Why the "Flowers Never Bend" Performance in The Orville 3.9 Will Last Forever

 

This sweet soulful rendition by Gordon (Scott Grimes) and Charly (Anne Winters) of Simon & Garfunkel's "Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall" this past July on the 9th episode of the 3rd Season of The Orville certainly wasn't the first vocal performance in a TV drama or comedy that wasn't a musical.  It's not even the first sustained singing in a Star Trek or Star Trek inspired TV show.  Uhura sang "Beyond Antares" in a memorable scene with Spock (in "The Conscience of the King,” episode 1.13 of the original Star Trek series in December 1966) and a couple of other times on the USS Enterprise on television back then.

But "Beyond Antares" was an original song, from the 23rd century, when it was heard for the first time in Star Trek, and therefore couldn't evoke any of the memories and feelings that Simon & Garfunkel's "Flowers" brought forth a few months ago, rooted in the dozens of times in millions of homes and cars in which Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (the LP which contained "Flowers") was first released, heard, and loved in October 1966, enriched by the increasing number of people who would continue to hear that song in the years ahead, as Simon & Garfunkel, both together and individually, became and continued to be musical icons.

That was the main reason Grimes and Winters' beautiful performance really struck me the first time I heard and saw their performance in July.  The other reason was the assembled group from The Orville, who were fortunate to hear this rendition in person.   Not only who they were -- the species and role of their characters in the series -- but their expressions as Gordon and Charly sang for them were just perfect.

But this one minute and thirty seconds has really stayed with me since the summer.  I now consider it easily the best musical performance in any science fiction on the screen.  And I think I know why.

[Spoilers follow ... ]

It's because we learned, as season 3 progressed and concluded with its 10th episode, that Charly singing "my life will never end" had a meaning and resonance that Paul Simon couldn't have foreseen when he wrote those lyrics way back in the 1960s.  In that 10th episode, Charly's life does bravely end.  Her heroic sacrifice would have been hard to forget in any case.  But making that sacrifice after singing that line was a masterstroke.  Surely, Seth MacFarlane (and co-writers Brannon Braga and André Bormanis) must have known what would happen to Charly in the 10th episode when they decided to have her sing that song with that line in the 9th episode.

And I'd expect the actors in The Orville would have known about Charly's fate as well.  Look at Kelly's face around 30 seconds into the video.  She's standing next to Ed, both really enjoying the performance, smiling, but at 30 or so seconds she momentarily almost loses that smile.  And that's right around the time Charly sings, "pretend, my life will never end".  Coincidence?  I don't think so.  Was she directed to briefly lose that smile?  I have no idea -- perhaps Adrianne Palicki, who plays Kelly so well, was consciously or unconsciously in touch with what she knew was going to happen to Charly, and was hit by that awful irony.

A beautiful, haunting song, brought to life by two beautiful voices and acoustic strings, strummed and plucked, in a scene that I predict will be seen and heard in the corridors of unique science fiction forever.

Renew The Orville!

See also The Orville 3.1: Life and Death ... 3.2: "Come and Get Me ..." ... 3.3: What Do Bill Barr and Ed Mercer Have in Common? ... 3.4: The Captain's Daughter ... 3.5: Topa ... 3.6: Masterpiece of Time Travel with a Missed Opportunity ... 3.7: Seconding that Emotion ... 3.8: Dolly Parton and Topa ... 3.9: Why It's Becoming Better than any Current Star Trek ... 3.10: Matrimony and the Prime Directive

And see also The Orville 2.1: Relief and Romance ... The Orville 2.2: Porn Addiction and Planetary Disintegration ... The Orville 2.3: Alara ... The Orville 2.4: Billy Joel ... The Orville 2.5: Escape at Regor 2 ... The Orville 2.6: "Singin' in the Rain" ... The Orville 2.7: Love and Death ...  The Orville 2.8: Recalling Čapek, Part 1  ... The Orville 2.9: Recalling Čapek, Part 2 ... The Orville: 2.10: Exploding Blood ... The Orville 2.11: Time Capsule, Space Station, and Harmony ... The Orville 2.12: Hello Dolly! ... The Orville 2.13: Time Travel! ... The Orville Season 2 Finale: Alternate History!

