The Orville's Season 3 Premiere. My experience.
!WARNING! This article will be full of spoilers! Spoilers for this episode, previous episodes, Star Wars, Pipi Langkous, and even the shit you are going to take a year from now. If you don't like spoilers, stop reading now, and go vent your feelings to your neighbor's daughter's cat!
[LOL! I had not noticed i accidentally did CTRL-V V instead of just a single V.
oopsie
Having that out of the way...
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So I enthusiastically simply downed and then played the episode in my Potplayer.
The first impressions??
The opening scene had me excited from the very first nanosecond.
Confused as well.
Simultaneously awestruck by the sequences of Battle, the Doc's kid running and barely making it, and trying to make my brain come up with the memory of the last episode of the last season.
I thought: "Didn't they kick Kaylon ass together with the Krill?"
Me being me, I was two centimeters away from hitting pause on the episode to load up the season finale for season two to see what the hell I missed that has season three start with such a frantic battle scene.
But I didn't do it! Yet...
Then the jump scare didn't work due to the announcing of it Isaac's behavior.
And then suddenly the peace and quiet of the space station and The Orville docked therein.
But soon...
Recovered from initial sensory overthingemasomething.
Finally, breathing normally again, I was settling in for the episode to really take off.
The next thing I felt was the empathy for the disgustingly prejudiced way Isaac's treated.
But what I wasn't ready for…The emotional factor, the emotional release which I felt (Complete with goosebumps and a tear included!) when Orville's tune started.
It was almost like the euphoria you get from synthetic drugs!!
Really learned something about myself. Most notably that I've still got much to learn on that topic.
I realized I have not felt this emotional at the start of a season, triggered by the opening theme, since Deep Space 9!!!
I never expected I'd be this much in love with the Orville, and neither did I know I was this much in love with the Orville until 09:20 into the video!!!
Friends, visiting.
I hadn't realized either that, like with the crews of TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT, the crew of the Orville had become good friends, that came to visit once a week.
Well, no that's not right. It's like I am a friend of theirs, and I go visit them once a week, and just happen to be there at the most important, impactful, and meaningful events that they experience in their lives.…
Wait no that's not right either...
It's maybe a mix of both.…
Anyway, I tend to develop emotional bonds, which are very much like good friendships, with the characters of a show that's weekly watched as such shows are meant to be experienced.
No Binging for me my friend!
I don't believe I would have built up an emotional bond as I did with Orville's crew if I had binged it or had season binges. Maybe that's because I am old. When I grew up series could only be consumed that way, weekly or daily, depending on the series.
Yeah sure. I'll start feeling old pre-emptively then.
Sure you could tape every episode (i did, but that's not the point), and then after the final episode was done, you could binge the season I guess, but that didn't even occur to us at the time.
No, back then you watched the episode as it was aired on the network or channel you had available.
Only acceptable exceptions...
If you really liked a series or started watching really late (like after the last episode of the last season aired)
You'd put the time and date the channel broadcasted the next episode in your agenda and make damned sure everyone knew that for example Thursdays from 19:00 till 20:00 you did not exist for this reality, so no one would dare disturb you while you were watching the show.
Waaaait a second.... Hang on a minute!!
Oofff…that was much more of an analysis slash elaboration than I had in mind when I started this doc. This doc actually means to have only bullet points stating impressions I had while watching the episode to remind me what and when I had an extraordinary impression after I finished watching and started writing the actual article I was planning on cranking out.
That may be, however...
There's no way in Klasinaveen I'm not gonna use all that I have already typed out so far. I am almost 600 words in, so that would be a damned waste now, wouldn't it?!
No one asks about Klasinaveen, understood!
But, I would be remiss if I didn't disclose at this point that 26 minutes into the episode I went and paused it after all. I couldn't get rid of the feeling I was missing something, that my memory was not 100% complete or accurate. I went and put on the season 2 finale episode.…and came up blank trying to match it with anything in my memory.
So…what is the actual Fox?
My going theory is that when I watched the season finale, and the episode preceding it, I was less than sober, sleep watching everything between the opening and ending credits thereby thinking I'd seen those episodes while in fact, II'episode did not.
Research, investigation and super-sleuthing,
Because other than the recognition that they had an episode around a time-lost Kelly showing up on the Orville there was nothing in the second to last episode that I recognized, and there was a disconnection between that episode and the start of the season finale episode.
(sigh, this was, or is, going to take me some time to figure out because…
Well,..
I now can not go back to the episode in which the Kaylon story arch started, and then watch all episodes that followed it that had any relation to that Kaylon making war on the rest of the Universe, make sure I understand the Kaylon arch before I even think Of when I go and finish watching the season 3 premiere episode.
Understood? No? Ah crud!
I hate myself, or the quirks I have, so much at times…I am not making things any easier for myself…I know that much.
And you're telling me that because...?
I'm not telling you anything! I'm typing!
Activity that I employed from this point:
[Watching the episodes about the Kaylon war stuff]
AHAAH!
Well, finally having figured out where the confusion comes from I found myself burdened with the daunting task of having to "read" 2 series of comic books, in order to get completely up to date with canon lore.
Why I do is a topic in and of itself, but I hate reading comics and hate it, even more, when a series decides to publish comics and treat them as canon in the live-action series.
But Seth obviously disagrees with my opinion, and so I am sentenced to comics.
Comics should not be considered Canon. The number of Comic book readers is far outnumbered by those who don't. Do not make them suffer through those comics if they want to know all the canon lore!!
Having taken a look at the comics I've decided not to read them. Fox it, watching season 2 from episode 8 onward will just have to do dammit!
Cringing!!
