Aeron

"I'm going to make him watch all the Star Trek, all three series." - Danielle Poole, 2003~4

If you count The Animated Series, that means this timeline did not get Deep Space Nine or Voyager (or Enterprise). I can imagine this has something to do with the falling out Ronald D. Moore had with Star Trek's Executive Producer at the time Rick Berman, who gave him hell on DS9 and led him to leave Voyager very early on. I wonder how many TNG movies there are in this timeline. This episode is set about around when the last TNG movie, Nemesis, was released in our timeline.

Edit: Someone else pointed out that FAM's timeline might have gotten Star Trek Phase II. Which would mean no Next Generation either. And because The Motion Picture was created from the ashes of the cancellation of Phase II, probably no Star Trek films at all! Imagine a few years of 60s Trek, a couple years of 60s cartoon Trek, then maybe a few more years of 70s Trek, all influenced by a young Roddenberry. And then the franchise peters out and gets shelved alongside shows like Battlestar Galactica and Space 1999 because people are much more interested in actual space travel than imagined space travel.

This movie is good, but not as good as it should have been. Not because of the casting, not because of all the political checkboxes, and certainly not because a bunch adult babies got scarred over a plot-relevant and completely believable relationship.

This movie is not as good because it's the first time Pixar has spent the time and resources making a complete cash grab instead of bringing an original idea to life. Even against the endless Toy Story sequels, which are at least continuing to tell a story that means something to the original movie, Lightyear feels uninspired.

The visuals are outstanding, the humor reminded me of the slapstick from WALL-E, Chris Evens did a very believable job as Buzz Lightyear and I might not have known it wasn't Tim Allen if I hadn't already found out. But there's so much everymovie genericness to Lightyear that it makes The Good Dinosaur feel more original and Pixar-like. As disregarded as THAT movie is, at least it has the honor of being one of the original ideas invented when Pixar was founded.

Instead, with Lightyear, we're watching a movie about a movie within the universe of another movie (that is the official claim made at the start of the film). Maybe if they had made something that resembled what would have actually been released when Andy was a child (a mid 1990s American action movie set in space), it would have passed on account of its period charm.

The animated Buzz Lightyear of Star Command movie and TV series that Disney made ages ago are much better stories about a real Buzz Lightyear. Those works are already classics as far as many people are concerned. This movie will probably just be in every completionist's library for completion's sake.

shamelessly puts Lightyear in his complete library of everything Pixar has ever released

On any other series, that would have been the season finale. Ten years ago, it would have been considered a TV movie.

Not just on terms of length, because it wasn't even the longest episode of the season thus far, but on terms of stakes and delivery. They pulled out all the stops, showed us all the things, culminated everything that the season has been building up to... save for one small child.

Where all the other episodes (except for one unfortunate bummer) pulled at the heart strings and brought progressive thought and understanding in the way Trek fans had enjoyed for years, this episode was one bombastic, cinematic moment after another. And I can appreciate that, when employed correctly. So many TV shows (and movies) don't, and all the explosions and dying and interstellar war fail to mean anything. Despite this, there was a single thought-provoking plot thread that came to a close...

Ensign Charly Burke.

I understand, and sympathize, with a lot of the hate surrounding the character. Though, I'm glad that the vast majority of that hate was aimed at the character and not the actor. Orville fans setting the bar for more established fandoms. And I personally wish they could have fleshed her out more than they did. But in the end... they did a good job with her arc. She was ripped out of her happy little life, forced to work alongside the person who inadvertently caused the person she loved to die for no reason, forced to tow the line on a ship that wouldn't tolerate racism towards the enemy the way the rest of the Union might have (wrongly) put up with. And she grew. Against her desire to grow, she grew. She grew more than she was aware of. When she had no time to think, she reactively defended Issac and ultimately the Kaylon as a people. So, I don't hate Charly as a character - especially not now. I think it was a competent execution of a trope that is used far too often and falls flat almost all of the time. Hell, even the funeral felt earned.

The rest of the episode is so dense, and doesn't ever slow down. But it's also a very visual. surface-level affair compared to the rest, so I'll just say that it was general sci-fi excellence. A great dessert after an even greater meal. I was genuinely shocked by Admiral Perry, especially his awareness of his decisions (Somewhere between Lawful Neutral and True Neutral). It's a shame he's gone now, but I'm more surprised we got Ted Danson in a recurring role for two seasons. I knew that a major shift in power was coming because of the last episode, but I was not expecting the team-ups we are left with. After all the griping about the shorten ed episode list, the length of those episodes and how tight the narrative has been leaves me stunned there's still a whole other episode to go after all of this. See you on the other side.

(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

Dammit, I just wanted to watch some science fiction. I didn't want to have to clean myself up off the floor with a mop... for 75 minutes!

