The Orville (TV Series) Identity, Part II (2019) User Reviews

Seth MacFarlane fused Star Trek and Star Wars by taking "the best of both worlds"

[yoshimo-13129 · 9/10 · 1 March 2019]

With this episode of "The Orville" Seth MacFarlane fused TNG-era "Star Trek" and pre-Disney "Star Wars" into the second-most amazing TV show currently on air, right after "Game of Thrones". And should the show get renewed for a third season, it is going to be the number one after GoT wraps up in summer.

This was the conclusion of the most amazing two parter I've seen in a long time. It has become rare for bombastic special effects to mix up with an ingenious plot, amazing storytelling, sublime presentation, perfect pacing, great acting, astonishing music, nice sound effects, immersive camerawork and a pleasing cutting rate.

It's also terrific to see how little plot holes there were in this episode, especially when considering how difficult this is to achieve in a worldbuilding format like this. (Some of the show's earlier episodes had a few medium-level problems in that regard.)

I rarely give a straight 10/10, but I had to do it this time.

The Best of Both Worlds

[Doliko · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

I've loved The Orville ever since it began airing and like many others I couldn't help but compare it to previous and current Star Trek series. The lightheartedness and tasteful humor got to me, I could finally get a break from the super serious shows that seem to dominate today's TV and streaming services. But then something began to change, something I did not expect.

The Orville took us to places beyond our wildest dreams. Space stations harboring ancient civilizations, planets where time flows thousands of times faster than our own, exotic worlds with gravity that could crush humans in an instant. It was getting clearer that this show is more than meets the eye by combining poignant messages and sophistication with what many would consider unthinkable: fun. It eventually proved a point that we could indeed have the best of both worlds.

By the time season 2 started airing I already knew The Orville was something special but even I couldn't have possibly foreseen the greatness that would hit me in the face with Identity, Part 1. I told myself they can't possibly top this, the show is bound to crumble under all that ambition. After finishing the 2nd and final part I can safely say that this is in my top 5 Star Trek episodes of all time and I don't say this lightly. If this pace and ambition are maintained we could very well be witnessing TV history.

Like I say to all my friends: watch The Orville people, it is impossible that you'll regret it.

BOOM!!!

[dino-donatelli · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

That was everything you wanted in a conclusion. The action got cranked up to 11 but with meaning and purpose. Isaac's plot was believable, the stakes were high and seriously they've been setting this up for a season and a half.

This makes me mad I don't have a 11/10 option.

[glenbording · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

When ever you think, "Wow this was the best episode yet" this show proves you wrong and turn up the nob one more level. I mean this is stunning, well written with people you want to hang out with at any time, and even when people you don't know that well gets hurt you feel the pain like it was a family member, because this show makes every damn one on it feel like they are part of the whole story.

We need models, toys, shirts and uniforms of this to buy because this beats out today's star wars and star trek, this feels right.

Jaw Dropping Sci-Fi that lands a spot amongst legends

[jakecummins2013 · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

The Orville is a continually impressive show that solidifies itself as a Sci-Fi power house with this episode. The jaw dropping finale to this 2-part episode is breathtaking. Whilst paying homage to Star Trek and Star Wars this show manages to find its own roots among the genre and is a must see for any Sci-Fi fans (and even those who may not be). This episode was suspenseful, wonderful paced, impeccably crafted and is a masterpiece in television. I can't wait for more Orville.

Well they didn't screw it up!

[dcobbimdb · 9/10 · 1 March 2019]

Let's face it, part 1 started off like any other episode and wasn't until about 2/3 into it that it started to up the game, and by the end of the episode literally took the safeties off and had everyone including me on the edge of their seat.

This however really set some big expectations for the conclusion episode, and thankfully it did not disappoint. The Orville thus far has been a space comedy with bits of drama thrown in here & there, sometimes not at all. This episode was all drama, with still a little comedy mixed in where appropriate.

I'm sure the show will more or less remain true to it's form as a comedy first, drama second, but obviously the creator, writers & producers will see what a huge success this was and hopefully keep a good mix of comedy & action drama

The interesting thing is, if the show had originally started off as a serious show and then started throwing in the potty humor, I don't think it would have done as well. When a show or movie takes itself serious, we as the viewer have to buy into that world and take it serious too, and the flaws, plot holes or shortcomings tend to stand out and we judge. With a comedy we as the viewer tend to relax and not care so much about the technical stuff or validity of things, so long as it's genuinely funny or entertaining. The Orville managed to succeed on that level as a comedy, however with this two-parter it completely switched gears and immersed us with a couple of action packed episodes and in this it completely nailed it.

