Seth MacFarlane's The Orville

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The Orville is a satirical science fiction drama created by Seth MacFarlane and modeled after classic episodic Star Trek with a modern flair.

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The Orville Rewatch Party 1x10 "Firestorm" (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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WARNING: This thread WILL contain unhidden spoilers for this episode and every episode before it. You are allowed to talk about future episodes of the series, but put ANY information that comes after this episode behind spoiler tags.

The Orville season 1, episode 10 "Firestorm"

Written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, directed by Brannon Braga.

While navigating a dangerous plasma storm, the Orville takes serious damage. Chief Engineer Newton (Larry Joe Campbell) calls Alara down to Engineering to rescue a trapped crewman. Once down there, Alara freezes when a fireball blocks her path. When she comes to her senses, more debris falls and kills the man before she can reach him. Despite everyone's reassurance and forgiveness, Alara blames herself for his death and decides to quit her position as Chief of Security. Captain Mercer temporarily talks her down and suggests she do some soul searching to understand why she froze at the sight of fire. But just as she starts her investigation, unrealistic yet life-threatening encounters start plaguing her and the rest of the crew.

Originally released: 16 November 2017

Check here to find out where you can stream or digitally purchase The Orville in your country. The Orville season 1 is also available on DVD.

What did you think?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This continues to be one of my favorite episodes of the series. Braga was in full Star Trek Voyager mode when he directed this one. This episode basically takes Alara's plot from Command Performance and puts some real storytelling experience behind it.

I always love how at no point does Newton feel bitter towards Alara for losing his friend. And Dr. Finn is right, Xelayan or not, if Alara hadn't stopped that wad of iron would have crushed her, too. Where the hell was all that stuff falling from anyway? Does Engineering have cathedral ceilings with latticework? It must have great acoustics. :)

This episode does a good job of leading you on and making you think that all of this could really be happening up until Gordon gets swallowed. They could have kept the viewers in suspense a little longer than that if that creature had hauled Gordon away screaming instead of eating him and Alara declaring him dead. Even though Nurse Park got shot in the back (So glad that wasn't real), as long as none of the primary cast dies it can still be thought of as an alien presence on the ship that will be overcome somehow. Then the virtual hallway when Alara cosplays Captain Janeway retaking the ship from the Macrovirus would have been the actual reveal.

This episode also feels like the most polished of the season. All the visuals and ambiance are damn near perfect. The costuming for the Clown, the CG spiders, everything holds up very well for an eight-year-old episode of network TV. And I absolutely love the ship at yellow alert, especially after everyone disappeared. What a beautiful yet uneasy atmosphere with entire rooms only lit by the plasma storm outside the windows.

We also got our first taste of evil Isaac. Imagine getting body slammed by a Cylon Centurion. I wonder if that's a realistic demonstration of Kaylon strength or if he amped himself up for the simulation.

Alara: "Did you make yourself stronger than normal when I fought you in Engineering? Or is that what it's really like to fight a Kaylon?"

Isaac: "............" goes back to his console

Spoiler for season 2's Identity

He obviously didn't have permission to reveal the existence of his head-cannons. Or else it would have been a Matrix fight sequence.

And Alara really got off easy! She basically committed multiple court marshalable offenses and just got a slap on the wrist. Ed obviously didn't say shit about this to Union Central.

Fantastic episode, one of the ones that made people sit up and realize that The Orville was not merely a comedy. And even so, the humor in this episode largely works. Even the MacFarlane humor. Felt like watching Stargate with all the snide remarks during serious discussion.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

I had forgotten how this episode was structured; I remembered it as everything up until the reveal being part of the simulation, including the death of Lt. Payne in engineering. The episode is obviously much better than that, foreshadowing the plot by having Alara cope with her trauma in the simulated boxing gym.

This episode does a good job of leading you on and making you think that all of this could really be happening up until Gordon gets swallowed. They could have kept the viewers in suspense a little longer than that if that creature had hauled Gordon away screaming instead of eating him and Alara declaring him dead.

That's a good point. It's pretty clear this far into the show that main characters are off the table for anti-climactic deaths. Still, I don't mind too much because the "it was all a dream" (simulation) story reveal is one of the least satisfying around. It softens the blow a bit to know ahead of time that this episode is going to have some form of reset by the end. Given the experience involved, I even wonder if it was done deliberately for that reason. I like that by the time of the reveal we're already waiting for what kind of reveal it will be instead of it just being out of nowhere, which is the least satisfactory kind of these.

The scene where Grayson says she's going to "shower and change" then just about falls into the abyss is a fun subversion of the standard horror trope where a woman in a state of undress gets attacked. Having her basically announce an upcoming Psycho pastiche only to hard zag away is a really fun time and one of my favorite "jokes" in an episode that's already doing a lot of good stuff comically: "Looks like a big screensaver, doesn't it?" / "She's not getting a pizza."

It's also a ton of fun to see Robert Picardo from Voyager show up as Alara's father. Overall, just a great, strong episode. I don't have any complaints, they really got it all right here. The Orville running on all cylinders.