After an absence of more than a year new episodes of The Orville returned to FOX this week. I never can understand why they do this, but the second season of the series premiered Sunday night however new episodes of The Orville will air on its regular night Thursday.
Most dramas on TV these days, the ones not on CBS anyways, follow the model of the season-long story where each episode of the series leads to the next. So if you miss one episode you’re probably not going to understand the following one. However, much like with the original Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, in The Orville each episode of that show is a story unto itself where if you miss one episode you’re not going to be lost with the next.
What surprised me the most with the second season debut episode of The Orville entitled “Ja’loja” was how small it was. Most similar shows feature these massive, action-packed season debuts meant to rope the audience back into the series. But “Ja’loja” took completely the opposite approach. There wasn’t any action and the episode dealt mostly with relationships. Be it between Capt. Ed Mercer (Seth MacFarlane) and his ex-wife Cmdr. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) who’s dating someone new, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) dealing with her headstrong son, or even Lt. Alara Kitan (Halston Sage) on a blind-date from hell.
The were no phasers blasting or ships crashing, it was all a pretty typical day aboard the ship in “Ja’loja” which was actually kind’a wonderful in how different it was from what could have been.
I suppose some of the reasons a show like The Orville can get away with this is that it doesn’t those season-long stories to deal with. And without that means there really isn’t any previous season cliffhangers to come back to at the start of the season, so they can afford to start a new season a bit differently than every other show.
I didn’t think I’d like these single story episodes after having been a fan of so many other series like The Expanse, Stranger Things or, to go way back, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But I really dig it with The Orville. I like the idea that each episode is a story unto itself, and you’re not expected to retain what’s all going on in the universe of the show between episodes. Now I’m not saying that I don’t like season-long storytelling since I really dig series that do that too, I’m just saying that when done right single story episodes are just as satisfying as season-long ones.