If anything I hope the writers keep this up, and ride the line well. Have the show still be a comedy, but be able to take itself serious at times as well. However this show ends this season, this two part episode will be one the pinnacle shining moments for it.

And that's the way you do it...

[shanakin · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

Fantastic two part conclusion, to a series that has found its legs in the Sci-if community, and rightfully so.

Nice character development, and everyone on the top of there game. Good pacing, solid storytelling, and just a hell of a lot of fun which is what is missing from so much genre television now.

AAAAAAAAA++++++++++++

Seth rules

[wonderfulke · 10/10 · 2 March 2019]

When I thought this show was going south, Seth and the awesome team just showed the Orville would rock and kick ass! In my opinion, E08-09 are as great as StarTrek and Star Wars, It's top Hollywood top movie level, can't believe it's just a TV show. My friend said, it seemed the discovery was the adopted son.

Best of both worlds

[linkdep-876-789805 · 10/10 · 3 March 2019]

This two part episode were some of the best parts of Star Trek and funny parts of Seth MacFarlane.

If you don't like Seth MacFarlane or Family Guy and you were looking for just another Star Trek, then stop watching the show and stop giving it a 1 out of 10 rating. It's obviously not your cup of tea. Go pay your $10 a month extra to CBS and watch Discovery.

Those of us that like Seth and have a love for Star Trek, are overwhelmingly happy with the content.

I refuse to pay $10 a month to watch one series (Discovery). This show is more than I ever thought it would be.

CGI to me was awesome, but I don't play PS4, which seems to be the people who complain the most.

Storyline reminded me of the Borg or the Dominion War at the end of Deep Space Nine.

I couldn't ask for anything more. Well done!!

The rise of a legend

[AliensReservoir · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

The Orville is getting its own path, but what a nice path! Pushing the bar higher and higher, and with this episode, it was even more than I was expecting.

I don't want to spoil, but even the quality of CGI/SFX were quite impressive for a TV show which have a lot less money/budget than STD.

Dialogue and stories were good and you won't get lost with sub-sub-sub plot as it is straight forward and hook you from the beginning. This episode has good progressive drama mixed with fun and puns and unexpected turns (yes turn-s plural).

If you did not see the part 1, which i recommend. but if you did not, you can watch it and be able to understand what's happening, although you will be caught in the middle of the story, but you will not get lost. This is one of many reasons why the episodes of this series are well made!

As this series is getting better and better, we might witness the rise of a future legend in the TV shows series, and hopefully the next seasons would be a full season of 23-25 episodes!

Orville really hit the mark

[Dhalps81 · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

This second of the two part episodes was really a good action packed story 👍👍

WE AREN'T THE BORG. WE WON'T ASSIMILATE. WE MURDER!

[d.rust · 1 March 2019]

BETRAYAL! SACRIFICE! SPACE BATTLES! IMPLACABLE ROBOT ENEMIES!

Yes, this is the ultimate science fiction story. It has it all. This, the second half of a two part episode finds Captain Mercer and his crew held hostage in THE ORVILLE's shuttle bay flight deck, betrayed by the one they thought was an ally, trustworthy, a friend, a lover. Isaac seems unreachable. Primary, the Kaylon leader, is steadfast in the decision to ELIMINATE EARTH AND ALL BIOLOGICALS! And so, the starship leads a flotilla of Kaylon battle-spheres to the home-world of human-kind to start a campaign to murder all life in the Galaxy.

Pretty heavy stuff, huh? And just to show how nasty the Kaylons are, how unyielding, unhesitant, merciless, how much these guys are DICKS, they eliminate an approaching Union vessel, the Roosevelt in a pair of blasts. This is after Ed has followed the Kaylon directive to deceive the unwitting Captain that all is well. Except that he gives a thirteen button salute. BOOM!

Ed is taken away for punishment. It involves an airlock. Ed pleads his case, imploring Primary for mercy. Even Isaac, who has betrayed the humans, advocates mercy. There is none. BAWOOSH!

Further exposition would involve spoilers. This is a great story, with many moments that run the gamut of pain and suffering, desperation and sacrifice, common ground and capitulation. I had to take off a point for a bit of predictability, but other than that minor flaw, this is a satisfying conclusion.

Bravo to MacFarlane and his crew at Fuzzy Door.

