The Orville 3x01 "Electric Sheep" TV Show Review

 I'm back everyone! I'm here to talk about the first episode of season 3 of The Orville, The Orville: New Horizons. So let's get into it.

Whatever I was expecting this episode to be, it was so much more. Seth MacFarlane, Brannon Braga, David S. Goodman and their writing staff, and the rest of their production crew, did such an amazing job in getting this season prepped over the last three years.

I am so glad they're dealing with the fallout of the season 2 two-parter, "Identity" finally. I always felt it was a little too easy for the crew to forgive Isaac for his betrayal at the end of that episode, but that's what happens when you're stuck under a traditional TV network. How they went about it was actually quite similar to what Star Trek: Voyager did with Seven of Nine and some of Voyager's crew, especially B'Elanna Torres, when she came on board in the show's fourth season. But they made it go so much further than Voyager had been able to do on UPN in the late '90s. Which makes sense because Braga was a writer on Voyager and was responsible for the creation of Seven of Nine, so for him to be involved with this show, for this episode, it makes sense. Though Seth is credited as the sole writer of this episode.

It shows that the crew went through some heavy trauma due to not only their capture at the hands of the Kaylon, but because they also lost friends and loved ones on other Union starships during the Battle of Earth in "Identity Part 2". And not just the crew, but Claire's older son, Marcus, too. And for them to have to work and live beside Isaac, who is part of the problem in this case, is difficult. Especially for the new character, who I will talk about a little while later.

What really freaked me out and turned me around was Isaac's almost successful attempt to commit suicide. That was so unexpected and it's not something that Star Trek has touched upon all that often. Though it has happened at some points during TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise. Not to such an incredibly well written degree though. I actually thought that Isaac was gone for good, even though Mark Jackson hadn't announced that he was leaving the show. The way it was written didn't betray the fact that the crew would save him. I'll talk about that a little bit later in this review.

I love the upgrades that the ship sets got. Engineering is bigger, the Bridge has more detail to it, though the shuttlebay, the corridors, Sickbay, and the crew's quarters all seem to have remained the same. The lighting is much crisper and you can tell the show got better cameras and better editing equipment to make the show on because it looks 100% better. Though you kind of started to see this improvement with the Orville itself near the end of season 2, this episode saw even more improvements. Also Ed, Kelly, and Bortus's uniforms seem to have gotten darker with the new lighting. In previous seasons it was a light blue, now it's a darker blue. It's actually something I noticed in the trailer

I loved the new character, Ensign Charly Burke, played by the amazing Anne Winters. I've seen some people calling her the Dr. Pulaski of The Orville, but I heavily disagree with that statement. In season 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Doctor Pulaski was brought on to replace Doctor Crusher, since Gates McFadden was not returning to the series and it was decided to make Pulaski the Doctor McCoy analogue to Data's Spock analogue. Except Pulaski ended up just being a bully and outright racist when it came to Data, and it ended up not working. In the case of Charly, she has a point. As do Marcus and Gordon. 

Isaac did a horrible thing when he betrayed the crew to the Kaylon in "Identity". It led to the deaths of thousands of Union officers and the destruction of almost the entirety of the Union's fleet. Which, as we saw with the Borg in TNG's "The Best of Both Worlds", could've placed the Union in a terrible predicament if the Moclans chose to be difficult and leave the Union, or if the Krill chose to back out on their currently brand new alliance with the Union. Which were both possibilities given that they're the Moclans and the Krill. And as I said earlier, so many members of the ship's crew lost loved ones and friends during that battle, so it's not enough for Ed and Kelly to forgive Isaac for what he did and reinstate him because, as Charly points out, they know so little about the Kaylon that for all they know, Isaac could have secret programming that could activate at any time to take over the ship and they couldn't do anything about it.

I also love that Charly was forced to help revive Isaac because Ed did not have time to put up with her crap, the way Picard and Crusher tried to wait Worf out when he refused to donate blood to a dying Romulan, based on the same hatred that Charly has for the Kaylon. I also like that Ed was actually willing to relieve Charly of duty when she refused his direct order to report to Engineering to help La Marr revive Isaac. That was brilliant.

Overall this was a fantastic episode and an amazing start to a season that we've been waiting for for the last three years. I am so excited to see the rest of this season. And I hope that more people will watch the show now that it's on Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ here in Canada, and in other countries where Hulu doesn't exist.

Alright my friends that is it for me for this week. I'll be back next week with more reviews and other posts. So until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.