Alexx Aplin
Alexx AplinWarning; This review contains spoilers for The Orville episode titled “Lasting Impressions.”
To be quite honest with you, I’m running out of ways to tell you how much I’ve been enjoying Season 2 of The Orville. There are only four episodes left in the season counting this one, so we’re getting pretty close to the end. Yet with no release date for Season 3 in sight, I’m eager to just enjoy getting you guys these last few reviews, and then giving myself a break on this weekly series before Season 3.
To recap the last episode, an old friend of Gordon’s was found on a Krill shuttle after escaping a prison camp. At the same time, the Orville crew was asked to oversee peace negotiations with the Krill. These two events collide when the Krill accuse Gordon’s friend of blowing up multiple Krill vessels. It is a solid episode and I won’t spoil the intricacies of it, go watch it!
Episode Spoilers begin here!
“Lasting Impressions” begins with the Orville crew examining a time capsule from Earth circa 2015. The capsule contains everything from a can of Coca-Cola, a smartphone, and all the way to a pack of cigarettes. They are meant to deliver the contents of the time capsule to a museum and John offers to let engineering try to repair the smartphone to figure out what data is left on it.
John, Gordon, and Yahphit are brainstorming ideas in Engineering when they manage to get the phone working. They find tons of text messages from the previous owner to what seems to be their friends and family. They also find a video recorded by the Phone’s owner, Laura Huggins. She recorded the video specifically for the time capsule and is a woman from Saratoga Springs, New York.
Gordon is immediately enthralled by her. Her words about wanting to contribute to the time capsule, and putting her old iPhone in the capsule so people could see a glimpse of who she was, are very interesting. It’s a concept I’ve never really seen portrayed in Sci-Fi either, so I find that I’m just as enthralled by Laura as Gordon is.
We then see the crew talking with Doctor Sherman, the historian who found the capsule and wanted them to deliver it to the museum. He mentions that this is an entire human life they can examine to figure out what life was like back then. It is hilarious to see their outrageously off the mark interpretations of some of Laura’s text messages though.
Gordon is absolutely fascinated and talks to Doctor Sherman about how dependable and cool Laura seems through the text messages. Doctor Sherman is called away, and it seems that Gordon gets an idea, and takes the phone with him. Meanwhile, Bortus and Klyden synthesize a cigarette via the food synthesizer. Klyden eats one before Bortus explains that they are meant to be smoked.
As they start to smoke, Klyden delivers a funny line, which also does not bode well. “I feel like I have been standing for my entire life and I just sat down.” I think they’re going to become addicted to smoking y’all. They then order 500 more cigarettes from the synthesizer, oh boy.
In the meantime, Gordon uses the simulator to copy the data off the smartphone, turning it into a simulation that will allow him to see what Laura’s life was like. He finds himself in a simulated party hosted at Laura’s house. He introduces himself to Laura and meets her friend Trisha as well. There is immediately a connection, which doesn’t bode well since Laura has been dead for 400 years.
He learns from Laura that she just moved into this place, leaving her previous residence after a bad breakup. She was with the guy for 9 years, and after almost breaking up a dozen times, the last one finally stuck. Gordon also learns that she has a passion for music and wishes she could leave her sales job at Macy’s to pursue music instead.
Laura invites him to join her at an upcoming gig and he eagerly accepts. Afterward, he talks to John about the experience, gushing about the vivid nature of the simulation. He also explains that he put the phone back with the time capsule, so no one lost out on anything. John warns him to maintain his sanity in this, reminding him that this is a simulation and that Laura is long dead.
I can relate to Gordon’s fascination with her life though. The idea of going back centuries in the past, and being able to see what people’s lives were like, it’s a fascinating thing. In Ed’s office, he and Kelly are reading a USA Today newspaper from 2015, when Talla calls Kelly. Talla asks Kelly to come to the bridge and when she arrives she finds Bortus smoking. Kelly gives him the rest of the night off and tells Talla that she and Ed will talk to him about the new habit.
