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“Language is not merely a set of unrelated sounds, clauses, rules, and meanings; it is a totally coherent system bound to context and behavior.” — Kenneth L. Pike

The web has accents. So should our design systems.

Design Systems as Living Languages

Design systems aren’t component libraries—they’re living languages. Tokens are phonemes, components are words, patterns are phrases, layouts are sentences. The conversations we build with users become the stories our products tell.

But here’s what we’ve forgotten: the more fluently a language is spoken, the more accents it can support without losing meaning. English in Scotland differs from English in Sydney, yet both are unmistakably English. The language adapts to context while preserving core meaning. This couldn’t be more obvious to me, a Brazilian Portuguese speaker, who learned English with an American accent, and lives in Sydney.

Our design systems must work the same way. Rigid adherence to visual rules creates brittle systems that break under contextual pressure. Fluent systems bend without breaking.

Consistency becomes a prison

The promise of design systems was simple: consistent components would accelerate development and unify experiences. But as systems matured and products grew more complex, that promise has become a prison. Teams file “exception” requests by the hundreds. Products launch with workarounds instead of system components. Designers spend more time defending consistency than solving user problems.

Our design systems must learn to speak dialects.

A design dialect is a systematic adaptation of a design system that maintains core principles while developing new patterns for specific contexts. Unlike one-off customizations or brand themes, dialects preserve the system’s essential grammar while expanding its vocabulary to serve different users, environments, or constraints.

When Perfect Consistency Fails

At Booking.com, I learned this lesson the hard way. We A/B-tested everything—color, copy, button shapes, even logo colors. As a professional with a graphic design education and experience building brand style guides, I found this shocking. While everyone fell in love with Airbnb’s pristine design system, Booking grew into a giant without ever considering visual consistency.  

The chaos taught me something profound: consistency isn’t ROI; solved problems are.

At Shopify. Polaris () was our crown jewel—a mature design language perfect for merchants on laptops. As a product team, we were expected to adopt Polaris as-is. Then my fulfillment team hit an “Oh, Ship!” moment, as we faced the challenge of building an app for warehouse pickers using our interface on shared, battered Android scanners in dim aisles, wearing thick gloves, scanning dozens of items per minute, many with limited levels of English understanding.

Task completion with standard Polaris: 0%.

Every component that worked beautifully for merchants failed completely for pickers. White backgrounds created glare. 44px tap targets were invisible to gloved fingers. Sentence-case labels took too long to parse. Multi-step flows confused non-native speakers.

We faced a choice: abandon Polaris entirely, or teach it to speak warehouse.

The Birth of a Dialect

We chose evolution over revolution. Working within Polaris’s core principles—clarity, efficiency, consistency—we developed what we now call a design dialect:

Constraint	Fluent Move	Rationale
Glare & low light	Dark surfaces + light text	Reduce glare on low-DPI screens
Gloves & haste	90px tap targets (~2cm)	Accommodate thick gloves
Multilingual	Single-task screens, plain language	Reduce cognitive load

Result: Task completion jumped from 0% to 100%. Onboarding time dropped from three weeks to one shift.

This wasn’t customization or theming—this was a dialect: a systematic adaptation that maintained Polaris’s core grammar while developing new vocabulary for a specific context. Polaris hadn’t failed; it had learned to speak warehouse.

The Flexibility Framework

At Atlassian, working on the Jira platform—itself a system within the larger Atlassian system—I pushed for formalizing this insight. With dozens of products sharing a design language across different codebases, we needed systematic flexibility so we built directly into our ways of working. The old model—exception requests and special approvals—was failing at scale.

We developed the Flexibility Framework to help designers define how flexible they wanted their components to be:

Tier	Action	Ownership
Consistent	Adopt unchanged	Platform locks design + code
Opinionated	Adapt within bounds	Platform provides smart defaults, products customize
Flexible	Extend freely	Platform defines behavior, products own presentation

During a navigation redesign, we tiered every element. Logo and global search stayed Consistent. Breadcrumbs and contextual actions became Flexible. Product teams could immediately see where innovation was welcome and where consistency mattered.

The Decision Ladder

Flexibility needs boundaries. We created a simple ladder for evaluating when rules should bend:

Good: Ship with existing system components. Fast, consistent, proven.

Better: Stretch a component slightly. Document the change. Contribute improvements back to the system for all to use.

Best: Prototype the ideal experience first. If user testing validates the benefit, update the system to support it.

The key question: “Which option lets users succeed fastest?”

Rules are tools, not relics.

Unity Beats Uniformity

Gmail, Drive, and Maps are unmistakably Google—yet each speaks with its own accent. They achieve unity through shared principles, not cloned components. One extra week of debate over button color costs roughly $30K in engineer time.

Unity is a brand outcome; fluency is a user outcome. When the two clash, side with the user.

Governance Without Gates

How do you maintain coherence while enabling dialects? Treat your system like a living vocabulary:

Document every deviation – e.g., dialects/warehouse.md with before/after screenshots and rationale.

Promote shared patterns – when three teams adopt a dialect independently, review it for core inclusion.

Deprecate with context – retire old idioms via flags and migration notes, never a big-bang purge.

A living dictionary scales better than a frozen rulebook.

Start Small: Your First Dialect

Ready to introduce dialects? Start with one broken experience:

This week: Find one user flow where perfect consistency blocks task completion. Could be mobile users struggling with desktop-sized components, or accessibility needs your standard patterns don’t address.

Document the context: What makes standard patterns fail here? Environmental constraints? User capabilities? Task urgency?

Design one systematic change: Focus on behavior over aesthetics. If gloves are the problem, bigger targets aren’t “”breaking the system””—they’re serving the user. Earn the variations and make them intentional.

Test and measure: Does the change improve task completion? Time to productivity? User satisfaction?

Show the savings: If that dialect frees even half a sprint, fluency has paid for itself.

Beyond the Component Library

We’re not managing design systems anymore—we’re cultivating design languages. Languages that grow with their speakers. Languages that develop accents without losing meaning. Languages that serve human needs over aesthetic ideals.

The warehouse workers who went from 0% to 100% task completion didn’t care that our buttons broke the style guide. They cared that the buttons finally worked.

Your users feel the same way. Give your system permission to speak their language.

Today’s web is not always an amiable place. Sites greet you with a popover that demands assent to their cookie policy, and leave you with Taboola ads promising “One Weird Trick!” to cure your ailments. Social media sites are tuned for engagement, and few things are more engaging than a fight. Today it seems that people want to quarrel; I have seen flame wars among birders.  

These tensions are often at odds with a site’s goals. If we are providing support and advice to customers, we don’t want those customers to wrangle with each other. If we offer news about the latest research, we want readers to feel at ease; if we promote upcoming marches, we want our core supporters to feel comfortable and we want curious newcomers to feel welcome. 

In a study for a conference on the History of the Web, I looked to the origins of Computer Science in Vienna (1928-1934)  for a case study of the importance of amiability in a research community and the disastrous consequences of its loss. That story has interesting implications for web environments that promote amiable interaction among disparate, difficult (and sometimes disagreeable) people.

The Vienna Circle

Though people had been thinking about calculating engines and thinking machines from antiquity, Computing really got going in Depression-era Vienna.  The people who worked out the theory had no interest in building machines; they wanted to puzzle out the limits of reason in the absence of divine authority. If we could not rely on God or Aristotle to tell us how to think, could we instead build arguments that were self-contained and demonstrably correct? Can we be sure that mathematics is consistent? Are there things that are true but that cannot be expressed in language? 

The core ideas were worked out in the weekly meetings (Thursdays at 6) of a group remembered as the Vienna Circle. They got together in the office of Professor Moritz Schlick at the University of Vienna to discuss problems in philosophy, math, and language. The intersection of physics and philosophy had long been a specialty of this Vienna department, and this work had placed them among the world leaders.  Schlick’s colleague Hans Hahn was a central participant, and by 1928 Hahn brought along his graduate students Karl Menger and Kurt Gödel. Other frequent participants included philosopher Rudolf Carnap, psychologist Karl Popper, economist Ludwig von Mises (brought by his brother Frederick, a physicist),  graphic designer Otto Neurath (inventor of infographics), and architect Josef Frank (brought by his physicist brother, Phillip).  Out-of-town visitors often joined, including the young Johnny von Neumann, Alfred Tarski, and the irascible Ludwig Wittgenstein. 

When Schlick’s office grew too dim, participants adjourned to a nearby café for additional discussion with an even larger circle of participants.  This convivial circle was far from unique.  An intersecting circle–Neurath, von Mises, Oskar Morgenstern–established the Austrian School of free-market economics. There were theatrical circles (Peter Lorre, Hedy Lamarr, Max Reinhardt), and literary circles. The café was where things happened.

The interdisciplinarity of the group posed real challenges of temperament and understanding. Personalities were often a challenge. Gödel was convinced people were trying to poison him. Architect Josef Frank depended on contracts for public housing, which Mises opposed as wasteful. Wittgenstein’s temper had lost him his job as a secondary school teacher, and for some of these years he maintained a detailed list of whom he was willing to meet. Neurath was eager to detect muddled thinking and would interrupt a speaker with a shouted “Metaphysics!” The continuing amity of these meetings was facilitated by the personality of their leader, Moritz Schlick, who would be remembered as notably adept in keeping disagreements from becoming quarrels.

In the Café

The Viennese café of this era was long remembered as a particularly good place to argue with your friends, to read, and to write. Built to serve an imperial capital, the cafés found themselves with too much space and too few customers now that the Empire was gone. There was no need to turn tables: a café could only survive by coaxing customers to linger. Perhaps they would order another coffee, or one of their friends might drop by. One could play chess, or billiards, or read newspapers from abroad. Coffee was invariably served with a glass of purified spring water, still a novelty in an era in which most water was still unsafe to drink. That water glass would be refilled indefinitely. 

In the basement of one café, the poet Jura Soyfer staged “The End Of The World,” a musical comedy in which Professor Peep has discovered a comet heading for earth.

Prof. Peep: The comet is going to destroy everybody!

Hitler:  Destroying everybody is my business.

