THE ORVILLE 1x10 "Firestorm"

And the beginning of the episode was extremely jarring, throwing the audience without even a moment's warning into a space storm. The opening scene could have used just 10 or 20 seconds (if pushed to constrain the scene as much as possible), to ease us into the story before thrusting us into something as intense and dangerous as a space storm. I don't recall any other episode of TV I've seen that has entered an episodic plot in such an abrupt manner (that hasn't been cliffhangered previously), and while it's only a small criticism in hindsight, it does present an interesting comparison.
   Although I've mentioned this little in these reviews (to prevent myself from repeating the same criticism week in, week out), I've long felt that The Orville has struggled to land its endings, with the plot often so broad that little room is left for a satisfying wrap-up. Instead, with "Firestorm", I'm bemoaning that the opening was too sudden, whereas I'm going to praise the length and cohesiveness of the ending. Usually, endings come upon us unannounced, but "Firestorm" offered a significant amount of time to answering the questions that needed answering.
   Questions like what in the name of God was going on?
   After The Orville's dangerous jaunt through the firestorm, and the death of a well-loved engineer, many of the crew members began to see things and behave incredibly oddly. Sufferers of coulrophobia would have been aghast at the sight of a killer clown, tomophobes surely flinched at Claire preparing for brain surgery upon Alara, and arachnophobes most likely shielded their eyes at the CG clown that ate Gordon. Among other crazy and inexplicable occurrences: a bottomless pit that couldn't have physically fit inside the ship nearly swallowed Kelly, Isaac became evil and tried to stop Alara escaping, and the entire crew vanished without a trace.
   All of the above were clear signs that these occurrences weren't real, but the strength of the episode was that the explanation wasn't evident. Of course, all reveals should be fairly well concealed, but I mean that the structure of the plot (and, naturally, the premise and setting of the show) kept us questioning an extra terrestrial causation, rather than expecting the obvious, which was that this was all a simulation. (Although, in case I'm being generous and this wasn't all that impressive, for those who were paying attention early on, the choice to remind us in this episode specifically of the simulation room that the crew members like to visit recreationally was clear telegraphing of the final reveal.)
   The need for the simulation was obvious from the beginning, however, regardless of whether you figured out this was all a simulation or not: an engineer died when Alara froze during the storm due to a fire blocking her path and, even though it's very possible Alara could never have saved him even if she hadn't frozen, she felt responsible and was racked with guilt. It led her to reevaluate her qualifications as Chief Security Officer - and hand in her resignation. However, the way she handled the pressure in the simulations made Alara think twice, and reaffirmed her self-confidence.
   I'm full of praise for this choice of plot. It was way back in episode 2, "Command Performance", that, in the first Alara-centric episode, she struggled to deal with being left in charge of the ship but ultimately proved herself as CSO; it was, therefore, smart to broach this topic once again by having something significant (like the death of a crew member) trigger Alara's dormant insecurities - and then once again prove that she has no need to doubt herself.
   "Firestorm" was also a much better Alara-centric episode. The balance in "Command Performance" of the other main characters and the core humour was a little off; "Firestorm" had no such problems. Each member of the crew interacted with a different new problem within the simulation in a very organic manner: Kelly was central to the bottomless pit problem, then Claire turned murderous when preparing to perform brain surgery; that was followed by Malloy getting eaten by a spider before Alara had to deal with an evil Isaac trying to prevent her fleeing the ship. Almost everybody got their individual turn to shine, but those that didn't (namely Bortus and John), were interwoven with many other plots, a better use of their characters than having their airtime minimised.
   Happily, the simulation reveal wipes away all the critical, point-of-no-return shock moments, like Gordon being eaten by a giant spider or Claire killing Nurse Park. And it needs to be said that this is a near-masterclass in how to pull off a simulation episode without having to include artificial intelligences (looking at you, Person of Interest).
   And if I've not mentioned the message "Firestorm" delivered about facing your fears, there's one piece of symbolism I'd like to address: that final shot of Alara going to bed. This is the second episode in which Alara has had to overcome her self-doubt and prove to herself she is a capable Chief Security Officer, and I hope that that final shot of Alara going to bed is symbolic of the topic itself being put to bed. She's stupendous at her job and has no further reason to worry otherwise. Case closed.

RATING: 9/10

POINTS OF NOTE

• Is it just me or did Alara's make-up look different again?
• Malloy and John entering the simulation room for a duel dressed officiously in 17th century gentlemen's outfits was perfectly written to break the emotion of Alara's scene with Kelly and Claire without being distracting. Bortus entering after was just gold.
• Since Nurse Park was spared, can we please have more Nurse Park?
• Bortus is unused to admitting weakness: "I am feeling very self-conscious. May I leave?"
• "Humans. The hillbillies of the galaxy."