'The Orville' Recap: 'New Dimensions'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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As the inaugural season of The Orville begins to wind down, it would seem that the series is taking every opportunity available before the season one finale to explore the human condition to the fullest. Take for example last week’s episode, wherein we were privy to how grief and loss can impact us on a fundamental level, and this week’s episode continued the deep dive into our emotions and our psyche by exploring in great detail the power of fear and doubt and how they affect us.
 
But as this series is wont to do, ‘New Dimensions’ didn’t go with a by the numbers exploration of such matters. Instead it took the time to explore how those two elements of our mind can shape our lives if they are introduced to us at a far younger age, and how they can in fact, cause trouble for us as adults even when we’ve achieved everything we’ve ever dreamed of and all of this was accomplished by focusing on two key characters in the story, Captain Mercer and Lieutenant LaMarr.
 
It was the latter of those characters that was able to help us explore how fear and doubt can form an interesting future for us because in this tale we learned that John, just so happens to have an incredibly high I.Q., and is more than happy to keep this fact under wraps. Why? Because as a young child living on a colony filled to the brim with average Joe’s that wanted to focus on farming and a simple life, he found himself ostracized for his intelligence and the fear of reprimand and the doubt that formed from such bullying, resulted in a highly intelligent man making the choice to hide his talents away from the world.
 
Which leaves us with Ed Mercer’s story, and how exactly fear and doubt can find us in adulthood even when we’ve enjoyed some measure of success in life. Because this episode allowed for a key moment from the series premiere to resurface since it finally slipped out that Kelly had a hand in getting Mercer command of the Orville, and that revelation rattled him to his core. Suddenly he firmly believed that his commission to Captain was nothing more than a sham and he quickly began to doubt his abilities as a leader and second guessed every decision he needed to make. 

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If anything, it was simply heartbreaking to see the Lieutenant and the Captain in this kind of funk. Simply because, they were utterly shattered and uncomfortable with everything swirling around in their mind and you felt for them through and through. I mean goodness, it was tough to watch LaMarr pace and panic over having to lead, and it was equally as rough to watch the Captain sweat bullets over every decision made on the ship. But therein lie the beauty of this episode. Because by bringing these two men to their lowest point, they were ripe for redemption and the story was happy to deliver just that, in unique fashion of course.
 
Because the answer as to what ailed the Lieutenant and the Captain was to put their nose to the grindstone and face their fears head on so they could accomplish wonders and save the crew from a strange realm of space and time where two dimensions was the norm. But what made their redemption and ability to overcome their fears so special, is that in its own unique way, this part of the story managed to find a way to inspire hope and wonder in the audience by giving us an incredible gift; guidance to those who are currently dealing with their own issues when it comes to fear and doubt.
 
After all, the show was quick to point out that sometimes, we need to be objective when it comes to those thoughts rolling about in our head, and look at the wonderful people surrounding us and embrace the fact that they see us in an objective and respected light, just as Mercer did with Kelly, and also that sometimes…we have to forge ahead and see what we are capable of because we might find fulfillment in ways we used to think were unimaginable as was the case with the Orville’s new Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Commander John LaMarr and I’ll be honest, I love the fact that the show took the time to send that message across.
 
Because the best science fiction stories out there not only analyze our world and its wonders and issues, they inspire us to be better people and that’s precisely what happened here. Because we’ve all battled fear and doubt at some point or another and we will likely will again, but this time around…a friendly suggestion will be in the back of our minds to help us out when the going gets tough and it just goes to show, yet again, that not only is The Orville one of the smartest shows out there, it truly cares about its fan base as well. Either way, this was just a lovely episode through and through, one full of great jokes as well since the whole feeding Yaphet to Bortus thing was utterly hilarious, and it was a story full of wonderful meaning and as season one now comes to a close, I do hope Fox gives this series a larger episode order next year because this saga deserves the opportunity to fire off more incredible tales such as this one. Until next time. 

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