The Orville - 3.06: Twice in a Lifetime

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The Orville crew sets out to rescue Gordon on a distant, yet familiar world

Another long one, 71 minutes of runtime

 

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Man, that was so strange opening. A party night and the crew is dressed in the civilian clothes. In the navy duty this wouldn't happen, because you only have one type of clothing to wear in the duty ship. Yet, the Orville crew are wearing them as if it's completely normal activity.

What is the point when you'll have to get into the uniform afterwards?

I liked that the story moved fairly quickly to giving hints on the main event, by Gordon explaining a mobile phone and the activity of taking selfies to the party people. Especially as the Orville is playing with the time-travel. The admiralty explained the activity it as 'weaponizing time travel,' and that the Union was threatened if Kaylon would get their fingers on the TT device.

But the interesting aspect as that the Orville got a fleet of other Union ships, on their way to the space-station and then a Kaylon fleet dropped in as if they'd anticipated the event. So who had talked about the trip? Do we get to know?

Thing is that I didn't feel threatened by the activity as there are other episodes coming and therefore, nothing really bad can't happen to our starship.

They showed the fighter in the pilot episode, and yet, not a single episode has used it. The fleet didn't launch their fighters, but tried to run from the Kaylon ships, instead of properly fighting back. At above shot, the second vessel could have pounded the interceptor, but nothing happened.

In a way, the Union fleet doesn't take their duty seriously, even though they are in a conflict with the Kaylon. They don't develop vessels that can match up and clash with Kaylon. Instead, it's mostly pacifistic dream and therefore, the fleet admiral orders them to retreat into a nebula.

But the Orville didn't made as it got caught into the tractor beam and Gordon offered to destroy the Aranov Device. What could go wrong? What happened to the engineering people?

As the Orville crew overloaded their core, to cause an EMP, Gordon got blasted with the energy wave and sent to past. Nothing happened to the TT device. And nobody could locate the flight engineer. Not before he sent a message from 2016.

I liked the temporal jump. It was weird, positively influenced by sixties, and because they'd not nailed down the procedure, they missed the date and ended in year 2025. The bigger problem was with Isaac being the only option to find the lost flight engineer. Thankfully, a bit of clever holo-engineering later, Isaac was able to camouflage his appearance to match our time.

It was not a big stretch to find Gordon flying a private plane. And not even a bigger surprise that Gordon had made a home in this turbulent time, which described as watching a little brother getting big. Or him having made a family. After all, 10 years is a long time to wait.

It surprised me that Kelly and the Captain accused Gordon for messing up with things, by doing what he was supposed to do by blending into the population and not becoming some weird hermit ... or got himself killed. He did his duty, while Kelly and the Captain didn't even know about Boston Sox's. Does that mean that there's no baseball in the future?

His wife accepted the spaceman with warts and faults. It's just Gordon never thought that he could take his family with him and therefore, fix any c*ckups that he'd made by pairing with his wife. What I don't get is why the Captain was saying no for his family to come?

Does he not get the temporal mechanics? Did he skip that class?

The interesting twist in the play was making another jump in the past, and getting Gordon at the right time, before he was able to meet the love of his life.

The saddest part was that they made the jump back to the future, and Gordon didn't hate that the crew made him to abandon his family.

Isaac and Ensign Kelly in a biker bar, looking for transport.

Oh man, that whole scene made giggle. I get why Kelly was doing it, but at the same time, to my eyes they were also bending the temporal protocol. At least the robot won the arm wrestling contest and the pair got themselves a pair of choppers. Pure americana.

I liked that their next port of call was an suburban house, and mainly its basement to get access to the dysonium, but also to mend their relationship. Not that it can ever be completely healed, because the girl is never going to forgive Isaac for killing her girlfriend.

--
Felt like a filler episode. A good filler.

