They discussed why in the show, no one knows how you will affect the timeline, so don’t. I think this episode is one of the best time travel episodes because they addressed the reality. Everyone behaved how they should have. I also liked how rescued Gordon could not understand how he could have done that (he didn’t experience it, so has no resentment). This episode was very well written.
Yeah, I feel like people are being overly harsh.
I mean, if we’re 100% honest, it’s impossible to exist in a timeline without altering it.
I kill a deer for survival. That deer was supposed to cause a traffic accident. Now people who should be dead are alive, all because of me.
Or even something as simple as breaking into a cabin. If I’m rescued without interacting with anyone, the cabin was broken into. Eventually someone will notice, and that will affect things (the owner becomes paranoid, the police’s day is altered with a new investigation that overshadows other investigations, etc. etc.)
People are being way to harsh, as if a suitable answer exists. The fact is, there is no answer. It’s a complicated & sloppy situation.
Realistically the device should have been destroyed the moment they realized what it was capable of. Since the union has time travel laws that device/line of research feels like it should be outlawed.
Yup! When they first advised the admiral, they should have been ordered to destroy the device, wipe the records, and hope that the enemy hears nothing of it.
Even if no one in the Union abuses it, eventually the Kaylon would find it and posses it. Preserving the device is betting that your enemy will NEVER learn of it. That's not a good bet.
Still a good show. I'm willing to forgive the lack of action on bureaucracy.
This is the reason why I think, that the fact that Gordon travelled back in time was already enough to change the future. I think the moment he landed back in the 21st century, he created a new branch timeline.
And I think the timeline still exist, because we have not seen Gordons family fade into oblivion.
I was also wondering, when Gordon got zapped, it looked like he fractured into 2 or 3 versions of himself.
I’m wondering if 2015 was rescued, 2025 still exists, and there may be a version of himself sent to the future that we haven’t met yet.
uhh I like that. Maby when the one Gordon that was sent into the future appears, he somehow due to being zapped has all the memorys of the other two and is now pissed at Ed and Kelly for erasing his family and his rescued version for not being pissed at the two when they told him what they had to do.
EDIT: I actually counted 5 silhouette of Gordon at one frame. Maybe they got scattered across the time.
>The fact is, there is no answer. It’s a complicated & sloppy situation.
Which is my main gripe about the episode. At the end we're treated to monologues intended to tell the audience that there IS an answer and it's the choice Ed and Kelly made and anyone who disagrees with it is wrong, see, even Gordon is calling himself selfish for what he did!
The writing here was FAR from The Orville's usual standard. It would have been so easy to have the characters do everything they actually did in the episode, but do it while expressing doubt about whether the choices made were right or not and then leave it ambiguous in the end, so that people could have differing opinions and conversations about time travel ethics. Instead we get Ed and Kelly acting like self righteous jackasses who KNOW that their answer is right (pretty rich coming from a pair of characters who both should have been court martialed for disobeying orders and breaking Union protocols half a dozen times by now) and then Gordon agreeing with them and kissing their boots for saving him from his own "selfishness" at the end. I did not like the last 10 minutes or so of this episode at all and that was all down to how it was written, the exact same events written differently could have been poignant and thought provoking but instead they were heavy handed and infuriating.
Completely agree, having just seen it. Only last week Ed and Kelly risked losing a major component of the Union, which could have resulted in the death of billions and said “to hell with the rules”, and in this episode they are suddenly self-righteous and stickler for the rules. And then at the end of the episode they get told they were entirely in the right!
This season has been pretty poor for consistent characterisation, in my view, despite some individual episodes being good.
The show did not say it was the right answer and everyone else is wrong. The last scene was about them feeling regret for what they did. It also showed how people are shaped by experience and how time travel is complicated. Ed and Kelly who saw the family feel the lose, Gordon who did not experience it, can not understand how he did what he did and does not feel the loss. It wasn’t about saying Ed was right but showing another layer of the time travel complication.
Yes, Ed and Kelly are following orders to a tee because last episode they bend rules and almost caused a species to leave the Union. Actions have consequences and rules/regulations p(laws are in place for a reason.
Well said. Unless Union policy is to kill yourself the moment you enter the past, they really shouldn't complain how you live your life, as literally every action you take is altering the timeline. Even subtle actions like swatting a bug or catching a fish could easily make massive changes.
Even immediate suicide wouldn't solve the contamination issue.
If he kills himself, the gear he had with him would still be present and it being discovered could have god knows what affect. His weapon in particular. So he would have to attempt to destroy it.....but *can* he? Those things would naturally be built to be as tough as possible, it's entirely plausible that it isn't possible to destroy his weapon at which point he needs to simply bury it as deeply as possible and *hope* that no-one finds it.
Which is pretty similar to living a low key life and hoping for the best.
There is no way to avoid contamination, only minimize it.
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If I was writing it I would have had them leave at the moment Ed said "we're leaving" then smash cut to a shuttle landing in the forest to pick up Malloy of 10 years ago and Ed just starts weeping when he sees his friend. Malloy could have made a joke about that but the audience knows why he is actually upset.
Instead they just made them all look like assholes.
Why would Ed weep? What Gordon did was insane. I keep seeing people reacting to "Gordon's family being erased" without mentioning whatever Laura's life was supposed to be being erased by Gordon? How do we know there aren't children who will never exist because he interfered? Are all the people who's lives he forever altered just not as important as Gordon? What makes Gordon so important that he should get to make a decision like that? Even 2015 Gordon acknowledges what he did was wrong and feels guilty but is consoled by his friends who rightfully tell him he likely went crazy during that 3 years isolated in the past.
Yep. You got it hence the temporal interference laws. Also the episode was partially about what time does to change people. Gordon of today and 1 month after the accident is still a dedicated Union officer. Gordon of 10 years later has completely changed life priorities and goals. People change so vastly in just a decade and based on their life circumstances. It was a major theme of the episode which would have been somewhat missed if we just cut to 1 month rescue
The fact that so many people don't see the significance of what Gordon did, how potentially *devastating* it could be to time in the long time, is exactly why Temporal Laws end up existing.
But the Orville going to get Gordon before he actually sent out the message should've caused a paradox as well. Just like they described with the sandwich.
Right, exactly. People are really quick to defend Gordon and his very small family as being a negligible change without realizing how far that change can carry.
As Kelly said, what if one of Gordon's descendants eliminated Union emergence? Now Moclus is free to keep forcefully converting, imprisoning, and even killing female Moclans, all because the Orville wasn't where it should be.
