1x05 Pria

[6.1/10] I don’t know what to do with this episode. It’s a cool idea. The notion of a secret time traveling antiques dealer from the 29th Century who gains the crew’s trust and then uses it to steer them into a wormhole to the future is a neat one. The very concept of a time-hopper who essentially nabs ships right before they get destroyed so as not to disrupt the timestream is a clever one. Even the way Pria ingratiates herself to the crew by posing as someone in need of rescue, and then gets them out of a jam to earn their trust is a cool move.

(As an aside, Pria’s initial outfit feels like a deliberate homage to Daniels from Star Trek: Enterprise, a show which Seth MacFarlane cameoed on.)

Plus, you have the boon that is Charlize Theron. She sells Pria as both a master manipulator but also someone who is matter of fact about what she does. Some of Pria’s plan is convoluted, but Theron brings such a lightly villainous, “that’s just what I do” air about her that it makes it work. She sells the emotions in the scene, so even when she’s not great at spitting out the Treknobabble, she gets the important stuff right.

But god, this is so rooted in the romantic drama between Mercer and Grayson, and it just doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked from the start of the show, and this episode certainly didn’t help. There’s an interesting story to be told of an officer mixing up her personal and professional impulses, and an equal and opposite question for a captain thinking he has good reason to trust someone but maybe ignoring personal attraction clouding his judgment. But this show’s just not equipped to handle it. It comes off like more cheesy romcom stuff rather than an interesting intersection of inner feelings and professional responsibilities.

I can also tell you from having seen A Million Ways to Die in the West that Charlize Theron and Seth MacFarlane don’t seem believable as an on-screen couple. That’s especially true for an outing that’s more devoted to Mercer working through his baggage than about establishing a genuine attraction. MacFarlane’s not good at writing that sort of intimate, confessional, flirty dialogue, and seems artificial when performing it, so it just doesn’t work. (Nevermind the fact that MacFarlane tries to play sympathetic everyman when he comes off more like a fratty bro.)

That said, I do like how the B-story about Lloyd teaching Isaac about practical jokes isn’t just a side plot, but comes back in a clever way. There’s good setup with Lloyd’s Mr. Potato Head prank, absurd escalation with Isaac amputating Lloyd’s leg, and then a final payoff with Isaac proving he gets it in a ruse to fool Pria. I wasn’t on board with it when the episode started -- it felt a little too sitcom-y -- but I liked where they went with it. The rolciking climax with the tentacle alien ship had some good thrills to it. (The ship design on this show continues to be fantastic.)

But the time travel elements don’t exactly work. If the Orville shoots the wormhole, does that just mean Pria disappears from that point forward? Or does it mean that none of this happened at all? They try to make it a big emotional decision from Mercer that means reverting to a state before he was able to push past some of his baggage from his divorce, but it’s not clear why the one would result in the other. Time travel has always played by rules of convenience in Trek, but this isn’t intuitive. It also assumes the audience is more invested in Mercer’s personal life than the show’s been able to earn.

This is a real mixed bag of an episode. I really like the concept of this one, and if MacFarlane would give up the pen to someone else, or if it was in a proper Star Trek show, I think the story could work. But mired in the continued, unavailing relationship drama between Mercer and Grayson and weak emotional/intimate dialogue, even a guest performance from an Oscar-winner can’t save it.