(I now have more to say...)

Everyone else is going on about the child actor who plays Topa and Palicki playing Grayson. They made this episode, without a doubt.

But I want to draw more attention to Peter Macon's Bortus. The character's best episode and Macon's best acting ever in my opinion. Klyden finally shows up in season 3 only to fuck off in the very same episode! Hilarious. He wasn't badly acted, but he was more of a caricature than anything else. I get it, the episode needed him to be that way. But Bortus shows so many layers and emotional combinations. Multiple times throughout the episode I stopped sitting and watching and found myself standing and watching, and once holding my hand over my mouth and fighting back my own tears as a father. It hit so hard and so soundly, no once feeling forced or cringy or convenient to the plot. He was behaving like a real dad who had real desires and fears for his child. It's in this acting and getting to see these scenes play out on their own time that the show is partially forgiven for shamelessly running so gosh darn long!

Though I did get to the point where I was asking myself how many MORE addendums was this episode going to get? But, in the end, I'm glad that it went out the way it did. With a lot levity and positivity instead of that safe, diplomatic conclusion the Union brass felt tied to - which would have echoed the failure from the first season during the trial on Moclas. I'm also glad that Mercer and Grayson got chewed out for it. It would have felt fake if there was no repercussions. But because the fleet is at war, The Union can't afford to jail any command officers, and Moclas can't afford to lash out the way they'd like to either. That's definitely the only reason that Admiral was satisfied with her mere pound of flesh from each of them. And also why she was willing to admit that she was unofficially happy everything worked out in their favor.

Secondly, I want to draw attention to the actual footage from "About a Girl" from the first season used in the simulator. I don't know how they pulled this off, but the perfect editing required to make the new footage of Topa and Grayson blend in with something that was shot five years ago and not even look slightly uncanny is probably owed to the COVID downtime. Seth MacFarlane said that since they couldn't do any shooting or practical work, they kept refining the post-production of the episodes they were already working on while they waited for the all clear to go back to work. This has to be one of those episodes because I was looking for blurry lines and cuts in the footage or other strange artifacts that HAD to exist and it just looks like it was all shot at the same time in the same physical space. Bravo to the editing team, this is clearly your best work.

The previous episodes do have much better pacing (even Electric Sheep), no argument there. But this episode is of the storytelling caliber that Tom Hanks uses when he needs a few more Oscars to decorate his tenth mansion. The Orville set a new bar for themselves and for all modern science fiction with this story. Both in-universe and out-of-universe, this was a comeback victory several years in the making. It still blows me away that The Orville is both generously pulling from its own past to create new and continued stories while also being mature and reserved enough to not overdo it or wear out the gimmick. They (again) covered a topic of white-hot contention at one of the worst moments in American history to do so, and they did it with respect for themselves and for their viewers. And without a doubt the beaming approval of a particular Great Bird. Maybe Umbrella Academy (they kind of already are) or Doom Patrol could pull it off. I honestly don't know what else is on TV right now that could even reach such heights without a massive overhaul to their writing team.

(Obligatory remark about people who are repulsed (Klyden'd, if you will) by the topic of this episode needing to grow up and realize that they've only got so much time on this Earth to enjoy life and how they're currently, objectively failing to do so. And also morbidly curious as to why they're watching this show knowing full well what it is and then acting surprised that such topics are broached. And reminding them that if they hate this episode it's probably only going to get worse from their point of view - especially if this show is renewed for a fourth season.)

So good to have decent hard science fiction back on the air. Technology on the show has progressed to the point where I can start to see and feel parallels with The Expanse and Mass Effect (minus the aliens... ...so far). The visuals have also really gone up another level. The wide shots of them towing the asteroid are incredible!

I also missed the Soviet political intrigue. Now that The Americans is finished, it's a good way to keep myself from making the mistake of rewatching all of that again. Not because it's bad, but because I won't be able to stop. My backlog of stuff I haven't watched would put a curse on me.

Strong start, no time wasted. A much better start than teen angst and love triangles in the space hotel. This show really has become the heir apparent to classic Star Trek. Instead of a humanity that drives itself to the brink of extinction and has aliens hold their hands as they learn to travel the stars, humanity saves humanity. A humanity that prevents itself from becoming complacent and keeps feeding the hunger to go further. And we get to watch how, instead of making a perfect utopia, it simply makes the world better one little bit at a time. This is the show that will make future generations look upward and get inspired to be their best selves. And hopefully some of that positive change will affect this version of humanity.

(I always smile when I see the Okudas in the credits. They are good stewards of this show the way they were good stewards of Star Trek. Their respect for the story helps set For All Mankind shoulders above the rest.)