Of course, coffee can be prepared in many ways, and the Viennese café developed a broad vocabulary to represent precisely how one preferred to drink it: melange, Einspänner, Brauner, Schwarzer, Kapuziner. This extensive customization, with correspondingly esoteric conventions of service, established the café as a comfortable and personal third space, a neutral ground in which anyone who could afford a coffee would be welcome. Viennese of this era were fastidious in their use of personal titles, of which an abundance were in common use. Café waiters greeted regular customers with titles too, but were careful to address their patrons with titles a notch or two greater than they deserved. A graduate student would be Doktor, an unpaid postdoc Professor.  This assurance mattered all the more because so many members of the Circle (and so many other Viennese) came from elsewhere: Carnap from Wuppertal, Gödel from Brno, von Neumann from Budapest. No one was going to make fun of your clothes, mannerisms, or accent. Your friends wouldn’t be bothered by the pram in the hall. Everyone shared a Germanic Austrian literary and philosophical culture, not least those whose ancestors had been Eastern European Jews who knew that culture well, having read all about it in books.

The amiability of the café circle was enhanced by its openness. Because the circle sometimes extended to architects and actors, people could feel less constrained to admit shortfalls in their understanding. It was soon discovered that marble tabletops made a useful surface for pencil sketches, serving all as an improvised and accessible blackboard.

Comedies like “The End Of The World” and fictional newspaper sketches or feuilletons of writers like Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig served as a second defense against disagreeable or churlish behavior. The knowledge that, if one got carried away, a parody of one’s remarks might shortly appear in Neue Freie Presse surely helped Professor Schlick keep matters in hand.

The End Of Red Vienna

Though Austria’s government drifted to the right after the War, Vienna’s city council had been Socialist, dedicated to public housing based on user-centered design, and embracing  ambitious programs of public outreach and adult education. In 1934 the Socialists lost a local election, and this era soon came to its end as the new administration focused on the imagined threat of the International Jewish Conspiracy. Most members of the Circle fled within months: von Neumann to Princeton, Neurath to Holland and Oxford, Popper to New Zealand, Carnap to Chicago. Prof. Schlick was murdered on the steps of the University by a student outraged by his former association with Jews.  Jura Soyfer, who wrote “The End Of The World,” died in Buchenwald.

In 1939, von Neumann finally convinced Gödel to accept a job in Princeton. Gödel was required to pay large fines to emigrate. The officer in charge of these fees would look back on this as the best posting of his career; his name was Eichmann.

Design for Amiability

An impressive literature recounts those discussions and the environment that facilitated the development of computing. How can we design for amiability?  This is not just a matter of choosing rounded typefaces and a cheerful pastel palette. I believe we may identify eight distinct issues that exert design forces in usefully amiable directions.

Seriousness: The Vienna Circle was wrestling with a notoriously difficult book—Wittgenstein’s Tractus Logico-Philosophicus—and a catalog of outstanding open questions in mathematics. They were concerned with consequential problems, not merely scoring points for debating. Constant reminders that the questions you are considering matter—not only that they are consequential or that those opposing you are scoundrels—help promote amity.

Empiricism: The characteristic approach of the Vienna Circle demanded that knowledge be grounded either in direct observation or in rigorous reasoning. Disagreement, when it arose, could be settled by observation or by proof. If neither seemed ready to hand, the matter could not be settled. On these terms, one can seldom if ever demolish an opposing argument, and trolling is pointless.

Abstraction: Disputes grow worse when losing the argument entails lost face or lost jobs. The Vienna Circle’s focus on theory—the limits of mathematics, the capability of language—promoted amity. Without seriousness, abstraction could have been merely academic, but the limits of reason and the consistency of mathematics were clearly serious.

Formality: The punctilious demeanor of waiters and the elaborated rituals of coffee service helped to establish orderly attitudes amongst the argumentative participants. This stands in contrast to the contemptuous sneer that now dominates social media.  

Schlamperei: Members of the Vienna Circle maintained a global correspondence, and they knew their work was at the frontier of research. Still, this was Vienna, at the margins of Europe: old-fashioned, frumpy, and dingy. Many participants came from even more obscure backwaters. Most or all harbored the suspicion that they were really schleppers, and a tinge of the ridiculous helped to moderate tempers. The director of “The End Of The World” had to pass the hat for money to purchase a moon for the set, and thought it was funny enough to write up for publication.

Openness: All sorts of people were involved in discussion, anyone might join in. Each week would bring different participants. Fluid borders reduce tension, and provide opportunities to broaden the range of discussion and the terms of engagement. Low entrance friction was characteristic of the café: anyone could come, and if you came twice you were virtually a regular. Permeable boundaries and café culture made it easier for moderating influences to draw in raconteurs and storytellers to defuse awkward moments, and Vienna’s cafés had no shortage of humorists. Openness counteracts the suspicion that promoters of amiability are exerting censorship.

Parody: The environs of the Circle—the university office and the café—were unmistakably public. There were writers about, some of them renowned humorists. The prospect that one’s bad taste or bad behavior might be ridiculed in print kept discussion within bounds. The sanction of public humiliation, however, was itself made mild by the veneer of fiction; even if you got a little carried away and a character based on you made a splash in some newspaper fiction, it wasn’t the end of the world.

Engagement: The subject matter was important to the participants, but it was esoteric: it did not matter very much to their mothers or their siblings. A small stumble or a minor humiliation could be shrugged off in ways that major media confrontations cannot.

I believe it is notable that this environment was designed to promote amiability through several different voices.  The café waiter flattered each newcomer and served everyone, and also kept out local pickpockets and drunks who would be mere disruptions. Schlick and other regulars kept discussion moving and on track. The fiction writers and raconteurs—perhaps the most peripheral of the participants—kept people in a good mood and reminded them that bad behavior could make anyone ridiculous.  Crucially, each of these voices were human: you could reason with them. Algorithmic or AI moderators, however clever, are seldom perceived as reasonable. The café circles had no central authority or Moderator against whom everyone’s resentments might be focused. Even after the disaster of 1934, what people remembered were those cheerful arguments.

Movies are packed with small details, clever tricks, and behind-the-scenes stories that most viewers never notice. Some are fun bits of trivia, others reveal how creative filmmakers can be when solving problems or adding personality to a scene. These are the kind of details you remember and bring up later, especially on a rewatch. This list collects fifteen fun film facts that are easy to remember and even better to share.

The post 15 Fun Film Facts to Cram Into Your Noggin appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Orville surprised many when it debuted in 2017 and became the ultimate love letter to the Star Trek franchise. Given that it wasn’t actually a Star Trek show, and Trek itself was going in a very different direction at the time, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy drama had all the necessary heart to appeal to Trek fans who weren’t quite sure they could stick with the “NuTrek” mission.

Though it initially struggled to find a good balance between comedy and drama, The Orville soon hit its stride and became one of the best shows on TV, delivering some absolutely fantastic episodes throughout its three-season run.

Four years after its last season unfolded, we’re still waiting on a new season of The Orville. There’s certainly one planned, but in the meantime, let’s look back at the best episodes of the show to date.

“Pria”

Season 1 Episode 5

Charlize Theron is arguably the biggest guest star to appear on The Orville, and she did it all the way back in season 1. MacFarlane and Theron have been close friends ever since they starred alongside each other in A Million Ways to Die in the West, so they probably had a great time making “Pria,” one of the standout episodes of the show’s first season, especially with Star Trek’s own Will Riker, Jonathan Frakes, at the helm!

Theron is wicked in the early instalment as Pria Lavesque, who is rescued from her troubled mining ship by The Orville and charms Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane,) but isn’t quite what she seems. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Alara (Halston Sage) soon dig deeper, and when it’s discovered that Pria is a time-traveller who intends to sell the ship and abandon the crew, the Orville gang must work together to stop her. Though that’s the meat of “Pria,” there’s also an incredible little side story between Malloy (Scott Grimes) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) involving the concept of jokes that leads to Malloy getting his leg cut off.

“Mad Idolatry”

Season 1 Episode 12

Grayson finds herself in a bizarre situation after her shuttle team crashes on a planet that only appears in The Orville’s universe every 11 days. 700 years pass between Grayson’s first visit and the next appearance, and in the meantime, she’s become a goddess to the burgeoning civilization that lives there. Not loving that the planet’s inhabitants are worshipping Grayson, she and Mercer try to tell them the truth, but it only leads to more religious turmoil. Luckily, Isaac is fine with staying behind on the next 700-year haul to move them away from their Grayson-era idolatry.

“Mad Idolatry” is a fan favorite for a reason because it explores the tricky role that religion plays in a society’s development. As the episode concludes, the planet’s representatives even manage to make Grayson feel a little better about the centuries of war and bloodshed that followed her initial appearance by telling her that if it hadn’t been her, they’d have found someone else to worship as a deity, conceding that it’s likely part of every culture’s evolution.

“Identity Part 1 & 2”

Season 2 Episodes 8 & 9

Everything changes halfway through the second season of The Orville when the ship takes a trip to Isaac’s homeworld, Kaylon 1, in an attempt to revive their favorite android Science Officer after he suddenly shuts down. Leading up to the excursion, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has embarked on a romantic relationship with Isaac, so when the crew is informed that Isaac has completed his Union mission and that he wants to remain on his home planet, everyone is sad, including Dr. Finn. Meanwhile, her son makes a grim discovery when he finds billions of humanoid remains underground. It turns out that the Kaylon overthrew and killed their creators, and Isaac was sent by the Kaylon to determine whether they could coexist with the Planetary Union. Deciding that they can’t, they motor toward Earth to exterminate all life and expand their dominance in the universe.

This is basically The Orville’s version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds,” with the crew racing against time to stop the Kaylon from killing everyone on Earth by tapping into the humanity that’s grown in Isaac during his mission. It’s tense, dramatic, action-packed, and one hell of a double punch.

“Lasting Impressions”

Season 2 Episode 11

“Lasting Impressions” is that rare episode of The Orville to make it to memetown. The scene where Bortus (Peter Macon) and his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) discover cigarettes is hilarious for anyone who’s ever taken up smoking, and social media agrees, with the clip popping up every few months and tickling people who have never even seen the show.

The pair’s addiction to nicotine is beyond the pale, but it’s only a sub-plot in this story, which is a spin on the creepy Leah Brahms episodes of The Next Generation, where Gordon becomes obsessed with a simulation of a 21st-century woman called Laura (Leighton Meester) after the crew finds her cell phone in a time capsule. Unlike Geordi La Forge’s scenario, everyone knows that Gordon’s antics are tragic and lonely, including Gordon (eventually.) The simulated Laura is also written with her own agency rather than as a fantasy version of the character that panders to Gordon. It’s a modern update of the story, written by a woman, that acknowledges boundaries and consent in a way that TNG struggled with all those years ago.

