Warning: The following review contains spoilers for Episode 2 of The Orville, read on at your own risk.

Last week was interesting, to say the least. A new review series was started, about none other than Seth McFarlane’s The Orville. Of course, you know that, since you’ve clicked on this review, and I’d expect you’d have read the last one. If not, feel free to check that out.

Anyhow, I was pleasantly surprised last week at how much I enjoyed The Orville’s first episode. This is an entirely blind review for me, as I had never watched the series before, unlike The Magicians, where I reviewed the final season as a long-time fan.

To recap the first episode, Ed Mercer, after finding his wife, Kelly Grayson, in bed with an alien a year prior, becomes Captain of the USS Orville. We meet his crew, consisting of Alara Kitan, Bortus, Gordon Malloy, John LaMarr, Claire Finn, the synthetic Isaac, and a First Officer who winds up being none other than Ed Mercer’s ex-wife Kelly.

The episode deals with their first mission as a crew, ultimately leading Ed and Kelly to somewhat mend fences, agreeing to work together on the Orville. It was a great first episode, establishing the tone, the characters, and a few jokes that I’m sure Seth will hammer to death going forward with varying results. With that out of the way, let’s get into the second episode!

Episode Spoilers Start here!

The episode begins with Bortus coming to see Ed in his office on the Orville, as he wishes to request a leave of absence. The reason for this leave of absence is that he has laid an egg. His species reproduces through laying eggs, and Bortus and Klyden (his lover) are soon to be parents. Ed gives him time off, and proceeds to make a few jokes that are… Well, there was egg on his face afterwards; I’ll put it that way.

The next scene has the crew on the bridge, discussing this new development, until Isaac gets a distress signal from a transport ship. It seems the Krill have attacked them, and the Orville immediately engages in a rescue and assistance operation. It turns out, that Ed’s parents are on the transport ship, giving them even more reason to rescue the ship as quickly as possible.

The conversation with Ed’s parents is actually hilarious, and I know I gave the show a bit of crap about beating the whole infidelity joke to death, but seeing Ed’s mom make comments about it was funny. It was realistic too; My mom would lose her mind if I started working with an ex, especially if it ended through infidelity on their part.

Because Bortus is currently warming his egg, Ed puts Alara in command as she is the next ranking officer. He and Kelly go to board the transport ship, to make sure that everything is taken care of, leaving Alara in charge. Alara is reluctant, since this is her first command position. She isn’t confident that she is qualified, though Kelly and Ed assure her that she wouldn’t be in uniform on the ship if she wasn’t.

On the way to the transport ship, Kelly and Ed talk about his parents, the fact that his mother doesn’t like her, and hasn’t gotten over the infidelity. Ed thinks that they weren’t a very good match, and that Kelly did them a favor. Kelly isn’t convinced. This “will they, won’t they” situation is normally annoying to me, but I think this might make for a compelling relationship.

Kelly decides to use the food replicator to make an edible cannabis brownie, just in case they need to be high to deal with Ed’s parents while this is going on. Something tells me that brownie, like the redwood seed in the first episode, is going to be handy later.

Here comes the twist. When Kelly and Ed arrive on the “ship” they are transported somewhere else, and it is revealed that the ship was a red herring all along. It was a hologram, and now Ed, Kelly, and all the people on the transport are… Who knows where. Alara immediately runs to Bortus’ room, interrupting a private moment where he is naked, sitting on the egg.

He tells her that she is in command, so it is up to her to figure out what is going on. He cannot leave his egg for 21 days, and as such, he cannot assist in his current capacity. This scene is awkward, but also amusing, because Alara is clearly freaking out, but seeing Bortus in his current state is just too ridiculous to not bring at least a chuckle.

Alara is clearly not comfortable with this change of fortune, but she attempts to take command anyway. Though this only happens after she takes a shot of Xelayan Tequila, and then proceeds to throw up afterward. In trying to bring the Buoy that sustained the hologram in for a further examination, it explodes, causing damage to the Orville. This isn’t Alara’s shining moment, but she’s trying her best, and I can’t help but feel for her.

However, Alara isn’t taking the advice of her people. When the hull sustains damage, and debris further damages the ship, she ignores advice and goes down to see how she can help, despite being needed on the bridge. Ultimately, Alara goes to Doctor Finn for advice, citing that since she assumed command, it had only been 10 minutes and people were already injured.

