Mortality Paradox

Season	Episode
3	3

Air date

June 16, 2022

Date

June or July 2422

Production Order

Previous episode	Next episode
Shadow Realms	Gently Falling Rain

Mortality Paradox is the third episode of the third season of The Orville. The USS Orville investigates signs of an advanced civilization living on a barren planet but end up trapped on a world that seems to bend space and time.

The episode was written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and directed by Jon Cassar. Music was composed by Joel McNeely.

Mortality Paradox officially premiered on June 16, 2022, though it actually aired in the western United States on June 15.

As of August 20, 2022, the episode holds a 8.0 rating on IMDb.^[1]

Plot[]

Act 1[]

Chief Security Officer Talla Keyali returns to the USS Orville after spending a week with her parents on Xelaya. She enters First Officer Kelly Grayson's office to report detecting the faint trace of a Kaylon quantum signature near the Avior system, then returns to duty.

Later, Talla hands out Xelayan chocolate trusses that her mother made to the Bridge crew. Just then, Isaac picks up narrow-band electromagnetic emissions from the surface of the lifeless planet Narran 1, 13.4 light years away. Navigator Charly Burke is skeptical until Talla also reads the emissions. Those emissions are strong, coherent pulses of energy, indicative of a society of billions of individuals. Captain Ed Mercer orders his crew to investigate.

The Orville arrives at Narran 1. Scanner detect "industrial power sources and transportation networks" on the surface and a population is 8.5 billion inhabitants. The findings should be impossible, but Chief Engineering Officer John LaMarr confirms the scanners are functioning properly. Attempts to hail the Narran people below are fruitless, so Ed orders an away team consisting of himself, Second Officer Bortus, Helmsman Gordon Malloy, Talla, and Kelly. Ed directs John to serve as acting captain alongside Charly.

The away team's shuttle lands in a forest, even though the planet should be utterly barren. From the Orville, John reports that scanners show the cities are gone and replaced with trees. Bortus detects several humanoids with his Comscanner. The team pulls out their PM-44s and approaches with caution, only to find something impossible: A 21st-century American high school.

Act 2[]

Ed contacts John and asks him to scan their location, but John says that scanners only detect the away team and plant life. The away team decides to enter Oakwood High School. Once inside, their communications fail and the door they entered through shuts tight. A class bell rings, and students pour out of the classrooms. The students seem unaffected by the presence of Planetary Union officers, so the away team fans out to search for clues. Back in space, John orders Isaac and Doctor Claire Finn to attempt a rescue mission.

Talla and Bortus find history class in session and begin examining the classroom until the teacher, Mr. Reynolds, kicks the duo out for being disruptive. Meanwhile, Gordon is accosted by three bullies, who drag him into a bathroom and beat him, saying he owes money to someone named Randall and he needs to pay by 3:15 p.m. The bullies exit just as Talla and Bortus enter. The trio find Kelly and Ed and walk to the cafeteria, where students are eating. They sit beside several students, who insist that Gordon had better pay Randall.

Isaac and Claire leave for the planet by shuttle. Once the school day ends, the students exit, followed by the away team. The shuttle is gone and they still cannot contact the Orville, so they decide to speak with Randall at the school's football field. Randall turns out to be an enormous monster who attacks them with an ax. It grabs Gordon, and Gordon's eyes turn white for an instance. Talla hurls a bench into the monster's eyes, and it releases Gordon. The team flees back into the school; the monster pursues until tripping over a fence. However, once inside, the team finds itself not in Oakwood High School, but in an airplane cabin. A flight attendant instructs them to sit. Gordon reports that while held by the monster, his brain "froze."

Act 3[]

Claire, Isaac, and two Security Officers touch down on Narran's surface, which is nothing than a barren desert. They find the away team's original landing shuttle, but cannot find the team.