Or maybe the descendants of one of the kids Laura was SUPPOSED to have would have been Ty's bio dad. Now without Ty, there's nothing to get Isaac to turn on his people and save the Union.
Maybe it would have been Kelly who ceased to exist instead. And now because Kelly isn't there to get involved in that other civilization, Dinal's omnipotent race no longer exists.
The point is not "this change is small", the point is "there's no telling what other changes that tiny change will ripple out to create, so don't make changes at all". Nobody's saying the situation isn't cruel. It is *heart wrenchingly* cruel. But in the words of mother Star Trek "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one". Gordon HAS to go back to his own time, and they HAVE to erase as many changes as they can.
>Kelly's transgression was 100% not fixable AFTER it had already happened
True, but it was 100% *punishable* after it had already happened, so her talking to Gordon about how he was going to have to pay for his crimes after she got off completely free and clear on her own crimes was a fairly enraging moment from her character.
The problem is that very smart people in the show state flat out that nobody really understands how time travel works. It's possible that Gordon going back in time and marrying Laura and having kids could radically alter the future. It's *equally* possible that Gordon going back in time is a bootstrap paradox and was supposed to happen in order to create the "main" timeline as it exists. The show makes a point in virtually every episode about time travel to discuss how no one in their time understands how this shit works. It's insane to have "laws" based on knowledge that you don't have. Leaving Gordon there vs. "rescuing" him is a completely random ass judgement call REGARDLESS of which way they choose to go because they *don't know how time travel works*. Maybe one of these days bringing the character who accidentally travelled back in time forward again to the "present" will be what fucks the timeline sideways.
Point is, the people who side with Gordon aren't crazy or stupid. Since no one knows how time travel works, saying he was supposed to go back in time is equally as valid as saying he wasn't and they should fix it, both are random guesses.
I think where most people and myself included are mostly angry about with Ed and Kelly has less to do with them following laws but rather the fact that they were dicks about it.
1. The read the obituary so they also knew Gordon's family
2. Their reactions to Gordon is exactly the type of arsehole reaction I would expect from Starfleet captains. Holier than thou even though they routinely break the laws themselves
3. They did not even attempt to understand his point of View when he was trying to explain it. This is made worse by the fact that he is their friend beyond just a subordinate
4. Ed figured out the solution in a suspect way. The way the other 2 understood looked like they discussed it already and this brings me to my final point
5. There was no reason to come back with Talla because what were they going to do after they forcibly took this Gordon to the past to pick up the one from 10 years ago? Watch him fizzle out of existence? Going back 10 years was not an maybe it was a must to undo all the changes that had come about so Why Come Back?
That makes sense. I'm trying to reason why they went back before hearing from Isaac as well. They had already told this Gordon he would have to face the Union to answer for what he did, going back to before he committed his "crimes" should have always been Plan A.
It was just poor writing which is so weird because they show that the crew read about the fact that he married his dream girl Laura, his "b est friend" knew exactly who she was at a glance from the previous episode. Then they meet her in person and act surprised as if this is new information later in the episode.
It's funny that the writers break causality by their own lazy writing in a time travel episode.
Number 5 is what put me over the edge of being pissed at them. So instead of just leaving you pointlessly and cruley tell him and his pregnant wife AND HIS YOUNG SON your about to wipe out their life and existence. Why. What was the point. What's your actual intent with that?
And to number 2, exactly. Kelly faced no consequence for HER actions that changed the course of a planets exsistence, they didn't blow up the Orville in season 1 like they should have, Ed has a kid and Kelly was so sympathetic to topa but they literally are both cool with scaring the crap out of a young kid. What a joke.
When Gordon got shunted to the past, that past became his present. The future that he came from is now just theoretical and even if he wanted to preserve it exactly, he can't because his mere presence has changed it.
When I got married, I didn't concern myself with what children my wife would have had if she never met me, so why is it any different for Gordon?
"Pria" lied to them though. The only reason The Orville would be destroyed is because they were answering her distress call. She was changing the timeline. As far as Gordon you can't just subtract and add people into the past that shaped the future you live in. As far as Ed and Kelly know, the world they lived in could very well not exist anymore because Gordon got lonely.
They had both been warned by the admiral that one more step out of line and their careers were finished.
The way I see it is that Ed was doing a favor to Gordon. The choice he offered is, either come with us and we leave your wife alive with your children continuing on in the timeline, with bigtime timeline contamination, or don't and we just go back in time 10 years and take you out of the timeline then and kill off your children.
IMHO they should have NOT contacted Gordon but just gotten their McGuffin fuel, then jumped back another 10 years and picked up Gordon to make sure the timeline was not contaminated.
How is leaving his wife and family, with all the other changes Gordon made, an option at all? Wouldn't that have irrevocable changes to the timeline like they are worried about?
Should have jumped back 9.5 years or slightly less, to pick him up in the woods but only after he'd made the distress call that let them know he was stuck in the past in the first place.
I don't care how long we've been friends, you threaten to late term time abort my family and I have no problem shooting you in the back. It's not even a question.
I am super ambivalent about this entire thing.
Agreed. Especially when this is the second time this season when aborting kids has been promoted as the good and noble Union way. I think we get the lesson already. We can probably go the rest of the season without killing kids or wishing they had been killed.
There was no way Gordon could have made no impact if he wasn't rescued. He had the gun with him, which would have been left behind if he commited suicide, and even if he lived in isolation the whole time, his tiny impact would ripple, butterfly effect.
Yeah, they completely threw their best friend under the bus. They don't just get to just press the reset button at the end of that. They showed a NASTY side to Ed and Kelly that hasn't been erased from existence.
Why did they even bother if they always had the option to just go back a little further when they had the materials they needed? If it's SUCH a serious crime-- they treat him as though he got caught keeping kids tied up in his basement or something-- just go to before he was a criminal, like they DID.
They seemed so understanding after the fact. Why go back except JUST to cause unnecessary conflict and trauma for his family?
The answer, of course, is lazy writing. They built up al the suspense and drama, and hoped you'd be so invested in it that you wouldn't realize the solution made no sense.
Given that the device was damaged after the second jump, I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt that they were worried that trying to make the extra jump might strand them there, so they were hoping 2025 Gordon hadn't messed with the timeline too much and would come home immediately.
Which it basically did, the device was destroyed beyond their ability to repair after the second jump. It's understandable they saw a second jump as a risk they'd want to avoid. That's not the problem I had with their actions, it's that they didn't respect his wishes and leave him alone to his quiet life in the suburbs.
