this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2025
22 points (95.8% liked)

Seth MacFarlane's The Orville

408 readers
8 users here now

Welcome aboard. For security reasons, we need you to pee in this cup.

The Orville is a satirical science fiction drama created by Seth MacFarlane and modeled after classic episodic Star Trek with a modern flair.

Allies of the Planetary Union:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

WARNING: This thread WILL contain unhidden spoilers for this episode and every episode before it. You are allowed to talk about future episodes of the series, but put ANY information that comes after this episode behind spoiler tags.

The Orville season 2, episode 3 "Home"

Written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, directed by Jon Cassar.

Dr. Finn tends to Alara after she surprisingly broke a bone arm-wrestling Isaac. This leads her to realize the amount of time Alara has spent away from her home planet of Xelaya has caused her entire body to atrophy. The only meaningful solution is for Alara to temporarily return home and rebuild her strength over time. On Xelaya, Alara is immediately overwhelmed by the native gravity and also has to confront her parents (Robert Picardo & Molly Hagan) who never really supported her choice to serve in the Union. On the Orville, Alara's absence is felt as the crew deals with an interim Security Chief (Patrick Warburton) and works to devise a way for Alara to return.

Originally released: 10 January 2019

Check here to find out where you can stream or digitally purchase The Orville in your country. The Orville season 2 is also available on DVD.

What did you think?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] vaguerant@fedia.io 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh funny. I just mentioned this in my comment as well. The lack of prosthetics in that scene were apparently scripted. It is supposed to represent Alara picturing herself as a human.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's what I read somewhere. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Makes about as much sense as Ed having fantasy dreams where he's a Moclan, or a Gelatin.

[–] AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not at all a good comparison. Ed is happy and confident in who he is. Alara has always felt like an outsider because of her interest in a military career; you even saw how her parents almost treated her like someone with a disability who like, refused to get something fixed or something like that. And meanwhile the mostly human crew has welcomed her with open arms and treated her like a full equal even with inflated respect. Why wouldn’t she fantasize about how her life might be if she had been human.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't know. That's like suggesting black people have fantasy dreams where they're white. Maybe it happens? It just stretches my suspension of disbelief. Feels like a retcon to make up for a miss, like not being able to coordinate makeup and location schedules.

[–] AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well several people have stated it was in the script, so that’s planned ahead not retcon. It’s surprising to me as well, but I have no trouble believing the reasoning.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Even more confusing to viewers was that scene in the trailer has NO CG at all. It's a girl riding a horse on a beach. This is probably what fueled the belief that Human Alara was a mistake or due to some production constraint.

Here's the ComicCon trailer, it's at 2:19:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWBRMaKsGN4