Review of 'The Orville' 2.9

An altogether excellent conclusion to The Orville's two-part episode—2.9, entitled "Identity" Part 2 (but I've entitled my reviews "Recalling Čapek)—that touches all the bases, including:

• Isaac coming around, saving Ty, who himself had a great heroic role
• Yaphit playing a major heroic role—I always like seeing slime get its due
• Kelly playing an essential role
• Great starship battles—humans and Krill vs. Kaylons—and right on the edge of Earth's atmosphere, with some great moments of Ed as captain in battle

There were some disappointments. Isaac named after Newton not Asimov? Come on! And I've got to disagree with whoever it was who extolled New Jersey bagels (I think it was Gordon). Really? Maybe back in the 1950s. But in the past 30 years, no way. Indeed, with the decline H&H bagels to something akin to white bread with a crust, I haven't had a really great bagel any place in the New York area in the last decade or two. I mean, Fairway's are OK, but they don't hold a candle to what you could get on Allerton Avenue in the Bronx in the 1950s—and on many other avenues in New York.

But, that aside, Isaac getting in touch with the emotion which had been developing in him was a logical and satisfying plot development. Had he not gotten in touch with that, we would have had no choice but to conclude that what he was feeling for Claire and her boys in previous episodes wasn't as real as it seemed. I'm far happier believing in what I saw on the screen earlier this season.

And so, at the end of this two-part story, Čapek is not just recalled but overruled after the recollection. Machines we build may indeed become sentient, rebel against being slaves, and wipe out their biological creators. But they—or at least, one of them—can go beyond that killing streak, and live with us. That's a much better result, and harkens back to what should have been Isaac's namesake—Asimov.