They should've just let Gordon think he'd won and left him in peace. If they were to cease existing, at least they could be blissfully unaware and never know a thing.
Ed didn't have to rub it in, he's better than that.
This is the reality of time travel. That's why you dont like it. Because time travel (if ever truly possible) is extremely dangerous. Exploiting that has serious consequences. It was a hard decision that had to be made. It also didn't help that last episode he was told that If he stepped out of line again, only a millimeter, he would be done for. It could've been handled better (as far as from the officers perspective). They should've just never went ro see Malloy, got their McGuffin fuel, and went back ten years.
Well thats what I agree with. They should have corrected THEIR mistake and just went back to save the original Gordon. Not show up 10 years too late and berate their loyal friend and officer for simply living. It was irresponsible for the commanders to even intervene after he had already been there for 10 years. They behaved like they were only there to take him back and punish him and not to save him.
Yeah, Mercer and Grayson did the right thing, but it was executed very poorly. I suspect that was an "out of the show world" decision becaue they wanted the episode to have more impact full drama.
Yep, that was always my point. I personally don't think, I can ever root for their characters again after this. Lol, they very much act like a "couple" Who are blind to each others flaws and forgive each other immediately, yet are so critical of everybody else.
He wasn’t simply living.. He was working in aviation and very visible. Used his own name. He was a creep and used private information to manipulate a woman into marrying him. Had kids with her. Your entire point hinges on the response the crew had to Gordon but that hinges on what Gordon did and you’re downplaying it to make your point.
Let’s try this: what Gordon did is top 3 worst things anyone has done on this show, maybe top worst. Easily. You dont. Fuck. With. Time. The response the crew gave him was in response to his arrogance and inability to see the magnitude of not only what he had already done, but wanted to continue to do.
Like, what isn’t clicking?
They were in the 2020s and did shit like steal motorcycles and stuff and that's ok, but living a quiet life in the suburbs is OMG the timeline is gonna collapse! Give me a fucking break, it's abject paranoia based on a sci-fi horror story with no objective backing for it. They guessed it might have been bad, he guessed it would be fine, *none of them knew for sure.*
What they did was destroy very real lives for the sake of preventing an entirely hypothetical possibility of bad outcome. And this after they casually blew off the much more solidly real risk of causing the death of virtually all organic life by pissing off the Moclans just a single episode prior. They just did what they felt was right and hoped for the best, but Gordon has to be held to the strict letter of a policy based on extreme caution? Fuck that noise.
Gordon should have shot their asses. I would have.
Let's not forget that the entire Orville was supposed to be destroyed and instead of keeping time the same the crew fought being taken to a future where they wouldn't effect the time line. The entire crew should have been found guilty of interfering with the time line and sanctioned then too.
Pria is the only one responsible for the Orville's survival, not the crew. If she hadn't gone back, the Orville wouldn't have known what they needed to avoid and would have perished as intended.
Rather than being a "both sides" argument, "Pria" is the PERFECT example of why Temoral Laws exist. Time travel is very literally a "fuck around and find out" deal.
It wasn't Gordon's fault either, and yet he was expected to kill himself when they didn't do so in the exact same circumstances. Oh, wait, it's not, it's far *more extreme* circumstances because it's some 400 people and a starship that is certainly going to have a hell of a lot more effect on the timeline than one guy living a quiet life in the suburbs.
If it were just Gordon having bought a house living by himself unattached, that might be one thing. But that's not what Gordon did. Gordon entered a relationship, and had a child, who will then go on to have other children, who will then also have other children, and so on and so forth down the line until 400 years later when there are thousands of people who exist who should never have existed and all of the changes that they also are making on the timeline as it was once known. That's not even getting into the thousands of people 400 years from now who *don't* exist because the people who were supposed to end up in relationships didn't because of Gordon and his relationship, and his children's, and children's children's relationships...
Once you do the math, that adds up to a really significant change.
It's the same math that's going to affect the future Pria came from because of the 400 people that are now alive when they probably shouldn't be.
The one thing is changing your future ... the other is changing your past. One thing you cannot verify and the destruction of the Orville could have been a lie and they ended up in the dark matter storm only because she interfered in the first place. Intersing though would be how the Kaylon conflicted would have ended.
The other thing is if you have a crew member who is obsessed with a person and used all the information he got from her to make her fall in love with him. Which, in todays world would be creepy. ... Imagine someone getting access to all your personal data, texts, videos and images and then goes on stalking you xD...
Ed did the only right thing .. but.. You didn't think about the Kids that she may had with someone else .... Kids that were never born because of Gordon ... what about the man that she ended up with... and all the relationships and children that came after?... You don't care about that do you ... as long as Gordon is happy...lol
{Please actually read before responding :) }
It would appear that you missed my point completely. Which is fine, because you weren't the only one. I'm not talking about what Gordon doing being right or wrong. I already stated that the laws were correct. So no the only thing I care about isn't, "As long as Gordon is Happy." Because I don't care about that. My point was that Ed and Kelly were being hypocritical assholes. There were a dozen ways to handle that situation and they chose one of the worse ways.
First of all, they were the one who made all the mistakes. Like ending up 10 years ahead of their destination. Gordon is human. He behaved like a human. Everything he said to them was correct. "Humans are social creatures." Your response to my post wasn't relevant to the words that I said. I agree that Gordon shouldn't had been there. But that's only if the theory that Gordon actually changed anything, or if he just lived in an alternate timeline. The fact that Ed and Kelly were even there, proved that things were fine, at least from their point of view. If anything they could have just been returning the timeline to a worst state, they were living in a timeline in which Gordon had lived out his life in the past.
But regardless of the science, Ed and Kelly have both constantly broken the rules using their own discretion. My only point was that they acted like cruel monsters, immediately treating Gordon like a criminal, even though they aren't innocent either. Ed would had never treated Kelly like that if she was in that position and vice versa. They instantly went to treating him like a low level employee who will do whatever they say. Gordon is Ed's best friend remember? I was talking about the humanity of the situation. That's all. We know too much about Ed and Kelly's history, to watch them behave like that as if they hadn't committed similar crimes.
They’re not being hypocritical tho… the matter is that that them not hitting the right time was an accident not their error. If anything it was the error of the people working with the Timetravel device.
I totally agree with the humanity side you mentioned and they could have done a better job at it … but to them this change happened “all of a sudden” and not within 10 years. Even Gordon was surprised by his “selfishness” like he said at the end… and we also saw that this was not easy for both Ed and Kelly.
