When Isaac collapses, for all intents and purposes "dead," the Orville sets course for the Kaylon homeworld in the hopes they can revive him. Though notoriously closed off to outsiders, the Kaylons welcome the ship. But they're harboring a dark secret that completely upends the question of whether their planet will join the Union.
The nugget at the heart of the surprising "Identity, Part 1" isn't actually all that surprising. From the earliest episodes of the series, which told us Isaac was from a world entirely populated with artificial intelligence, the "inconsistency" was obvious. The planet can't be all AIs, right? Who built them? The surprise is that a show as generally lightweight and humorous (and, mostly, episodic) as The Orville would ever address these questions in this way -- not just telling us what happened to the builders of the Kaylons, but showing us in a truly dramatic fashion.
The episode served up a lot of character drama before its exciting conclusion, though. Penny Johnson Jerald had more challenging work this week, portraying Dr. Finn's emotions opposite the unresponsive Isaac. Her work with the two child actors playing her sons was also, as usual, quite strong. She was also a big part of drawing great performances from those two kids. (Though the plotting surrounding the kids? Ugh. But I'll get to that.)
Isaac's going-away party was a stand-out set piece. There was clever dialogue (with Isaac quoting Sally Field's Oscar acceptance), fun performances (Scott Grimes' all-out musical number), and great production values (with all the extras, it really did feel like everyone on the ship that could be spared from duty was there).
But things turned sour in the last 15 minutes -- both in good, intended ways, and bad, unintended ways. (And obviously, from here the spoilers get extra SPOILERY.) Everything surrounding Ty slipping off the Orville and discovering the Kaylons' secret was ridiculous. From the very notion that a child could just open the door of a spaceship and walk out, to the cheap toying with the audience by putting a child in easily-avoided jeopardy, to the Wesley Crusher-ness of it all in having the kid solve the mystery -- this part of the plot was an unmitigated disaster.
If the connection from A to B was annoying, though, B itself was a thrill ride. The sequence in which the Kaylons boarded the ship was great. Menacing, gun-headed robots! Dozens of stunt performers hurling themselves to the ground! So many lasers! It was a tight, well-executed action sequence, the likes of which we've never really seen before on The Orville.
Squint your eyes and tilt your head and you might see a Borg-like quality to this whole story line. But I do think The Orville carved out a trail all its own here. I've been quick to point out when I thought the series was riffing on an idea Star Trek has already tackled (even though they usually approach things differently). But unless you're going to distill things all the way down to "robot bad guys," I actually don't find much comparison here. (And at that point, you'd better start comparing to Doctor Who, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and any number of other sci-fi tales.)
I was quite entertained by this installment of The Orville... though the way Finn's son Ty was used to grease the plot gears this week was a big mark against it. Overall, I give the episode a B+. I'm looking forward to the resolution this week.
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