S02.E14: The Road Not Taken

[ACW]

On 4/28/2019 at 2:54 PM, jaigurudeva said:

I could buy this of they were burning their quantum drive the entire time to combat the gravitational pull of the black hole, but there was no mention of maintaining the exact speed they'd need to remain within the event horizon but not spaghettified and sucked into the singularity.  It seemed the ship just flew into the "darkness bubble" they seem to think the event horizon is and flew out with no problems, even through the gravitational pull of a collapsing star was once a problem they struggled to pull away from.

As I recall, they hid in the event horizon specifically *because* their quantum drive wasn't working; and it didn't get fixed until after they left it.  So, yeah.

[DarkRaichu]

The key to enjoying time travel episodes in your favorite sci-fi show is "don't think about it too much".  When I start to follow the logical fallacies I get headache.  This is why I can never watch a series where time travel is the main focus, like Dr Who.

So yeah this episode was great season finale.  By ending with Kelly in her room, they actually open up the possibilities for minor changes in season 3.  So that was kind of smart.

I do not have a problem with Kelly + Ed romance, but I also think Kelly needs an episode focusing on her that does not involve her relation with Ed

In this timeline, it was revealed that Ed would have got his own ship in about a year had Keylon not attacked earth.  Pretty sure this ship would have been a bigger class ship than the Orville

Also, in this episode, we have the obligatory "main starship is blown up to pieces" scene that happen in every other space travel show. lol

[Impish Dragon]

On ‎4‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 9:55 AM, tv-talk said:

And at least we established Ed is not a creep! He and Kelly are a thing past, future, and alternate time lines...he just needs to get them together in the present, tho I hope they leave that alone for awhile (if show is picked up).

Actually we established Ed is a creep...or at least creepy.  He stated he looked up Kelly a dozen times over the past 7 years.  And he stated he tried repeatedly to get in contact with her even though she never returned his calls.   They went on one date.  One.  Years later they get a sorta second date and he proposes marriage? 

[iMonrey]

Wouldn't Alara be suffering from gravity-induced strength degeneration in this timeline since she never met Claire, and had presumably been off-world the same amount of time?

[Bort]

Alara made a comment about gravity treatments kicking her ass, so I imagine some other doctor came to the same diagnosis/treatment that Claire did. 

[shapeshifter]

On April 29, 2019 at 12:37 PM, ganesh said:

In this rogue timeline did Bortus mention the gender reassignment of the daughter? Because he only mentioned him by name. The porn stemmed from that. 

Bortus identified Topa as his son: 
"My mate Klyden and my son Topa escaped in the pod"

[ganesh]

I wonder if they had the big deal on Moclan then about the surgery and the trial. 

[ACW]

17 hours ago, ganesh said:

I wonder if they had the big deal on Moclan then about the surgery and the trial. 

Probably not, since Gordon wasn't there to show him "Rudolph".

[The Companion]

On 4/26/2019 at 12:38 PM, welnoc said:

In the original timeline, yes. Because she slept with another guy, Ed couldn't fogive and turned into a drunk. Before that happened, he was a great officer in the Union and probably would have received command on a ship without Kelly's help.

In the alternate timeline, they never got together and she didn't intervene on his behalf because she didn't know about the consequences of her actions. So, it may well have been that his confidence was destroyed and he never made it far enough to command a ship.

They both acknowledged that they grew together. He may have pushed himself harder because of her or matured more rapidly. We have seen that theme a lot this season: the effect caring about someone has on you. The way you change. So it is very possible that the drinking did it to original Ed while a failure to develop in other ways affected this Ed.

On 4/27/2019 at 10:35 AM, fauntleroy said:

Yea. If they could shoot properly the writers would have to give more thought to these interchangeable tedious chase sequences. Also the silly marching in lockstep attack at the outpost.

. . .

Time nonsense doesn't bother me as much as bad shooting though, because nobody can reconcile the paradox of time travel, whereas the popgun shooting scenes are just lazy.

They were notably bad shots, weren't they? Agreed that it is for drama but also is distracting. 

On 4/27/2019 at 6:24 PM, Starchild said:

I may have missed it, but...

Whatever caused the Orville to crash into the Pacific...did they fix it before taking off back into space? Because if they didn't, how could they get it airborne again? And if they could anyway, why did it crash in the first place?

There was a line about restoring power. I am willing to hand wave that.

On 4/29/2019 at 11:03 AM, kariyaki said:

Maybe that's why the shuttle bay doors were open. Bortus had to flush out the Pee Corner.

Although I don't think he'd be able to use the simulator for his porn since he said he was running on minimal life support.

The pee corner lives on!

