"The Orville". A Seth McFarlane Space Adventure on Fox

[Lightning]

I have a feeling that we're not done with the story just yet, whether they deal with it during this season or not, I don't know. Gordon's distress call came after he'd been there for 6 months. When the Orville goes back to retrieve him, they get him just one month after he'd been there, so he'd have not been able to send the distress call. Paradox created. Plus, there's still a sandwich to show up in a month.

Exactly, as they noted when talking about the sandwich, a paradox like that causes a new timeline/universe to be created. So Gordon and his family are safe in their new timeline. The Orville crew probably will realize this after the sandwich shows up and prompts them to think about the event again. All Gordon has to do is ask how they knew where/when to find him.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

But the sandwich didn’t alter the current timeline. It had no impact on the present so as to affect the future.

Leaving the present uneaten had no affect.

Entering the future was expected. Again, no affect.

Gordon’s family were wiped from existence as in effect, he was never there.

 

[Treadwell]

Chekhov's sandwich did not fulfil itself!

 

[Lightning]

But the sandwich didn’t alter the current timeline. It had no impact on the present so as to affect the future

I never said it did. They taught the audience about what would happen if they created a paradox using not sending the sandwich back as a hypothetical. Then later they create a paradox by rescuing Gordon before he called for help. Since the paradox isn't recognized by the characters at the time, the only reason to tell the audience at the beginning that a paradox would create a new split off timeline is so we could figure out that older Gordon and his family are safe.

The Sandwich reappearing in three months gives the characters an opportunity to talk about the events of the episode again, possibly so the writers can have them realize the effect of the paradox, and also inform the rest of the audience that old Gordon is OK.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

Time travel stuff is always so interesting to me. I like to see how different shows and films tackle it, and what rules they seem to play by.

One nitpick…I’m not entirely sure the math was correct on how they got back to the future (their present). They needed to travel to a star that was a round trip of 400 light years. They were going to go at 99.9999% the speed of light. They said that would take a few minutes. I’m a bit rusty with this stuff, but I’m pretty sure it would be more like several months.

I haven’t been that fond of Charly, but she grew on me a bit in this episode.

I also always enjoy getting to see actors that are always in some kind of full body costume/makeup just get to be themselves for an episode.

Also…Johnny Knoxville. Lol

 

[jts1031]

Time travel stuff is always so interesting to me. I like to see how different shows and films tackle it, and what rules they seem to play by.

One nitpick…I’m not entirely sure the math was correct on how they got back to the future (their present). They needed to travel to a star that was a round trip of 400 light years. They were going to go at 99.9999% the speed of light. They said that would take a few minutes. I’m a bit rusty with this stuff, but I’m pretty sure it would be more like several months.

I haven’t been that fond of Charly, but she grew on me a bit in this episode.

I also always enjoy getting to see actors that are always in some kind of full body costume/makeup just get to be themselves for an episode.

Also…Johnny Knoxville. Lol

If they travelled at 0.9999999999999997172 c then it would take 5 minutes. If it was .9999999c then it's 65 days. At least according to an online calculator.

 

[Lightning]

Would anyone notice a ship traveling by at nearly lightspeed in that 400 years? Or would that go by unnoticed?

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Would anyone notice a ship traveling by at nearly lightspeed in that 400 years? Or would that go by unnoticed?

Depends on whether they had a sandwich or not.

 

[zapwizard]

I knew it was a time travel episode as soon as they showed the cell phone.

I thought it was going to be a typical, comical "Fish out of water" time travel episode. Instead it was much more interesting.
What they did was effectively destroy someone's past by going back and altering events in the end. It was quite devastating to see them effectively erase his family. I also thought they weren't going to tell him at the end, and perhaps he might remember something later. This would have been a result of the cognitive bias time travel stuff they were talking about. (Dr. Strange Multiverse dream style). I guess they wanted to keep it into a stand alone episode.