And see also The Orville 1.1-1.5: Star Trek's Back ... The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns ... The Orville 1.11: Eating Yaphit ... The Orville 1.12: Faith in Reason and the Prime Directive

The Orville 2.13: Time Travel!

I've said many times in my many places that time travel is my favorite genre of science fiction.  The best episodes of Star Trek TOS and TNG were time travel stories - "City on the Edge of Forever" in TOS, "Yesterday's Enterprise" in TNG.  So I was expecting that sooner or later The Orville would check in with a time travel story - if not quite as superb as the TOS and TNG stories, right up there in excellence, anyway.   It did so tonight.

The time travel goodies in episode 2.13 come in three parts:

1. Kelly, seven years younger, arrives on The Orville, after some quantum force or whatever amplifies the power of a nascent time-travel device.  On the deck, the main characters discuss how that could be - wouldn't current Kelly remember that her younger self appeared on The Orville?  Everyone agrees that the answer to this paradox is the multiple worlds hypothesis - a new reality in which young Kelly appeared, right next to older Kelly and older Ed, was created at the instant young Kelly traveled to the future.  That new reality is separate from the original reality in which we have been watching The Orville. Good for The Orville for (a) recognizing the paradox (not every time travel story does), and (b) coming up with the best solution (multiple worlds).

2. Isaac et al figure out a way to send young Kelly back to her time (after some fun romantic interludes with Ed, and some soul searching conversations with her older self).  But ... if young Kelly successfully returns to her past, which would be the same as the past she left, how come older Kelly has no memory of her time as her younger self in the future?  Claire can give her a memory wipe.  Another good solution to a temporal problem, and I liked the deft way the metaphysics switched from multiple realities to time travel in a single reality frame.

3.  Young Kelly gets back to her past, but when young Ed calls her the next day, she tells him that they shouldn't see each other.  Nice touch!  The memory wipe may have erased the memories but not the visceral feelings Kelly brought back with her from the future.   Of course, the two will have to get together sooner or later, otherwise the stories we've been seeing on The Orville the past two seasons would be completely undermined.  My guess is young Ed will be persistent and young Kelly will choose him over her misgivings from the future.

And there could be an implicit part 4 to this, as well.  The experience tonight will get older Kelly and older Ed to get back together in the future. Or - maybe they'll read this and decide not to, because they don't want their future prescribed by some blog review.  Either way, tonight and its aftermath will make for a great story (and continued fine acting by Adrianne Palicki and Seth MacFarlane).

See also The Orville 2.1: Relief and Romance ... The Orville 2.2: Porn Addiction and Planetary Disintegration ... The Orville 2.3: Alara ... The Orville 2.4: Billy Joel ... The Orville 2.5: Escape at Regor 2 ... The Orville 2.6: "Singin' in the Rain" ... The Orville 2.7: Love and Death ...  The Orville 2.8: Recalling Čapek, Part 1  ... The Orville 2.9: Recalling Čapek, Part 2 ... The Orville: 2.10: Exploding Blood ... The Orville 2.11: Time Capsule, Space Station, and Harmony ... The Orville 2.12: Hello Dolly!

And see also The Orville 1.1-1.5: Star Trek's Back ... The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns ... The Orville 1.11: Eating Yaphit ... The Orville 1.12: Faith in Reason and the Prime Directive

watch The Chronology Protection Case FREE on Amazon Prime

The Orville 1.1-5: Star Trek's Back!

I'd planned on catching up on all the episodes of The Orville thus far before writing a review, but episode 1.5 was so good - and a time travel story to boot, my favorite kind of science fiction - that I couldn't wait any longer.  So here's this, and then I'll post another review when I'm caught up, and then I'll review every episode that comes after.