 

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A thing about the TT. The way Seth did it is plausible, because of the time-dilation, the TT device was a story device to enable to them to travel into the past, but it wasn't an instrument of hard SF and as a filler episode, I'd liked if Seth would have gone hard into the comedy relief.

As a TT routine's I suspect the ground hog day is coming at some point down the line. But for me, the Orville shouldn't go down the temporal avenues along the line of how ST has done in the past. The stuff with the 700 day planet is better SF, harder SF than using a TT device. Even blackhole, wormhole anomalies are harder SF than ST's sling around the Sun, while using a warpdrive.

The Quantum Drive has more possibilities to do TT than a warpdrive, and if MacFlarne wants to do temporal stuff, he should definitely do that to use it even to break dimension, to reach warp space. To me, the second jump still left the second timeline alive, with Gordon and his family, because they made the contact with the quantum particle cloud that Gordon presents, but as a person the Captain did try to erase the mistake, by taking the younger Gordon instead of the first particle cloud.

Why I talking about this? The reason is the recent paper, or rather article of IEEE spectrum, talking about the quantum teleport, without knowing the other particle. They used the messenger to do the jump, but that didn't erase any of the quantum particles. And therefore, the first Gordon is still alive with his family, therefore, the Union temporal laws needs fixing, and the captain made a grave mistake by not taking the whole family.

Although that could also result as a clever writing for the future episode, but for now, the whole episode felt like a filler. And the TT felt not going along the line of the recent high SF stuff. Then again, not all the writing can be high calibre, and if the stuff feels like it's going to be a filler, comedy should the first thing in the writer's mind.

 

[REBerg]

a Kaylon fleet dropped in as if they'd anticipated the event. So who had talked about the trip? Do we get to know?

Isaac?

In a way, the Union fleet doesn't take their duty seriously, even though they are in a conflict with the Kaylon. They don't develop vessels that can match up and clash with Kaylon.

The Union keeps getting its butt kicked in these skirmishes. Was the brass considering weaponizing time travel for the Union before things went sideways?

What I don't get is why the Captain was saying no for his family to come?

What I don't get is why they wanted to pull Gordon from 2025 with no idea about what damage his decade in the 21st century might have already done -- plus leaving a wife and two children to continue the timeline deviation. Taking another shot at 2015 for a simple rescue should have been the only plan.

The saddest part was that they made the jump back to the future, and Gordon didn't hate that the crew made him to abandon his family.

I thought they would just keep the secret. I guess it's true that you can't miss what you've never had.

Isaac and Ensign Kelly in a biker bar, looking for transport

Oh man, that whole scene made giggle.

The Isaac-Charly partnership was the comic relief in what was otherwise a touching episode. The most unbelievable part was that either of them could operate a motorcycle.

Felt like a filler episode. A good filler.

Best Orville episode I've watched this week.

 

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Isaac?

I suspect someone else, and I also suspect that Seth is not going to explore that storyline, because it would involve mucking the Union and making it clear that some of them are Kaylon sympathizers. Maybe they only want to see the galaxy to burn in one massive conflict?

The Union keeps getting its butt kicked in these skirmishes. Was the brass considering weaponizing time travel for the Union before things went sideways?

I really don't know. There are a lot of things that doesn't make sense, and I suspect that's because Seth isn't a conflict writer. He still wants to keep most of the series out of it, while in the background, the whole issue is so murky.

Taking another shot at 2015 for a simple rescue should have been the only plan.

That was because of the fuel problem, which I also don't really get because the Moon should have been more accessible than an Earth's sub-urban basement location. And they could have done it without ever making temporal alterations in the timeline. It is also intriguing that they nicked the supply from one timeline, but not from the other.

 

[REBerg]

That was because of the fuel problem,

They had located the fuel material deposit before they sent both teams down. The mission to retrieve Gordon could have waited until they had refueled and made the time correction.
Of course, that would have eliminated the family storyline, which would have gutted the episode.