Back on the airplane, a storm rages outside. Gordon, a pilot, says that whoever is flying the plane is endangering their lives. After a series of lightning strikes kill the cabin lights, Gordon and the others force their way into the cockpit, only to discover it is empty. Gordon hops in the pilot seat and reports the fuel is very low and the engines are dead. Knowing that a crash-landing is inevitable, Gordon attempts to glide the plane to the ground. Moments before crashing, Ed's eyes go white as Gordon's had. The plan skids on the snowy foot of a mountain and comes to a rest at the edge of a cliff. The team turns around and finds everyone in the cabin has disappeared. Bortus opens the emergency exit door, and the team leaves the plane and walks into a dark red hallway.

As the team walks down the hall, Ed and Gordon both describe a sensation of their minds leaving their bodies. The team finds a room with dozens of floating pods, a Moclan morgue. Each pod contains a corpse. Talla sees a flashing button on the wall and presses it, and each pod opens. Bortus stares at a dead Moclan man. Suddenly, the man's eyes open and he chokes Bortus. His strength overwhelms Bortus, and Bortus' eyes go white. Then the man releases Bortus and returns to his original position in the pod. Bortus states that he felt like he left his own body. A door appears at the other end of the room, exiting to a stairwell descending into a black abyss.

Isaac reviews the missing away team's shuttle logs and tells Claire and John that the team landed, exited, and disappeared. In the absence of any leads to their whereabouts, John orders Isaac, Claire, and the others to return to the Orville.

The away team follows the stairs for over a thousand meters until they reach a portal. They enter to find themselves standing on the coast of Lake Ruell on Xelaya. Light signals flash from the other side of the lake. Gordon, Talla, and Kelly hop on a nearby raft and begin paddling to the light.

Act 4[]

An enormous sea monster lurks beneath the water while Gordon, Talla, and Kelly row. The monster grabs Kelly with a tentacle and drags her below. Talla dives in after her. As Kelly begins to drown, her eyes turn white. Talla wrestles Kelly free and swims back to the surface and the monster does not give chase. Gordon and Talla help Kelly back ashore. A wooden door rises out of the stony beach. Ed gives up and shouts to the sky that they are done playing games. Gordon asks Mercer where they should go now and the Captain replies "Anywhere but there...", while motioning towards the door, "This time, were not taking the bait." and the party walks down the beach.

The team finds a power source emitting from a cave. They investigate and discover a large glowing device on the ground. Bortus' comscanner says the device is a holographic projector. The group destroys the projector with their PM-44s and the illusion of Xelaya vanishes, leaving only the broken device and the vast, empty terrain of "the real Narran 1." They collect fragments of the projector and return to the ship.

Back aboard the Orville, Claire examines the team in Sick Bay and reports that each of them had their brains scanned and manipulated to be more easily deceived by the holographic projection. Synchronizing the manipulation with the holographic projector would require an incredibly advanced level of technology.

In Engineering, John and Isaac conclude that the projector uses technology unfamiliar to the Union, but there are signs the Kaylon designed it. Kelly remembers Talla had picked up old traces of the Kaylon's presence when she returned to the Orville, so she deduces that the Kaylon must have planted the projector on Narran prior to their arrival; the projector would be a Kaylon experiment to trick and deceive the Union and the Krill to win the Kaylon conflict. "If you can control someone's perception of reality," Ed surmises. "Peaceful conquest is easy."

Ed and Kelly report their discoveries to Admiral Halsey, who is disturbed. He orders the Orville to deliver the fragments to a small convoy of Union ships. Later, five Union ships, led by the USS Franklin, arrive. Isaac interrupts and urgently says that the convoy is another Kaylon trap brought on by a second nuerogenic device. Charly passionately argues that Isaac is betraying the Union a second time, but Ed orders the Orville charge all weapons, raise deflectors, and escape. The convoy drops its ruse and is shown to be Kaylon spheres. The spheres fire, fracturing the Orville's quantum core and disabling the ship.

On a different Orville bridge, John continues to peacefully serve as acting captain. A transmission is received from Talla, who is in a shuttle in space and ready to enter the Orville.

Back aboard the other Orville, the ship's tactical array dies and deflectors fail. Gordon attempts to evade them, but the Kaylon destroy the navigational array. The quantum core is breached, so Ed orders all hands to abandon ship. A sphere begins a kamikaze dive into the Orville. Just as the sphere makes contact with the Orville's hull, everything freezes and a light scans the team. The team is confused and scared, except for Talla, who transforms into an alien woman: "Don't be afraid, Captain. I'm not going to hurt anyone. My name is Dinal."

