show gets renewed, I would love to see Alara return full time, and Lysella will be an interesting addition to the show as well. Although I have to admit, I didn't remember her previous episode, but I loved the way they gave a great explanation for what is essentially Star Trek's prime directive.
A reasonably satisfying conclusion to the season, open-ended enough to allow for a fourth season if it's picked up again but with enough closure that it can function as a series finale if not.
Unsurprisingly, barely any reference is made to the events of last week. Lysella returns from the social-credit planet and Alara comes back for a surprise appearance near the end, but this episode otherwise tries to exist independent from past events. I wished for more reflection on "Domino", but can understand why the production didn't take that direction.
Ever since "Twice in a Lifetime", I can never look at Gordon without remembering his alternate reality and getting emotional.
Very wonderful season!
The reason I love the universe of star trek and the Orville is the hope that humanity can one day achieve proper unity and a utopian society. I liked that this episode emphasised the need for us to grow (in a round about way) so be able to get there. It came across well and not preachy. The wedding stuff was cute and honestly Malloy's toast was really touching. Could have done without yet another song though. (seriously has he got an album coming out or something?). Never get why American shows randomly have singing moments for their actors. Comes across weird and very 'vanity moment'. Brings me right out of the tone.
Not much conflict for a finale and I kinda like that. The big stuff happened last ep. Also I was super happy to have Alara on my screen again. Miss that cutie.
I really enjoyed this one. Such lighthearted comraderie really gave the episode an airy feel. Though I most certainly hope this isn't the last episode of Orville I watch, I will otherwise be satisfied with the ending if it is. In the end, it is a quality episode for a series that has only grown over time.
Love this catch and hide game. And I love Elvis. It makes no sense at all story-wise but it's fun to look at and it's certainly memorable. I actually like most events around the two weddings (Bortus had a wedding sort of, did he?). There are some really funny scenes and lines. It's perhaps the funniest episode of the season.
Love how they incorporate the lore they were able to create over the course of just three seasons (the sandwich is of course a cornerstone).
I love the Lysella story. She receives a crash course in Future 101. Kelley basically explains the whole Orville/ Star Trek Universe: the economy, the tech, the prime directive, intrinsic motivation. It's a testimony to McFarlane's dedication to Star Trek's vision.
All in all, that's a well devised quieter conclusion to this season. I hope there will be a next season. If not, this is a beautiful finale this show deserves. It feels like goodbye though.
Season finale. I hope they renew it. As Kelly says it is not only technology that has to advance, people also
D'aw, this was just lovely! Not gonna lie, I shed a tear during the kneeling scene.
But the best part of the episode was Isaac inviting the whole planet of Kaylon to the wedding and they all mass appearing to attend the ceremony.
Even the preachy part about advanced technology falling in the hands of less advanced civilizations was done on point. A very "Star Trek's Prime Directive for Dummies" moment.
Great feel-good episode! Everyone deserves a break from the dangers of deep space, every now and then.
Whether you return or not, godspeed to you, The Orville! Throughout the seasons, you surely earned your spot in our sci-fi hearts.
[7.0/10] I get tired of how every genre show has to cram in some action-filled fireworks in every single story. I am the king of preferring contemplative, introspective, character-driven stories. There’s nothing better than shows taking an episode or two after the climax to take stock and consider how everyone and everything has changed in the aftermath. So I admire what The Orville aims to do in a season finale that plays like a series finale.
But it’s also pretty darn dull a lot of the time. I’m not saying I need another Kaylon invasion or an attack by the Krill-Moclan alliance. There’s just so little conflict in this one. Seth MacFarlane and company launch a few big ideas, but then they just let them float there for an hour and twenty minutes, which doesn’t make for the most riveting television.
“Future Unknown” does feature two big storylines. In the first, Isaac asks Dr. Finn to marry him, which invites all the rigamarole of whether an artificial lifeform without feelings is marriage material. In the second, Lysella, the barista from the “social media = bad” episode, asks for asylum on The Orville given the sorry state of her world, with Grayson taking her under her wing.
There’s potential in both stories. The developing romance between Claire and Isaac has long been one of my favorite parts of The Orville. This is the culmination of their unique courtship, and a chance to mull what a commitment to a practically eternal, emotionless being would mean exactly. It could function as a capstone to all the big concepts the series has explored between the two of them.
