The Best Orville Episode The Emotional Sucker Punch That Divides Fans

Posted by Jonathan Klotz | Published 11 seconds ago

The Orville it may have originally been advertised as a Star Trek parody from the mastermind behind it Family GuySeth MacFarlane, but by the time the third season aired in 2022, it had already turned into one of the best sci-fi shows of the decade. “Twice in a Lifetime,” the sixth episode of Season 3, proved that a series that featured a conversation about aliens peeing in the pilot could reach an emotional level that most shows don’t. To this day, fans debate the ending of the episode and whether our heroes made the right decision.

Twice in a Lifetime

“Twice in a Lifetime” is Gordon’s (Scott Grimes) central episode that serves as a sequel The Orville Season 2 highlight, “Permanent Visions.” Meanwhile, Gordon developed a holographic system based on information from a phone placed in a time capsule in Saratoga Springs, New York, back in 2015. The woman, Laura Huggins (Leighton Meester), becomes the woman of Gordon’s dreams, and he likes her digital entertainment but eventually lets her go.

Second, instead of falling in love with a digital version of Laura, Gordon finds himself sent back in time thanks to an Aronov device that has sunk back into time. Abandoned in 2015, Gordon searches for the real Laura Huggins, meets her, falls in love again, has children with her, and lives her life to the fullest. The Orville, on a mission to save Gordon before he destroys the timeline, landed in 2025, when Ed (Seth MacFarlane) and Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) confronted their sailor.

Act of Betrayal

The Orville really hit a stride when the stories started to focus on the characters and less on playing with sci-fi tropes, but here, under the watchful eye of producer Brannon Braga, the man who looks out for others Star Trek: The Next Generation’s the best episodes, are a perfect mix of both. There is no real villain in “Twice in a Lifetime,” and the climax is a heated debate between Gordon, trying to reconcile this perfect life, and Ed and Kelly, insisting that the timeline must be preserved.

Given the way the second season finale worked, it’s ironic that Ed and Kelly took the situation they did, especially since Gordon explained that he spent three years alone in the wilderness, avoiding all human contact to help keep the timeline intact. A different series would have had Ed and Kelly finally succeed Gordon in a high-minded, rational argument about the needs of the majority. But The Orville it is structured differently, and the real solution is a shocking, heartbreaking act of betrayal.

The Orville has refueled and is ready to jump back in time again, going back to 2015, before Gordon met Laura, and picked her up in the desert after only four months, and this version of Gordon is happy to be back. 2025 Gordon returned to his family, hugged them, told them he loved them, and enjoyed a few seconds before they were all erased from the timeline when 2015 Gordon was sent back to the year 2422. There, Ed and Kelly explain to 2015 Gordon what really happened, how he found Laura, and how he lived his dream life in the past.

No One Is Right And No One Is Wrong

There is a significant number of The Orville fans who see Ed and Kelly as villains for robbing Gordon of his perfect life and telling him about it so he can feel the loss again the first time they return/come back at the right time. Given their past timeline events, which changed the future twice, it feels hypocritical and cruel to do this to Gordon.

Seth MacFarlane continued to film in interviews and appearances as, in his opinion, we have never seen the life that Laura would have had if Gordon had not appeared in the past. Was her life for the better, or did Gordon’s arrival change her destiny and pull her down a very different path? The worst part about MacFarlane’s take is that it does The Orville it’s great, in that you’re right, but it feels wrong, and that moral argument makes the series so interesting years later.

There are other episodes of The Orvilleespecially both parts of “Identity,” which are some people’s favorites, but nothing hits hard like “Twice in a Lifetime.” Gordon, a comic character whose lack of self-confidence is linked to alcohol, was rarely seen and when he was seen, Scott Grimes made sure that he was doing hell all the time, and as a result, he gave us one of the greatest science-fiction episodes ever made.