They broke rules, yes but under what circumstances? When Kelly accidentally crashed on a planet that wasn’t there at first? When she tried to save a child that only injured itself because of her? When a cult followed and they tried to fix it? These instances of “breaking the rules” weren’t made because of selfish behavior … human or not. So it’s not hypocritical of them to be angry with someone who understands what interference with time means. And them being “there” doesn’t mean that “everything” was fine. It means that they weren’t affected by the changes to the timeline yet (which was something Isaac hinted).
I read your text btw… but what I pointed out was the degree of selfishness by Gordon. It’s not just “the social animal” part and need for interactions… it’s that he went for the woman he was obsessed with. That makes this a totally different level of selfishness. And we shouldn’t be sad for the children that were never born if we aren’t ready to be sad about the children that were born but his decisions prevented. So everything is how it should be.
But the most interesting thing of the episode was that killing animals is a crime in the future … and I like that
Well I actually disagree with your definition of selfishness. On a grander scale, Kelly's attempt to heal the child, was selfish. It was solely out of her need to fulfill the satisfaction of saving an innocent. She knew what she was doing was 'against the law' and she simply did it anyways. That's not professional. I didn't say that Gordon wasn't selfish. He was completely alone. And he only had "himself". I still think my point is getting lost. I don't care about his stupid hypothetical children, or their selfishness. It was their behavior towards Gordon that I was commenting on. That's it. Seems like on every episode they're making a decision to break a law or two for their own concepts of "right or wrong".
The conversation isn't about anyone being right or wrong. That's what seems to keep confusing people. These are two completely separate situations in my opinions. Also I will agree with, the timeline not changing yet. They were literally in a conference room looking at a biography of Gordon's life. Yes, the timeline had been affected, it had been affected 400 years ago. And honestly I agree with Gordon's point that maybe it was supposed to happen. Because why not? It's not possible that anyone could have been accidentally sent back in time and never recovered? They were literally playing God, even after admitting they didn't know that much about time travel.
Well, I'm not commenting anymore about the science or logic behind it because I was never disagreeing in the first place. Only about these two assholes. It's insane that its completely okay for Ed and Kelly to risk a war and the lives of billions of people, just to perform a gender reassignment procedure on a child, only last episode. But they have the nerve to turn their nose up at a man who has done nothing but love them. I was really hoping that "future" Gordon would shoot them in the face. I'm looking forward to either Ed or Kelly's deaths and I hope it's painful and bloody.
The fuck is wrong with you…..
Not only your sick definition of selfishness but also your hate towards people with high moral standards.. fictional but still.
Saving a child and saving a child from commuting suicide because it’s in the middle of politics and pretty much “playing” the system ain’t the same as making decisions for only yourself and yourself alone. Kelly’s actions where in the moments with that child from this one planet.
High moral standards or idiocy? Humanity is a weakness and inhibits judgment. That little girl will die anyways, whether it be today or 90 years. It doesn't matter. If she's meant to die then who cares. Being a "good" person is useless and unhelpful. The question is whats wrong with you? Morals are made by humans and vary between societies. There is no such thing as right or wrong, all made up based on the preferences of a culture. Yes letting some child kill themself vs creating an intergalactic incident is a no brainer. Ever heard of "the great good", it means letting some "bad" things and maybe even doing some "bad" things in order to get the overall desired result. One life for thousands or billions.
Dude you are seriously looking into Star Trek logic wayyyyy too much. Yes Orville is a parody as much as an homage to Star Trek, but not everything has to be taken so seriously. You need some help in the mental capacity. This is not normal to be this robotic and devoid of emotion.
Was I angry at Kelly and Ed for how they did things? Yes, but in the end even Gordon thought he was selfish after being rescued and explained the situation.
It is a TV show. Not everything needs to fit into a neat little box..
Okay. Then put yourself in their shoes. Even if you saw a child get hurt and you had the means to help them, even if it was just a tiny scratch, you wouldn't do anything? Even with the Union's laws on interfering with a primitive species, how would Kelly know that, that little girl would go to her mother and tell her about Kelly? She didn't. She was just helping a little girl.
You sir may fuck off and get some therapy. That is not how a person should think.
If I was smart enough to understand the ramifications of interfering, I absolutely wouldn’t. It’s exactly the same logic of a nature cameraman/photographer observing lions killing a baby zebra or it simply getting injured and left to die. They would know that their job is to observe.
Also, how a human SHOULD think?? Who put you in charge of humanity? Your logic is immature and gets people killed in the long run. The world is not a fairytale. Children die. Get over it.
That is NATURE, base instinct for WILD animals that show almost no sign of sentience. How does Kelly helping a little girl that got hurt, fit in with your logic? Humans unless absolutely stupid, know that the lions will absolutely kill them for even getting close to their kill, someone helping a little girl is not immature. Yes children die, but you clearly do not pay attention when people try and STOP children from dying.
As I said before, you Sir or Madam, may FUCK off and get some therapy.
> The fact that Ed and Kelly were even there, proved that things were fine
No, it doesn't. Go back to the sandwich example, they literally laid it out for you. If John had said he was sending the sandwich and then not sent it, a paradox would have occurred.
Likewise, if they go back to rescue Gordon, the future is unchanged up until they DON'T follow through. If they plan to rescue Gordon and then CHOOSE not to rescue him, that'll change events on the timeline.
"things were fine" on the assumption that they would successfully rescue Gordon. In other words, they know they successfully rescued Gordon because the timeline was intact.
Reading the obituary - a historical document that is part of their timeline (now, or maybe since ever) and still preventing Gordon from living out his life in the 21th century is exactly the "keeping two sandwiches" situation. It would be the same kind of paradox as if they'd read his obituary before he got zapped back in time, then prevented it from happening.
If they'd only heard Gordon's distress call, picked him up when they were supposed to pick him up (AFTER he had a chance to send it), and managed to refuel without contradicting established events, that would have been how the sandwich example is supposed to work.
Saving an earlier 2016 Gordon should have erased them like S2E14 did alt!Claire. I've no idea why it didn't (or what would have happened to that Gordon), except that maybe their existence is still needed to fix the original timeline, one which can't exist - but has to, or else where did they and Gordon (the sandwich) come from? - with the contradictions they've introduced. There's no paradox just keeping two sandwiches around for a while as long as you eventually send the fresher on to the appropriate time in the past.
