I don’t like Seth Macfarlane at all, so I had absolutely no interest in watching “The Orville”.
I’m in the UK with no access to Hulu, and no subscription streaming services offer The Orville for free as far as I can tell, so I’ve missed my chance to watch it for free. Since there seems to be a groundswell of opinion that The Orville captures the spirit of Trek better than anything else has for years, I’m thinking I may have missed out. However, as far as I can tell I can only watch it by buying it either on an episode by episode basis or season by season. I’m prepared to dip my toe in the water to buy one episode to try it out, (then may buy the season if I find the episode good enough)
So Orville fans, what one episode should I try from season 1 to truly show me the best The Orville is capable of? If there’s a long running plot arc, I don’t mind the fact I’ll get plot arc info out of order, I’m more interested in the quality of the self contained episode.
Season 1 Episode 4, “About a Girl”, is a pretty good one. The episode revolves around an alien couple of a species that is monogendered presenting as male, who give birth to a female child. According to their society’s tradition the child must be operated on to make them male, which the captain objects to, and is a particularly dicey issue as one of the “fathers” was himself born female. It touches on much of the same ground as Star Trek: TNG’s “The Outcast” and Babylon 5’s “Believers”.
If those don’t sound good, I’d go for If The Stars Should Appear or New Dimensions.
OTOH, I would NOT pick Majority Rule, Pria, Krill, Cupid’s Dagger or Into the Fold as the first one to watch. They either have too much bad humor, a weak plot, or a plot that requires knowing the characters.
Firestorm and Command performance are OK, but not as an introduction.
The pilot (Old Wounds) is also a good starting point, of course.