Join or Sign In
Sign in to customize your TV listings
By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.
The Orville Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
12 Episodes 2017 - 2017
Episode 1
Old Wounds
Sun, Sep 10, 201745 mins
In the 25th century, gifted galactic alliance fleet officer Ed Mercer;, who went rogue after a divorce over his wife's adultery with an alien, finally gets a shot at a command due to lack of qualified officers. The new star-ship captain eagerly recruits maverick buddy lieutenant Gordon Malloy and is reasonably happy with his incomplete, multi-species staff, setting out to pick up a yet to assign first officer on their first mission. As Malloy predicts, he freaks when he learns his XO is his ex Kelly Grayson, but can't wriggle out. The mission is not actually delivering supplies to a spatial labs-spangled space station, that was leading Dr. Aronov's cover for seeking assistance with his local time manipulation device, which has great economic but also military potential. As feared, the enemy Krill empire got wind of it and his a ship waiting for them, even a traitor in the lab. The new crew works together so well, Mercer reconsiders splitting it up.
Episode 2
Command Performance
Sun, Sep 17, 201744 mins
Captain Mercer is mortified by his indiscreet parents aboard a commercial vessel hailing the Orville on account of mysterious technical problems. Lt. Cmdr. Bortus having taken long leave to sit on his egg and the XO accompanying Ed aboard, inexperienced Lt. Alara Kitan is given command despite weak protestation, as the exes go aboard by shuttle only to be transported by an unidentified force. Isaac works out its nature and tracks it down to a forbidden space sector, which Admiral Tucker explicitly forbids entering on a rescue action. The sulking crew ends up convincing Alara to risk her career and probably all their lives into the territory of the technologically far superior Calivon civilization, which considers humans and so on inferior bugs. Ed and Kelly have in fact been locked up in a replica from memory-probe of their NY former home in the Calivon 'space zoo', from where no creature ever escaped, so their only hope are negotiations with the zoo keeper, which prove risky too.
Episode 3
About a Girl
Thu, Sep 21, 201744 mins
Bortus and his he-spouse Klyden having hatched a rare girl, they plan to have its sex normalized to male as customary on Moclan, but the ship's surgeon and captain refuse to have this performed aboard. The parents therefore successfully ask for a Moclan spaceship to rendezvous with the ship and take them to Moclan to get the surgery performed there, but while it arrives, Gordon Malloy's consolatory boys evening animation inspires Bortus to change his mind, unlike his mate. The Moclan captain now presides over a tribunal to decide the clash of cultures, with spectacular surprise testimonies.
Episode 4
If the Stars Should Appear
Thu, Sep 28, 201743 mins
When a giant artificial object is spotted, on course to fatally hit a star in mere months , the Orville can't believe it's a spaceship until it's in sight and scanned millennia old. Bortus is left in command and must soon respond to a distant rescue call. The captain's away party with Isaac, Finn, Alara and doc finds it contains a contained biosphere, where a primitive agricultural society lives, revering a creator Dorahl, whose high priest Hamelac imposes a theocratic reign of terror. They team up with the 'heretical' rebel movement of doubters and face the inquisitor, warning the ship must be repaired and redirected.
Episode 5
Pria
Thu, Oct 5, 201744 mins
Before Gordon is crippled by the perils of trying to teach cyborg Isaac pranking, the Orville responds to a distress call from a mining ship stuck on a comet about to crash on a star. The male crew is instantly charmed by the rescued sole survivor, captain Pria Lavesque, who even becomes the first woman after Ed's divorce to end up in his bed after drinks. Jealous ex Kelly gets reluctant Alara to help search the newcomer's guest quarters, where they find a mysterious impenetrable object, which has a worrisome use soon after, but Ed prefers to believe Pria's suspiciously knowledgeable help with a super-rare space peril is genuine proof of helpfulness, which is grimly disproved, seemingly too late.