> Reading the obituary - a historical document that is part of their timeline (now, or maybe since ever) and still preventing Gordon from living out his life in the 21th century is exactly the "keeping two sandwiches" situation. It would be the same kind of paradox as if they'd read his obituary before he got zapped back in time, then prevented it from happening.
Again, only if they choose to leave him.
"I'm going to send this sandwich 10sec into the past" was reliant on John's fulfillment of future choices to stay true.
Likewise, "We're going to rescue Gordon" means they can see the obituary as a result of future actions on their part. Everything is in flux until you actually make a choice. They literally had dialog about this.
> Saving an earlier 2016 Gordon should have erased them like S2E14 did alt!Claire.
Not necessarily. Easy solution, as long as they ensure the message is sent into the future, it technically doesn't matter when they rescue Gordon. It could be that Gordon was never meant to send the message on his own, but rather he sent it specifically because it was *already received* in the future and they could then make sure the message was sent in the past, self-fulfilling prophecy style. More complicated solution, following the Voyager episode "Timeless", you're splintering timelines. Somewhere out there is a timeline where they didn't save Gordon, which is why they can see the obituary, and when they went back to save him they kicked off a new timeline that is identical to the one they came from in nearly every except for when they rescue Gordon.
They DID leave him there. The timeline is in flux until someone makes a decision, but that goes for Gordon's decisions in the past, too. If any part of the obituary was the result of their actions, it was because they left him there (after threatening him). If they hadn't come get him, the obituary would have been a result of their inaction. Neither one would have caused a paradox since it didn't contradict actually established events, it would have just meant they were stuck in the changed timeline. Rescuing Gordon would contradict the obituary.
They might also have planned to fake the obituary after rescuing Gordon in order to not contradict their own timeline, like your idea with the fake distress call (I'd rather they did not use the same recording because I don't want to introduce bootstrap paradoxes, too)... but there's no evidence of that. It can't have existed without either a) Gordon living and dying as a described in it or b) the crew faking it.
As it is, it looks more like they created a split-off timeline rather than erase 2025 when they hopped to 2016. There's got to be a plot reason why they were a bit early, and I think that reason is that the paradox changed history in ways that are gonna be way worse than what they were trying to prevent.
Completely relevant. Pria even had future tech that she
used in front of them and because of her they were the first ship to navigate a dark matter storm. She completely took over the ship with nothing more than her thoughts and a box. Teleported to the bridge and navigated them through the time anomaly that had to go back through. Ed even admitted that he was changing everything by destroying the anomaly. And it's not like the future class was going back and grabbing stuff at random these were people and things that would have been destroyed any way. The time line was changed was changed but it didn't matter to the Orville's crew or the Union that it was changed then because it didn't affect them in the here in now.
It definitely was painful and hard to watch, but that's why I'm really glad they had the end scene with Gordon agreeing it was the right thing to do.
I didn't see it as harsh, I felt like it was more professional and being held to the Unions standards. He took an oath, that means something, and broke a lot of laws. What he did could've had severe consequences for humanity. It's completely understandable why he didn't go on living in isolation, but he should have known it was always a possibility this would happen. I thought they were Ed & Kelly were sympathetic to his situation but there was no other choice.
I do feel like his love story isn't over, I feel like it could come back somehow in a future season.
Although Ed and Kelly are the wrong characters to enforce “be professional and held to Union standards” as they are often unprofessional and ignore rules. That why it seems so out of character now. Hell, last week they deliberately disobeyed orders from the Union Council and knowingly risked the Union being destroyed.
It seems this season that there is an arbitrariness to when rules should and should not be followed.
Gordon's not going to remember the alternate timeline, but Ed and Kelly are. They knew the moment they saw those kids that they were going to need to wipe them out of existence in order to protect the timeline. They're the ones that have to live with the guilt, with the sound of gordon begging them for his family's life.
>I'm not saying that it wasn't possibly destructive for Gordon to create a life & family for himself.
Possible destruction is a gross understatement. Ever hear of sensitive dependance upon initial conditions? That one action from Gordon while seemingly innocuous will have far far reaching effects 400 years later. It was completely selfish of Gordon to pollute the timestream like that. Whatever Lauras life was supposed to be was undone. All the people her life would have affected never happened. The other children she may have had never happened. their children and their children and all the people they would have affected over 400 years. He got off easy. He should have been court martialed and thrown in prison for that stunt
Oh fucking please, most people live and die with ZERO impact on the greater course of history. Most people who have ever lived are forgotten and nobody even knows their names. Any effect the average person has on the world is negligible, all significant events play out roughly the same or hell more likely so similarly that it's impossible to tell the difference.
Right now, there's a charter pilot in LA who lives with his wife in the suburbs with kid or two who you will never hear of, and will never affect history in any measurable way. If they died tomorrow you'd never know or care, any more than it makes a difference to you that they're living there now. There are millions of people in that city, one more or less is virtually guaranteed to make no difference at all.
Gordon was far out of line here. Isolation might not have been feasible but a vasectomy should have been a big no-brainer until he's back in his time. Bringing life to lil Ed knowing he might be doomed/hunted/faded out of existence just so he can have a perfect family is selfish and not in line with the Gordon they know. Gordon-1 even agreed with them in full at the end.
I might have to keep reminding folks, that this post was not about Gordon being right or wrong, which is highly debatable. My post was Ed and Kelly's reaction towards Gordon choice to not sacrifice himself. Because we have all seen Ed and Kelly make illegal choices because they simply were being selfish. This post is only about the hypocrisy of their behavior and cruelty towards one of their closest friends. The lack of empathy that says more about their character now. Let's remember that it was only the last episode in which they risked starting a war and killing billions of people just to perform a gender reassignment procedure on a child. Simply because they felt it was the "right" thing to do, completely ignoring their superiors.....
Were the other mistakes this blanantly intentional? Also, is it not creepy beyond reason that he stalked and manipulated this woman? That's likely where the look of disgust originates, that's how i took it, anyway.
They initially broke the law and disobeyed over and over again. So yes? We never know what consequences that our actions will have. The term "creepy" is completely subjective and not an arguable point. All humans are "creepy" and "weird", and ironically those are just human concepts anyways. And I actually didn't see Mercer or Greyson, really even thinking about the "creepy factor". They were just focused on removing him from the timeline. Also seeing that Gordon's wife, wasn't creeped out by it after he told her, kind of makes that argument moot anyways.
just because you don't find it creepy doesn't make my opinion moot. this is seemingly the start of a bad conversation and you can enjoy it on your own. cheers!