Act 5[]

Dinal reveals she has been behind the illusions. The Orville disappears, and the team sees they never left the planet. Dinal is a descendant of a Kandar 1 visited by the Orville in 2420. Kelly had inadvertently created a religion among the primitive inhabitants. Since then, 50,000 years have passed on the planet, and the people have achieved immortality. Unfortunately, her people has become complacent with death and life. Dinal created illusions based on the team's minds and subjected them to experiences of death. She shared their minds for fleeting moments to understand their experiences of mortality. She exhorts the Union to continue to grow and learn, then promises they will meet again.

Back on the Orville, Ed, Kelly, Bortus, and Gordon share drinks in the Mess Hall. They reflect on death and the inability to comprehend non-existence. While Bortus accepts death with stoicism, Ed admits he wishes he could live forever "to see what happens."

Production[]

The crew held a table read of Mortality Paradox script on October 16, 2019.^[2]

While filming Electric Sheep in the first week of November the crew shot minor footage of Mortality Paradox, "gathering material" in preparation for filming this episode, Shadow Realms, and possibly Gently Falling Rain.^[3] The crew had to film carefully around Jessica Szohr (Talla Keyali), who by that point had become noticeably pregnant while her character was not.^[4]

Filming concluded sometime before March 13, 2020, although probably well before.^[5] Editing took place around April 13.^[6] Some remaining scenes were not filmed until the end of 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic and Szohr gave birth.^[4] Mortality Paradox was the final episode shot.^[7]

Post-production[]

Post-production of Mortality Paradox was considered complete by July 22, 2020,^[8] although a week later, editor and associate producer Tom Costantino said that parts remained unfinished.^[9]

Trivia[]

In "Inside The Orville: Mortality Paradox," a bonus feature included on Hulu, André Bormanis, co-executive producer and writer for the series, describes the episode as being a bit of a departure for The Orville, almost bordering on fantasy. He states that Ed went to Narran 1 because he loves a mystery.
- Director Jon Cassar found it exciting and different to film in new environments.
- According to Bormanis, Dinal's abilities are through extremely advanced technology.
This episode runs approximately 61 minutes long, including all credits but not commercials, which makes it approximately 10 minutes shorter than the previous two installments, though still the third-longest episode of the series until that point.

Timeline[]

Dinal states that the Orville visited her planet about two years prior. As the Orville visited Kandar 1 around April and May of 2420, Mortality Paradox takes place in early 2422.
- Dinal states that 50,000 years have passed on her planet since the Orville left. Because time in her universe passes at a rate of 700 years for every 11 days aboard the Orville, that means the end of Mad Idolatry took place 2.15 years ago (two years, one month, and 25 days).
- Dinal probably rounded when she stated that 50,000 years had passed, but considering Mad Idolatry ended in May 2420, her figure allows us to assume that this episode takes place around June or July 2422.
Talla Keyali vacationed on Xelaya for one week.
- She left Xelaya two days before rendezvousing with the Orville.
This episode takes place over the span of many hours.^{[n 1]}
Bortus states that his shore leave will begin in 30 days, and he and Klyden will visit the Belajok Sea. The vacation will likely take place in July or August 2422.
- This calculation comports with the fact that Gordon Malloy advises Bortus to work on his "summer body" for the trip.
A student at Oakwood High School says that the date is the 19th.

Mistakes[]

When Ed Mercer, Kelly Grayson, Bortus, and Talla Keyali leave for Narran, they place John LaMarr in command as acting captain. However, the episode Command Performance had established that after the First Officer (Kelly), the Second Officer (Bortus), and the Chief Security Officer (Talla), the next in command would be the Chief Medical Officer (Claire Finn).
During the battle against the Kaylon, Charly Burke states that helm control is down. Charly is the navigator, and her control panel shows the navigational array. Helm control is operated by the acting navigator sitting beside her.
The body of the airplane is a Boeing 737-800NG, but the cockpit belongs to either a Boeing 757 or a 767.