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Ever since its inception, The Orville hasn’t shied away from the fact that it’s inspired by Star Trek. Series creator Seth MacFarlane has worn his love for the Trek franchise on his sleeve, as the sci-fi series’ Planetary Union is Starfleet in all but name and many of the characters on the U.S.S. Orville are counterparts to classic Trek characters. MacFarlane even hired Star Trek: The Next Generation writer Brannon Braga as an executive producer, and Next Generation cast member Jonathan Frakes has helmed many episodes. But this week’s episode of The Orville: New Horizons, titled “Twice in a Lifetime,” only heightened that connection — especially since it debuted on the same day as the Season 1 finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “A Quality of Mercy,” and has a similar set-up to that episode.
“A Quality of Mercy” begins when Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the rest of the U.S.S. Enterprise deliver supplies to an outpost on the edge of the Neutral Zone between the Federation and the Romulan Empire. Pike learns that the outpost commander’s son is one of the cadets he’s fated to die saving and considers writing a letter to warn the cadet of what happens. However, he’s approached by a future version of himself, who has been granted a time-traveling crystal to warn him about the effects his actions might have.
Pike is then transported seven years into the future, where the Romulans have carried out a series of attacks on the Neutral Zone outposts. While attempting to prevent a war between the Federation and the Romulans, Pike soon learns that his crew isn’t what it used to be: La’an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong) has transferred to the U.S.S. Farragut, which happens to be under the command of one James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) and Una-Chin Riley (Rebecca Romijin) is in custody after her status as a genetically-enhanced Illyrian is revealed. But the worst is yet to come: during a climactic battle, the Enterprise suffers heavy damage and Spock (Ethan Peck) is gravely wounded.
Seeing the damage that his actions might take shake Pike to his core. Though he seemingly made peace with his fate in the Strange New Worlds season premiere, “A Quality of Mercy” hammers home that his actions don’t just affect him — they affect everyone he’s close to. Time travel often serves as a vehicle to delve deep into the emotions of the Trek franchise’s various protagonists. Star Trek: The Original Series had “The City on the Edge of Forever,” where Kirk fell in love with a woman named Edith Keeler but learned that in order for his future to come to fruition he has to let her die. Star Trek: The Next Generation leapt into the past with the feature film Star Trek: First Contact, which delves into the emotional scars that Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) suffered under the Borg. And the second season of Star Trek: Picard went back to this well, with Picard coming to terms with his mother’s death.
The Orville continues this tradition, with a string of episodes that take the chance to go deeper and darker, now that the show has moved to Hulu. “Twice in a Lifetime” has Lt. Commander John LaMarr (J Lee) updating the Aronov Device, a time travel device that was introduced in the Season 2 episode, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.” When the Orville is under attack by the Kaylons, Lt. Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes) attempts to destroy the Aronov Device but is caught in a temporal wave, which sends him 400 years into the past. The Orville uses the device to go back in time…but it miscalculates and lands 10 years from the point where it was supposed to end up.
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When Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) and Commander Kelly Grayson (Adrienne Palicki) track down Malloy, they learn that he’s settled down and gotten married to a woman named Laura (Leighton Meester), and had a son with her. This violates the temporal laws the Union has set in stone, as even the slightest change to the past could drastically alter the future. Despite Mercer and Grayson attempting to convince him to come with them, Malloy refuses to leave, saying that the first three months he was stuck in the past weighed heavily on him, and if it weren’t for Laura he’d have gone insane.
Much like “A Quality of Mercy,” “Twice in a Lifetime” touches upon the emotional toll that time travel can take on a person, especially if they form bonds in the past. During the Season 2 episode “Lasting Impressions,” Malloy had found Laura’s cell phone in a time capsule and uploaded it to the Orville‘s computers, slowly falling in love with her — or at least a memory of her. The Aronov Device is triggered by emotion; given Malloy’s lingering feelings for Laura, it’s no surprise that he was sent back to the same time period where she was alive. And when the Orville eventually gets to the right time and picks Malloy up, Mercer and Grayson tell their friend about the life he could have led. Even though Malloy assures them they did the right thing, it’s clear the guilt still weighs on them.