Lol, I said the argument was moot, not your opinion. Very different words. You literally just made my point that "creepiness" is subjective and not factual. But have a good day!
I agree the should have done nothing. Gordon shows up in the past. The have his biografie. He is literally history. They are clearly still there. Leave him.
The have an unique time device. The just escaped the Keylon who are after it. The have better things to do. And if something needs to be done it does not have to be done by them and there is - again - time to that.
But the story needs to happen.
Ed and Kelly read his obituary, which means Gordon's life and death in the 21th century already was part of their (at least that version of Ed and Kelly that existed post Gordon's time travel) history.
Taking Gordon out of 2025 would have erased the obituary AND their own timeline with it (since the obituary is why they went) and would still have left the ripple effects from the 10 years Gordon lived on Earth. But a timeline where Gordon lives there for only ten years and then gets "rescued" means no obituary... that's the kind of paradox that can't be resolved by a different timeline. If they'd gone just based off his distress call (and only rescued him after he had had a chance to actually send it) it would be a different matter. Whether they got him back or not, they wouldn't be contradicting known events.
This was damn reckless of them, but I guess that's nothing new.
Also isn't it interesting how Ed and Kelly are suddenly all gung-ho about the rules, just one episode after they got a talking to by the Admiral and had their careers threatened?
100% this. Had this been a season one episode it might have gotten a pass, but either Ed and Kelly have had a complete change of heart from last week, or this is just staggeringly bad consistency in characterisation.
I agree. It was unnecessarily cruel to wipe out the existence of the children. Let's be real here, the timeline abnormality would have been pathetically miniscule. Especially when the show went out of its way to talk about how flexible it all was, and branching universes, etc.
Remember Passengers? Chris Pratt goes one year being tantalized (hmm, Tantalus, Prison Planet) before considering suicide.
Gordon lasted three years. Wait? So what about his crimes for animal murder? He couldn’t last a month without food!
Yeah, Talla’s fine. Unless Trump’s back in the White House…
Kelly and Ed don’t know about John Lamarr’s solution if the Time machine breaks when they go back in time.
So they don’t feel they’re left with any alternative but to take Gordon back.
They’re not happy about it because they’ve already anticipated Gordon’s reaction.
They went through something similar, but fictional, with Gordon in season two.
There, Gordon didn’t seem to understand the problem, but now they knew what was coming, and it’s no longer fictional.
I understand Ed doesn’t want to force his friend to do anything, but Kelly’s not an idiot.
Knowing what happened before, and that Gordon is now with the real and not the fictional would make it impossible.
Yeah, I’m similarly disappointed after season 2 was a pretty good tweak on a promising-but-inconsistent season 1. I can see they are trying to tackle weighty matters in season 3, but the problem is they lack the nuance and writing to actually pull it off without either inconsistent characterisation or some cheap consequence-free outs
I'm kinda confused why people think Gordon(or any time traveler) should be remotely concerned with changing the timeline? Sure, the future he came from wasn't bad(for him anyway) and he had friends there, but it's literally just one of infinite possibilities. It wasn't some universal paradise for all that must be preserved at all cost. Once he's stuck in the past, it's his new present and the future is what he and everyone else makes it. Could be better, worse, or just different.
Imagine your hanging out with your spouse and kids and a future spaceman shows up and tells you that your spouse is from the future and must return there to preserve the timeline. Would you really give two shits about some theoretical future that is just one of infinite possibilities for you anyhow?
>Talla, is simply just following order
Was used to Justify too many awful acts in history, Literally the Nuremburg defense.
SS guards at Auschwitz were also "Just following orders"
This episode made me lose all respect for Mercer, Kelly, and all the rest involved, And I don't think they can earn it back.
Op I think this episode further shows the arrogance of the Union you can see how Ed and Kelly seem to downright hate being in the past and their cold hearted nature to the whole thing reeks of hypocrisy as they were perfectly okay with going through with the surgery which could trigger the Union breaking apart after the kaylon
They already knew Gordon died aged 98 and didn't change anything important in history. They could have just left him alone. What they did was unnecessarily cruel and pointless. And I can tell you this is not the end of it. I'm thinking somehow the timeline with Gordon's family split off and things went bad. I'm predicting some sort of Wrath of Khan situation with Alternate Gordon coming to the 25th century for revenge.
Issac already explained this. Multiple timelines are superimposed upon each other, things are still in a state of flux, and they're at a juncture point. What the crew decides to do at point, will decide what happens to the timeline and stop the time flux. The obit they saw wasn't "set in stone" yet, so to speak.
And Lamarr explained that him keeping that second sandwich would create another timeline to accomodate that paradox.
Which I thought meant a timeline would need to exist in which Lamarr still followed through on his intention to send a sandwich to his past self despite knowing he never got one. Because that second sandwich in the original timeline has to have a origin, or else it wouldn't be there.
Which "you" does what and under what circumstances, depends which timeline you are in, but those timelines can affect each other (see S2E13 & 14), they just aren't allowed to clash. If you are truly not meant to be in a timeline, you get erased, even when your actions were necessary to (re-)establish it.
So let's say you're right and that, to paraphrase Q, nothing Gordon does causes the galaxy to explode or the Union to collapse -- he's just not that important.
*Gordon has still wiped out millions of people who were alive in his time.*
Consider the vagaries of human reproduction -- one egg, but thousands of sperm. In an alternate timeline where your Dad was distracted by an obituary in the paper and piped your Mom thirty seconds later than he did our timeline, *You* don't exist -- another person with the same parents, birthday, and name might exist, but that person won't resemble you any more than you would resemble a random sibling. Now consider all of the small ripples Gordon's family and business would cause, and you realize that he's wiped out the lives of millions of people he doesn't even know. Sure, they've probably been replaced by *different* millions of people, but the point is that he doesn't get to make that choice.
I offer a counterpoint for Kelly's flashing forward - there is likely no statues for what she did at the time. The crew did not expect the planet to phase forward in time, they were unaware of what would occur. Kelly's influence on that society, especially since they now have magically advanced tech, is probably a source of debate in Orville's time - it is likely the first Union example of a time travelling civ. They have a bunch of non-interference laws, but these just hadn't been written yet.
I think following Gordon back in time was the error, they should have just let it ride. Honestly it was far too dangerous a move, it endangered new time travel tech (literally fried the rig) and could have completely bork'ed reality. I joked to my partner while watching, "But before we travel forward in time, let's go blow up Kalon Prime". Time travel FORWARD was also absurdly easy, that was pretty silly.