“The Road Not Taken”

Season 2 Episode 14

The season 2 finale takes a bold turn, as Grayson’s failed memory wipe from the previous episode leads to a new timeline in “The Road Not Taken.” To put it bluntly, everything is a total mess. Since Grayson never dated Mercer, the butterfly effect of her choices means that the Orville crew never stopped the Kaylon from destroying Earth, and now the android race is rampaging through the galaxy.

Grayson manages to reunite most of the crew and explains the situation, and there’s a terrific surprise appearance from an alternate version of former Chief of Security Alara Kitan, who resigned earlier in the season. Thankfully, they all pull together to correct the timeline, but the episode is certainly a grim vision of how the universe might have ended up if the events of the “Identity” two-parter had gone differently.

“A Tale of Two Topas”

Season 3 Episode 5

This heartwrenching season 3 explores the gender assignment decisions made by The Orville’s Moclan couple, Bortus and Klyden. Their species is supposed to be strictly male, and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum) was assigned male at birth, despite being born female. When Topa subsequently struggles with their gender identity and informs Grayson that they wish to be female again, this complicates the political alliance between the Union and the Moclans, who would leave the Union if the crew granted Topa’s wishes. Not only that, Klyden is furiously opposed to altering Topa’s gender, leading to a breakup when Bortus supports her.

Themes of identity, autonomy and parental love are explored without hesitation in the episode, along with how different societies handle gender diversity. MacFarlane wrote and directed “A Tale of Two Topas” himself, proving (if there was ever any doubt) that he’s much more than crass jokes and silly voices.

“Twice in a Lifetime”

Season 3 Episode 6

“Twice in a Lifetime” is a devastating episode that shows us what happens when Gordon is accidentally sent back in time to 2015. After years of isolation and diligent adherence to the rules of time travel, Gordon finally breaks them, falling in love with the real-life version of the woman he recreated in the simulation from “Lasting Impressions,” and starting a family with her. When the crew arrives to rescue him in 2025, Gordon refuses to return, in violation of Union law. Making a difficult decision, they use dysonium to jump back in time to a month after Gordon arrives in 2015. They pick him up and consequently erase his family.

Grayson and Mercer decide to tell Gordon that they prevented his romance with Laura and his children from ever existing, but he isn’t too bothered because he knows it was the right thing to do. The Gordon who doesn’t know any better might not be too fussed, but the audience is made to feel the true weight of the decision, knowing the happiness that Gordon lost and will likely never find again.

“Domino”

Season 3 Episode 9

Acting as the penultimate episode of the series (for now,) “Domino” wraps up some loose ends between the Union and the races it now finds itself at odds with. The Moclans have joined forces with the Krill, but there’s “good” news when Isaac and ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) feel the Kaylon threat could be extinguished thanks to a newly invented device capable of wiping out their fleet.

The Union isn’t quite sure about a possible Kaylon genocide, so it decides to use the device as leverage to settle things with them, but the admiral hands the weapon over to the Krill so they can do what the Union can’t bring itself to do, leading the Union into a brief alliance with the Kaylon to battle the new Moclan/Krill threat. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the device, and the Kaylon reconsider their judgment of the Union as a result. The alliance continues, and Isaac honors Charly’s sacrifice at her funeral.

“Domino” somehow has epic finale energy while still managing to tackle the shades of gray within the ethics of war, as the Union wrestles with destroying their enemy at a massive galactic cost. It’s a difficult balance, and the results are hard to beat.

The post The Best Episodes of The Orville appeared first on Den of Geek.

Some villains choose lab coats over capes. ‘Evil doctors’ are one of fiction’s most unsettling archetypes, blending intelligence with a complete disregard for ethics. From figures like Dr. Hannibal Lecter to modern examples like Rick Sanchez, these characters are represent a willingness to push science far beyond moral limits.

Whether driven by curiosity, power, or obsession, they often believe they are justified, which makes everything even more disturbing. We will explore some of the most memorable doctors in fiction, who turned their skillset into something unspeakably dangerous.

The post The 14 Most Evil Doctors of Movies and TV appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Orville surprised many when it debuted in 2017 and became the ultimate love letter to the Star Trek franchise. Given that it wasn’t actually a Star Trek show, and Trek itself was going in a very different direction at the time, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy drama had all the necessary heart to appeal to Trek fans who weren’t quite sure they could stick with the “NuTrek” mission.

Though it initially struggled to find a good balance between comedy and drama, The Orville soon hit its stride and became one of the best shows on TV, delivering some absolutely fantastic episodes throughout its three-season run.

Four years after its last season unfolded, we’re still waiting on a new season of The Orville. There’s certainly one planned, but in the meantime, let’s look back at the best episodes of the show to date.

“Pria”

Season 1 Episode 5

Charlize Theron is arguably the biggest guest star to appear on The Orville, and she did it all the way back in season 1. MacFarlane and Theron have been close friends ever since they starred alongside each other in A Million Ways to Die in the West, so they probably had a great time making “Pria,” one of the standout episodes of the show’s first season, especially with Star Trek’s own Will Riker, Jonathan Frakes, at the helm!

Theron is wicked in the early instalment as Pria Lavesque, who is rescued from her troubled mining ship by The Orville and charms Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane,) but isn’t quite what she seems. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Alara (Halston Sage) soon dig deeper, and when it’s discovered that Pria is a time-traveller who intends to sell the ship and abandon the crew, the Orville gang must work together to stop her. Though that’s the meat of “Pria,” there’s also an incredible little side story between Malloy (Scott Grimes) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) involving the concept of jokes that leads to Malloy getting his leg cut off.

“Mad Idolatry”

Season 1 Episode 12

Grayson finds herself in a bizarre situation after her shuttle team crashes on a planet that only appears in The Orville’s universe every 11 days. 700 years pass between Grayson’s first visit and the next appearance, and in the meantime, she’s become a goddess to the burgeoning civilization that lives there. Not loving that the planet’s inhabitants are worshipping Grayson, she and Mercer try to tell them the truth, but it only leads to more religious turmoil. Luckily, Isaac is fine with staying behind on the next 700-year haul to move them away from their Grayson-era idolatry.

“Mad Idolatry” is a fan favorite for a reason because it explores the tricky role that religion plays in a society’s development. As the episode concludes, the planet’s representatives even manage to make Grayson feel a little better about the centuries of war and bloodshed that followed her initial appearance by telling her that if it hadn’t been her, they’d have found someone else to worship as a deity, conceding that it’s likely part of every culture’s evolution.

“Identity Part 1 & 2”

Season 2 Episodes 8 & 9

Everything changes halfway through the second season of The Orville when the ship takes a trip to Isaac’s homeworld, Kaylon 1, in an attempt to revive their favorite android Science Officer after he suddenly shuts down. Leading up to the excursion, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has embarked on a romantic relationship with Isaac, so when the crew is informed that Isaac has completed his Union mission and that he wants to remain on his home planet, everyone is sad, including Dr. Finn. Meanwhile, her son makes a grim discovery when he finds billions of humanoid remains underground. It turns out that the Kaylon overthrew and killed their creators, and Isaac was sent by the Kaylon to determine whether they could coexist with the Planetary Union. Deciding that they can’t, they motor toward Earth to exterminate all life and expand their dominance in the universe.

This is basically The Orville’s version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds,” with the crew racing against time to stop the Kaylon from killing everyone on Earth by tapping into the humanity that’s grown in Isaac during his mission. It’s tense, dramatic, action-packed, and one hell of a double punch.

“Lasting Impressions”

Season 2 Episode 11

“Lasting Impressions” is that rare episode of The Orville to make it to memetown. The scene where Bortus (Peter Macon) and his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) discover cigarettes is hilarious for anyone who’s ever taken up smoking, and social media agrees, with the clip popping up every few months and tickling people who have never even seen the show.

The pair’s addiction to nicotine is beyond the pale, but it’s only a sub-plot in this story, which is a spin on the creepy Leah Brahms episodes of The Next Generation, where Gordon becomes obsessed with a simulation of a 21st-century woman called Laura (Leighton Meester) after the crew finds her cell phone in a time capsule. Unlike Geordi La Forge’s scenario, everyone knows that Gordon’s antics are tragic and lonely, including Gordon (eventually.) The simulated Laura is also written with her own agency rather than as a fantasy version of the character that panders to Gordon. It’s a modern update of the story, written by a woman, that acknowledges boundaries and consent in a way that TNG struggled with all those years ago.

“The Road Not Taken”

Season 2 Episode 14

The season 2 finale takes a bold turn, as Grayson’s failed memory wipe from the previous episode leads to a new timeline in “The Road Not Taken.” To put it bluntly, everything is a total mess. Since Grayson never dated Mercer, the butterfly effect of her choices means that the Orville crew never stopped the Kaylon from destroying Earth, and now the android race is rampaging through the galaxy.

Grayson manages to reunite most of the crew and explains the situation, and there’s a terrific surprise appearance from an alternate version of former Chief of Security Alara Kitan, who resigned earlier in the season. Thankfully, they all pull together to correct the timeline, but the episode is certainly a grim vision of how the universe might have ended up if the events of the “Identity” two-parter had gone differently.

“A Tale of Two Topas”

Season 3 Episode 5

This heartwrenching season 3 explores the gender assignment decisions made by The Orville’s Moclan couple, Bortus and Klyden. Their species is supposed to be strictly male, and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum) was assigned male at birth, despite being born female. When Topa subsequently struggles with their gender identity and informs Grayson that they wish to be female again, this complicates the political alliance between the Union and the Moclans, who would leave the Union if the crew granted Topa’s wishes. Not only that, Klyden is furiously opposed to altering Topa’s gender, leading to a breakup when Bortus supports her.

Themes of identity, autonomy and parental love are explored without hesitation in the episode, along with how different societies handle gender diversity. MacFarlane wrote and directed “A Tale of Two Topas” himself, proving (if there was ever any doubt) that he’s much more than crass jokes and silly voices.

