History Series / TheOrville

* PersecutionFlip: In "Deflectors" it's revealed that, keeping with the all-male society Moclans enforce, their culture has no tolerance for opposite-sex attraction. This is to the point of not only prejudice but expressing it being a crime which carries a life sentence. Locar is revealed to be straight or bisexual (it's unclear if he was ever actually attracted to Bortus, or simply used him as [[TheBeard cover]]), and it causes his apparent murder. [[spoiler:The episode ends with Locar facing this punishment.]]

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The Krill, the resident bad guy race of the first season. They have pale skin and vampiric features, are hypersensitive to light to the point that ultraviolet rays can burn them alive, they have a violent and murderous culture that sees all other races as soulless and free to be killed at leisure, and culturally they follow a ReligionOfEvil built around blood sacrifices and worship of an OmnicidalManiac deity called Avis, and are basically space vampires. The major vampire trait they lack is that they do not feed on blood or LifeForce and eat regular food.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The Krill, the resident bad guy race of the first season. They have pale skin and vampiric features, are hypersensitive to light to the point that ultraviolet rays can burn them alive, they have a violent and murderous culture that sees all other races as soulless and free to be killed at leisure, and culturally they follow a ReligionOfEvil built around blood sacrifices and worship of an OmnicidalManiac deity called Avis, and are basically space vampires.

''The Orville'' is a live action ScienceFiction {{Dramedy}} television series created by, and starring, Creator/SethMacFarlane as a homage to classic ''Franchise/StarTrek''. It premiered on Creator/{{Fox}} on 10 September 2017. It moved to Creator/{{Hulu}} for its third season in 2022, with all three seasons also available on Creator/DisneyPlus on August 2022. Outside the US, the series will air on Creator/DisneyPlus's Creator/{{Star|DisneyPlus}} hub in many countries.

* RefugeInAudacity: Heveena does this by ''accident'': she reads the lyrics of Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" to the Union's top brass in a completely serious attempt to convince them to give her colony independence. Despite Ed and Halsey's reactions, her passionate delivery of the words and the relevance to what she's talking about, combined with the fact that she has no reason to think it's weird, actually makes it work.

Creator/DarkHorseComics released limited runs of comics based on the series. Titled "Season 1.5" and "Season 2.5", these are canonical and help fill in the gaps during hiatuses. In 2022, a canonical novella titled ''The Orville: Sympathy for the Devil'' was published, based on a scripted Season 3 episode that was scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also a [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096200/The_Orville__Interactive_Fan_Experience VR exploration sim]] of the ''Orville'' in early access on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}.

* QueerEstablishingMoment: Charly reveals in "Twice in a Lifetime" that she was in love with her friend Amanda, but unfortunetely she was killed before Charly could work up the nerve to tell her.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Surprisingly enough, the crew are all a bunch of seasoned professionals. Ed Mercer may be a bit neurotic, but most of his more ridiculous statements and actions are to keep people from shooting him through ConfusionFu. And even though Gordon and John come across as goofy comic relief a lot of the time, in the crunch they show themselves to be supremely competent and reliable. That said, this is somewhat of a SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome as in order to get to their positions as senior officers in the first place, they would need to be good at their jobs, a fact actually stated on screen by Kelly in "Command Performance" when she reassures Alara that the young officer can handle being in command. John is eventually revealed to be the smartest person aboard the ship, save for Isaac. He's just lazy and has gotten used to hiding his true intelligence (he grew up on a farming colony). However, once he's forced to step up, he proves himself a capable engineer and commander, earning a promotion.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** When a spaceship is damaged/destroyed, its debris becomes a problem for other ships nearby.
** Xelayans are fast-tracked through the ranks because their species rarely join the military, they are very strong by human standards and make excellent military officers. It sounds good in theory but it also results in very young officers being thrust into positions of responsibility that they're not adequately prepared for, as seen when Alara is forced to take command of the ''Orville'' and suffers extreme anxiety and self-doubt.
** It actually takes a few moments for a communications officer to "open a channel"; you can't just start talking immediately upon giving the order. This one is PlayedForLaughs.
** Centuries of societal convention are not going to be overturned just because you disagree with them, no matter how much evidence you bring to the table. Societal change is slow, ponderous and difficult, as seen in "About a Girl" and "Majority Rule". This one is especially noteworthy, since ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' is well-known for its EasyEvangelism.
** Zig-zagged in the episode ''Mad Idolatry'' which reveals that the Union has a policy of avoiding "cultural contamination" (their equivalent of ''Star Trek's'' Prime Directive). At first it shows how Kelly's repeated involvement, despite her good intentions, caused her to become a historical religious figure leading to fundamentalism, war, and division in her name. However, by the time of their final meeting with the planet's representatives, we are shown that their society outgrew her influence by themselves, advocating the ''Star Trek'' ideal that if a race is going to survive, it has to evolve into a better version of itself.
** Alara being so young when she left her home planet, and spending most of her time in a world with lower gravity than she's used to, she finds herself medically in danger by "Home", where she is slowly losing her strength and bone density, requiring that she go back to Xelaya for an unspecified period of time to recover. Talla doesn't seem to be suffering from the same condition, possibly because she left Xeleya at an older age.
** Combined with {{realpolitik}} -- just because two or more wildly disparate cultures are allied doesn't mean that they'll always get along free of tension. This is best exemplified with the Moclans, whose bizarre culture is a frequent source of headaches for Mercer and his crew. That said, Mercer also admits that with enemies like the Krill around, the Union needs the Moclans on their side, though he wonders how much more they can tolerate their cultural differences. [[spoiler:It eventually comes to a head when the Moclans kidnap a child, torture her for information, and plan to kill her. Once the Planetary Union Council learns of this, they vote unanimously to expel the Moclans from the Union. There's only so much they're willing to tolerate.]]
** Forcing an enemy to agree to a ceasefire with a threat of annihilation is not a permanent solution. The enemy will try to find a way to neutralize the threat, and others will know the situation is tenuous at best.

