I made it a huge point in my review of season 1 of The Orville to make a case for why the show is so good and deserves a chance. While I do want to hammer that home a bit more here, that’s not going to be the whole point of my review again here. Listen, if you’ve already dismissed this show as another “dumb Seth Macfarlane show” or a “Star Trek ripoff/wannabe,” then that’s your prerogative, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to spend more time trying to convince you otherwise. For anyone else, though, I’d like to make it clear that season 2 of The Orville is more of the same. If you didn’t like the first season then this is bad news for you, but I thought the show was fantastic, so I was happy to see it continue delivering on what I liked.

It’s hard to talk about the “story” of this season because the show is mostly episodic. The parts of the story that are more overarching also don’t happen for a little while into the season, so I also don’t want to spoil anything here. The two big general things I want to mention are a departure and a romance. One of the characters on The Orville leaves the show a few episodes in, and I was really sad about this because I liked said character. However, I will also say that the character does get replaced, and I also really like the replacement, so this was handled well. So, while I am sad to see this character leave, I’m also satisfied with the replacement chosen. The other thing I wanted to mention was a romance between two unlikely characters that develops in this season. I don’t want to spoil who it’s between, but I just want to comment on it. I thought the choice was initially really weird, but I also found it intriguing, and so I winded up becoming really interested in the directions that it took. This relationship also winds up leading to a pretty game-changing event in the series, involving a two-part episode that was the best in the season.

The stories of the individual episodes are also really good in here. There may be a few that aren’t quite as exciting as others, but for the most part the episodes are just as strong as season 1’s, and sometimes stronger. The usual kinds of episodes you’d expect are here, such as another episode or two revolving around relationships with the Krill, an episode where we get introduced to a really strange culture that makes us question some of our own values/traditions, and even an episode that sort of serves as a sequel to the season 1 episode about Bortus’s child needing a sex change to comply with Moclan cultural standards. However, there are also a few surprising and unique episodes here, most of which came in the latter half of the season for me. One such episode involved the crew finding a time capsule from 2015, leading Gordon to develop feelings for a girl that existed hundreds of years ago. I found episodes like this to be really special and interesting, and so they serves as examples of how good this show can be.

I feel bad in a TV review when all I really have to say about a new season of a show is “it’s still good!,” but that’s where I’m at here. Like I said earlier, if you’re someone that didn’t give The Orville a chance, then I think you’re being foolish, but I’m also not going to change your mind. If you didn’t like the first season, then the show probably isn’t for you. But if you did like the first season like I did, then definitely make sure to watch season 2 as well, since it’s just as good. The show moves from 12 episodes to 14 in this season, and I at the very least enjoyed all of them, if not loved them. This is a fascinating and well-made show, and I can tell how much passion goes into it from Seth Macfarlane and everyone else involved. I really hope to see more of this show, because it’s captured my interest more than a lot of shows have in recent years.

4.5/5