The Orville

[Jim Kelly]

Starting with the SEINFELD clip set up all the humour lessons to follow. So on a comedy front, I thought this was a perfect episode. As far as the science fiction paradigm this was using, I've always had a problem with it, but since it's used so often I can't really hold it against THE ORVILLE--even though there are so many logic problems in the execution.

In Canada, Lévesque is a well-known name and one of the historical names from the first families in New France (dating back to the 1600s). But we pronounce it like Le-Vek. Hearing the Americanized version of this name almost made my ears bleed. Nearly as bad as hearing Denis Villeneuve's name mangled in movie reviews.

[David Walton]

Definitely the funniest episode so far.

I loved the time travel twist. It reminds me of the Kris Kristofferson film Millenium, which I think was based on a short story or novel.

I didn't quite understand Pria's warning that they'll never have met. They've created a time paradox that brings them to the point where they destroy the worm hole, which means they still remember the events leading up to that point even though Pria's potential future is erased. (If they never meet, everyone in The Orville still dies.) I also tend to think Pria wouldn't be erased, she'd simply become an anomaly raised in a future that will never be. At any rate, there's plenty of opportunities to bring her character back. She could have entered a higher plane of existence and, as another poster mentioned, become a Q level being. Or they could run into another potential future version of her.

This episode kept me guessing. For a moment, I almost wondered if they'd go completely wild and have The Orville stuck in the future. Imagine if the show that's a TOS/TNG homage suddenly became Voyager (but with a time twist).

[AndrewCrossett]

In Canada, Lévesque is a well-known name and one of the historical names from the first families in New France (dating back to the 1600s). But we pronounce it like Le-Vek. Hearing the Americanized version of this name almost made my ears bleed. Nearly as bad as hearing Denis Villeneuve's name mangled in movie reviews.

Why does French even use the letter S if nobody is ever going to pronounce it? Seems like a waste of typography to me.

I loved the time travel twist. It reminds me of the Kris Kristofferson film Millenium, which I think was based on a short story or novel.

YES! I was thinking the exact same thing. Only I was thinking of the original novel by John Varley. I've never seen the movie.

All these movie and TV clips they use must be expensive to license... especially if they want to put the show in syndication or streaming or physical media. I assume they must have cleared all those rights up front. Also odd how, 400 years in the future, interest in past pop culture seems so focused on the late 20th/early 21st century. Basically the Gen X stuff that MacFarlane seems to love so much.

Can't remember... does limb regeneration technology exist in Star Trek?

[Jim Kelly]

Why does French even use the letter S if nobody is ever going to pronounce it? Seems like a waste of typography to me.

Because the written form of the language was established hundreds of years ago, but pronunciation continued to change. This is why creating a phonetic version of the language won't work, because pronunciation will continue to change and the phonetic language will have to keep getting updated--nothing written will make any sense to us a few decades later. German is mostly a phonetic language, but no one actually talks like that except in formal situations or language classes.

I didn't quite understand Pria's warning that they'll never have met. They've created a time paradox that brings them to the point where they destroy the worm hole, which means they still remember the events leading up to that point even though Pria's potential future is erased.

The way I understand it, because they continue to exist in this timeline, history will be different so future Pria will have no reason to go back in time to that moment when the Orville ceased to exist. So they're still in their timeline. But the new Pria₂ is now in a different timeline than the old Pria₁. Of course, this doesn't exclude the possibllity that Pria₂ will also come back in time to capture the Orville at some other point--we can expect the Orville will face almost certain doom several times.

Pria_n could be like a reverse Q. Every time that the Orville crew meet her, they remember previous versions of her, but to her they've never met before. That could be quite an interesting concept for future seasons.

[Joker]

hearing Denis Villeneuve's name mangled in movie reviews.

How do you pronounce it?

[David Walton]

The way I understand it, because they continue to exist in this timeline, history will be different so future Pria will have no reason to go back in time to that moment when the Orville ceased to exist. So they're still in their timeline. But the new Pria₂ is now in a different timeline than the old Pria₁.