Good

[Shahusta · 7/10 · 6 March 2019]

Even though it was predicable that Part 1 had to be resolved by the evil guy turning good and obtaining partial redemption by sacrificing himself, a la Vader throwing the Emperor down the vent, or the Terminator shooting the T-1000 and asking to be lowered into molten metal, they kept some interest with the rebellion and Krill aspects of the plot, and the obvious effort put into effects and music.

For me the Orville has become a must-watch, though no episodes so far have been re-watchable "keepers". I like how they've (mostly) found how to use humour to humanise the characters, rather than shoehorning the comedy.

However the selection of writers and cast seems to be overly incestuous, taken from Seth's other projects, and from cosying up to ex-Trekkers. I wish they commissioned top SF writers, or even do what Trek did in the 90s and allow anyone to submit a spec script. A lot of great Trek people and episodes came from this process. Yes, I have one in the drawer.

Heavy Topics Could Use A Better Story

[fleck05IMDB · 5/10 · 2 March 2019]

This felt like recycled 1970's Battlestar Galactica meets Star Trek TNG Borg episodes. Cool idea for the standard fart-jokes-in-space Orville stories (which I love), but I don't think they work well for addressing genocide and slavery. The genocide started when the machines rose up against their biological creators who controlled them with "pain" compliance. How or why? I get the concept of a machine becoming self-aware, but why would a machine feel pain? Also, why would the biologicals go to the trouble of creating pain compliance for machines with on/off switches? I guess they wanted to equate biologicals to taskmasters with whips and you can't do that with an on/off switch. It felt contrived. The commander had Isaac download "Roots" as an example of how biologicals were predisposed to enslave others, then told Isaac to change his identity (like when Kunta Kinte was told to change his name to Toby by the slavemaster). The commander used Roots as an example of how badly biologicals treat each other, then makes a conscious choice to behave like a taskmaster by ordering Isaac to change his name. I wanted Isaac to point out that hypocrisy to his commander, but he didn't. When Isaac confronted his commander later he didn't reference it, either. Obviously saving the boy was a priority, but it seemed like a good opportunity to point out the commander's hypocrisy (before pulling off his head and shooting two of the slowest moving robots in scifi history). The idea that someone as smart as the doctor couldn't grasp the fact that Isaac doesn't have feelings seems dumb... but in fairness, smart people do dumb things for love all the time. (And for a potential father figure, like Sarah Conner started to view The Terminator.) So, why would the gelatinous, super-stretch Yaphit need to take a kid along to reach two keyboards? He can reach across the room and do them on his own - it made no sense. It felt like they wanted to find a way to make the kid a hero with no good way to do it. The CGI battles were long, with the Orville taking shot after shot after shot after shot... it would keep flying while similar Union ships blew up with a couple hits from the enemy. I think this episode had good intentions, but overall missed on execution.

WOW, I mean WOW!!

[mtzaremba · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

Let's be clear here - I usually skip all the parts with battles of some kind in Star Trek. I find them annoying, long, not in line with my expectations towards peaceful coexistence in the future universe.

But this conclusion to part one was something new and totally lured me into watching every single second. You're there for action, for special effects, for dialogues. For music and great story. And for Seth & his crew to manage to put humour into that. I mean WOW, really incredible episode!

Enjoy it!

Awesome!

[bonewisher · 10/10 · 3 March 2019]

Wow! This is honestly the best part 2 episode outcome of this adventure. Superb way to tie up the loose ends from season one and also open up for new great stories for season three.

Capt. Mercers leadership gets proven several times in this episode and it really show how hard it is to make right decisions. Very few TV-shows allow to show consequences when things go wrong. The Orville handle the situation and all the crew take a heavy beating fighting their way to freedom again. The way they do it must be seen, not told. Watch the episode and enjoy it!

From this episode the universe of The Orville expands and provides a greater ground for new adventures. New allies will arise and the borders of the federation will expand further. All in all this episode is the game changer that takes The Orville into the TV shows we will watch for a long time.

A great conclusion

[giannhs_karfo · 10/10 · 2 March 2019]

That was a great conclusion to a 2 part story binding even more of the details from past episodes and utilizing a full cast not sidewiding anyone. My only regret that it deserved even more playtime i would prefer it in a 3 part story to fully develop the great work they did. I bet there were plenty of nice deled scenes

This is the season 2 we've been looking for and more

[breadcrumbs-47157 · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

With plenty of filler episodes at the beginning of season 2 it was obvious people were starting to suspect it wasn't going to live up to the standard season 1 set. But this two parter surely smashed that standard, this was amazing and the first big world building developed the orville has had, I was worried the second part would ruin the momentum part 1 had set in motion but damn did they finish it well. The plot was well paced and had a good finish to it with a justified ending in my opinion with multiple doors opening to different plots and a lot of new unanswered questions that'll hopefully be picked up on later in the season.