First, let me thank my colleague at Fordham University, Lance Strate, who recommended The Orville to me just last week.  He has a pretty good track record, his best recommendation so far being the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, which was much better than the original and superb.

I'm tempted to say The Orville is to Star Trek: The Original Series as Battlestar Galactica 2004 was to Battlestar Galactica 1978, but that wouldn't be quite right, because: (1) The original Star Trek was one of the best series ever on television, and the first BSG was, if not one of the worst, certainly nothing special, and (2) Battlestar Galactica 2004 was so dark as to be apocalyptic whereas The Orville is laugh-out-loud funny.

That's not surprising, since Seth MacFarlane not only stars in this latter day Star Trek as Captain Ed Mercer but is the creator of the series.  And the jokes are not only funny and continuous, with words like "dick" tossed around in just about every episode, but they don't interfere in the slightest with the outstanding science fiction in every episode, which was the strong suit of the original Star Trek.

In fact, I'd say The Orville is more like Star Trek the original series, truer to its pace and elan and sense of wonder, than any Star Trek since, with the exception of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was in some ways better and some ways worse (and, come to think of it, The Orville is in some ways more reminiscent of the best parts of TNG and its interspecies-diverse crew than it is of TOS).  But everything else that's come since, whether on TV or in the movies, is just not as good, whatever their redeeming qualities.  (Ok, I only saw the first episode of Discovery, because I'm too cheap to pay for yet another streaming service, but that first episode was at best only all right in comparison to the first episode of The Orville.)

I won't summarize that for you - if you haven't seen it, do - but each of the five episodes I've seen so far packs a different kind of punch.  To return to episode 5, it's not quite as good as "City on the Edge of Forever" from TOS or "Yesterday's Enterprise" from TNG -- which are about the two best hours of time travel ever on television -- but it's pretty close, has respect for all the paradoxes of time travel, and like almost all fine time travel, even a thread I don't quite get.  When Kelly confronts Ed about telling the time traveler about Kelly and Ed's marital problems (they got divorced, because Ed found Kelly in bed with an alien who came in blue),  Ed says of course the time traveler knew, she came from the future, and Kelly says no, our problem took place in the past, and Ed admits he told the traveler.  But ... wait a minute, maybe that was a joke!

Kelly, by the way, is played by Adrianne Palicki of Friday Night Lights, and I'm always happy to see a star from that great series on TV again, just as I am about anyone from The Wire.  The crew, by the way, consists of five humans (Ed and Kelly, a woman doctor, and two guys on the bridge or whatever that is), a younger officer who looks like a Bajoran (well played by Halston Sage), a Lt.  Commander of some sort who looks like a Klingon (and lays an egg - not a bad joke, as Ed quips, but offspring), and some kind of highly intelligent android who sounds like Data but looks like the Tinman digital edition and maybe a little C3PO.  There's also an intelligent kind of slime with Norm MacDonald's voice, but I'm not sure if he's part of the crew.  These homages to Star Trek are of course deliberate and delightful, as is the music and the overall feel of the series.

Star Trek's back!

See also: The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns


1st starship to Alpha Centauri ... had only enough fuel to get there

Tyra on Criminal Minds 6.13

Nice coincidence ... just as I was putting the finishing touches on an essay about Friday Night Lights (which I'll tell you more about as we get closer to the publication date this summer), and whom do I see on Criminal Minds but Tyra (played by Adrianne Palicki), who is always good to see, whether as a tough girl with a good heart on Friday Night Lights, or a psychopathic killer on tonight's Criminal Minds 6.13.

Yeah, good ol' Tyra (her name is Sydney this time around) is on a killing spree with her boy friend/husband who's played by Jonathan Tucker of The Black Donnellys, another superb NBC show, which unfortunately lasted less than one season a few years back.   Tucker (Tommy on the Donnellys, Ray on tonight's CM) has a certain amount of sensitivity, as did his much better character on the Donnellys.   I would've liked to see Riggins jumping into this, but no such luck, and our gun-happy couple predictably end up dead, but not quite as you might have expected.