I loved the tonal shift/star wars feel of the alternative timeline. It was interesting that so much changed and I liked that there were multiple points that were affected. It wasn't just Ed. It was Isaac's relationship with the kids. Presumably also Kelly not being there to negotiate with the krill. This was a really enjoyable finale.

[Starchild]

It's funny how every show with an alternative timeline has our heroes in brown leather.

[ganesh]

Unless it's Farscape and the just dressed in leather because they burned the galaxy! 

[Driad]

Brown leather is practical.  Pink chiffon wrinkles easily.

[RedHawk]

On 4/26/2019 at 3:10 AM, ketose said:

The whole time travel through memories thing was from La Jette, which was the source material for the 12 Monkeys movie. Check out the opening credits of it sometime. I wouldn't be surprised if 12 Monkeys was one of MacFarlane's inspirations.

Actually, the Orville escaping from the ocean music was suspiciously reminiscent of the music in Star Trek 3 and 4.

This reminds me a little of the plot hole in DS9's "The Visitor." In order to make it about Jake and Benjamin, the alternate timeline was one where the Dominion never came through the wormhole after Sisko's disappearance.

You can watch “La Jette” (which I highly recommend) on the new Criterion Channel, a newly launched streaming service I also highly recommend. It’s been put together by the folks who do the Criterion Collection DVDs.

This was a very enjoyable episode I’ll need to watch again. Even though I like them, alternate timelines stories always confuse me. (I got a D in temporal physics at the Academy.) This episode looked wonderful; I was so impressed. The Orville has become my favorite TV show. Please let there be many more seasons!

[Ilovepie]

On 4/27/2019 at 8:35 AM, fauntleroy said:

Time nonsense doesn't bother me as much as bad shooting though, because nobody can reconcile the paradox of time travel, whereas the popgun shooting scenes are just lazy.

This is exactly my stance as well! Time nonsense indeed. I don't think there is a "right" answer to that stuff because time travel doesn't exist, so at this point it's all speculation anyway. I'm with Ed - I'd rather chew glass than talk about time travel. The shooting stuff is absolutely ridiculous though. Even dumber - all of Alara's rebels just going out to engage them. The Kaylon heads are basically drones - why don't the rebels use drones to battle them? I mean, we do that now and it's only 2019! This is 400 years in the future - why are they so dumb about warfare?!? To me, this is the most stupid thing about this episode.

Overall, I thought this season was great. I am not a science nerd or sci-fi fan girl (and no disrespect to those who are, it's just not my thing), so I don't have much of a point of reference to really compare it to other sci-fi shows. I just like it for what it is, and I think the blend of humor, drama and science fiction is pretty great. I am glad it got renewed!

[Danielg342]

Though I liked the episode, one thought that I had is that almost every time there's an "altered timeline" episode in a sci-fi series, the different timeline is always presented as worse than the timeline we knew from previous episodes.

Just once I would like to see a show where the altered timeline is better than the one knew before, making the decision to revert a difficult decision (and let's assume in this storyline, the protagonists have to revert because they've damaged some time singularity or something).

I get why shows tend to make alternative timelines worse than the main one- so that we'd actually root for the characters to get back to the main timeline- but I just wish someone would just mix things up every now and then.

Especially someone like Seth who's not averse to thinking outside the box.

Anyway, it's really only a minor nitpick, but one that irks me about sci-fi in general.

[DoctorAtomic]

I'd counter with Eureka, and I'd offer up the SG-1 tv movie as well, but that's all that comes to me.

[ketose]

The "FlashPoint" episode of The Flash went along the same lines. Barry got the "better" outcome but the timeline was falling apart and he had to reset the events with the reverse flash. Even when he did, unexpected things happened like Cisco's brother dying.

And Eureka actually used a reset to explore some different characterizations.

[Tachi Rocinante]

Enjoyable, but the hand-waving science (black hole gravity, Marianas Trench pressure) and "let's-cram-every-sci-fi-reference-we-possibly-can-into-an-hour" left me ambivalent.

[blueray]

Another good episode. I as others said like that it was actually Claire who was the difference not Ed & Kelly's relationship.  Them not getting together caused a chain reaction. Ed seemed perfectly happy with his career path but wasn't a captain. Kelly I assume had the job she had at the beginning of the show therefore never came to the Orville either.  Claire never came on the Orville because she took the job because of Ed being an inexperienced captain, which I assume the one in this time wasn't.  And of course it was her families relationship that turned Isaac to their side.

I always enjoy a good time travel episode even if it is predictable that everything alternately would end the same as the beginning.

[anna0852]

Wow. Scruffy Ed is pretty hot.