That was my impression, too. The one thing I didn't get was why Pria implied that if they destroyed the wormhole, Ed will never have met her, and thus not taken the first step in moving past his divorce. It would be correct, I suppose, to say she'll have never met him, but not the other way around.

Of course, this doesn't exclude the possibllity that Pria₂ will also come back in time to capture the Orville at some other point--we can expect the Orville will face almost certain doom several times. Pria_n could be like a reverse Q. Every time that the Orville crew meet her, they remember previous versions of her, but to her they've never met before. That could be quite an interesting concept for future seasons.

I'd love to see her as a recurring character. It's entirely possible that her future history will have been radically changed, which would make Ed's distrust perplexing (to her).

[AndrewCrossett]

So if I'm reading this right, the Orville crew also doesn't remember Pria having been there, since it never happened at all? But if she was never there, they never would have blown up that wormhole, so the reason she was never there would be removed...

[Jokerz79]

So if I'm reading this right, the Orville crew also doesn't remember Pria having been there, since it never happened at all? But if she was never there, they never would have blown up that wormhole, so the reason she was never there would be removed...

Welcome to Hollywood time travel I swear people never get that factor of time travel. But I'm guessing the excuse is time healed itself the best it could from the paradox. I like Legends on the CW but damn their time travel makes no sense same for Flash very few get it right. But it was a fun episode so I'm rolling with it.

[Jim Kelly]

I'm guessing that Pria still was there, since Ed seems to be aware of her existience. But anything wouldn't surprise me, as time travel stories rarely follow any clear rules. I think TIMELESS is the worst for this, since on the one hand everyone is supposed to be affected by time travel yet the timeline is changed so much on each time trip that the world would need to be completely changed by such big events.

Time travel doesn't exist, but if it did I'd assume each incursion would create divergent timelines. Presumably a person who travels back in time is travelling to a point where the timelines diverge, as a result of their incursion. Even though Pria didn't think she was creating a new timeline, she probably was simply by the act of going back in time.

Whatever, it's science fiction.

Off topic, re "Denis Villeneuve"--

How do you pronounce it?

What bugs me most is that movie reviewers turn it into three syllables. It should be only two syllables. I hear reviewers say something like Vill-ee-Noov or Vill-a-Noov. Since Ville is common in English with the "e" being silent as in Smallville, it confounds me why they got to put that extra syllable in there.

In Canadian French, it's /vilnœv/, although some French speakers will reduce the sound of /l/ so it might sound almost like /vi'nœv/. Also in Quebec eveything is a bit more nasal. Villeneuve is another old Quebec family name and there's a world-famous auto racing family named Villeneuve (see Jacques Villeneuve), so it's a name many people would have heard.

[David Walton]

I'm guessing that Pria still was there, since Ed seems to be aware of her existience.

That's what I took from it, except for Pria's own line about them having never met. But I'm not sure, maybe I misread it and she only meant that he should be grateful they met and it was wrong (from her perspective) for him to undo her existence.

But anything wouldn't surprise me, as time travel stories rarely follow any clear rules. I think TIMELESS is the worst for this, since on the one hand everyone is supposed to be affected by time travel yet the timeline is changed so much on each time trip that the world would need to be completely changed by such big events.

Time travel doesn't exist, but if it did I'd assume each incursion would create divergent timelines. Presumably a person who travels back in time is travelling to a point where the timelines diverge, as a result of their incursion. Even though Pria didn't think she was creating a new timeline, she probably was simply by the act of going back in time.

I'm agreed. My favorite take on this was the Marvel Two-in-One by John Byrne where Ben Grimm went back in time and cured himself of his transformation, but discovered it hadn't changed his own future when he got back. And I love how matter-of-fact Reed was about the whole thing. "Oh, yeah, I totally knew that wouldn't work. Divergent timelines, duh!" Of course, the story never dealt with the possibility that Ben was returning to a universe different than the one he'd left!

Whatever, it's science fiction.

Yeah, I'm cool with whatever theory they go with, as long as there's some kind of logical cohesion. Internal consistency isn't even that important--Reed Richards has contradicted himself on multiple occasions, depending on what the story needs him to say.

