In preparation for the forthcoming season of The Orville, c/theorville is having a rewatch party and you are invited! Yes, you can have beverages on the bridge as long as you keep it below the equipment and don’t spill any.
Every Sunday, I will make an announcement post for each episode starting with the pilot episode, and continuing until the end of season 3. There should be enough time to go through the existing series before the premier of season 4.
Happy Arbor Day. Or as the kids say, You got wood!
WARNING: This thread WILL contain unhidden spoilers for The Orville episode “Old Wounds”. 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 1 “Old Wounds”
Written by Seth MacFarlane, directed by Jon Favreau.
After a long wait, Ed Mercer (Seth MacFarlane) is finally promoted to Captain and given command of his own ship; The USS Orville. Things are finally looking up for him until he learns that his new XO is actually his ex-wife Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki). To make matters worse, his first mission puts The Orville and its untested crew up against a Krill plot to steal and weaponize an experimental piece of Union technology.
Originally released: 10 September 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?
This is the third time I’ve seen this episode. But I think this is the first time I’ve taken it seriously. I don’t know if it’s because of how much time has passed since the Star Trek Discovery vs The Orville zeitgeist or if I’m watching it with more experienced eyes, but this episode isn’t nearly as bad as I remember it being.
I don’t think I watched an updated or edited version, it is exactly as I remembered it. But I just don’t have as much of a problem with its problems anymore.
One thing is clear, we’re dropped into a universe that is very established. MacFarlane had already spent a lot of time fleshing it out by the time he was given a chance to show it to the world. We see several unidentified variations of Planetary Union ships before we even see The Orville herself.
This episode does have a lot of bad dialog. Either poorly written or poorly delivered. And there are a number of pretty funny mistakes: The Krill shuttles disappear and reappear during the firefight to escape the science center, the damage to the Orville disappears when the Krill ship is destroyed, etc.
(We also get our first stealth cameo with Rob Lowe as Darulio.)
This is still one of the weakest episodes of the series, but it’s also an important episode to watch. For me, at least, it’s not a chore to watch it. The plot is almost completely fat free and just as a classic episode of Star Trek would, it gets in and out. The visuals are still pretty impressive for an eight-year-old network TV pilot.
Overall holds up pretty good, the humanizing character building moments still work pretty well and they build to the action 2/3rds into the episode that makes it feel like there’s something at stake. The cons are the music aside from the main theme feels off, like it could have been much more subtle instead of John Williams after a weekend with Stephen King. Also some of the shots on the ship exteriors holding longer than necessary, but I think they fix this pretty quickly after just a couple episodes. And that super hero jump was pretty silly. 7/10 turbo-aged bananas.
The Orville was awesome! I didn’t know there was a new season coming. Thanks for the heads-up!
There IS!?!? 😱💕 This news just made my day!
I was about to start a re-watch anyway. Hardest part is limiting myself to just one per week. I may have to lap back around each week lol.
I’ve been meaning to get in on this show for years, seeing this post is great timing!
Ok, so I’m about twenty minutes in so far and I do appreciate all the little Trek tropes and nods, but I’m not finding it particularly funny yet and I dislike the main guy (holy shit, I’ve just realised that’s what Seth MacFarlane looks like), his vibes are bad and the whole ex-wife cheating thing is tiring as character motivation for them both.
The best friend pilot guy seems like a dick too, that stunt he pulled swerving the shuttle about while approaching the Orville is going to be hard to redeem himself from.
Also captain and his ex-wife look like siblings, they practically have the same face with gendered variations to their features. Very weird watching them talk side by side.
Really nice to see Brian George! I wish he had time to say banana again before it all kicked off.
Nobody thought to put a safety guard on the banana aging ray? Or to pull Janice out of the banana ager ray before she got olded to death? This is not only poor lab safety but a terrible work environment, there should at least have been a safety stick near by to push things out of the ray.
Those Krill landing ships are sexy af, all pointy and sleek. The Orvilles landing pod looks like an orthopedic nurses shoe in comparison.
I will admit though, I do like how curvy the main Orville up in space is, those Trekky slow shots pulling up to it earlier in the ep were very cool too and I liked that obviously shot in miniature shot of them disengaging from the space station.
Trying to remember which aliens the Krill face and armour designs are reminding me of, they’re so very familiar.
Lmao I think it just hit me with the “Give me the device.” Krill who snuck onto their landing pod. They look Scarren! All this chap needs is a bit of face bondage and a better accent and he’s practically Scorpious.
That’s a great Micheal Dorn impression the ungendered annual pee alien on the helm keeps doing, I do hope this character gets more development though.
The framing thing would have been funnier if I liked the capitan more as a character but he and ex-wife involving the Scarren/Krill negotiator in their marriage problems was actually quite funny. They really do look like siblings though, ugh.
These Union guys sure do kill a lot of people. Those phasers earlier were definitely not set to stun and that time traveling tree bomb utterly massacred that Scarren vessel.
Ugh, the complete lack of chemistry between the captain and his ex-wife is grating. The implications they’re going to get back together, with those lingering shots of their faces while they talk, is annoying. She is so much more competent than him and is for some reason benevolently propping up his career, and yet we as an audience are seemingly supposed to be rooting for the pitiful captain who gets off on humiliating his ex wife in front of his coworkers? And she chose to stay?
The music for this show is hilarious and I appreciate how on the nose they made it.
All in all, this isn’t actually bad for a first episode of a Trek show. 90’s Trek is just as, if not more, annoying in many similar ways. Just as good though too.
I’m going to keep watching and come back next week to rewatch and leave a few words about episode 2.
Several of these quibbles are intentional or at least addressed later in a way that makes it seem as though it were planned.
I agree especially about their chemistry. The Michael Dorm pee alien is one of my favorite characters, but it does take a minute to get there.
Welcome to Union Point! (Analogue to Starfleet Academy)