“Twice in a Lifetime”

Season 3 Episode 6

“Twice in a Lifetime” is a devastating episode that shows us what happens when Gordon is accidentally sent back in time to 2015. After years of isolation and diligent adherence to the rules of time travel, Gordon finally breaks them, falling in love with the real-life version of the woman he recreated in the simulation from “Lasting Impressions,” and starting a family with her. When the crew arrives to rescue him in 2025, Gordon refuses to return, in violation of Union law. Making a difficult decision, they use dysonium to jump back in time to a month after Gordon arrives in 2015. They pick him up and consequently erase his family.

Grayson and Mercer decide to tell Gordon that they prevented his romance with Laura and his children from ever existing, but he isn’t too bothered because he knows it was the right thing to do. The Gordon who doesn’t know any better might not be too fussed, but the audience is made to feel the true weight of the decision, knowing the happiness that Gordon lost and will likely never find again.

“Domino”

Season 3 Episode 9

Acting as the penultimate episode of the series (for now,) “Domino” wraps up some loose ends between the Union and the races it now finds itself at odds with. The Moclans have joined forces with the Krill, but there’s “good” news when Isaac and ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) feel the Kaylon threat could be extinguished thanks to a newly invented device capable of wiping out their fleet.

The Union isn’t quite sure about a possible Kaylon genocide, so it decides to use the device as leverage to settle things with them, but the admiral hands the weapon over to the Krill so they can do what the Union can’t bring itself to do, leading the Union into a brief alliance with the Kaylon to battle the new Moclan/Krill threat. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the device, and the Kaylon reconsider their judgment of the Union as a result. The alliance continues, and Isaac honors Charly’s sacrifice at her funeral.

“Domino” somehow has epic finale energy while still managing to tackle the shades of gray within the ethics of war, as the Union wrestles with destroying their enemy at a massive galactic cost. It’s a difficult balance, and the results are hard to beat.

The post The Best Episodes of The Orville appeared first on Den of Geek.

Even the most carefully produced movies are not perfect. With so many scenes, takes, and technical elements involved, small errors can easily slip into the final cut. Some of these mistakes are subtle, but others are surprisingly obvious once you notice them. They can break immersion for a moment or simply make you wonder how no one caught them during editing. These details often become part of the film’s legacy, pointed out by sharp-eyed viewers over the years. This list highlights fifteen movie mistakes that somehow made it into the final version and are still hard to miss.

The post 15 Movie Mistakes We Can’t Believe Slipped Through appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Orville surprised many when it debuted in 2017 and became the ultimate love letter to the Star Trek franchise. Given that it wasn’t actually a Star Trek show, and Trek itself was going in a very different direction at the time, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy drama had all the necessary heart to appeal to Trek fans who weren’t quite sure they could stick with the “NuTrek” mission.

Though it initially struggled to find a good balance between comedy and drama, The Orville soon hit its stride and became one of the best shows on TV, delivering some absolutely fantastic episodes throughout its three-season run.

Four years after its last season unfolded, we’re still waiting on a new season of The Orville. There’s certainly one planned, but in the meantime, let’s look back at the best episodes of the show to date.

“Pria”

Season 1 Episode 5

Charlize Theron is arguably the biggest guest star to appear on The Orville, and she did it all the way back in season 1. MacFarlane and Theron have been close friends ever since they starred alongside each other in A Million Ways to Die in the West, so they probably had a great time making “Pria,” one of the standout episodes of the show’s first season, especially with Star Trek’s own Will Riker, Jonathan Frakes, at the helm!

Theron is wicked in the early instalment as Pria Lavesque, who is rescued from her troubled mining ship by The Orville and charms Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane,) but isn’t quite what she seems. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Alara (Halston Sage) soon dig deeper, and when it’s discovered that Pria is a time-traveller who intends to sell the ship and abandon the crew, the Orville gang must work together to stop her. Though that’s the meat of “Pria,” there’s also an incredible little side story between Malloy (Scott Grimes) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) involving the concept of jokes that leads to Malloy getting his leg cut off.

“Mad Idolatry”

Season 1 Episode 12

Grayson finds herself in a bizarre situation after her shuttle team crashes on a planet that only appears in The Orville’s universe every 11 days. 700 years pass between Grayson’s first visit and the next appearance, and in the meantime, she’s become a goddess to the burgeoning civilization that lives there. Not loving that the planet’s inhabitants are worshipping Grayson, she and Mercer try to tell them the truth, but it only leads to more religious turmoil. Luckily, Isaac is fine with staying behind on the next 700-year haul to move them away from their Grayson-era idolatry.

“Mad Idolatry” is a fan favorite for a reason because it explores the tricky role that religion plays in a society’s development. As the episode concludes, the planet’s representatives even manage to make Grayson feel a little better about the centuries of war and bloodshed that followed her initial appearance by telling her that if it hadn’t been her, they’d have found someone else to worship as a deity, conceding that it’s likely part of every culture’s evolution.

“Identity Part 1 & 2”

Season 2 Episodes 8 & 9

Everything changes halfway through the second season of The Orville when the ship takes a trip to Isaac’s homeworld, Kaylon 1, in an attempt to revive their favorite android Science Officer after he suddenly shuts down. Leading up to the excursion, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has embarked on a romantic relationship with Isaac, so when the crew is informed that Isaac has completed his Union mission and that he wants to remain on his home planet, everyone is sad, including Dr. Finn. Meanwhile, her son makes a grim discovery when he finds billions of humanoid remains underground. It turns out that the Kaylon overthrew and killed their creators, and Isaac was sent by the Kaylon to determine whether they could coexist with the Planetary Union. Deciding that they can’t, they motor toward Earth to exterminate all life and expand their dominance in the universe.

This is basically The Orville’s version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds,” with the crew racing against time to stop the Kaylon from killing everyone on Earth by tapping into the humanity that’s grown in Isaac during his mission. It’s tense, dramatic, action-packed, and one hell of a double punch.

“Lasting Impressions”

Season 2 Episode 11

“Lasting Impressions” is that rare episode of The Orville to make it to memetown. The scene where Bortus (Peter Macon) and his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) discover cigarettes is hilarious for anyone who’s ever taken up smoking, and social media agrees, with the clip popping up every few months and tickling people who have never even seen the show.

The pair’s addiction to nicotine is beyond the pale, but it’s only a sub-plot in this story, which is a spin on the creepy Leah Brahms episodes of The Next Generation, where Gordon becomes obsessed with a simulation of a 21st-century woman called Laura (Leighton Meester) after the crew finds her cell phone in a time capsule. Unlike Geordi La Forge’s scenario, everyone knows that Gordon’s antics are tragic and lonely, including Gordon (eventually.) The simulated Laura is also written with her own agency rather than as a fantasy version of the character that panders to Gordon. It’s a modern update of the story, written by a woman, that acknowledges boundaries and consent in a way that TNG struggled with all those years ago.

“The Road Not Taken”

Season 2 Episode 14

The season 2 finale takes a bold turn, as Grayson’s failed memory wipe from the previous episode leads to a new timeline in “The Road Not Taken.” To put it bluntly, everything is a total mess. Since Grayson never dated Mercer, the butterfly effect of her choices means that the Orville crew never stopped the Kaylon from destroying Earth, and now the android race is rampaging through the galaxy.

Grayson manages to reunite most of the crew and explains the situation, and there’s a terrific surprise appearance from an alternate version of former Chief of Security Alara Kitan, who resigned earlier in the season. Thankfully, they all pull together to correct the timeline, but the episode is certainly a grim vision of how the universe might have ended up if the events of the “Identity” two-parter had gone differently.

“A Tale of Two Topas”

Season 3 Episode 5

This heartwrenching season 3 explores the gender assignment decisions made by The Orville’s Moclan couple, Bortus and Klyden. Their species is supposed to be strictly male, and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum) was assigned male at birth, despite being born female. When Topa subsequently struggles with their gender identity and informs Grayson that they wish to be female again, this complicates the political alliance between the Union and the Moclans, who would leave the Union if the crew granted Topa’s wishes. Not only that, Klyden is furiously opposed to altering Topa’s gender, leading to a breakup when Bortus supports her.

Themes of identity, autonomy and parental love are explored without hesitation in the episode, along with how different societies handle gender diversity. MacFarlane wrote and directed “A Tale of Two Topas” himself, proving (if there was ever any doubt) that he’s much more than crass jokes and silly voices.

“Twice in a Lifetime”

Season 3 Episode 6

“Twice in a Lifetime” is a devastating episode that shows us what happens when Gordon is accidentally sent back in time to 2015. After years of isolation and diligent adherence to the rules of time travel, Gordon finally breaks them, falling in love with the real-life version of the woman he recreated in the simulation from “Lasting Impressions,” and starting a family with her. When the crew arrives to rescue him in 2025, Gordon refuses to return, in violation of Union law. Making a difficult decision, they use dysonium to jump back in time to a month after Gordon arrives in 2015. They pick him up and consequently erase his family.

Grayson and Mercer decide to tell Gordon that they prevented his romance with Laura and his children from ever existing, but he isn’t too bothered because he knows it was the right thing to do. The Gordon who doesn’t know any better might not be too fussed, but the audience is made to feel the true weight of the decision, knowing the happiness that Gordon lost and will likely never find again.

“Domino”

Season 3 Episode 9

Acting as the penultimate episode of the series (for now,) “Domino” wraps up some loose ends between the Union and the races it now finds itself at odds with. The Moclans have joined forces with the Krill, but there’s “good” news when Isaac and ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) feel the Kaylon threat could be extinguished thanks to a newly invented device capable of wiping out their fleet.

The Union isn’t quite sure about a possible Kaylon genocide, so it decides to use the device as leverage to settle things with them, but the admiral hands the weapon over to the Krill so they can do what the Union can’t bring itself to do, leading the Union into a brief alliance with the Kaylon to battle the new Moclan/Krill threat. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the device, and the Kaylon reconsider their judgment of the Union as a result. The alliance continues, and Isaac honors Charly’s sacrifice at her funeral.

“Domino” somehow has epic finale energy while still managing to tackle the shades of gray within the ethics of war, as the Union wrestles with destroying their enemy at a massive galactic cost. It’s a difficult balance, and the results are hard to beat.

The post The Best Episodes of The Orville appeared first on Den of Geek.

