By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
The Orville may have been originally marketed as a Star Trek parody from the mastermind behind Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane, but by the time the third season finally aired in 2022, it had long since evolved into one of the best sci-fi shows of the decade. “Twice in a Lifetime,” the sixth episode of Season 3, proved that a series that features a discussion about aliens urinating in the pilot was capable of emotional highs most shows never reach. To this day, fans are debating the ending of the episode and if our heroes actually made the right decision.
Twice In A Lifetime
“Twice in a Lifetime” is a Gordon (Scott Grimes) centric episode that serves as a sequel to The Orville Season 2 standout, “Lasting Impressions.” Back then, Gordon created a holographic program based on the information from a phone put in a time capsule in Saratoga Springs, New York, back in 2015. The woman, Laura Huggins (Leighton Meester), becomes the woman of Gordon’s dreams, and he falls in love with her digital recreation but ultimately lets her go.
The second time around, instead of falling in love with the digital version of Laura, Gordon finds himself sent back in time thanks to the Aronov Device again mucking with the timestream. Abandoned in 2015, Gordon searches for the real Laura Huggins, meets her, falls in love again, has children with her, and gets to live his perfect life. The Orville, on a mission to save Gordon before he destroys the timeline, lands in 2025, where Ed (Seth MacFarlane) and Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) confront their navigator.
An Act Of Betrayal
The Orville truly hit its stride when the stories started focusing on the characters and less on playing around with sci-fi tropes, but here, under the watchful eye of producer Brannon Braga, the man responsible for some of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s best episodes, it’s the perfect mix of both. There’s no true villain in “Twice in a Lifetime,” and the climax is an intense debate between Gordon, trying to argue for this perfect life, and Ed and Kelly, insisting that the timeline has to be preserved.
Given how the second season finale works out, it’s ironic that Ed and Kelly are taking the stance that they are, especially since Gordon explains he spent three years alone in the wilderness, avoiding all contact with people to help keep the timeline intact. A different series would have had Ed and Kelly eventually win over Gordon with a superior, logical argument about the needs of the many. But The Orville is built differently, and the real solution is a shocking, heartbreaking act of betrayal.
The Orville refueled and ready to jump through time again, goes back to 2015, before Gordon met Laura, and picks him up from the wilderness after only four months away, and this version of Gordon is happy to be back. 2025 Gordon went back to his family, hugged them, told them that he loved them, and enjoyed a few moments before they were all wiped from the timeline when 2015 Gordon was brought back to the year 2422. There, Ed and Kelly explain to 2015 Gordon what had really happened, how he found Laura, and how he lived his dream life in the past.
No One Is Right And No One Is Wrong
There’s a significant number of The Orville fans that consider Ed and Kelly to be villains for robbing Gordon of his perfect life and then telling him about it so that he feels the loss all over again for the first when they re/turn to the proper time. Given their past timeline adventures, which twice altered the future, it feels hypocritical and cruel to do this to Gordon.
Seth MacFarlane has gone on to record in interviews and appearances since, in his opinion, we never saw the life Laura would have had if Gordon hadn’t appeared in the past. Was her life better, or did Gordon’s arrival alter her future and pull her onto a very different path? The worst part about MacFarlane’s take is also what makes The Orville so good, in that he’s right, but it feels wrong, and that moral conundrum makes the series so fascinating years later.
There are other episodes of The Orville, especially both parts of “Identity,” that are someone’s favorite, but nothing hits as hard as “Twice in a Lifetime.” Gordon, the comic relief character who covers his insecurities with alcohol, rarely was given the spotlight and when he was, Scott Grimes made sure to act the hell out of every single scene, and as a result, gave us one of the greatest sci-fi time travel episodes ever made.