Here’s the catch, though. What has made season 3 far and away The Orville’s best is that it dropped 99% of the frat humor and tepid romcom element, and instead repositioned itself as a straight Star Trek show, which was always its best mode. With this story, which takes up two-thirds of the episode, The Orville reverts to being an interstellar sitcom, rather than an introspective sci-fi show, and no one’s the better for it.
“Future Unknown” does pay lip service to the big ideas at play. In a quality scene, Claire challenges Isaac about why he’d want to marry her, and there’s some hokey but decent debate about the pros and cons of it. Dr. FInn asking her kids if they’d feel comfortable with it is heartfelt and ties up a loose end with Marcus. If that were the bulk of it, this could be a quality throughline.
Instead, “Future Unknown” reverts to being a zany sitcom about the whole thing. Mercer gets the business from the female officers about his opinions on wedding dresses! Naive Isaac takes LaMarr’s bro-y perspective on dating to heart and ineptly asks others to date and mate. Bortus dresses up in an Elvis costume and sings the hits! Keyali programs a Kaylon stripper who does sultry dances despite being a big sexless robot. Malloy pouts about getting usurped as best man. Isaac mistakes inviting some family to mean invite all the Kaylons. Wakka wakka! There’s no substance to it. It’s all just wacky shtick, the exact thing that turned me off of The Orville in its early run.
The Grayson/Lysella story is a little better. It functions as a deconstruction/explanation of the Prime Directive, digging into why exactly the Union has such strict rules about not interfering with developing worlds, even when those worlds would benefit immensely from the life-saving, need-ending technology the Union possesses.
I like the idea. Most of us who grew up with Star Trek also grew up with the idea that with great power comes great responsibility. The Federation sitting idly by while developing worlds suffer, then, didn’t always sit right. I like the idea presented here: that even non-violent technology shared with divisive worlds just becomes another resource for different sects to fight and kill over, and that societal maturity has to match technological maturity or bad things happen. It’s an interesting tonic and commentary to the division and turmoil of our country and our world right now.
(As an aside, I found T’Pol from Enterprise’s explanation for the idea interesting -- that providing a growing culture with new technology means having to babysit them while they use it, to avoid just that sort of destructive possibility, something that the Vulcans did with humanity.)
The problem is that, in practice, it’s all very professorial. The exploration of these ideas is mostly a series of lectures from Grayson to Lysella that seem more like they should be an essay in a sci-fi magazine rather than something coming out of a character’s mouth over and over again. They try to tie into something personal, with Lysella feeling survivor’s guilt over leaving. And they try to spruce things up by setting some of these recitations on the holodeck or in the midst of planning a bachelorette party. But it’s all expositional and a little detached for that reason. Even the moment where Lysella gets caught trying to smuggle schematics back to her homeworld seems very low key. The concepts here are good, but they’re all too academic and not rooted enough in character choices and experience. They try with Lysella’s experience of all this futuristic technology, but it comes off flat.
All of that said, the actual wedding is nice. Claire and Isaac’s vows are sweet. Malloy’s toast is charming. Alara comes back. It’s perfectly pleasant as a victory lap for the show. Lord knows I wasn’t asking for them to return to the Mercer/Grayson romantic nonsense, but at least a simple hand-hold is subtle and gentle enough to not be obtrusive.
On the whole, “Future Unknown” ends The Orville’s best season with a whimper. We’re back to tepid sitcom humor and zany gags. We’re back to grappling with heady ideas but offering fairly superficial takes on them. And everything is a little too serene and uninvolving. Very little here is outright bad, save some of the Bortus material. (Lord knows we didn’t need two lizard men in thongs playing a rapey version of freeze tag.) But most of it is just too mild.
That said, the flaws here speak to how the show was able to step in the third year of its mission. By turning into a straight sci-fi show, and picking up on any number of loose threads from prior outings, the series proved that when it sheds that excess baggage, it’s an enjoyable, and occasionally even profound Next Generation inheritor. The rocky points are there still there, but if the show does get renewed, it’s proven that it can change for the better. And if it ends here, it ends with a swoon, but also having lived up to its potential, even if it took a long road to get there.