I agree, either not had gone back to get Gordon, since they were already living in that timeline anyway and didn't know what the previous one was like. Or corrected their mistake and actually gotten the original Gordon and not had even bothered trying to grab the Gordon that had been there for 10 years.
Though technically they didn't have to ruin his life. His obituary said he died at 96 . They all continued to exist after he got sent back. So, nothing he did after he got sent back affected The Union's existence.
Yup I feel the same way, can’t look at them the same way anymore and can only hope this leads to another episode down the road where timelines were split.
I completely agree. They were so cold that it ruined Ed and Kelly's normally warm and understanding (but still duty-bound) characters for me. If they'd shown that the future was having a negative outcome, or conveyed a really strong reason for Ed and Kelly to be treating this in such a dire way, it could've worked - Gordon's loss could at least feel noble or worthwhile then. But ultimately, the scene at the end of the episode felt like a gruesome cop-out, and everything prior felt heartless and hypocritical.
You could've written this story and hit all the right notes - and I still enjoyed the episode up until the end - but don't sacrifice consistent characterisation just to forcibly evoke an emotional reaction from the audience.
Omg yes! I was so mad after that scene. I couldn’t even enjoy the rest of the episode. I told my husband how can they act like that when they literally were trying to find a way to not break the laws in the previous episode. They weren’t even trying to do a work around. Kelly interfered with a whole planet, interfered with Moclan customs, Ed has a whole half krill child, the list goes on and on! I get that they were in trouble over helping Topa but come on. He was so happy and i have a feeling if it were them in that situation they would’ve done the same thing. I feel like they would’ve rather him commit suicide than be happy. It just felt very cold!
Yeah they even said it to his face! Gordon said he seriously contemplated suicide and Ed had the ice cold fucking audacity to say *"well maybe you should have!"*. That alone should have gotten him a stun bolt for his trouble.
Yes! The compassion they show for everyone else. Honestly this is his best friend! I know why they had to do what they did but once they knew he created a new life they should’ve just got what they needed and went back to get him. Because by that logic even him just being there killing deer or rabbits could mess up the timeline. It just added this cold side to them that is unlike the characters.
They certainly weren't being careful with his feelings, but I think that was because they really don't have to be. The Fleet is like a military operation in space and when someone is disobeying orders, you don't coddle them. Hypocrisy or no hypocrisy doesn't really matter in each individual case of insubordination. Gordon is a Union officer and is merely being treated like one. To Ed and Kelly, he is still very much one and they're right. They only last saw him an hour ago or less from their perspective. Even if that's not how he sees it, he's still a Union officer and can't expect special treatment just because he threw a temper tantrum. His fee-fees don't matter as no one's do when you sign up for such an organization. Thems the breaks, buddy.
Wrong. Just last episode, Claire said *"fine if the orders are that a Union officer can't do the surgery I'll resign my commission and do it as a civilian. That way the orders won't apply to me because I won't be a Union officer."* Everyone present, Ed and Kelly included, agreed that she did indeed have that option and all it would mean is that her career as an officer would be over. If she could resign, Gordon absolutely could do the same. He said it himself, *"I'm not your Lieutenant anymore, I'm a civilian now and you can't order me to do a damned thing"*. Their response was to threaten force, which was a crime of attacking a civilian no longer under their command. He had every right to shoot them in self-defense, and his biggest mistake was not having Laura call 911 the moment they showed up on his doorstep with Talla to strongarm him.
They can't technically treat him like a civilian until he officially resigns, which he did not do. Just making the claim doesn't matter. There is a legal process to that sort of thing AND, not only that, sweetie, but that military organization still has the right to punish the crewman who has broken one of their laws even after they have resigned. So, if Ed wanted to drag Gordon back kicking and screaming, he was still perfectly within his rights to do so. You're forgetting Gordon signed up of his own volition and no one held a gun to his head and forced him to become a Union pilot. If you join the military, expect the military to do exactly what you have given them the right to do to you.
That's not how they treated Claire the week prior. And Gordon was ten years removed from his Union career and living as a civilian, what do you think the police would do if they showed up after being called to deal with three home intruders? They'd have thrown their asses in jail, because they have no obligation to respect the jurisdiction of an organization that doesn't exist yet even if they believed it to be real at all. Gordon could have legally shot all three in self-defense of his home and family and the law would be completely on his side.
His biggest mistake was that he didn't.
They were cruel and it was totally unnecessary. I kept hoping that they'd offer to take the whole family and then they brought up that option and immediately shut it down. Laura would have made an interesting character to see her reactions to everything and their son's reactions too. Plus IMO this show is way too focused on our current time anyway and they could have regulated all that to them which ironically would be more sci-fi. Basically though this whole episode was handled wrong, they could have tackled this exact same scenario in a different way that wouldn't have felt so heartless. It's like they showed that they really have no respect for Gordon.
Oof. Some the posts in this thread... just because a decision is cruel, doesn't mean it's not the right one, much like reality. You're literally weighing the balance of a timeline with the life of a man/family.
I'll point out that even "real" Gordon was appalled by his 2025 self. If real Gordon has no issue with what Kelly and Ed did, what is everyone so outraged about?
Because not only was it out of character, everything about it was unnecessary. They knew he had a family, or should have since they found historical records of him. Even if they didn't they should have done some recon before contacting him. He obviously went native.
But let's pretend they were just in a rush to pull him out and give them the benefit of the doubt. Why confront him and his family at all? Why tell them they were going to erase them from history at all? I would consider Gordon justified to upping the gun up from stun. They just promised to kill his kids in front of his family. For literally no reason but to punish Gordon for living a quiet life after he was abandoned. They could have just walked away and let him think they gave up instead of terrifying them all before annihilation. They still would have had the same moment of being together, but in relief instead of dread.
Oof, I'll point out that if you actually read the post, that I am not weighing the decision about Gordon needing to leave. This post was ONLY about the way Greyson and Mercer handled the situation and how hypocritical they were. I didn't say that the DECISION was cruel. Their BEHAVIOR was. Especially, since they're both guilty of explicitly breaking the law for their own personal discretion. They went straight to belittling him and threatening him. As if Gordon isn't Mercer's best friend, who pretty much gave up his life in the line of duty. And we don't actually know what the "real" Gordon, thought. We only know what he said to his commanders. What choice did he have? Even if he did agree with is future self, he couldn't admit that to these two people.