Before they became household names on the big screen, many actors honed their craft on stage. Theatre demands a different kind of performance, one that relies on presence, voice, and consistency night after night. That foundation often shapes the depth and versatility actors bring to film roles later in their careers. For many stars, the stage was not just a starting point, but a crucial training ground that defined their approach to acting. This list highlights twenty big-screen stars who first made their mark in the theatre, proving that great performances often begin long before the cameras start rolling.

The post 20 Big-Screen Stars That Graced the Stage First appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Orville surprised many when it debuted in 2017 and became the ultimate love letter to the Star Trek franchise. Given that it wasn’t actually a Star Trek show, and Trek itself was going in a very different direction at the time, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy drama had all the necessary heart to appeal to Trek fans who weren’t quite sure they could stick with the “NuTrek” mission.

Though it initially struggled to find a good balance between comedy and drama, The Orville soon hit its stride and became one of the best shows on TV, delivering some absolutely fantastic episodes throughout its three-season run.

Four years after its last season unfolded, we’re still waiting on a new season of The Orville. There’s certainly one planned, but in the meantime, let’s look back at the best episodes of the show to date.

“Pria”

Season 1 Episode 5

Charlize Theron is arguably the biggest guest star to appear on The Orville, and she did it all the way back in season 1. MacFarlane and Theron have been close friends ever since they starred alongside each other in A Million Ways to Die in the West, so they probably had a great time making “Pria,” one of the standout episodes of the show’s first season, especially with Star Trek’s own Will Riker, Jonathan Frakes, at the helm!

Theron is wicked in the early instalment as Pria Lavesque, who is rescued from her troubled mining ship by The Orville and charms Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane,) but isn’t quite what she seems. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Alara (Halston Sage) soon dig deeper, and when it’s discovered that Pria is a time-traveller who intends to sell the ship and abandon the crew, the Orville gang must work together to stop her. Though that’s the meat of “Pria,” there’s also an incredible little side story between Malloy (Scott Grimes) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) involving the concept of jokes that leads to Malloy getting his leg cut off.

“Mad Idolatry”

Season 1 Episode 12

Grayson finds herself in a bizarre situation after her shuttle team crashes on a planet that only appears in The Orville’s universe every 11 days. 700 years pass between Grayson’s first visit and the next appearance, and in the meantime, she’s become a goddess to the burgeoning civilization that lives there. Not loving that the planet’s inhabitants are worshipping Grayson, she and Mercer try to tell them the truth, but it only leads to more religious turmoil. Luckily, Isaac is fine with staying behind on the next 700-year haul to move them away from their Grayson-era idolatry.

“Mad Idolatry” is a fan favorite for a reason because it explores the tricky role that religion plays in a society’s development. As the episode concludes, the planet’s representatives even manage to make Grayson feel a little better about the centuries of war and bloodshed that followed her initial appearance by telling her that if it hadn’t been her, they’d have found someone else to worship as a deity, conceding that it’s likely part of every culture’s evolution.

“Identity Part 1 & 2”

Season 2 Episodes 8 & 9

Everything changes halfway through the second season of The Orville when the ship takes a trip to Isaac’s homeworld, Kaylon 1, in an attempt to revive their favorite android Science Officer after he suddenly shuts down. Leading up to the excursion, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has embarked on a romantic relationship with Isaac, so when the crew is informed that Isaac has completed his Union mission and that he wants to remain on his home planet, everyone is sad, including Dr. Finn. Meanwhile, her son makes a grim discovery when he finds billions of humanoid remains underground. It turns out that the Kaylon overthrew and killed their creators, and Isaac was sent by the Kaylon to determine whether they could coexist with the Planetary Union. Deciding that they can’t, they motor toward Earth to exterminate all life and expand their dominance in the universe.

This is basically The Orville’s version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds,” with the crew racing against time to stop the Kaylon from killing everyone on Earth by tapping into the humanity that’s grown in Isaac during his mission. It’s tense, dramatic, action-packed, and one hell of a double punch.

“Lasting Impressions”

Season 2 Episode 11

“Lasting Impressions” is that rare episode of The Orville to make it to memetown. The scene where Bortus (Peter Macon) and his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) discover cigarettes is hilarious for anyone who’s ever taken up smoking, and social media agrees, with the clip popping up every few months and tickling people who have never even seen the show.

The pair’s addiction to nicotine is beyond the pale, but it’s only a sub-plot in this story, which is a spin on the creepy Leah Brahms episodes of The Next Generation, where Gordon becomes obsessed with a simulation of a 21st-century woman called Laura (Leighton Meester) after the crew finds her cell phone in a time capsule. Unlike Geordi La Forge’s scenario, everyone knows that Gordon’s antics are tragic and lonely, including Gordon (eventually.) The simulated Laura is also written with her own agency rather than as a fantasy version of the character that panders to Gordon. It’s a modern update of the story, written by a woman, that acknowledges boundaries and consent in a way that TNG struggled with all those years ago.

“The Road Not Taken”

Season 2 Episode 14

The season 2 finale takes a bold turn, as Grayson’s failed memory wipe from the previous episode leads to a new timeline in “The Road Not Taken.” To put it bluntly, everything is a total mess. Since Grayson never dated Mercer, the butterfly effect of her choices means that the Orville crew never stopped the Kaylon from destroying Earth, and now the android race is rampaging through the galaxy.

Grayson manages to reunite most of the crew and explains the situation, and there’s a terrific surprise appearance from an alternate version of former Chief of Security Alara Kitan, who resigned earlier in the season. Thankfully, they all pull together to correct the timeline, but the episode is certainly a grim vision of how the universe might have ended up if the events of the “Identity” two-parter had gone differently.

“A Tale of Two Topas”

Season 3 Episode 5

This heartwrenching season 3 explores the gender assignment decisions made by The Orville’s Moclan couple, Bortus and Klyden. Their species is supposed to be strictly male, and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum) was assigned male at birth, despite being born female. When Topa subsequently struggles with their gender identity and informs Grayson that they wish to be female again, this complicates the political alliance between the Union and the Moclans, who would leave the Union if the crew granted Topa’s wishes. Not only that, Klyden is furiously opposed to altering Topa’s gender, leading to a breakup when Bortus supports her.

Themes of identity, autonomy and parental love are explored without hesitation in the episode, along with how different societies handle gender diversity. MacFarlane wrote and directed “A Tale of Two Topas” himself, proving (if there was ever any doubt) that he’s much more than crass jokes and silly voices.

“Twice in a Lifetime”

Season 3 Episode 6

“Twice in a Lifetime” is a devastating episode that shows us what happens when Gordon is accidentally sent back in time to 2015. After years of isolation and diligent adherence to the rules of time travel, Gordon finally breaks them, falling in love with the real-life version of the woman he recreated in the simulation from “Lasting Impressions,” and starting a family with her. When the crew arrives to rescue him in 2025, Gordon refuses to return, in violation of Union law. Making a difficult decision, they use dysonium to jump back in time to a month after Gordon arrives in 2015. They pick him up and consequently erase his family.

Grayson and Mercer decide to tell Gordon that they prevented his romance with Laura and his children from ever existing, but he isn’t too bothered because he knows it was the right thing to do. The Gordon who doesn’t know any better might not be too fussed, but the audience is made to feel the true weight of the decision, knowing the happiness that Gordon lost and will likely never find again.

“Domino”

Season 3 Episode 9

Acting as the penultimate episode of the series (for now,) “Domino” wraps up some loose ends between the Union and the races it now finds itself at odds with. The Moclans have joined forces with the Krill, but there’s “good” news when Isaac and ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) feel the Kaylon threat could be extinguished thanks to a newly invented device capable of wiping out their fleet.

The Union isn’t quite sure about a possible Kaylon genocide, so it decides to use the device as leverage to settle things with them, but the admiral hands the weapon over to the Krill so they can do what the Union can’t bring itself to do, leading the Union into a brief alliance with the Kaylon to battle the new Moclan/Krill threat. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the device, and the Kaylon reconsider their judgment of the Union as a result. The alliance continues, and Isaac honors Charly’s sacrifice at her funeral.

“Domino” somehow has epic finale energy while still managing to tackle the shades of gray within the ethics of war, as the Union wrestles with destroying their enemy at a massive galactic cost. It’s a difficult balance, and the results are hard to beat.

The post The Best Episodes of The Orville appeared first on Den of Geek.

Not every big movie leaves a lasting legacy. Some arrive with massive expectations, big stars, and huge budgets, only to quietly fade away after disappointing audiences and critics alike. Over time, these films are rarely revisited, discussed, or even remembered, as if everyone collectively agreed to move on. What makes them interesting is not just that they failed, but how quickly they disappeared from the conversation despite all the attention they once had. This list looks at fifteen movies we like to forget were ever made, the kind of big flops that somehow slipped out of pop culture memory.

The post 15 Movies We Like to Forget Were Ever Made appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Orville surprised many when it debuted in 2017 and became the ultimate love letter to the Star Trek franchise. Given that it wasn’t actually a Star Trek show, and Trek itself was going in a very different direction at the time, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy drama had all the necessary heart to appeal to Trek fans who weren’t quite sure they could stick with the “NuTrek” mission.

Though it initially struggled to find a good balance between comedy and drama, The Orville soon hit its stride and became one of the best shows on TV, delivering some absolutely fantastic episodes throughout its three-season run.

Four years after its last season unfolded, we’re still waiting on a new season of The Orville. There’s certainly one planned, but in the meantime, let’s look back at the best episodes of the show to date.

“Pria”

Season 1 Episode 5

Charlize Theron is arguably the biggest guest star to appear on The Orville, and she did it all the way back in season 1. MacFarlane and Theron have been close friends ever since they starred alongside each other in A Million Ways to Die in the West, so they probably had a great time making “Pria,” one of the standout episodes of the show’s first season, especially with Star Trek’s own Will Riker, Jonathan Frakes, at the helm!

Theron is wicked in the early instalment as Pria Lavesque, who is rescued from her troubled mining ship by The Orville and charms Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane,) but isn’t quite what she seems. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Alara (Halston Sage) soon dig deeper, and when it’s discovered that Pria is a time-traveller who intends to sell the ship and abandon the crew, the Orville gang must work together to stop her. Though that’s the meat of “Pria,” there’s also an incredible little side story between Malloy (Scott Grimes) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) involving the concept of jokes that leads to Malloy getting his leg cut off.