Lovely episode with some pretty funny moments. They tied everything up really nicely, so it seems like it's a series finale, but I truly hope that's not the case. There aren't that many good Sci-Fi shows like this nowadays, they would be fools not to renew it.
Wedding episodes are always pointless, and this was no exception.
While this does feel like more of a mid-season episode, I was happy to have a lighter story. Was happy to see Alara make an appearance. She was a great character in the first couple seasons.
I hope Orville is renewed! 7 seasons and a movie! :rocket:
Despite the last episode's finale not being great, this episode was fantastic and hilarious.
Since it's mostly a fanservice episode, there's not many plotholes to mention, so I'll just say a few, before jumping in to what I think is awesome about it
Isaac researching biological bonding rituals on a monitor is inefficient as opposed to just directly downloading them
Lysella already had a comm scanner, but never introduced its technology to her people, but then again she also didn't realize the value in sharing it until after she experienced more of The Orville's post-scarcity civilized culture
Lysella, throughout most of the episode has very muted/stiff facial expressions, so it just seems like she's not really there most of the time.
In my opinion, when Isaac is explaining why he asked Kelly out, if the camera showed her face flattening at the exact moment he mentions LaMarr, that would've been perfect for that scene
Isaac asking Gordon to be his best man had research and reasoning behind it, but suddenly switching to Bortus had no verifiable evidence to support Bortus' self-claims, so the decision to choose Bortus was illogical
The very beginning music and videography of the episode made it very clear that its a "break" or "fanservice" episode, which was very nice and relaxing to not have to expect anything that serious to happen
Bortus and Klyden's re-mating ritual shows that Seth personally directed this episode with his sense of humour, and it reminds me of Family Guy's "catch the greased up deaf guy" scene. I think it's funny, but what's really funny to me is another part of the episode that got me crying tears of laughter. I'll mention that one later (I'll let you know when it comes, in bold)...
I loved that Isaac proposal scene. It caught me totally off guard and was fun to see
The Isaac-Claire dialogue about why Isaac proposed is funny with Isaac's typical character showing.
Kelly: "You've been useful, sober man. You may go now" lol
John giving Isaac that horribly timed advice was so consistent with John's character and was just a massive facepalm because we all know Isaac is just going to follow it, which is a nice rollercoaster moment
We gotta see more of Jenny (Liutenant Turco, the one who tells Isaac not to listen to John's advice because "he's a cynic"). I think she's a great personality to include more
The moment Claire walks in on Marcus and Ty, the boys' acting was great, because it gives the impression that they already know, are holding back from saying anything, and are excited to hear her to tell them she said yes
Right when Isaac walks into Kelly's office, I knew exactly what he would do, because of John's "advice", and boom it still made me laugh because of Isaac's bluntness. "...followed by sexual conjugation" lol
I absolutely love Kelly explaining to Lysella how "working on what you love" works, because that's exactly how it works today, with the only difference being you can find people willing to pay you for the work you love doing. I especially love her description of reputation being a currency, because it already is the greatest currency today. Think about it: Who are the most widely-loved people in the world? Are they poor or successful? There you go
When Claire asks Kelly to be her maid of honor "Will you do it?", Kelly's "girlsplosion microseizure" was cute
The moment I see Claire walking into Engineering, I knew what was going to happen, and that shout was great, and how Jenny and Brosk (The green bubbly-headed alien played by Jim Mahoney) looked at each other, knowing exactly what's happening because of the "advice" John gave Isaac earlier. And then everyone staring at John after the shoutout was hilarious "The hell y'all lookin' at?!"
Now comes the absolute funniest moment I've probably ever watched on any TV show ever: Isaac calling up Kaylon Primary, talking about how strange Human customs are, but then...
There were many other things, but I'll leave it at that, because nothing else in this entire series can beat Isaac inviting every Kaylon in existence to his wedding
Seth, you're insane. Hilarious, but insane. You've been useful, sober man. You may go now. But I'll be waiting for your season 4
I absolutely love the direction this series has gone. After a rocky and inconsistent start, it really feels like it's found its rhythm. I hope to see it survive for many more seasons, honouring the source material that inspired it.