Of more lasting significance is a thread introduced about  Emily, who quotes Nietzsche about suffering at the beginning of this episode.  She's on the verge of suffering an unwanted reunion with some unfinished business from her past just out of prison in Russia.

This makes the second wriggling back story for one of the BAU team introduced in the past two episodes, the first being Spencer losing some part of his mind in episode 6.12.

Interesting stuff on this highly intelligent show, which will no doubt play some major role in or before this season's finale.

See also Criminal Minds in Sixth Season Premiere ... Criminal Minds 6.2: The Meaning of J. J. Leaving ... Criminal Minds 6.3: Proust, Twain, Travanti

And Criminal Minds 5.22 and the Dark Side of New New Media

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Reasons to Watch Friday Night Lights

Friday Night Lights returns for its fourth season on NBC this Friday Night.   This season was already broadcast on DirecTV, and I've seen it and first three seasons via NetFlix.  It's one of the best shows ever in the 60 years of television.   In recent years, this means I put Friday Night Lights in the same league as The Shield, 24, Lost, The Wire, The Sopranos, Criminal Minds, Dexter, even though those shows have much more in common than with Friday Night Lights.  This is because Friday Night Lights is a show about high school football and even more so because Friday Night Lights is a show about much more than high school football.   I don't even care all that much for football - I'm a baseball fan - but I'd watch Friday Night Lights every night of the year if it was on television that often.   My wife feels the same way about the show.   And it was recommended to us by our 26-year old son.

Here are some of the reasons why Friday Night Lights is so exceptional -

• Coach Eric (Kyle Chandler) and Tami Taylor (Connie Britton) are the best married couple I've ever seen on television.   They have about as equal a relationship as you could find - two strong characters who love each other, love their work, have a zest for life.   They have more than their share of problems - as parents, in their work, from the world at large - but the courage and energy with which they step up and combat the bruising world is, well, an inspiration.
• Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) is a refreshing, authentic hero/anti-hero right up there with James Dean and Jeff Spicoli.  Among his memorable activities,  he freely dispenses sage advice to younger teammates Matt, Landry, and J.D.   My favorite line from Riggins: "I always skip Wednesdays," about why he's driving around in his pick-up truck rather than being in school.
• Speaking of Landry Clarke (Jesse Plemons), you have a triumph of cool reason and intelligence over almost every obstacle.  He even gets one of the two hottest chicks in the school, and you can believe it.   And he has a not half-bad Christian heavy metal rock band, Crucifictorious.
• Realistic portrayal of racial issues is not unique to Friday Night Lights - The Wire still gets the prize for that - but Friday Nights Lights nonetheless has a perfect bead on the trials of African-Americans trying to break out of small towns via the vehicle of football.  Smash Williams (Gaius Charles) in the first two seasons and Vince Howard in the latest season (Michael B. Jordan - a Wire alum) have stories that you'll never forget.
• Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) is superb in all the seasons.  But he has an hour in the latest (4th) season which, trust me, is a tour-de-force of acting easily worthy of an Emmy.   There won't be a dry eye in the house.
• Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly - Derek Jeter's girlfriend in real life) and Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki) are gorgeous, but far more than eye candy.   They're tough, savvy, vulnerable.  Julie Taylor (Aimee Teegarden) holds her own, no easy job, sweet but strong, as Coach and Tami's daughter, and grows up beautifully before our eyes.

Friday Night Lights is Peter Berg's creation - based on the movie he made of the same name.  The movie was good, but it was only about football.  The television show is all-time great, because it is about life.  May be the best show ever on television - at least, that's how I feel on Fridays, and sometimes Wednesdays, too.


6-min podcast review of Friday Night Lights


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The Plot to Save Socrates









"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book