“Mad Idolatry”

Season 1 Episode 12

Grayson finds herself in a bizarre situation after her shuttle team crashes on a planet that only appears in The Orville’s universe every 11 days. 700 years pass between Grayson’s first visit and the next appearance, and in the meantime, she’s become a goddess to the burgeoning civilization that lives there. Not loving that the planet’s inhabitants are worshipping Grayson, she and Mercer try to tell them the truth, but it only leads to more religious turmoil. Luckily, Isaac is fine with staying behind on the next 700-year haul to move them away from their Grayson-era idolatry.

“Mad Idolatry” is a fan favorite for a reason because it explores the tricky role that religion plays in a society’s development. As the episode concludes, the planet’s representatives even manage to make Grayson feel a little better about the centuries of war and bloodshed that followed her initial appearance by telling her that if it hadn’t been her, they’d have found someone else to worship as a deity, conceding that it’s likely part of every culture’s evolution.

“Identity Part 1 & 2”

Season 2 Episodes 8 & 9

Everything changes halfway through the second season of The Orville when the ship takes a trip to Isaac’s homeworld, Kaylon 1, in an attempt to revive their favorite android Science Officer after he suddenly shuts down. Leading up to the excursion, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has embarked on a romantic relationship with Isaac, so when the crew is informed that Isaac has completed his Union mission and that he wants to remain on his home planet, everyone is sad, including Dr. Finn. Meanwhile, her son makes a grim discovery when he finds billions of humanoid remains underground. It turns out that the Kaylon overthrew and killed their creators, and Isaac was sent by the Kaylon to determine whether they could coexist with the Planetary Union. Deciding that they can’t, they motor toward Earth to exterminate all life and expand their dominance in the universe.

This is basically The Orville’s version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds,” with the crew racing against time to stop the Kaylon from killing everyone on Earth by tapping into the humanity that’s grown in Isaac during his mission. It’s tense, dramatic, action-packed, and one hell of a double punch.

“Lasting Impressions”

Season 2 Episode 11

“Lasting Impressions” is that rare episode of The Orville to make it to memetown. The scene where Bortus (Peter Macon) and his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) discover cigarettes is hilarious for anyone who’s ever taken up smoking, and social media agrees, with the clip popping up every few months and tickling people who have never even seen the show.

The pair’s addiction to nicotine is beyond the pale, but it’s only a sub-plot in this story, which is a spin on the creepy Leah Brahms episodes of The Next Generation, where Gordon becomes obsessed with a simulation of a 21st-century woman called Laura (Leighton Meester) after the crew finds her cell phone in a time capsule. Unlike Geordi La Forge’s scenario, everyone knows that Gordon’s antics are tragic and lonely, including Gordon (eventually.) The simulated Laura is also written with her own agency rather than as a fantasy version of the character that panders to Gordon. It’s a modern update of the story, written by a woman, that acknowledges boundaries and consent in a way that TNG struggled with all those years ago.

“The Road Not Taken”

Season 2 Episode 14

The season 2 finale takes a bold turn, as Grayson’s failed memory wipe from the previous episode leads to a new timeline in “The Road Not Taken.” To put it bluntly, everything is a total mess. Since Grayson never dated Mercer, the butterfly effect of her choices means that the Orville crew never stopped the Kaylon from destroying Earth, and now the android race is rampaging through the galaxy.

Grayson manages to reunite most of the crew and explains the situation, and there’s a terrific surprise appearance from an alternate version of former Chief of Security Alara Kitan, who resigned earlier in the season. Thankfully, they all pull together to correct the timeline, but the episode is certainly a grim vision of how the universe might have ended up if the events of the “Identity” two-parter had gone differently.

“A Tale of Two Topas”

Season 3 Episode 5

This heartwrenching season 3 explores the gender assignment decisions made by The Orville’s Moclan couple, Bortus and Klyden. Their species is supposed to be strictly male, and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum) was assigned male at birth, despite being born female. When Topa subsequently struggles with their gender identity and informs Grayson that they wish to be female again, this complicates the political alliance between the Union and the Moclans, who would leave the Union if the crew granted Topa’s wishes. Not only that, Klyden is furiously opposed to altering Topa’s gender, leading to a breakup when Bortus supports her.

Themes of identity, autonomy and parental love are explored without hesitation in the episode, along with how different societies handle gender diversity. MacFarlane wrote and directed “A Tale of Two Topas” himself, proving (if there was ever any doubt) that he’s much more than crass jokes and silly voices.

“Twice in a Lifetime”

Season 3 Episode 6

“Twice in a Lifetime” is a devastating episode that shows us what happens when Gordon is accidentally sent back in time to 2015. After years of isolation and diligent adherence to the rules of time travel, Gordon finally breaks them, falling in love with the real-life version of the woman he recreated in the simulation from “Lasting Impressions,” and starting a family with her. When the crew arrives to rescue him in 2025, Gordon refuses to return, in violation of Union law. Making a difficult decision, they use dysonium to jump back in time to a month after Gordon arrives in 2015. They pick him up and consequently erase his family.

Grayson and Mercer decide to tell Gordon that they prevented his romance with Laura and his children from ever existing, but he isn’t too bothered because he knows it was the right thing to do. The Gordon who doesn’t know any better might not be too fussed, but the audience is made to feel the true weight of the decision, knowing the happiness that Gordon lost and will likely never find again.

“Domino”

Season 3 Episode 9

Acting as the penultimate episode of the series (for now,) “Domino” wraps up some loose ends between the Union and the races it now finds itself at odds with. The Moclans have joined forces with the Krill, but there’s “good” news when Isaac and ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) feel the Kaylon threat could be extinguished thanks to a newly invented device capable of wiping out their fleet.

The Union isn’t quite sure about a possible Kaylon genocide, so it decides to use the device as leverage to settle things with them, but the admiral hands the weapon over to the Krill so they can do what the Union can’t bring itself to do, leading the Union into a brief alliance with the Kaylon to battle the new Moclan/Krill threat. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the device, and the Kaylon reconsider their judgment of the Union as a result. The alliance continues, and Isaac honors Charly’s sacrifice at her funeral.

“Domino” somehow has epic finale energy while still managing to tackle the shades of gray within the ethics of war, as the Union wrestles with destroying their enemy at a massive galactic cost. It’s a difficult balance, and the results are hard to beat.

The post The Best Episodes of The Orville appeared first on Den of Geek.

Some movies stick with you long after the credits roll, unsettling you, shocking you, or haunting you in ways that are hard to shake. Ask Reddit users shared the films that really messed them up mentally, and their answers ranged from psychological horrors to unexpectedly dark dramas. This list collects twenty films that left a lasting impact on viewers, showing just how far cinema can reach beyond simple entertainment.

The post 20 People Share the Movie That Messed Them Up in the Head appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Orville surprised many when it debuted in 2017 and became the ultimate love letter to the Star Trek franchise. Given that it wasn’t actually a Star Trek show, and Trek itself was going in a very different direction at the time, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy drama had all the necessary heart to appeal to Trek fans who weren’t quite sure they could stick with the “NuTrek” mission.

Though it initially struggled to find a good balance between comedy and drama, The Orville soon hit its stride and became one of the best shows on TV, delivering some absolutely fantastic episodes throughout its three-season run.

Four years after its last season unfolded, we’re still waiting on a new season of The Orville. There’s certainly one planned, but in the meantime, let’s look back at the best episodes of the show to date.

“Pria”

Season 1 Episode 5

Charlize Theron is arguably the biggest guest star to appear on The Orville, and she did it all the way back in season 1. MacFarlane and Theron have been close friends ever since they starred alongside each other in A Million Ways to Die in the West, so they probably had a great time making “Pria,” one of the standout episodes of the show’s first season, especially with Star Trek’s own Will Riker, Jonathan Frakes, at the helm!

Theron is wicked in the early instalment as Pria Lavesque, who is rescued from her troubled mining ship by The Orville and charms Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane,) but isn’t quite what she seems. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Alara (Halston Sage) soon dig deeper, and when it’s discovered that Pria is a time-traveller who intends to sell the ship and abandon the crew, the Orville gang must work together to stop her. Though that’s the meat of “Pria,” there’s also an incredible little side story between Malloy (Scott Grimes) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) involving the concept of jokes that leads to Malloy getting his leg cut off.

“Mad Idolatry”

Season 1 Episode 12

Grayson finds herself in a bizarre situation after her shuttle team crashes on a planet that only appears in The Orville’s universe every 11 days. 700 years pass between Grayson’s first visit and the next appearance, and in the meantime, she’s become a goddess to the burgeoning civilization that lives there. Not loving that the planet’s inhabitants are worshipping Grayson, she and Mercer try to tell them the truth, but it only leads to more religious turmoil. Luckily, Isaac is fine with staying behind on the next 700-year haul to move them away from their Grayson-era idolatry.

“Mad Idolatry” is a fan favorite for a reason because it explores the tricky role that religion plays in a society’s development. As the episode concludes, the planet’s representatives even manage to make Grayson feel a little better about the centuries of war and bloodshed that followed her initial appearance by telling her that if it hadn’t been her, they’d have found someone else to worship as a deity, conceding that it’s likely part of every culture’s evolution.

“Identity Part 1 & 2”

Season 2 Episodes 8 & 9

Everything changes halfway through the second season of The Orville when the ship takes a trip to Isaac’s homeworld, Kaylon 1, in an attempt to revive their favorite android Science Officer after he suddenly shuts down. Leading up to the excursion, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has embarked on a romantic relationship with Isaac, so when the crew is informed that Isaac has completed his Union mission and that he wants to remain on his home planet, everyone is sad, including Dr. Finn. Meanwhile, her son makes a grim discovery when he finds billions of humanoid remains underground. It turns out that the Kaylon overthrew and killed their creators, and Isaac was sent by the Kaylon to determine whether they could coexist with the Planetary Union. Deciding that they can’t, they motor toward Earth to exterminate all life and expand their dominance in the universe.

This is basically The Orville’s version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds,” with the crew racing against time to stop the Kaylon from killing everyone on Earth by tapping into the humanity that’s grown in Isaac during his mission. It’s tense, dramatic, action-packed, and one hell of a double punch.

“Lasting Impressions”

Season 2 Episode 11

“Lasting Impressions” is that rare episode of The Orville to make it to memetown. The scene where Bortus (Peter Macon) and his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) discover cigarettes is hilarious for anyone who’s ever taken up smoking, and social media agrees, with the clip popping up every few months and tickling people who have never even seen the show.