Episode 6
Krill
Thu, Oct 12, 201744 mins
After the Orville confronts a Krill spaceship attacking a federated plant colony and captures a shuttle, admiral Ozawa orders to use it with an anatomic disguise device to go undercover aboard the major ship. Captain Mercer and pilot Malloy must pretend to be the sole survivors of a battle with humans, win Krill captain Haros's trust, and get insight into the 'Krill Bible', the secret basis of their inflexible religion of Avis, which gives them a sense of divinely ordained superiority rendering peaceful coexistence with other species pointless. As if the suspicious ship 'chaplain' requesting a guard to the chapel weren't bad enough, the infiltrators discover a super-weapon aboard but have moral issues about the Krill school children and their teacher to Ed's taste, Teleya.
Episode 7
Majority Rule
Thu, Oct 26, 201743 mins
Admiral Tucker orders the Orville to investigate the disappearance of two Union anthropologists undercover on a planet akin to 21the century earth. The captain must stand by observing Kelly's small away party, including suitably empathetic doc, Alara - whose headdress proves inefficient - and Lieutenant John LaMarr, whose childish dance on a statue is considered an utter outrage. The society has no actual authorities, just a system of voting by the general public on everyone's behavior, and John's is deemed bad enough for tele-voting which may result in 'social correction', a primitive electric brainwashing.
Episode 8
Into the Fold
Thu, Nov 2, 201744 mins
Isaac pilots a shuttle with Dr. Finn and her ever-bickering brat sons to a planet, but a space fold forces him to make an emergency landing on a very distant, uncharted planet, The shuttle is badly damaged, he can barely find enough mineral fuel to send a short alarm signal, uncertain the Orville will pick it up. Isaac, who came along to study human family dynamics, is stuck with wining Ty and his even dumber bully brother Marcus and tries his hand at 'parenting'. Having been attacked in the shuttle wreck by the brutish locals, he decides to set out in search of the estimated place where mother Claire Finn, who was thrown out. She's taken to the shelter of a lonely feral, unlike most not affected by a contagious biological weapon during a war.
Episode 9
Cupid's Dagger
Thu, Nov 9, 201744 mins
Admiral Halsey orders the Orville to act as diplomatic forum for an attempt to settle the age-old war on the federation's border between Navarian and Bruidians which each claims to have colonized first, as they agreed to let a forensic archaeologist settle whose DNA is on the eldest artifact found there. The crew duly fears trouble when the expert proves none other then Darulio , the blue alien adulteress Kelly was caught in bed with by Ed. Although each professes to be professional about the situation, the exes turn hostile, but soon even they, like any crew member having been near Darulio, turns horny and pacific or romantically jealous, to the point of neglecting the delegations beyond their endurance. When this leads to a fleets stand-off, a surprising way out is suggested on top of the forensic findings.
Episode 10
Firestorm
Thu, Nov 16, 201743 mins
After the crew mourns an engineer who died in a fire, security chief lieutenant Alara Kitan insists to resign, taking the blame for fatal hesitation. While the captain, friend and medical staff urge her to reconsider and seek help instead, strange things happen aboard wherever she goes, even against the laws of physics, as if her nightmares were being turned into reality by some alien power.
Episode 11
New Dimensions
Thu, Nov 30, 201744 mins
The Orville stumbles into a fascinating, unprecedented space anomaly impossible to define without precedent or reference and gets out damaged but operational. After observing plants dying aboard and a Horbalak smuggler spaceship waving their warnings and leaving it lifeless after an invisible passage, the conclusion is it's two-dimensional. The Horbalak cargo being weapons with a Krill marker, a fleet must be expected soon, so the Orville must hide. The only idea is to create a 3D bubble around themselves to remain invisible in the anomaly, which has surprising effects. Amidst all this John is appointed to lead the analysis team to test his competence for the opening chief engineer post, for which he expressly lacks ambition, while the captain's confidence is shattered by learning Kelly recommended him for command to a family friend admiral.
Episode 12
Mad Idolatry
Thu, Dec 7, 201744 mins
Ed and Kelly seriously reconsider getting back together. However, while Kelley is on a mission with Isaac and Gordon to investigate the origins of an uncharted star, they suddenly crash-land on a planet from another universe. Kelly then makes a decision with unforeseen long-term consequences for the planet, putting Ed in a difficult position.