Really, I'm a sucker for time paradoxes. The only one that didn't work for me at all is the 'time remnant' stuff on FLASH.

[AndrewCrossett]

I don't think Pria's existence was undone by destroying the wormhole... just the fact that she traveled back in time to meet the Orville crew. Presumably the only real changes to the future timeline would be the non-existence of the wormhole in the 29th century, so that trade in hijacking "antique artifacts" would never have come about and Pria's life would probably be quite different.

It would also mean, of course, that none of the other hijackings ever happened. Amelia Earhart never disappeared in the new timeline, although she may have been killed instead. (Most likely the future pirates grabbed her and her plane just when the Japanese were about to shoot her down, and she lived out her life in the 29th century... in the new timeline, she just got shot down and died.) Since they only take people who were going to die anyway, it shouldn't have any significant butterfly effect... although the fact that the Orville crew survived might. But that wouldn't be something the crew (or we) would be conscious of. (This was the main premise of the aforementioned novel/movie "Millennium.")

[David Walton]

I don't think Pria's existence was undone by destroying the wormhole... just the fact that she traveled back in time to meet the Orville crew. Presumably the only real changes to the future timeline would be the non-existence of the wormhole in the 29th century, so that trade in hijacking "antique artifacts" would never have come about and Pria's life would probably be quite different.

But any way you look at it, this particular Pria's existence was undone, even if she was replaced by another version of herself in the wormhole-less future.

Unless of course her phasing out right before Ed's eyes represents something else, and she still exists in another form as a time anomaly.

[AndrewCrossett]

I took the phasing out to indicate that she was retconned from the 25th century as the wormhole collapsed. In theory Ed should have had no memory that she'd been standing there a moment ago. In fact, they should have been in another location entirely, going about their intended mission. The lingering shot of Ed suggested that he could remember Pria even after she disappeared, but he shouldn't have. He should have been saying "Why are we here, light years away from where we're supposed to be, and why do the ship's records indicate that we just fired our weapons?"

But they only would have been there, and have fired those weapons, because Pria had been there. Which is why if you think too hard about time travel stories, you will lose your mind. And why I think time travel is impossible even on the theoretical level.

[Joker]

Off topic, re "Denis Villeneuve"--



What bugs me most is that movie reviewers turn it into three syllables. It should be only two syllables. I hear reviewers say something like Vill-ee-Noov or Vill-a-Noov. Since Ville is common in English with the "e" being silent as in Smallville, it confounds me why they got to put that extra syllable in there.

In Canadian French, it's /vilnœv/, although some French speakers will reduce the sound of /l/ so it might sound almost like /vi'nœv/. Also in Quebec eveything is a bit more nasal. Villeneuve is another old Quebec family name and there's a world-famous auto racing family named Villeneuve (see Jacques Villeneuve), so it's a name many people would have heard.

Ah, cheers. That's more or less how I was trying to say it, but I wasn't 100%

[David Walton]

I took the phasing out to indicate that she was retconned from the 25th century as the wormhole collapsed. In theory Ed should have had no memory that she'd been standing there a moment ago. In fact, they should have been in another location entirely, going about their intended mission. The lingering shot of Ed suggested that he could remember Pria even after she disappeared, but he shouldn't have. He should have been saying "Why are we here, light years away from where we're supposed to be, and why do the ship's records indicate that we just fired our weapons?"

But they only would have been there, and have fired those weapons, because Pria had been there. Which is why if you think too hard about time travel stories, you will lose your mind. And why I think time travel is impossible even on the theoretical level.

Maybe they'll revisit this down the line. If the show goes for a few seasons, I absolutely think they will. The concept is just too good to resist in some form or another. Pria would make for a great recurring character.

This also begs the question of whether Ed will have moved on from his divorce, but he won't know what the catalyst was.

And this is just my personal opinion, but I think the cleanest way to deal with the paradox would be that everyone remembers what happened and Pria remains as an anomaly. But I think the story they were trying to tell was Ed moving past the divorce, then regressing because of the anomaly. Of course, he'd have been dead without Pria, so there's that!