 

[AJK001]

I knew it was a time travel episode as soon as they showed the cell phone.

I thought it was going to be a typical, comical "Fish out of water" time travel episode. Instead it was much more interesting.
What they did was effectively destroy someone's past by going back and altering events in the end. It was quite devastating to see them effectively erase his family. I also thought they weren't going to tell him at the end, and perhaps he might remember something later. This would have been a result of the cognitive bias time travel stuff they were talking about. (Dr. Strange Multiverse dream style). I guess they wanted to keep it into a stand alone episode.

They have now revisited a couple of stories from previous seasons so that means they might do so in the future, if they have a future.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

They have now revisited a couple of stories from previous seasons so that means they might do so in the future, if they have a future.

Well, we know that they have at least three months of a future. Waiting on a sandwich.

 

[Riceball]

For everybody talking about the sandwich, I'm not sure that it comes back anymore, the reason being is that there's no more time machine to cause it to materialize it from the past into the future.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

For everybody talking about the sandwich, I'm not sure that it comes back anymore, the reason being is that there's no more time machine to cause it to materialize it from the past into the future.

That’s a really good observation, and another weird question that time travel/time machines bring up.

Like, if it’s been sent to the future, is that it? Is that the end? Will it appear no matter what?

Or does the machine need to exist in order for the time jump to “complete?”

 

[JiminSTLouis]

For everybody talking about the sandwich, I'm not sure that it comes back anymore, the reason being is that there's no more time machine to cause it to materialize it from the past into the future.

The trip for the sandwich was instantaneous. What happens to the machine after it performed the action doesn’t matter.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

For everybody talking about the sandwich, I'm not sure that it comes back anymore, the reason being is that there's no more time machine to cause it to materialize it from the past into the future.

Now we have a ham on rye paradox. A sandwich that’s been sent to the future on a planned existential plane, NOT reappearing when it’s supposed to could unravel the space time continuum.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Waiting three months for a sandwich brings a whole new definition of hold the mayo.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

This week seemed like they took scripts from TNG, DS9 and threw some Doctor Who planet of the Ood all together Into a blender and got this.

 

[Treadwell]

A good 'un! I don't even have any "unnecessary scene" nitpicks.

 

[renaissance_man]

Not much talk about this week's episode.
I thought it was really interesting, I enjoyed the split story between the origin of the Kaylon and the current situation of finding the scientist who had worked on undoing the inbuilt control module in the original Kaylon model. The twist of having the subsequent Kaylon of which Isaac is one, being built without that module in-place, or at least a module with reduced functionality was a very clever and logical part of the story.
The end scene with John being absolutely beaten to bits with two barely open black eyes and 3 spat out teeth was just stupid, but that was my only nitpick with this episode.
I'll be sorry to see this series finish. I really hope there is scope for a fourth series as this show is doing more Star Trek than it's licensed namesake.
I'm getting great value out of Disney+ with all of their Marvel series and films, The Orville and the relatively recently released 3rd series of Atlanta... oh and new Solar Opposites which is possibly the best animated sci-fi series with its multiple plots, namely the fantastic "Wall" subplot which expanded beyond anything I would have imagined.
Sorry for the tangent.
I hope everyone enjoyed this week's episode.

 

[JiminSTLouis]

I rate this episode as another home run for the season (2 in a row). The Kaylon flashbacks gave their motivation some perspective. The torture device scenes were intense. And Charly is starting to see that too. Her interaction with Issac at the end was pretty moving. I laughed at the John injury scenes, even the beaten face one. I really like seeing Issac in human form. Mark Jackson is a really good actor (he probably loves getting out of that suit). He gave an outstanding performance when his character suddenly lost his emotions. I still think the emotion spin could be used as a tool against the Kaylon, maybe find a way to remote trigger the affect. Even if they only feel emotions for a short time, it could make them stop and reevaluate their strategy. A good mix of humor and serious SciFi.

Oh… and I picked up on a political jab in there too.