The Best Episodes of The Orville
We look back at the very best episodes that The Orville has to offer.
The Orville surprised many when it debuted in 2017 and became the ultimate love letter to the Star Trek franchise. Given that it wasn’t actually a Star Trek show, and Trek itself was going in a very different direction at the time, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy drama had all the necessary heart to appeal to Trek fans who weren’t quite sure they could stick with the “NuTrek” mission.
Though it initially struggled to find a good balance between comedy and drama, The Orville soon hit its stride and became one of the best shows on TV, delivering some absolutely fantastic episodes throughout its three-season run.
Four years after its last season unfolded, we’re still waiting on a new season of The Orville. There’s certainly one planned, but in the meantime, let’s look back at the best episodes of the show to date.
“Pria”
Season 1 Episode 5
Charlize Theron is arguably the biggest guest star to appear on The Orville, and she did it all the way back in season 1. MacFarlane and Theron have been close friends ever since they starred alongside each other in A Million Ways to Die in the West, so they probably had a great time making “Pria,” one of the standout episodes of the show’s first season, especially with Star Trek’s own Will Riker, Jonathan Frakes, at the helm!
Theron is wicked in the early instalment as Pria Lavesque, who is rescued from her troubled mining ship by The Orville and charms Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane,) but isn’t quite what she seems. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Alara (Halston Sage) soon dig deeper, and when it’s discovered that Pria is a time-traveller who intends to sell the ship and abandon the crew, the Orville gang must work together to stop her. Though that’s the meat of “Pria,” there’s also an incredible little side story between Malloy (Scott Grimes) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) involving the concept of jokes that leads to Malloy getting his leg cut off.
“Mad Idolatry”
Season 1 Episode 12
Grayson finds herself in a bizarre situation after her shuttle team crashes on a planet that only appears in The Orville’s universe every 11 days. 700 years pass between Grayson’s first visit and the next appearance, and in the meantime, she’s become a goddess to the burgeoning civilization that lives there. Not loving that the planet’s inhabitants are worshipping Grayson, she and Mercer try to tell them the truth, but it only leads to more religious turmoil. Luckily, Isaac is fine with staying behind on the next 700-year haul to move them away from their Grayson-era idolatry.
“Mad Idolatry” is a fan favorite for a reason because it explores the tricky role that religion plays in a society’s development. As the episode concludes, the planet’s representatives even manage to make Grayson feel a little better about the centuries of war and bloodshed that followed her initial appearance by telling her that if it hadn’t been her, they’d have found someone else to worship as a deity, conceding that it’s likely part of every culture’s evolution.
“Identity Part 1 & 2”
Season 2 Episodes 8 & 9
Everything changes halfway through the second season of The Orville when the ship takes a trip to Isaac’s homeworld, Kaylon 1, in an attempt to revive their favorite android Science Officer after he suddenly shuts down. Leading up to the excursion, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has embarked on a romantic relationship with Isaac, so when the crew is informed that Isaac has completed his Union mission and that he wants to remain on his home planet, everyone is sad, including Dr. Finn. Meanwhile, her son makes a grim discovery when he finds billions of humanoid remains underground. It turns out that the Kaylon overthrew and killed their creators, and Isaac was sent by the Kaylon to determine whether they could coexist with the Planetary Union. Deciding that they can’t, they motor toward Earth to exterminate all life and expand their dominance in the universe.
This is basically The Orville’s version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds,” with the crew racing against time to stop the Kaylon from killing everyone on Earth by tapping into the humanity that’s grown in Isaac during his mission. It’s tense, dramatic, action-packed, and one hell of a double punch.
“Lasting Impressions”
Season 2 Episode 11
“Lasting Impressions” is that rare episode of The Orville to make it to memetown. The scene where Bortus (Peter Macon) and his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) discover cigarettes is hilarious for anyone who’s ever taken up smoking, and social media agrees, with the clip popping up every few months and tickling people who have never even seen the show.