The pair’s addiction to nicotine is beyond the pale, but it’s only a sub-plot in this story, which is a spin on the creepy Leah Brahms episodes of The Next Generation, where Gordon becomes obsessed with a simulation of a 21st-century woman called Laura (Leighton Meester) after the crew finds her cell phone in a time capsule. Unlike Geordi La Forge’s scenario, everyone knows that Gordon’s antics are tragic and lonely, including Gordon (eventually.) The simulated Laura is also written with her own agency rather than as a fantasy version of the character that panders to Gordon. It’s a modern update of the story, written by a woman, that acknowledges boundaries and consent in a way that TNG struggled with all those years ago.

“The Road Not Taken”

Season 2 Episode 14

The season 2 finale takes a bold turn, as Grayson’s failed memory wipe from the previous episode leads to a new timeline in “The Road Not Taken.” To put it bluntly, everything is a total mess. Since Grayson never dated Mercer, the butterfly effect of her choices means that the Orville crew never stopped the Kaylon from destroying Earth, and now the android race is rampaging through the galaxy.

Grayson manages to reunite most of the crew and explains the situation, and there’s a terrific surprise appearance from an alternate version of former Chief of Security Alara Kitan, who resigned earlier in the season. Thankfully, they all pull together to correct the timeline, but the episode is certainly a grim vision of how the universe might have ended up if the events of the “Identity” two-parter had gone differently.

“A Tale of Two Topas”

Season 3 Episode 5

This heartwrenching season 3 explores the gender assignment decisions made by The Orville’s Moclan couple, Bortus and Klyden. Their species is supposed to be strictly male, and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum) was assigned male at birth, despite being born female. When Topa subsequently struggles with their gender identity and informs Grayson that they wish to be female again, this complicates the political alliance between the Union and the Moclans, who would leave the Union if the crew granted Topa’s wishes. Not only that, Klyden is furiously opposed to altering Topa’s gender, leading to a breakup when Bortus supports her.

Themes of identity, autonomy and parental love are explored without hesitation in the episode, along with how different societies handle gender diversity. MacFarlane wrote and directed “A Tale of Two Topas” himself, proving (if there was ever any doubt) that he’s much more than crass jokes and silly voices.

“Twice in a Lifetime”

Season 3 Episode 6

“Twice in a Lifetime” is a devastating episode that shows us what happens when Gordon is accidentally sent back in time to 2015. After years of isolation and diligent adherence to the rules of time travel, Gordon finally breaks them, falling in love with the real-life version of the woman he recreated in the simulation from “Lasting Impressions,” and starting a family with her. When the crew arrives to rescue him in 2025, Gordon refuses to return, in violation of Union law. Making a difficult decision, they use dysonium to jump back in time to a month after Gordon arrives in 2015. They pick him up and consequently erase his family.

Grayson and Mercer decide to tell Gordon that they prevented his romance with Laura and his children from ever existing, but he isn’t too bothered because he knows it was the right thing to do. The Gordon who doesn’t know any better might not be too fussed, but the audience is made to feel the true weight of the decision, knowing the happiness that Gordon lost and will likely never find again.

“Domino”

Season 3 Episode 9

Acting as the penultimate episode of the series (for now,) “Domino” wraps up some loose ends between the Union and the races it now finds itself at odds with. The Moclans have joined forces with the Krill, but there’s “good” news when Isaac and ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) feel the Kaylon threat could be extinguished thanks to a newly invented device capable of wiping out their fleet.

The Union isn’t quite sure about a possible Kaylon genocide, so it decides to use the device as leverage to settle things with them, but the admiral hands the weapon over to the Krill so they can do what the Union can’t bring itself to do, leading the Union into a brief alliance with the Kaylon to battle the new Moclan/Krill threat. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the device, and the Kaylon reconsider their judgment of the Union as a result. The alliance continues, and Isaac honors Charly’s sacrifice at her funeral.

“Domino” somehow has epic finale energy while still managing to tackle the shades of gray within the ethics of war, as the Union wrestles with destroying their enemy at a massive galactic cost. It’s a difficult balance, and the results are hard to beat.

The post The Best Episodes of The Orville appeared first on Den of Geek.

The best horror movies change the way we look at the world. Psycho made us scared of showers, A Nightmare on Elm Street made us scared to sleep, and Midsommar made us scared of all of Scandinavia. With his new thriller Sender, writer/director Russell Goldman hopes to make us scared of online retail. Goldman may […]

The post Sender Cast On Turning Online Deliveries Into Existential Horror appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Orville surprised many when it debuted in 2017 and became the ultimate love letter to the Star Trek franchise. Given that it wasn’t actually a Star Trek show, and Trek itself was going in a very different direction at the time, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy drama had all the necessary heart to appeal to Trek fans who weren’t quite sure they could stick with the “NuTrek” mission.

Though it initially struggled to find a good balance between comedy and drama, The Orville soon hit its stride and became one of the best shows on TV, delivering some absolutely fantastic episodes throughout its three-season run.

Four years after its last season unfolded, we’re still waiting on a new season of The Orville. There’s certainly one planned, but in the meantime, let’s look back at the best episodes of the show to date.

“Pria”

Season 1 Episode 5

Charlize Theron is arguably the biggest guest star to appear on The Orville, and she did it all the way back in season 1. MacFarlane and Theron have been close friends ever since they starred alongside each other in A Million Ways to Die in the West, so they probably had a great time making “Pria,” one of the standout episodes of the show’s first season, especially with Star Trek’s own Will Riker, Jonathan Frakes, at the helm!

Theron is wicked in the early instalment as Pria Lavesque, who is rescued from her troubled mining ship by The Orville and charms Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane,) but isn’t quite what she seems. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Alara (Halston Sage) soon dig deeper, and when it’s discovered that Pria is a time-traveller who intends to sell the ship and abandon the crew, the Orville gang must work together to stop her. Though that’s the meat of “Pria,” there’s also an incredible little side story between Malloy (Scott Grimes) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) involving the concept of jokes that leads to Malloy getting his leg cut off.

“Mad Idolatry”

Season 1 Episode 12

Grayson finds herself in a bizarre situation after her shuttle team crashes on a planet that only appears in The Orville’s universe every 11 days. 700 years pass between Grayson’s first visit and the next appearance, and in the meantime, she’s become a goddess to the burgeoning civilization that lives there. Not loving that the planet’s inhabitants are worshipping Grayson, she and Mercer try to tell them the truth, but it only leads to more religious turmoil. Luckily, Isaac is fine with staying behind on the next 700-year haul to move them away from their Grayson-era idolatry.

“Mad Idolatry” is a fan favorite for a reason because it explores the tricky role that religion plays in a society’s development. As the episode concludes, the planet’s representatives even manage to make Grayson feel a little better about the centuries of war and bloodshed that followed her initial appearance by telling her that if it hadn’t been her, they’d have found someone else to worship as a deity, conceding that it’s likely part of every culture’s evolution.

“Identity Part 1 & 2”

Season 2 Episodes 8 & 9

Everything changes halfway through the second season of The Orville when the ship takes a trip to Isaac’s homeworld, Kaylon 1, in an attempt to revive their favorite android Science Officer after he suddenly shuts down. Leading up to the excursion, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has embarked on a romantic relationship with Isaac, so when the crew is informed that Isaac has completed his Union mission and that he wants to remain on his home planet, everyone is sad, including Dr. Finn. Meanwhile, her son makes a grim discovery when he finds billions of humanoid remains underground. It turns out that the Kaylon overthrew and killed their creators, and Isaac was sent by the Kaylon to determine whether they could coexist with the Planetary Union. Deciding that they can’t, they motor toward Earth to exterminate all life and expand their dominance in the universe.

This is basically The Orville’s version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds,” with the crew racing against time to stop the Kaylon from killing everyone on Earth by tapping into the humanity that’s grown in Isaac during his mission. It’s tense, dramatic, action-packed, and one hell of a double punch.

“Lasting Impressions”

Season 2 Episode 11

“Lasting Impressions” is that rare episode of The Orville to make it to memetown. The scene where Bortus (Peter Macon) and his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) discover cigarettes is hilarious for anyone who’s ever taken up smoking, and social media agrees, with the clip popping up every few months and tickling people who have never even seen the show.

The pair’s addiction to nicotine is beyond the pale, but it’s only a sub-plot in this story, which is a spin on the creepy Leah Brahms episodes of The Next Generation, where Gordon becomes obsessed with a simulation of a 21st-century woman called Laura (Leighton Meester) after the crew finds her cell phone in a time capsule. Unlike Geordi La Forge’s scenario, everyone knows that Gordon’s antics are tragic and lonely, including Gordon (eventually.) The simulated Laura is also written with her own agency rather than as a fantasy version of the character that panders to Gordon. It’s a modern update of the story, written by a woman, that acknowledges boundaries and consent in a way that TNG struggled with all those years ago.

“The Road Not Taken”

Season 2 Episode 14

The season 2 finale takes a bold turn, as Grayson’s failed memory wipe from the previous episode leads to a new timeline in “The Road Not Taken.” To put it bluntly, everything is a total mess. Since Grayson never dated Mercer, the butterfly effect of her choices means that the Orville crew never stopped the Kaylon from destroying Earth, and now the android race is rampaging through the galaxy.

Grayson manages to reunite most of the crew and explains the situation, and there’s a terrific surprise appearance from an alternate version of former Chief of Security Alara Kitan, who resigned earlier in the season. Thankfully, they all pull together to correct the timeline, but the episode is certainly a grim vision of how the universe might have ended up if the events of the “Identity” two-parter had gone differently.

“A Tale of Two Topas”

Season 3 Episode 5

This heartwrenching season 3 explores the gender assignment decisions made by The Orville’s Moclan couple, Bortus and Klyden. Their species is supposed to be strictly male, and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum) was assigned male at birth, despite being born female. When Topa subsequently struggles with their gender identity and informs Grayson that they wish to be female again, this complicates the political alliance between the Union and the Moclans, who would leave the Union if the crew granted Topa’s wishes. Not only that, Klyden is furiously opposed to altering Topa’s gender, leading to a breakup when Bortus supports her.

