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Last week The Orville said goodbye to Halston Sage’s Alara. It was a touching, but at times awkward tribute to the character. Patrick Warburton was brought in to replace her and provided some funny moments and continues to bring delight to the character in this week’s episode titled ‘Nothing Left on Earth Excepting Fishes’.
There are a few different storylines going on in this episode, but the main plot line is that Ed Mercer is dating Lt. Janel Tyler and wants to go public with it. Ed informs Kelly of his relationship with Janel, but she already had an idea because how he smiles around her. Ed and Janel spend their time together watching films like Taxi Driver and The King and I, which are both great choices. Janel thinks that Ed could use a break and suggests that he goes on a trip with her. After they depart for their trip, they run into a Krill ship where they are both taken captive and forced to give up important codes regarding the Orville.
This is where the episode gets interesting. There is an intriguing plot twist regarding Janel that took me by surprise. On board the Krill ship, Mercer meets the Krill female leader Teleya, the teacher aboard the Krill cruiser that Malloy and Mercer infiltrated in Season 1 to learn more about the Krill species. We learn that Teleya is Janel Tyler. The whole time that Mercer has been interacting with Janel, he has been interacting with a Krill. She has been using a hologram device to deceive the members of the Orville.
As she is explaining to Ed about how she was returned to Krill space after the events from Season 1, the ship is attacked and boarded by a vicious race of aliens. This leads to an intense action scene as Mercer and Teleya look for an escape pod. They take a pod to the closet planet where they try to send out a distress signal to try and be rescued.
As Teleya and Mercer are working together to survive, the compelling moments of the episode come out. Mercer is trying to convince Teleya that some part of her had feelings for him and that her time with him was meaningful. It is a sweet moment when you realize that Mercer is in love with her and he is fighting for her to remember their time together. For once, I am curious as to what the future holds for Mercer. Hopefully they bring back Teleya and she boards the ship alongside Mercer. It certainly would be a bold move for the writers, but it would pay off if the connection between the two was strong.
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There is a small side plot involving Malloy and his desire to become a commander on the ship. His scenes feel brief in between the storyline of Mercer and Teleya. He wants to become a commander to pick up chicks, so it feels like a storyline that isn’t going anywhere. Grayson tries to teach him the importance of being a commander and at the end he learns what it takes to become a leader. I wonder if this is setting up something different for the show in the future. Is it possible that another member of the show is leaving, and Malloy would become a commander?
I was impressed with the compelling moments of this episode. It is more of a dramatic episode, which The Orville seems to be doing lately, but it is one that stands out amongst all the others. I would like to see a shake up within the Orville and have Teleya join the ship as a regular. Having an enemy on board will be a twist worth a watch.
The Orville airs Thursday at 9:00 PM on Fox.
What do you think this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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