* WouldntHurtAChild: A {{Deconstruction}} sadly combined with SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome in the episode "Krill". [[spoiler:Ed and Malloy refuse to kill the Krill children but they do kill all the adults to prevent them from destroying a human colony. Having spared the children, but ''killed their parents'', it's pointed out that the children will grow up with every reason to have a grudge against the Union in general and Ed in particular.]]

** Captain Mercer was an amazing officer, but his poor behavior after his divorce ruined his reputation and stalled his career. Therefore, Mercer only ends up getting his first command because fleet headquarters is desperate to staff their massive fleet. The Admiralty also takes another risk putting Mercer and Grayson together. However, they manage the risk by assigning the highly experienced ConsummateProfessional, Lieutenant Commander Bortus to assist, and if required, take over a command position.

** If you save the children of your enemies [[spoiler:but end up killing their parents, those children ''grow up'' and are quite capable of holding a grudge.]]

** The feud between two warring races in "Cupid's Dagger" is solved by exposing the rival leaders to alien pheromones, causing them to develop romantic feelings toward each other and order their respective fleets to stand down. However, the story itself points out that this truce won't last forever. Fortunately, they have a lasting solution with the discovery that their [=DNA=] proves that they have a common ancestor.

** Zig-zagged in the episode ''Mad Idolatry'' which reveals that the Union has a policy of avoiding "cultural contamination" (their equivalent of ''Star Trek's'' Prime Directive). At first it shows how Kelly's repeated involvement, despite her good intentions, caused her to become a historical religious figure leading to fundamentalism, war, and division in her name. However, by the time of their final meeting with the planet's representatives, we are shown that their society outgrew her influence by themselves, advocating the ''Star Trek'' ideal that if a race is going to survive, it has to evolve into a better version of itself. Yet, at the same time, their society is shown to be more technologically advanced than the Orville's universe, suggesting that Isaac's presence for 700 years may have inspired that society to greater advances because they knew an artificial life-form was possible and had one available for study.

** In ''Primal Urges'', Bortus is avoiding Klyden and refuses to talk about it. The end of the episode reveals that [[spoiler:he has not forgiven Klyden for forcing the sex change operation on their son, and admits that he might never be able to forgive him.]]

* HollywoodBoardGames: In [[Recap/TheOrvilleS2E11LastingImpressions "Lasting Impressions"]], Gordon keeps yelling his guess (Dick Van Dyke) for one of the ''TabletopGame/{{Pictionary'' drawings. The other players ignoring him doesn't deter him. He might be an AcePilot but can act as an utter doofus on more mundane matters. At least he apologizes after the deed.

** Yaphit, a crewmember aboard the ''Orville'' that comes from a race that are essentially blobs of jelly, voiced by Norm [=MacDonald=]. Curiously, he finds human women attractive. ''Black'' human women. He openly states that Pria is the first white woman he's ever considered such. Two other members of the same species are briefly seen as memers of the Planetary Union Council.

** Bortus and Klyden's marriage arguably has more problems than Ed and Kelly's did, as they deal with differing opinions on their culture (leading to their child going through a sex change), smoking addiction, porn addiction, and Klyden trying to ''stab Bortus through the heart''. However, Klyden finally sees how flawed Moclan society is when the Moclan government tries to kidnap and ''murder'' Topa simply for being a female. This leads him to be a better father to his daughter and repair his relationship with Bortus.
* ChasingAButterfly: In the episode "Midnight Blue," Topa sees a rare blue Luminite, a tiny creature that glows like a firefly, and chases it into the woods [[spoiler:where she is abducted by a crew of Moclans.]]

** The Moclan homeworld is ''almost'' this, as every habitable part of their world's surface has been heavily industrialized. Only a few patches of desolate mountain range, too precipitous for factories, remain unpopulated.

%%** PLEASE DON'T ADD Xelayans see Humans as “the hillbillies of the galaxy”. The episode is unclear whether Alara's parents are expressing their personal prejudice towards humans or the feelings of the entire Xelayan race, this doesn't qualify as an example yet.

* SoundtrackDissonance: where else can you find a full-on firefight set to [[Music/DollyParton Dolly Parton's]] "9 to 5"?

** "All the World is a Birthday Cake" features a planet where astrology is basically the religion. People born to a "bad" star sign are viewed as having an inherent criminal tendency and are kept in concentration camps as a result. Interestingly, they don't seem to think this tendency is inherited, as we see a child of two camp prisoners being treated almost reverently because of when she was born (and taken away from her parents as a result).

* EvilIsBigger: Each time they've faced off against the Krill, it's always been against warships that significantly dwarf (and outgun) the ''Orville''. The Union does have heavy cruisers, but even those appear to be smaller than Krill destroyers/battlecruisers.

* {{Realpolitik}}: The Planetary Union is a large group of different species joined under a single government. However, it is not a harmonious arrangement. Certain members have beliefs and practices that the rest find morally reprehensible, but the majority bite their tongues because those members are considered vital for the survivial of the Union as a whole. This is best illustrated by the Moclans, a species who enforce their "all male" presentation through forced sex reassignments on Moclan females. This disgusts and horrifies non-Moclans, but those in power look the other way because the Moclans develop vital weapon and shield technology used in Union ships. This technology is so important, that Moclus is even allowed to maintain a large and independent military. [[spoiler:At last it becomes so intolerable they expel Moclus, but this leads them to ally themselves with the Krill, the resurgent fanatical enemies of the Union, and the combined military might is so much that the Union has enter an arrangement with the ''Kaylon''.]]