The Orville
“New Dimensions”
November 30, 2017
The episode begins with John and Gordon having played a “hilarious” prank on Mucinex Monster in which they stole a clump of his slime and left it on a buffet table where Bortus just picked it up and ate it because sure.
Ex-Wife reprimands the pranksters and warns that she’s putting a report about the incident on their records, which is why she is digging around in John’s record and discovers that he’s a supergenius.
Ex-Wife takes these findings to Seth MacFarlane, and suggests that John become the Chief Engineer when the current Chief Engineer retires on Tuesday or whenever, and Seth MacFarlane is like, “No, because of reasons.”
The ship then hits a weird invisible space “pothole,” and Ex-Wife convinces Seth MacFarlane to put John on the engineering team to figure out what the hey is going on. But in the process of convincing Seth MacFarlane, Ex-Wife makes a passing joke about how Seth MacFarlane wouldn’t even be where he was today if it weren’t for her gut instincts, and Seth MacFarlane is all, “WHAT THE WHAT? DID YOU GET ME THIS JOB THROUGH YOUR CONNECTIONS? EVERYTHING I BELIEVED ABOUT MYSELF IS I LIE. MY WORLD IS ROCKED AND I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU.”
And then the next 40 minutes are pretty just Seth MacFarlane having a crisis of confidence and whining like a stupid little baby.
Anyway, the “pothole” is a portal into two-dimensional space which they enter because plot. John comes up with a plan to cloak the ship in a “quantum bubble” so they won’t be smooshed into 2-D, and the Orville floats around in there, oohing and aahing over Tronworld for a while.
But then the engine on the ship dies, forcing Seth MacFarlane and John to use a shuttle to tow the ship to an exit portal. This gives both men the confidence they need to do their damn jobs: Seth MacFarlane quits whining like a stupid little baby and John accepts the job as Chief Engineer — which by all rights should have been the Mucinex Monster’s, thereby humiliating the Mucinex Monster for the second time in a single episode.
Oh, and there’s some quasi-philosophical bullshit about dimensions and perception, thoughts I also had in the third grade upon reading A Wrinkle in Time for the first time.
So was it as hard for any of you to give a shit about Seth MacFarlane’s dumb feefees in this episode as it was for me? OH NO, DID YOUR EX-WIFE DO YOU A FUCKING FAVOR AND GIVE YOU A RECOMMENDATION SO YOU COULD LAND YOUR DREAM JOB? HOW HORRIBLE OF HER. WHAT A MONSTER.
The rest of the show was whatever. It was fine. I am never angry when they make a good-faith effort to develop the other characters and give them actual dimension like they did with John here. However, couldn’t they have found a way to parallel Seth MacFarlane’s story to John’s without making him so insufferable? Honestly, is there anything less sympathetic than a white man whining about someone helping to put him in a position of power? MAYBE NONE OF YOU ACTUALLY GOT WHERE YOU ARE WITHOUT SOMEONE HELPING YOU ALONG THE WAY, DID YA EVER THINK ABOUT THAT, GUYS? MAYBE NONE OF US DO. AND MAYBE NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR EVERYONE TO HAVE TO DANCE AROUND YOUR TISSUE THIN EGOS, GUYS. MAYBE RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND ISN’T THE TIME TO EXPECT ANYONE TO FEEL SORRY FOR YOU ABOUT FRANKLY ANYTHING. GUYS.
READ THE ROOM, ASSHOLES.
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.
Is there anything more fragile than the male ego? Yes. The female everything.
Thank you, Bill, for offering yourself up as Exhibit A, and making my point for me. I appreciate the assist, buddy!
You’re welcome.
I thought the idea was odd that having a high intelligence automatically made you a good leader. Granted, intelligence is probably an important factor in leadership, but there are bound to be other factors. And lack of intelligence is almost sure to result in bad leadership – there’s an example of that that’s been popping up in the news this year.