‘The Orville’: In which Seth MacFarlane writes an entire episode as an excuse to have a love scene with Charlize Theron*

The Orville
“Pria”
October 5, 2017

OH, I AM SHOUTY ON THIS ONE, SO BUCKLE UP, KIDS.

This episode opens with the B-story, in which the crew is watching the Junior Mints episode of Seinfeld and trying to explain humor to Robot. This leads to a practical joke war between Gordon and Robot: Gordon attaches giant Mr. Potato Head pieces to Robot’s head (because that’s a thing a spaceship will have lying around four centuries in the future) and Robot cuts Gordon’s leg off. Ha?

As for the A-story, the Orville receives a distress signal from a mining ship trapped on a comet headed catastrophically towards a star. When they make video contact with the occupant of the ship, it turns out to be Charlize Theron and Seth MacFarlane is like, “WE MUST SAVE HOT CHARLIZE THERON!” They save hot Charlize Theron.

Once back on the Orville, they give Charlize Theron a cabin, offer to drop her off at the nearest space bus station or whatever, and Seth MacFarlane invites her to join them in a cocktail party he’s throwing in his quarters. There, in the fancy outfit that the Orville had laying around that happened to fit her, Charlize Theron flirts shamelessly with Seth MacFarlane and Ex-Wife has a suspicious.

After the party, Charlize Theron returns to Seth MacFarlane’s quarters to kiss him on the cheek, and Seth MacFarlane immediately loses what few IQ points he had left.

Later, Ex-Wife looks up the mining company’s employee log and doesn’t find “Charlie Theron” listed. She has a suspicious.

Ex-Wife takes this information to Seth MacFarlane, who is busy showing Charlize Theron the engine room because that’s just a sooper-great idea. Seth MacFarlane is unimpressed by the fact that Charlize Theron wasn’t listed in the employee manifest and tells Ex-Wife to quit trying to rain on his boner party.

So Ex-Wife asks Alara to help her search Charlize Theron’s room for something, anything suspicious. Alara reluctantly agrees, and they find a metal box just as Charlize Theron walks in and is like “O HAI.”

When Seth MacFarlane finds out Ex-Wife and Alara were searching Charlize Theron’s room, he is SO MAD THEY KEEP TRYING TO RAIN ON HIS BONER PARTY. STOP TRYING TO RAIN ON SETH MACFARLANE’S BONER PARTY.

And that’s when the ship runs into trouble from an unseen force that they determine is a “dark matter storm.” OK. Charlize Theron claims she has been through one of these before and suggests they adjust their weapons array to flood the area with “neutralized axion particulates.” OK. This does make the dark matter visible, but no easier to fly through, so Charlize Theron offers to take the helm. Whaddya know, but she flies them to safety. But not without some damage — notably to the communications system, leaving them in a communications blackout. OK.

Seth MacFarlane thanks her by taking her to some virtual reality world and then making the sex with her. After, he blah blah blahs all about his terrible divorce and admits that she’s the first woman he’s been with since the terrible divorce and blah blah and blah.

Sometime later, engineering finds Charlize Theron’s metal box stuck to the system, so Seth MacFarlane, Ex-Wife and Alara confront her in her chambers while she is wearing another fabulous new outfit:

Charlize Theron is like, “LOL, you caught me. I’m not a miner. Y’all didn’t really believe that, did you? I mean, look at me! I’m actually an antiquities dealer from the future, and my little metal box is driving your ship and all of you guys on it to a wormhole through which we will fly into the 29th century. Then, I’m going to sell the ship to some collector. And don’t worry about the friends and families you left behind: in the original timeline, y’all died in the dark matter and that’s what they’re going to think happened to you now. Are we cool? Cool.”

But they are not cool! They are very not cool at all! And using Robot, they try to break into the device. Instead, the device “kills” Robot, whose body is sent to the sick bay for storage and so Gordon can have a heart-to-heart with it. I just don’t know.

As the ship approaches the wormhole, Charlize Theron teleports herself onto the bridge and is like, “Yeah, bitches, teleportation.” They go through the wormhole, and once on the other side, Charlize Theron meets up with some ship where she negotiates a deal for the Orville. However, Robot sends a message to Seth MacFarlane referencing Junior Mints for the LAZIEST CALLBACK EVER, and this is somehow a game changer. Ex-Wife attacks Charlize Theron, even though Alara is RIGHT THERE. Fight fight fight, Charlize Theron is taken into custody and they fly the Orville back through the wormhole again to return to their own time.

