2x11 Lasting Impressions

[6.3/10] Why does Seth MacFarlane want to write romcoms so badly? I don’t understand it. SO many episodes of this show have that meetcute, cheesy romance energy, and for the life of me I don’t why.

In another one of this show’s theme, this is a reskin of an old TNG episode -- in this case, the one where Geordi falls in love with a holographic version of a famed scientist (among other strange holographic romances that Star Trek has done over the years). “Lasting Impressions” includes a few wrinkles to that idea, mostly that Malloy falls in love with a holographic version of a woman from 2015, with a program automatically generated based on her smartphone data.

Most of that is an excuse to throw Malloy into a cutesy relationship with this holographic woman named Laura. They hit the usual beats, a chance conversation at a party, corny lines about being able to help the other person conquer their fears, etc. etc. etc. It works fine, with guest star Leighton Meester proving surprisingly convincing at the “attractive woman is fascinated by jokey schlub” genre of T.V. romance that seems to be one of MacFarlane’s favorites.

But most of it’s just dull or generic. You get the impression that MacFarlane would sincerely like to write for some sort of CW teen drama, because that’s what most of this episode is.

Except for the times that it’s a goofy 1990s sitcom. You see, the B-story features Bortus and Klyden getting addicted to cigarettes after seeing one in the same time capsule that Gordon got the phone from. It’s a big heap of wackiness as they start smoking like chimneys, hide cigs from one another when trying to recover, and then get cartoonishly testy as they go through withdrawal while waiting for a cure from Dr. Finn. The material isn’t funny, and it’s barely related to the main story of the episode.

That main story could have been about addiction, and at first I thought that’s where this one was going. The rest of the crew is clearly a little weirded out by the fact that Gordon has become so attached to a hologram and even outright challenges him on it. I figured this was going to be an “I married my body pillow” type of intervention, with a lesson on how it’s important not to live in a fantasy world or project your emotions onto things incapable of supporting them.

But then two things happen: 1. Gordon makes some...weirdly compelling points? Maybe it’s just the existence of The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager, but there’s a reasonable argument that, in time, Laura could become a sentient being. It partly depends on the sophistication of the simulator’s, well, simulations, but there is, at a minimum, an open question as to whether a highly advanced computer could take those sorts of inputs from a flesh and blood human being and use it to generate a digital, but no less real person.

Mercer points out that she’d need to be self-aware, which would presumably be a trip. And there’s still something ethically questionable at worst and a little sad at best about resurrecting a stranger from centuries ago because you have a crush. These are all interesting moral and metaphysical questions that the episode raises...for about five minutes, until it pivots to a completely different topic.

It turns out that, based on the computer’s simulation, Laura gets back with her ex even after she and Gordon consummate their relationship. Gordon tries to get around this by deleting her ex from the program, but then Laura no longer wants to pursue her dream of becoming a successful musician, because apparently Greg was the one who coaxed her into pursuing it and without his presence in her life, she’s too scared.

So let’s set aside the pretty obvious plot hole in all of this, which is that a computer sophisticated enough to create a quasi-sentient human being out of a bunch of iPhone pictures and messages is surely sophisticated enough to operationalize the command “Change program so that Laura doesn’t get back together with Greg,” or “Make it so that Greg moves to Antarctica” or “Have Greg meet some nice other girl to settle down with.” There’s a false binary here which helps the show elide the bigger issues.

Even apart from that and taking this problem as somehow intractable, it all just pivots to a “If you want to treat this person as real, you have to accept the things in their life that made them who they are, even if that ultimately takes them away from you” message. That is, appropriately enough for MacFarlane, more of a romcom conclusion than a sci-fi show conclusion. There’s some sci-fi sauce drizzled on in the form of “She wanted to be remembered and made someone four hundred years later fall in love -- that’s special” type of deal, but it’s pretty thin.

Most of this is watchable, albeit eye roll-worthy in places. The problem is that the main story is a standard romcom story dressed up with sci-fi trappings, the b-story is dose of unfunny wackiness, and the larger point of the main story is wishy-washy and variable, with only a loose grasp of the truly interesting part of this thought experiment.

Overall, a different writer could have wrung something more insightful or poignant based on this premise, but once again, MacFarlane turns it into a bog standard romcom tale with the science fiction elements amorphous or undercooked.

No way this was written by Seth MacFarlane! I'm kidding but this was one of the best Sci-Fi ideas I have ever watched! Absolutely atypical for MacFarlane.
I could have done without the kitsch but basically everything else in this episode was brilliant. I even found the nicotine addiction sideplot hilarious! Such funny acting!
But I digress. Starting from the idea to simulate an unknown past I loved the concept here. Who wouldn't be interested to really see what the world - even merely around a single live - was like 400 years ago? That is a genious starting point. But it goes further: Simulating the world is integrated so seamlessly into the world of The Orville. They didn't need to set anything up but only used existing elements that the viewer is familiar with. AND I find it absolutely believable that a) a software/AI in the future would be able to simulate this and b) a phone would have enough information to base this on.
Which is the very point that adds the cherry on top of this episode: namely a subtly critical nod to us becoming transparent citizens with all the data we provide oh so willingly.
So much for the grandiose main theme of this episode. That alone would be enough for a great episode. But MacFarlane doesn't stop there.
The themes of falling in love with a simulated person or merely by chatting with someone or rather something, who or what can we love, where does a person start, unhealthy addiction and whatever I might have forgotten are first of all very interesting and very Sci-Fi but secondly and almost more important when critiquing an episode of The Orville: They are treated in such a good way and with so many great and philosophical dialogues and memorable quotes that it poses the question what happened to Seth MacFarlane that he stepped up to this new level of writing?