Gordon goes to the simulator again and sees Laura singing and playing guitar at a bar. Leighton Meester does a fantastic job performing as Laura and her voice is beautiful. Gordon is clearly smitten, and he listens eagerly as she tells him of her fantasy of one day being spotted by a record label during one of her performances like this.
She makes a poignant statement here, telling Gordon that she just wants to be remembered for something. “We all live and die on this planet and most of us are just forgotten. To me, there’s nothing sadder about the world than that.” I can’t disagree with her here and it is a beautiful, relatable thought. Gordon then takes the time to ask what went wrong with her last relationship.
Laura explains that it was a lot of things. She tells Gordon that she had dated a lot of losers and was pretty cynical. However, Greg (her ex) was different. He was passionate, intelligent, funny, and Laura fell for him almost immediately. Laura then explains that Greg was irresponsible, didn’t have a steady job, and wasn’t really interested in being an adult.
The topic changes and Gordon begins to flirt with Laura. He’s falling for her hard, and it is painful to see knowing the reality of things. Laura ultimately gives Gordon her number and invites him to game night the following evening. Afterward, he goes and synthesizes a phone, so he can text Laura’s number, synced with the simulation.
Gordon then goes to Ed’s office, inviting Kelly, John, Talla, and Ed to join him in the simulation for game night. He comes clean about what he did in regards to the phone and the simulator. They’re all justifiably concerned, but they agree to join Gordon for the game night the following evening. Ed and Kelly then find Bortus and Klyden in their room, smoking up a storm.
They insist on taking them to sickbay, where Claire discovers that Moclans are heavily susceptible to Nicotine addiction. She asks what happens when Bortus and Klyden don’t have a cigarette for more than 30 minutes. Klyden explains that he was stuck in the lift for 10 minutes and began to shake. Claire explains that if they don’t stop smoking it will only get worse.
Claire also tells them that she can make an injection, but this is unprecedented, so it may take hours or it may take days. They agree to go cold turkey until she manages to make them an injection. The game night goes well, but Ed and the crew wind up being somewhat exhausted by the whole thing. Kelly, John, Talla, and Ed agree to talk in the mess hall the next day about this situation with Gordon.
Laura and Gordon talk about the evening and ultimately they have their first kiss. The next morning, Gordon is in bed with Laura, asleep, when Kelly calls over the comms to remind him that he is late for his shift. He arrives on the bridge and apologizes for being late. Bortus is chewing gum to try and stave off nicotine cravings, which is hilarious.
Gordon also gets a phone call from Simulated Laura, while he is at work. Ed and Kelly are both concerned, as they should be. This leads to John, Talla, Kelly, and Ed talking about the problem in the mess hall. They bring up their concerns to Gordon about it not being healthy for him to “date” a simulation of a dead woman.
Gordon doesn’t take it well, suggesting that because the simulation is made up of her memories, thoughts, pictures, etc, that she is real in a virtual form. He is very unhappy that they aren’t supportive of him loving Laura and ultimately returns to his post. Bortus returns to his and Klyden’s quarters, to find that Klyden is in Airlock 2 for some reason.
He finds Klyden smoking in Airlock 2, despite them both agreeing to go cold turkey. This leads to an argument about Klyden not taking quitting seriously. Klyden uncovers that Bortus is hiding cigarettes and the scene escalates into ridiculousness. Keep in mind, Nicotine addiction is a serious thing and while I personally find Bortus and Klyden’s addiction funny, it isn’t portrayed entirely as a gag or a punch line.
However, there was something absolutely hilarious about seeing Bortus unzip a pillow and turn it over, pouring a pile of hidden cigarettes onto a table. When Gordon returns to the simulation, he finds that Laura has reconnected with Greg, her ex-boyfriend. Laura tells Gordon that she has decided to try and work things out with Greg. She asks if they can continue to be friends, but Gordon doesn’t say anything.
Gordon then has a drink with John, telling him his woes. He tells John that he should have seen it coming because the knowledge that she and Greg got back together was in her text messages. John tells Gordon that he thinks this is for the best. The relationship was a fantasy, nothing more.