OH! And Charlize Theron makes a snide comment about Ex-Wife cheating on Seth MacFarlane, fulfilling the requisite two mentions of her infidelity per episode. Ex-Wife is furious that Seth MacFarlane told her, and he’s like, “I didn’t tell her, she’s from the future!” Ex-Wife points out that the affair happened in the past, and Seth MacFarlane is all, “Alright, I told her.”

STICK A PIN IN THIS BECAUSE I’VE GOT PLENTY TO SAY.

Finally, Seth MacFarlane meets in private with Charlize Theron noting that he has her little teleportation toy, but they aren’t going to take it apart to find out how it works because they don’t fuck with the timeline like that. (I’m sure we will see the teleportation device again sometime in the future, and when we do remember the rant I am about to unleash on you.) Then they talk about their feelings or some bullshit, who cares.

Charlize Theron warns that if the Orville continues to exist in this timeline, it will have unpredictable effects on the future, and Seth MacFarlane’s like, “So?” He then threatens to destroy the wormhole to prevent her from fucking with the timeline, and she warns that if he does, they’ll never meet and he’ll remain the same sad cuckold. Seth MacFarlane don’t care and shoots lasers at the wormhole (OK) which destroys it (OK) and she disappears. NOT OK.

If you are going to do a sci-fi show, YOU BETTER KNOW HOW TIME PARADOXES WORK, YOU HACKS.

First of all, FIRST OF ALL, YOU CAN’T SHOOT LASERS AT A WORMHOLE AND DESTROY IT. Wormholes are curvatures in time-space — there is nothing to shoot at. Now, granted, for a traversable wormhole like the one featured on the show, some source of exotic matter would probably have to exist to stabilize it, and I suppose they could shoot at that, but that’s not what happened here. They just shot a bunch of lasers at the wormhole and poof! it went away.

Second of all, I will offer a compliment: I appreciated the conceit that Charlize Theron makes an effort to not disrupt the timeline by seeking out items that otherwise would be destroyed. That’s clever! But then it’s as if the writers have no idea how time paradoxes work.

Let’s hash this out:

Charlize Theron changed the timeline by going back into the past and saving the Orville. By doing that, she created this new timeline and on this new timeline, the wormhole is destroyed.

Still with me?

OK, by destroying the wormhole, you don’t destroy the past — you just prevent anyone else from using that wormhole in the future. WHICH MEANS, everything that happened, happened. The Orville was never destroyed in a dark matter storm because Charlize Theron always saved it, and then they always destroy the wormhole.

When Charlize Theron says that destroying the wormhole will destroy their relationship, she’s wrong — that will have always happened. And when she up and disappears when the wormhole is destroyed, THAT IS UTTER NONSENSE. She is there now, she is on that timeline, she’s stuck with them with no means to get back to her future, at least not through that specific wormhole.

BECAUSE YOU CAN NOT GO INTO THE PAST AND PREVENT THE FUTURE FROM WHICH YOU CAME. THAT’S THE GRANDFATHER PARADOX AND IT IS A NO-NO.

I understand what they are thinking, that by destroying the wormhole, they prevent future Charlize Theron from returning to the present and therefore none of this happens. But that’s not how time travel works. It did happen and it created this big messy paradox that these writers are too stupid to figure out.

AND DO YOU KNOW HOW I KNOW THEY’RE STUPID? Because of the conversation towards the end where Ex-Wife points out that Charlize Theron couldn’t know about an event in the past because she’s from the future.

I MEAN, COME ON.

ALSO, WHERE DID CHARLIZE THERON GET ALL THOSE CLOTHES? I DIDN’T SEE HER BRING A SUITCASE WITH HER WHEN THEY RESCUED HER FROM THE COMET.

AND GIANT MR. POTATO HEAD PIECES? REALLY?

THIS SHOW IS MAKING ME SHOUTY.

This show is not good, y’all.

The Orville airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m. on Fox and I’ll never forgive you guys for this.

*I know that Charlize Theron and Seth MacFarlane are pals, and she starred in that failure of a western of his, but still.