Themes of identity, autonomy and parental love are explored without hesitation in the episode, along with how different societies handle gender diversity. MacFarlane wrote and directed “A Tale of Two Topas” himself, proving (if there was ever any doubt) that he’s much more than crass jokes and silly voices.

“Twice in a Lifetime”

Season 3 Episode 6

“Twice in a Lifetime” is a devastating episode that shows us what happens when Gordon is accidentally sent back in time to 2015. After years of isolation and diligent adherence to the rules of time travel, Gordon finally breaks them, falling in love with the real-life version of the woman he recreated in the simulation from “Lasting Impressions,” and starting a family with her. When the crew arrives to rescue him in 2025, Gordon refuses to return, in violation of Union law. Making a difficult decision, they use dysonium to jump back in time to a month after Gordon arrives in 2015. They pick him up and consequently erase his family.

Grayson and Mercer decide to tell Gordon that they prevented his romance with Laura and his children from ever existing, but he isn’t too bothered because he knows it was the right thing to do. The Gordon who doesn’t know any better might not be too fussed, but the audience is made to feel the true weight of the decision, knowing the happiness that Gordon lost and will likely never find again.

“Domino”

Season 3 Episode 9

Acting as the penultimate episode of the series (for now,) “Domino” wraps up some loose ends between the Union and the races it now finds itself at odds with. The Moclans have joined forces with the Krill, but there’s “good” news when Isaac and ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) feel the Kaylon threat could be extinguished thanks to a newly invented device capable of wiping out their fleet.

The Union isn’t quite sure about a possible Kaylon genocide, so it decides to use the device as leverage to settle things with them, but the admiral hands the weapon over to the Krill so they can do what the Union can’t bring itself to do, leading the Union into a brief alliance with the Kaylon to battle the new Moclan/Krill threat. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the device, and the Kaylon reconsider their judgment of the Union as a result. The alliance continues, and Isaac honors Charly’s sacrifice at her funeral.

“Domino” somehow has epic finale energy while still managing to tackle the shades of gray within the ethics of war, as the Union wrestles with destroying their enemy at a massive galactic cost. It’s a difficult balance, and the results are hard to beat.

The post The Best Episodes of The Orville appeared first on Den of Geek.

In “Whose Show Is This?“, the final episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Jennifer Walters confronts K.E.V.I.N., the robotic creative force of the MCU. She peppers K.E.V.I.N. with a series of questions about not just what has happened in the previous seven episodes of her series, but also about the MCU in general. When she […]

The post Marvel TV Chief Wants More She-Hulk, Fans Are Less Sure appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Orville surprised many when it debuted in 2017 and became the ultimate love letter to the Star Trek franchise. Given that it wasn’t actually a Star Trek show, and Trek itself was going in a very different direction at the time, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy drama had all the necessary heart to appeal to Trek fans who weren’t quite sure they could stick with the “NuTrek” mission.

Though it initially struggled to find a good balance between comedy and drama, The Orville soon hit its stride and became one of the best shows on TV, delivering some absolutely fantastic episodes throughout its three-season run.

Four years after its last season unfolded, we’re still waiting on a new season of The Orville. There’s certainly one planned, but in the meantime, let’s look back at the best episodes of the show to date.

“Pria”

Season 1 Episode 5

Charlize Theron is arguably the biggest guest star to appear on The Orville, and she did it all the way back in season 1. MacFarlane and Theron have been close friends ever since they starred alongside each other in A Million Ways to Die in the West, so they probably had a great time making “Pria,” one of the standout episodes of the show’s first season, especially with Star Trek’s own Will Riker, Jonathan Frakes, at the helm!

Theron is wicked in the early instalment as Pria Lavesque, who is rescued from her troubled mining ship by The Orville and charms Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane,) but isn’t quite what she seems. Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Alara (Halston Sage) soon dig deeper, and when it’s discovered that Pria is a time-traveller who intends to sell the ship and abandon the crew, the Orville gang must work together to stop her. Though that’s the meat of “Pria,” there’s also an incredible little side story between Malloy (Scott Grimes) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) involving the concept of jokes that leads to Malloy getting his leg cut off.

“Mad Idolatry”

Season 1 Episode 12

Grayson finds herself in a bizarre situation after her shuttle team crashes on a planet that only appears in The Orville’s universe every 11 days. 700 years pass between Grayson’s first visit and the next appearance, and in the meantime, she’s become a goddess to the burgeoning civilization that lives there. Not loving that the planet’s inhabitants are worshipping Grayson, she and Mercer try to tell them the truth, but it only leads to more religious turmoil. Luckily, Isaac is fine with staying behind on the next 700-year haul to move them away from their Grayson-era idolatry.

“Mad Idolatry” is a fan favorite for a reason because it explores the tricky role that religion plays in a society’s development. As the episode concludes, the planet’s representatives even manage to make Grayson feel a little better about the centuries of war and bloodshed that followed her initial appearance by telling her that if it hadn’t been her, they’d have found someone else to worship as a deity, conceding that it’s likely part of every culture’s evolution.

“Identity Part 1 & 2”

Season 2 Episodes 8 & 9

Everything changes halfway through the second season of The Orville when the ship takes a trip to Isaac’s homeworld, Kaylon 1, in an attempt to revive their favorite android Science Officer after he suddenly shuts down. Leading up to the excursion, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) has embarked on a romantic relationship with Isaac, so when the crew is informed that Isaac has completed his Union mission and that he wants to remain on his home planet, everyone is sad, including Dr. Finn. Meanwhile, her son makes a grim discovery when he finds billions of humanoid remains underground. It turns out that the Kaylon overthrew and killed their creators, and Isaac was sent by the Kaylon to determine whether they could coexist with the Planetary Union. Deciding that they can’t, they motor toward Earth to exterminate all life and expand their dominance in the universe.

This is basically The Orville’s version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds,” with the crew racing against time to stop the Kaylon from killing everyone on Earth by tapping into the humanity that’s grown in Isaac during his mission. It’s tense, dramatic, action-packed, and one hell of a double punch.

“Lasting Impressions”

Season 2 Episode 11

“Lasting Impressions” is that rare episode of The Orville to make it to memetown. The scene where Bortus (Peter Macon) and his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) discover cigarettes is hilarious for anyone who’s ever taken up smoking, and social media agrees, with the clip popping up every few months and tickling people who have never even seen the show.

The pair’s addiction to nicotine is beyond the pale, but it’s only a sub-plot in this story, which is a spin on the creepy Leah Brahms episodes of The Next Generation, where Gordon becomes obsessed with a simulation of a 21st-century woman called Laura (Leighton Meester) after the crew finds her cell phone in a time capsule. Unlike Geordi La Forge’s scenario, everyone knows that Gordon’s antics are tragic and lonely, including Gordon (eventually.) The simulated Laura is also written with her own agency rather than as a fantasy version of the character that panders to Gordon. It’s a modern update of the story, written by a woman, that acknowledges boundaries and consent in a way that TNG struggled with all those years ago.

“The Road Not Taken”

Season 2 Episode 14

The season 2 finale takes a bold turn, as Grayson’s failed memory wipe from the previous episode leads to a new timeline in “The Road Not Taken.” To put it bluntly, everything is a total mess. Since Grayson never dated Mercer, the butterfly effect of her choices means that the Orville crew never stopped the Kaylon from destroying Earth, and now the android race is rampaging through the galaxy.

Grayson manages to reunite most of the crew and explains the situation, and there’s a terrific surprise appearance from an alternate version of former Chief of Security Alara Kitan, who resigned earlier in the season. Thankfully, they all pull together to correct the timeline, but the episode is certainly a grim vision of how the universe might have ended up if the events of the “Identity” two-parter had gone differently.

“A Tale of Two Topas”

Season 3 Episode 5

This heartwrenching season 3 explores the gender assignment decisions made by The Orville’s Moclan couple, Bortus and Klyden. Their species is supposed to be strictly male, and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum) was assigned male at birth, despite being born female. When Topa subsequently struggles with their gender identity and informs Grayson that they wish to be female again, this complicates the political alliance between the Union and the Moclans, who would leave the Union if the crew granted Topa’s wishes. Not only that, Klyden is furiously opposed to altering Topa’s gender, leading to a breakup when Bortus supports her.

Themes of identity, autonomy and parental love are explored without hesitation in the episode, along with how different societies handle gender diversity. MacFarlane wrote and directed “A Tale of Two Topas” himself, proving (if there was ever any doubt) that he’s much more than crass jokes and silly voices.

“Twice in a Lifetime”

Season 3 Episode 6

“Twice in a Lifetime” is a devastating episode that shows us what happens when Gordon is accidentally sent back in time to 2015. After years of isolation and diligent adherence to the rules of time travel, Gordon finally breaks them, falling in love with the real-life version of the woman he recreated in the simulation from “Lasting Impressions,” and starting a family with her. When the crew arrives to rescue him in 2025, Gordon refuses to return, in violation of Union law. Making a difficult decision, they use dysonium to jump back in time to a month after Gordon arrives in 2015. They pick him up and consequently erase his family.

Grayson and Mercer decide to tell Gordon that they prevented his romance with Laura and his children from ever existing, but he isn’t too bothered because he knows it was the right thing to do. The Gordon who doesn’t know any better might not be too fussed, but the audience is made to feel the true weight of the decision, knowing the happiness that Gordon lost and will likely never find again.

“Domino”

Season 3 Episode 9

Acting as the penultimate episode of the series (for now,) “Domino” wraps up some loose ends between the Union and the races it now finds itself at odds with. The Moclans have joined forces with the Krill, but there’s “good” news when Isaac and ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) feel the Kaylon threat could be extinguished thanks to a newly invented device capable of wiping out their fleet.

The Union isn’t quite sure about a possible Kaylon genocide, so it decides to use the device as leverage to settle things with them, but the admiral hands the weapon over to the Krill so they can do what the Union can’t bring itself to do, leading the Union into a brief alliance with the Kaylon to battle the new Moclan/Krill threat. Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the device, and the Kaylon reconsider their judgment of the Union as a result. The alliance continues, and Isaac honors Charly’s sacrifice at her funeral.

“Domino” somehow has epic finale energy while still managing to tackle the shades of gray within the ethics of war, as the Union wrestles with destroying their enemy at a massive galactic cost. It’s a difficult balance, and the results are hard to beat.

The post The Best Episodes of The Orville appeared first on Den of Geek.