However, Gordon goes back to the simulator and deletes Greg from the simulation entirely. The simulation changes in a big way, because suddenly Laura is excited about a promotion from her employment at Macy’s. She’s also eager to fly with Gordon somewhere tropical and calls him her boyfriend.
There’s one catch though. Laura doesn’t have any memory of singing in front of people and seems to have stage fright. Gordon pauses the simulation and asks for clarification on the change, and discovers that Greg is the reason that Laura’s musical passion is so strong. He is bummed out and is in his room when Kelly comes to talk with him.
Gordon tells Kelly that Greg was the one that encouraged Laura to sing. He helped her believe that she was good enough to pursue music. Kelly explains that Ed taught her how to cross one eye. It is a characteristic that only exists because she knows (and was with) Ed. She then asks that Gordon think about the reverse, of what would happen if Ed was deleted from her life.
It would mean no Captain’s chair for Kelly, no Orville for the crew, a big change. Something that seems so small, like Greg, had a huge impact on Laura’s life. Kelly goes on to explain that every human is shaped by their relationships. We start off as a blank slate, and our experiences make us who we are.
Gordon asks what happens if he never finds someone that makes him feel like Laura does and Kelly doesn’t have an answer. However, she does tell Gordon that the second he started editing Laura’s world, it was no longer real. It became just another simulation. He knows she’s right, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult.
Kelly reminds him that Laura is special, because most people live, die, and are forgotten. However, Laura reached across four centuries and Gordon fell in love with her. It is a beautiful and rare scene of bonding between Kelly and Gordon. Back with Klyden and Bortus, they both are really struggling with going off of cigarettes.
It leads to an outright fight between them as Bortus tries to prevent Klyden from synthesizing more cigarettes. Claire finds them and tells them that she has finished formulating the injection. She cures them both of their addiction and the scene shifts back to the simulator.
Gordon has restored Greg and Laura is playing music at the pub again. This time Gordon joins her on stage, singing with her. Scott Grimes has a surprisingly good singing voice and he compliments Leighton Meester’s vocals quite well. After the performance, Greg praises Laura on her performance and tells Gordon he did great accompanying her.
Gordon tells him that he’s a lucky guy and that he came to tell them both goodbye. He promises Laura that she will not be forgotten and she asks to take a picture together for the time capsule. She tells him that the time capsule is next week (at the time of the simulation) and she wants to put her phone inside. They take a picture together and just like that this episode of The Orville concludes.
This was a slower-paced episode, but it wasn’t a bad thing. It…was bittersweet, in the way that watching Titanic or another tragic film, has that bittersweet note to it. You know from the start that the relationship with Laura is doomed, but all the same, you can’t help but root for Gordon. That’s the mark of great storytelling, knowing how it ends and somehow hoping they defy the odds anyway.
I have to say, this is the second episode in a row that has satisfied my desire to learn more about Gordon. I wish we’d get to see more of Gordon’s family. His dad was mentioned in this episode, so maybe we’ll meet him in Season 3. I also think that they tried to provide a more lighthearted look at addiction in this episode with Bortus and Klyden. They’d already focused heavily on Bortus’ adult-simulation addiction, so this was an interesting (if odd) choice to balance it out.
The more I watch this show, the more I firmly believe that The Orville has a cast of brilliant actors, who bring emotional performances to the forefront. They are supported by great writers and a great crew. There wasn’t much in the way of Sci-Fi or CGI in this episode, so the art department got a bit of a break. The writers did the heavy lifting and they did a great job.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I hope we get many more seasons of The Orville if they all turn out as good as this one. Somehow Seth McFarlane caught lightning in a bottle, and the show only seems to be bigger and better as time goes on.
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🔥322The Orville
Pros
- Fantastic Writing
- Another Gordon-Centric Episode
- Great Musical Performance
- Solid Acting
- Bortus is Hilarious
Cons
- Choosing Nicotine Addiction as the Lighthearted Part Was Odd
- I'd Like to Learn More About Gordon's Family