The pair’s addiction to nicotine is beyond the pale, but it’s only a sub-plot in this story, which is a spin on the creepy Leah Brahms episodes of The Next Generation, where Gordon becomes obsessed with a simulation of a 21st-century woman called Laura (Leighton Meester) after the crew finds her cell phone in a time capsule. Unlike Geordi La Forge’s scenario, everyone knows that Gordon’s antics are tragic and lonely, including Gordon (eventually.) The simulated Laura is also written with her own agency rather than as a fantasy version of the character that panders to Gordon. It’s a modern update of the story, written by a woman, that acknowledges boundaries and consent in a way that TNG struggled with all those years ago.
“The Road Not Taken”
Season 2 Episode 14
The season 2 finale takes a bold turn, as Grayson’s failed memory wipe from the previous episode leads to a new timeline in “The Road Not Taken.” To put it bluntly, everything is a total mess. Since Grayson never dated Mercer, the butterfly effect of her choices means that the Orville crew never stopped the Kaylon from destroying Earth, and now the android race is rampaging through the galaxy.
Grayson manages to reunite most of the crew and explains the situation, and there’s a terrific surprise appearance from an alternate version of former Chief of Security Alara Kitan, who resigned earlier in the season. Thankfully, they all pull together to correct the timeline, but the episode is certainly a grim vision of how the universe might have ended up if the events of the “Identity” two-parter had gone differently.
“A Tale of Two Topas”
Season 3 Episode 5
This heartwrenching season 3 explores the gender assignment decisions made by The Orville’s Moclan couple, Bortus and Klyden. Their species is supposed to be strictly male, and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum) was assigned male at birth, despite being born female. When Topa subsequently struggles with their gender identity and informs Grayson that they wish to be female again, this complicates the political alliance between the Union and the Moclans, who would leave the Union if the crew granted Topa’s wishes. Not only that, Klyden is furiously opposed to altering Topa’s gender, leading to a breakup when Bortus supports her.
Themes of identity, autonomy and parental love are explored without hesitation in the episode, along with how different societies handle gender diversity. MacFarlane wrote and directed “A Tale of Two Topas” himself, proving (if there was ever any doubt) that he’s much more than crass jokes and silly voices.
“Twice in a Lifetime”
Season 3 Episode 6
“Twice in a Lifetime” is a devastating episode that shows us what happens when Gordon is accidentally sent back in time to 2015. After years of isolation and diligent adherence to the rules of time travel, Gordon finally breaks them, falling in love with the real-life version of the woman he recreated in the simulation from “Lasting Impressions,” and starting a family with her. When the crew arrives to rescue him in 2025, Gordon refuses to return, in violation of Union law. Making a difficult decision, they use dysonium to jump back in time to a month after Gordon arrives in 2015. They pick him up and consequently erase his family.
Grayson and Mercer decide to tell Gordon that they prevented his romance with Laura and his children from ever existing, but he isn’t too bothered because he knows it was the right thing to do. The Gordon who doesn’t know any better might not be too fussed, but the audience is made to feel the true weight of the decision, knowing the happiness that Gordon lost and will likely never find again.
“Domino”
Season 3 Episode 9
Acting as the penultimate episode of the series (for now,) “Domino” wraps up some loose ends between the Union and the races it now finds itself at odds with. The Moclans have joined forces with the Krill, but there’s “good” news when Isaac and ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) feel the Kaylon threat could be extinguished thanks to a newly invented device capable of wiping out their fleet.
The Union isn’t quite sure about a possible Kaylon genocide, so it decides to use the device as leverage to settle things with them, but the admiral hands the weapon over to the Krill so they can do what the Union can’t bring itself to do, leading the Union into a brief alliance with the Kaylon to battle the new Moclan/Krill threat. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the device, and the Kaylon reconsider their judgment of the Union as a result. The alliance continues, and Isaac honors Charly’s sacrifice at her funeral.
“Domino” somehow has epic finale energy while still managing to tackle the shades of gray within the ethics of war, as the Union wrestles with destroying their enemy at a massive galactic cost. It’s a difficult balance, and the results are hard to beat.