She asks Claire to put someone else in command citing medical reasons, Claire refuses. She instead tells Alara that she needs to trust her people, and learn from the mistakes she made. She offers her counsel anytime Alara needs it, but encourages her to push forward.

Ed and Kelly wake up in their old apartment back in New York City, or at least, that’s what it seems like. So, they start to wonder if they’ve been thrown back in time. They start to investigate, but discover that the door is sealed. In the meantime, Isaac discovers that Kelly and Ed have been transported, and Alara takes her first real step into leadership.

Ed and Kelly make themselves comfortable, after finding no way out of the apartment they’re stuck in. They begin to talk about whether the Orville will find them, or if they even know if Kelly and Ed are alive. One thing leads to another, and they reminisce about old times, before Ed admits that he was wrong about what he said in the shuttle.

Isaac finds the source of the transport, and it leads to Alara being told by a Fleet Admiral that they are not to pursue Ed and Kelly. It seems that they have been taken by the Calivon, an advanced race that views anyone at a lower technological level, as lesser beings. She is told that as soon as repairs are finished, that they are to return, and the Orville will be assigned a new captain and first officer.

The next scene finds Ed being woken up by a kid, and he quickly discovers that he and Kelly are now being held in a Calivon Zoo. Different exhibits of different species all held for the entertainment of the Calivon people. The transport ship was a ruse. Ed’s parents were never there, it was a custom holographic lure to lure in unsuspecting species.

They find out that as far as any of the “exhibits” know, there’s no way out. One guy has been there for 31-years, and there is even a child, who has been there for less than 8 months. We switch back to Alara, who carries out her order, and even relieves Gordon from duty after he tells her that her compliance with the fleet is cold-blooded.

She goes to talk to Claire, who tells her that technically the Fleet Admiral was right. However, she gives Alara a choice. Risk everything and go after their people, or be hated by the crew for following orders. Gordon then tells her that if the situation were reversed, Ed would have risked everything for Alara’s safety. This leads her to have a change of heart, and just like that, they’re heading to Calivon space.

Isaac has figured out how to disguise the ship as a Calivon ship, so that the Calivon people don’t realize who they are. On top of that, Isaac’s planet is technologically advanced, so the plan counts on Isaac being able to get them in to negotiate with the Calivon people.

Ed and Kelly have officially gotten cabin fever, starting to lash out at each other. When Isaac and Alara arrive to resolve the situation, they attempt to suggest that Ed and Kelly are from another zoo, and have a highly infectious disease. However, this causes the zookeeper to initiate euthanasia protocol. Things have just gone from bad to worse.

Alara ultimately saves the day by trading Ed and Kelly for something the Zookeeper would find more valuable. For her efforts, she is given the Sapphire Star medal, and the crew celebrates with her. When the crew asks what she traded the Calivon Zookeeper, it is revealed that she gave them access to human reality TV.

Bortus and Klyden greet their new child as it hatches from an egg. They are horrified however, because as an all-male species, it seems having a female child is unacceptable. I’ll admit this idea; this cultural difference is something that makes me a bit uneasy. I can understand The Orville tackling topics like gender, gender inequality, and perhaps even transgender issues, but it’ll be a hard sell to do so respectfully in a comedy show.

That, however, is a problem to tackle with the next episode. This episode was a great character-building episode for Alara. I’m thinking the next episode will probably be focused on Bortus and his husband, and that should be interesting. While this episode wasn’t as consistently funny as the first, it built on what we had seen already, and presented some new, interesting ideas.

I am looking forward to seeing whether the Calivon appears later in the series. Also, I’d love to see Ed and Kelly have to deal with Ed’s parents for real. Overall, I’m looking forward to watching the next few episodes to learn more about the cast, and to build on this world a bit more. The Orville has done a great job of setting a universe with plenty of possibilities, and I found that the comedy was a bit more balanced this time around.

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The Orville

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Great Development for Alara
• Ed's Parents are hilarious
• The Comedy was more Balanced
• Great Alien Designs
• Solid Pacing

Cons

• Ed's egg jokes were a bit obnoxious