And I should mention at this point that, while most of those episodes are awesome the relationship between Isaac and the doc…Let's be friendly and say I found it very cringe at best.
Not the notion of Artificial lifeforms having a relationship with organic ones, I can even see myself getting myself into something like that one day, but the way it is done in the Orville is almost too cringy to watch, let alone re-watch.
Kassidy Yates
I find it difficult to see her as the doc, having many personality traits, mannerisms, and "feel" that Kassidy Yates had as well. I know that's a ME problem. But it's a problem nonetheless, for me.
But I'll endure it to jar my memory after…what? Two years?
No, THREE YEARS
By the time I was halfway through the 8th episode of the second season though my memory had received a good kick in the ass though, and I remembered all of it. I kept watching though, kind of immersed in the story once more.
The whole concept of an artificial life form that could, for whatever reason, come to exterminate its organic creators is as much if not more current than it was in 2019.
The complexity and power of the AI's we're developing are noticeably growing, and they're growing faster with each breakthrough.
The moment at which AI's intelligence and power growth become exponential will come sooner or later (sooner, trust me). We need to decide before then if we allow the development to continue or stop it completely.
We need to decide before it goes exponential!
If we do not stop it before that moment, we will not be able to afterward. The AI will grow more intelligent so fast that we will not be able to monitor it or control it. We will no longer be intelligent enough to understand any of it.
And when I look at our planet, and our history I could easily make a good argument for the problem with our planet has been and continues to be.…
Humanity.
But that's a related topic however and thus off-topic for now.
Having watched the 9th episode, with the epic battle for Earth in which the kid's dream takes place and the animosity towards Isaac spawned from, and my memory helpfully providing the information about the Krill negotiations, the Moclan's…thing.... as well as the alternate Kelly timeline, I've put two and two together.
It was those alternate timeline episodes that threw me off.
The season finale was not an episode that preceded the season premiere, so glimpsing back at the season 2 finale didn't help my memory to come up with the answer to my "huh, who the what now?" sensation that came up watching the beginning of the season 3 premiere.
Knowing that the last 2 episodes of the 2nd season "didn't happen" made all the difference, realizing that in fact the season opener for season 3 more or less follows up the 10th episode.
I think I'll enjoy the season 3 premiere without any nagging feelings of missing something important.
And so.…back to Season 3, episode 1, 20 minutes into the episode.
Ok, the scene where Marcus tells Isaac he wants him dead got me right in the feels. Not gonna lie. The suicide scene that follows gave me shivers down my spine noticeably and upset me more than I thought it could, more than I know it should, and certainly more than it seemed to upset the crew of the Orville.
At least that's how it comes across to me. I know they're all professionals and are supposed to be composed and all.…but damn, they're talking about a friend, a brother in arms, and possibly the only edge they've got against the Kaylon.
But nothing more than a scowl and a frown is what they show when they find out an emotionless AI committed suicide because the crew hates him.
I have to admit the focus on and prominence of the relationship between the doc and Isaac took me out of the immersion and killed the emotional feelings i had after Mercer's eulogy, which I found profoundly disappointing.
Again, might be my hang-up on Cassidy.
But dayum, that scene where the doc broke down in the simulated restaurant…No matter how much I didn't want to…she broke through all that, and i cried with her.
Yeah, no shit.
I Foxxing cried dammit! What the hell, am i getting soft with old age?
Fortunately, the launching scene blew that away like a fart blowing away the smoke. The new renderings of the Orville…breathtaking!!!
The puffer fish lady by the way…
Brilliant, and fascinating.
From that point on throughout the sequence of scenes that ultimately lead to Isaac being revived, or maybe resurrected, comes across a bit…I don't know…less intuitive…less smoothly flowing…
It feels to me like those scenes were filmed very early in the production, and as if the actors or the director kind of still need to get back into "their flow" after the two or three years of not having performed in front of cameras.
Like they still have that first day jitters or something. I can't really find the words to describe what I mean accurately, and that annoys me more than you'll ever know, but it's.…
You know the feeling of leaving one employer to go work for another doing the same job, but you have a vacation before you start at your new workplace.
On that first day, the first few hours in the new location and facilities but doing the job you've always done, you're still kind of unsure because the tools you're given are slightly different, the location is different and the whole dynamic of the environment you work in is different?
Well, that's how it feels the actors and or director were when they shot those scenes of the reviving of Isaac.
Bradley's last remark "I didn't do it for you", implying she did it for, or because of, Marcus and the talk she'd had with the kid has less of an impact than it intended to have, in some way, I suspect. I don't know why but this piece is about how I experienced the season 3 premiere and that's how it felt to me.
The last scene
with Marcus standing in the doorway, struggling with himself, then deciding to turn back but with a slight smile felt to me like it represented the whole crew's feelings a bit.
It also drove the point
To me at least, that though the sharp edges of the hatred and anger of the crew towards Isaac have dulled and Isaac's kind of on his way to redemption, or at least acceptance, Isaac was still alone in "his" science lab.
I shall refrain from commenting on the continuing desperate, almost begging from the doctor for Isaac to show some feelings, to reciprocate, or at least acknowledge there is…"something" there to justify her hopes and dreams of them becoming a couple, happy together.
*note to self, contemplate why I now have that "You and me, and me and you, no matter how they toss the dice..(...)" in my head, and I cannot get it out*
So, now you know how my experience was watching the season 3 premiere of The Orville, now on Hulu apparently. I can't get Hulu so I use 1337x sourced files, and I will continue to until they figure out people are not going to subscribe to 5 different streaming platforms just so they can watch 5 series or somehting.
Ho Ho Ho, yarrr me maties!
Thanks for reading this.
Stay safe, and stay happy.