A pretty big let down. For a finale, season or otherwise, I was expecting so much more. This was a real yawner. I kept looking at the clock to see how much time was left.
Grimes was definitely the highlight of the episode. Between his character and his singing, he definitely saved an otherwise lackluster episode.
Best post-Hawaii Elvis impression eva!
Some good, some bad, definitely not perfect. I kinda wish they had just had it as a celebration of the crew through wedding preparations without the need for forced tension and the Lysella plot was far too underdeveloped for such an interesting premise, it definitely should have been it's own episode.
A good episode on it's own and a decent season ender, but being a potential end to the entire series this episode was very disappointing.
I somewhat feel they wrote themselves into a bit of a corner in that though, because for this episode to have played out how it did, everything else in the season had to have happened, so it couldn't have reasonably come anywhere else without adding an extra episode or two on to the end.
For a show that is ostensibly a sci-fi series it absolutely wallows in cheesy sentimentality & clumsy melodrama. It's good at presenting ideas like A human marrying an A.I. but doesn't actually explore the issue in the way old school Star Trek might've (i.e. with good writing and philosophical inquiry). It also just lifts concepts like the Prime Directive from ST without modifying it or expanding on it. It's a controversial idea to withhold technology from others who could benefit from it. Why not actually explore that?
Why did they call this "New Horizons" when it has based so much content this season on things and characters that occurred in the first two seasons? I'd be surprised if this got picked up for a fourth season.
It’s interesting that in this future it’s socially acceptable to be judgmental of others, if you choose to love a life of apathy that’s your choice isn’t it? But no, it’s looked down upon socially. Just a show though, I love it and hope it’s picked up again for another season.
Seasons two and three of Orville have gotten progressively more and more epic as they've went along, and while I've absolutely loved it, this final episode was the one to bring back the trademark humor from season 1, and it does so in a way that's more genuine and enjoyable than it's ever been before, especially when compared to what we saw in the first few episodes.
Even the episode they referenced here, with the planet where people are tried and convicted via social media, displayed "stupid humor" (Lamarr grinding on an statue during an away mission). This episode has "sincere humor", based on real emotions and interactions of the crew, and I think it found a fantastic balance. I can't wait to see what's in store for season 4.
After several really good episodes this was a rather poor season finale.
hillarious episode. There is no tension in this. 4000 keylon ships would be panic.
I LOVE THE COSTUME! :heart_eyes:
Seriously. What's with the crappy acoustic guitar AOR breaks??
Gordon as usual with the perfect timing :joy: this show wouldn’t be the same without him, im glad they brought him back from the past. I say this every episode but this is the best space show and one of the best comedies out now. Every episode is great
Issac pulling out the big guns! Hey the man just being logical :man_tipping_hand_tone3: he’ll pick a new mate when you get old and die :joy: he spiting facts
Gordon, 2nd banger line
The. Newcomer is cute, lets hope she doesn’t do something stupid since shes been asking why people dont just do nothing
Keep your mouth SHUT Lamar
Bordus trying gun for best man :joy:
Oh shit Issac invited the whole planet and didn’t realize or tell Clear lol wait until she finds out
Damn Kelly with the present day knowledge, so true and well said. :clap_tone3:
Seems like the newbie is going to be a problem i called it from the time she came
Where is the MIB mimd eraser when you need it. Just wipe her mind and be done with it. More trouble than its worth
Wrong decision by Kelly, you shouldn’t make these decisions with emotion. ED should have made the last say. She knows too much now. So you broke the rules twice. 1 letting her on then 2 letting her leave. Yup there she goes stealing. How did she steal the scanner last time if theres a detection scanner to find things getting off ship?
Why would you say “man and wife” he’s not a man. It should be “Husband and Wife”
“YOU WILL BE SILENT!!!!” :joy:
Great speech Gordo
Amazing song at the end. Man i dont want this show to every end. I say shoot for the same amount of season as the original star trek heck go for Simpsons numbers or like Seth other project Family Guy. Im all for that
Shout by Vers BachBlockedParent2022-08-04T16:31:07Z
I laughed a lot watching this episode, so funny to watch. Good job Orville, it did it well.