Its obvious now why some of the early episodes were so slow, most likely to save budget for the vast amount of CGI in episodes like these, and I definitely think its an amazing trade off (although I wish they'd spread the Moclan storylines out more..)

Overall, a winner, best 2 episodes of the series

[jameselliot-1 · 9/10 · 3 March 2019]

Captain Mercer is a passive, morose chair-warmer on the bridge and in the ship's watering hole. Now Jim Kirk would have made one of two moves: blow-up the ship before it reached Earth or admonished and lectured the Kaylons until their circuits shorted-out, as he did with Nomad, M-5, Landru and Norman.

The battle was extremely well-done. Gordon's Luke Skywalker moment was corny but a crowd-pleaser, I'm sure. The EMP resolution was too simple. Why the Union would allow Isaac into any ship, on Mercer's responsibility, is a brainless decision. It's responsible for the deaths of hundreds and the destruction of dozens of ships. With more Kaylons on their planet prepping for killing all biologicals, it could never be trusted. Then again, the Union made an unvetted alien robot a science officer on the Orville, not knowing a thing about the Kaylons.

Best SciFi Battle Scene Ever.

[ggarytthompson · 10/10 · 30 January 2020]

I LOVE Star Wars and have seen so many other SciFi battles but that was by far the best ever. I just cannot believe how great this show is and how so many dont know about it. It is definitely one of my favorite shows period. The special effects people should have won every award but I dont even think they got any nominations did they. I will be watching these 2 episodes over and over.

Awesome!

[mjkirk-27057 · 10/10 · 1 March 2019]

I think that this 2 part saga was an awesome twist, and it was very well planned out! I am excited to see how Isaac and his species will continue to evolve. Brings back the good memories of Data, but with a new twist!

better than the last 6 starwars movies

[Rob-O-Cop · 9/10 · 1 March 2019]

Well done The Orville team. They managed to do what the last 6 star wars movies couldn't. Come up with a compelling and interesting story, and deliver it with heart and depth.

Great start, great concept, mediocre finish

[gen86 · 6/10 · 1 March 2019]

This episode could have been really good but instead it was framed into a more simplistic holywood happy ending story with simple dialogues, guess what the average American Joe would love. I wanted to know when excatly Isaac switched from a jerk who wanted dead humans to an empathetic robot who killed his own race. It was going be to nice to hear more of his logic and inner thoughts processes about this whole thing, why he was evil and then turned good. What? The captain's speech about humans are not bad anymore, believe us we are good changed him? I mean whatever changed him, if he is super smart he should have realized this long time ago, not in the very last moment. His entire super smart race should have realized they can't just generalize about humans and even if human dna allows bad behavior (slavery etc.) it's not a rule, it's situational and optional. They should have also realized that wiping all biological organisms for the purpose of preventing any future race enslaving them makes them even worse than their creators. So there is a paradox. If they are smart enough they should self destruct lol. I mean they can't just kill everything because of prophylactic and preventional purposes, just because something is not perfect and may harm them in future. So basically an ultra smart self aware race decides to do something not very smart out of anger and revenge(because of their past). Yeah, doesn't sound very smart, it's a very human like flawed behavior.

Also, their ships didn't seem that much more advanced, very vulnerable if you aim at the center spot with a simple point and shoot lol. Not so smaaaaart. Instead they could have made a Death Star 2.0 or smth that is not vulnerable to regular human ammunition, lasers, weapons etc.

Otherwise if you don't dwell too much on it it's a nice episode!!!

Out of topic: Krills are smart enough to space travel but not smart enough to be atheists lol.

Haven't I seen you somewhere before?

[weelad · 4/10 · 2 March 2019]

This episode feels like an old friend or a half forgotten favourite book. You know them well enough not to have to retread over much. The obsequious, big eyed reviews for this episode are from a generation who have not experienced a great deal. This contains good CGI fight sequences but a story full of holes. Also surprising this wasn't the season finale as it obviously cost a fortune. Fair play for entertainment but , like my old favourite book, I already knew the ending as I'd read it many times before.

The episode I've been waiting for.

[MrsFuzzy · 10/10 · 2 March 2019]

What a ride! A big shout out to the special effects team, outstanding work. An all-inclusive episode where everyone had a role to play. Exciting storyline with a great resolution. Loved every second.