But we haven't heard the last. An audiobook novella has been released, narrated by recurring Orville guest star Bruce Boxleitner, called Sympathy for the Devil. It's essentially an episode of the show in another format, set specifically between two late season three episodes. Through a fascinating sci-fi conceit, the ship encounters an actual Nazi from the World War II era, actually bent on the extermination of Jewish people. But there's more to the situation than there appears to be on the surface, and it's quite unclear what the "right thing to do" is when futuristic ideals clash with archaic hatred.
How this audiobook came to exist is itself an interesting story. This was an intended 11th episode of season 3 (between the existing episodes 8 and 9), written by Seth MacFarlane himself and slated for production like all the rest. But the filming of season 3 was interrupted for nearly a full year at the onset of the Covid pandemic, and when it resumed fully in 2021, things had changed radically for this episode. Because of the World War II subject matter, the original concept had been to actually film on location in Europe for fully half of the episode. And even had the production been willing to compromise on that point and film on a set, the scenes called for an extensive guest cast... more people than the Covid monitoring protocols could effectively keep safe. It simply wasn't possible to make the episode as written; and rather than re-write it, they simply scrapped it.
So instead, Seth MacFarlane took his existing script, reframed it with more conventional prose, and came up with a three-hour novella. That's "Sympathy for the Devil," and it is an oddball episode. MacFarlane himself acknowledged that had it been made as intended, it was always going to be "experimental."
That's because -- minor spoiler warning here -- the full first half of it takes place in the 1900s, following one particular boy as he grows into a man who becomes commandant of a concentration camp. There's no indication this is actually an episode of The Orville, no science fiction at all, until an uncomfortably long time into the story. You're made to sit with the life story of a Nazi, which is very much the point.
In many ways, this is the purest form of The Orville, whose mission (as a show) was to be the purest form of Star Trek. Since there have been five new Star Trek shows in about as many years, since Star Trek shows are actually being cancelled now to make room for more new Star Trek shows... it's hard to remember that when The Orville was first conceived, it was essentially to give us a Star Trek show in a long drought of there being no Star Trek on television. And for a while, The Orville still had a niche to fill, as the show that was just giving us episodic morality plays in the mode of classic Star Trek and The Next Generation. And then, even after Strange New Worlds came along to do that same thing, The Orville was doing so earnestly enough, at a high enough level of quality, that you could imagine there was room for both shows. (Especially when each was only making 10 episodes a season.)
Anyway, Sympathy for the Devil is the most classic elevator pitch for a Star Trek episode you could imagine: "our heroes meet an actual Nazi." It's so classic that more than one Star Trek series actually did it. But none did it quite like this episode of The Orville -- and, surprisingly, none with as effective a moral dilemma at the heart of the story. Sympathy for the Devil is actually a really compelling episode of the series, and it would have been great to see it made in the normal way.
But this presentation of it here is tremendously compromised. For one thing, MacFarlane's writing to flesh it out in conventional prose (essentially -- the flowery ways in which he replaced the script's stage directions) is pretty rough at times. For another, the pacing is much harder to take in this format; had this been on television, I'd imagine shifting in my seat a lot wondering why half an hour of an Orville episode was tracking a Nazi in the 1900s, but listening to 90 minutes of that when I thought I'd signed up for a sci-fi audiobook? It's quite strange.
Plus, hanging over it all is the timing of the release. Had this been a late third season episode of the show, then the daring departure from format, combined with the emotional and intellectual heft of the ideas ultimately explored, would have likely made for one of the best (or at least most memorable) episodes of the season. But released later, it's an odd coda, an epilogue. In fact, it's very likely the last Orville we're ever going to get... and half of it doesn't even feel like an Orville episode. Which, in a way, serves as a frustrating reminder of this nice thing we don't get to keep having.
Overall, I'll give Sympathy for the Devil a B. But as for a recommendation? That's tricky. If you're a Star Trek fan who's never actually watched The Orville, it might actually be easiest to recommend to you -- without other attachments, you'll be able to enjoy this intriguing sci-fi story. If you're an Orville fan trying to decide if it's worth your time? Well, yes, it's worth your time, since it's "more of what you like." But prepare to be a little sad that you can't have even more of what you like.
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