 

[Dave]

I think you two have covered what I was going to say already!

the crew is dressed in the civilian clothes. In the navy duty this wouldn't happen, because you only have one type of clothing to wear in the duty ship. Yet, the Orville crew are wearing them as if it's completely normal activity.

I would have said "replicator" - in the future you can make and exchange clothing in the replicator quickly and easily - but it is also a formal convention, so yes, there is that.

What is the point when you'll have to get into the uniform afterwards?

People change for dinner. Women change dresses between afternoon and evening events. People like dressing up and dressing down.

I think a bigger question is why we never see watches in these shows. It is always the same crew on duty and the same crew off duty. Who is sailing the vessel? Why are they never seen?

So who had talked about the trip? Do we get to know?

Isaac?

We were meant to suspect Isaac, I think. That guy needs to be given a break (or else sent to a Gulag), one of the two!

I suspect someone else

It could just have been something that was edited out of the script but they forgot to remove that line.

They showed the fighter in the pilot episode, and yet, not a single episode has used it.

Yes, that is an odd thing.

What happened to the engineering people?

Strange! There isn't usually a shortage of redshirts to die in temporal explosions!

What I don't get is why the Captain was saying no for his family to come?

Gordon would have been court-martialled if they had appeared. I think they were trying to get back while pretending that nothing illegal had happened and so spare him that (which is what eventually did happen.)

What I don't get is why they wanted to pull Gordon from 2025 with no idea about what damage his decade in the 21st century might have already done -- plus leaving a wife and two children to continue the timeline deviation. Taking another shot at 2015 for a simple rescue should have been the only plan.

I agree, the real mistake here was trying to rescue Gordon in 2025. Which is on Captain Mercer and not Gordon. They should have got the DiSodium (an obvious nod to DiLithium there in 2025) and then gone back to 2015 to rescue him.

That was because of the fuel problem

Maybe, in part, but at least wait until you know how much fuel you can find and then decide if it is possible. They actually do have all the time in the world in which to make a decision!

The mission to retrieve Gordon could have waited until they had refueled and made the time correction.

Precisely!

Does he not get the temporal mechanics? Did he skip that class?

I think they did, because they mentioned several times about the death of two children, but in a multiverse, no one had died really. There is a universe where the Orville never went back, and the children exist still. There is another universe where the Orville was destroyed. There is yet another universe where they took the wife and two kids to the future too. There are countless other universes. They all still exist!

Isaac and Ensign Kelly in a biker bar, looking for transport.

Yes, funny but why is it always a Hell's Angel's Biker's bar in this particular time travel trope? Did it begin with The Terminator or is there an earlier film or TV scene. And the "scrawny looking guy who is powerful, arm-wrestling in a bar" trope is ancient too. In Superman II but it was in The Fly where he broke the other man's arm.

 

[Dave]

A thing about the TT. The way Seth did it is plausible, because of the time-dilation, the TT device was a story device to enable to them to travel into the past, but it wasn't an instrument of hard SF and as a filler episode, I'd liked if Seth would have gone hard into the comedy relief.

As a TT routine's I suspect the ground hog day is coming at some point down the line.

I agree, it is a filler episode in the sense that it was cheap to make, set mostly within a house in California. So no new expensive sets, props, or special effects (except for the TT Device itself and some chromatic aberration TT jumps) however, filler episodes don't usually progress the arc storylines as much as this episode did. In this we had - another big battle with the Kaylon and right on Earth's doorstep, some resolution to the Isaac/Charlie rift, and the introduction of this TT machine (which will be a big game changer going forward.) I also expected Gordon to be leaving for most of this episode as it appeared to have been written as a way for him to leave the ship.

I'm not keen on them having the TT device. It will allow them to go off and do anything. I appreciate that this is no longer a show that is merely a spoof show of The Next Generation, but it has made a universe of it's own and I'd like it to stay within it and not become some kind of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. They could now do a different parallel universe episode every week like Sliders and then press the rest button at the end of the episode so that none of it ever matters.