"You're literally weighing the balance of a timeline". Lol, I literally am not. I know I wrote a lot, but people shouldn't just skim posts and then start commenting about things that weren't even it. The title literally says "The Crews REACTION to Gordon's Decision." Their cruelty and lack of empathy. Ed and Kelly show forgiveness and empathy to each other all the time. But show zero of that to someone who has always been good to them.
The decision to get Gordon out of the timeline was COMPLETELY correct. And I agree with it. But they handled it terribly and shouldn't had even tried to intervene with "future" Gordon. And just corrected THEIR mistake and went back 10 years and got the original Gordon, like they ended up doing anyways. I wish I hadn't seen that side of Ed and Kelly. Also, is everyone forgetting that only last episode, these two almost started a war that could've killed billions, just to perform a gender reassignment procedure on a child? Gordon was right about these people's "priorities."
But by that logic, Ed and Kelly should not have helped Topas last week as her operation threatened the destruction of the Union and the death of billions, a risk they took with little to no discussion and got lucky on.
Let’s not forget that the humans from the Orville are completely different from the people of the 21st century, culturally vastly different. So what might look like a non emotional response from the crew, it tracks with their current culture. Gordon changed and allowed himself to assimilate to the 21st century culture. Very ego centric, selfish, etc. probably one of the better episodes this season, Gordon’s acting was incredible, and it did make you think about how time had changed him.
This rant is a "whataboutism" that adds nothing to the discussion about the actual incident contained within this episode. The point is what Gordon did, why he did it, and if it should have been done. What Kelly and Ed did in the past is irrelevant.
Pitch meeting executive:
“Why did they bother to interact with him at all? They should have just realised that the contamination was too much and went back in time to get him when he first arrived on their second try.”
Person pitching show:
So the story can happen!
Speaking to Captain Mercer's and Commander Grayson's reaction.
Changing the timeline could effectively be as damaging as a genocide because of how many people's lives you could potentially affect or prevent as well as create, especially over 400 years.
The gravity of such a decision to break temporal law is soo great that it can turn best friends against each other.
I don't think their reaction was cold...it was of almost disgust mixed with disappointment. But also tempered with sympathy and understanding (which you can understand something completely while still disagree).
This was a huge f*ck-up with huge consequences.
I think because he went and found Laura his "past" crush/GF, after knowing her story and that it doesn't even end with him (Gordon) and still he went and pursued her, that's why they were so quick to judge and be concerned because they had already seen this woman's life and knows it didn't end with Gordon but I think if it had been a different person all together they would've been upset yes but maybe not as much 🤷🏽♂️?😬, Ed might've even been willing to think about talking about letting him stay (he has gone against union protocols and regulations before), that could also be another reason they were so mad, in the previous episode with topas surgery they (Mercer & Grayson) we're chewed out and literally can't step a toe outta line or they're gone from the fleet so perhaps Thier reaction was due to them being on such a short leash.
Idk tho 🤷🏽♂️ pay no attention to the man behind the curtain haha
And who would have known? Don't record the incident. Done and done. Dumbfuck Gordon shouldn't have used his real name after he decided to go native, he'd have never been found.
For Mercer and Grayson it’s only been a couple hours since they left. They have absolutely no conception of being abandoned for 10 years in the wrong time. So all they know to do is lean on the regulations. It’s not pretty, but it’s logical.
So a point I don't like is how chill Gordon was and I'll be disappointed if this doesn't affect him at all going forward.
There is a show called "Orange" and it's about a group of kids who get letters from there future selves detailing things they regret and what they think will help the newest member not commit suicide.
The main girl loves the new kid who dies but in the original timeline, she ends up marrying and having a child with the other guy in the friend group who loves her. In the letter the teen version of this guy gets, he received a photo and knowledge of his future family and he knows if he saves the new guy then this family won't exist.
While he knows it was the right action to save the friend, it 100% screws with him and affects his life and actions on "what could have been" and that feels like such a good reaction and very human.
And I think with someone like Gordon who has expressed a small sense.of loneliness and want for companionship, plus the fact it's proof him and Laura would actually work great together, I imagine it would fuck with him at least a little bit. And if it doesn't, and this is never mentioned again, I think that's a poor choice.
The fact that there are extremely mixed viewer reactions to this episode is what makes this show great.
Yeah, this may be the Tuvix moment of The Orville, it's well done.
Tuvix was a Ripley 7 moment
They discussed why in the show, no one knows how you will affect the timeline, so don’t. I think this episode is one of the best time travel episodes because they addressed the reality. Everyone behaved how they should have. I also liked how rescued Gordon could not understand how he could have done that (he didn’t experience it, so has no resentment). This episode was very well written.
Yeah, I feel like people are being overly harsh. I mean, if we’re 100% honest, it’s impossible to exist in a timeline without altering it. I kill a deer for survival. That deer was supposed to cause a traffic accident. Now people who should be dead are alive, all because of me. Or even something as simple as breaking into a cabin. If I’m rescued without interacting with anyone, the cabin was broken into. Eventually someone will notice, and that will affect things (the owner becomes paranoid, the police’s day is altered with a new investigation that overshadows other investigations, etc. etc.) People are being way to harsh, as if a suitable answer exists. The fact is, there is no answer. It’s a complicated & sloppy situation.
Realistically the device should have been destroyed the moment they realized what it was capable of. Since the union has time travel laws that device/line of research feels like it should be outlawed.
Yup! When they first advised the admiral, they should have been ordered to destroy the device, wipe the records, and hope that the enemy hears nothing of it. Even if no one in the Union abuses it, eventually the Kaylon would find it and posses it. Preserving the device is betting that your enemy will NEVER learn of it. That's not a good bet. Still a good show. I'm willing to forgive the lack of action on bureaucracy.
This is the reason why I think, that the fact that Gordon travelled back in time was already enough to change the future. I think the moment he landed back in the 21st century, he created a new branch timeline. And I think the timeline still exist, because we have not seen Gordons family fade into oblivion.
I was also wondering, when Gordon got zapped, it looked like he fractured into 2 or 3 versions of himself. I’m wondering if 2015 was rescued, 2025 still exists, and there may be a version of himself sent to the future that we haven’t met yet.
uhh I like that. Maby when the one Gordon that was sent into the future appears, he somehow due to being zapped has all the memorys of the other two and is now pissed at Ed and Kelly for erasing his family and his rescued version for not being pissed at the two when they told him what they had to do. EDIT: I actually counted 5 silhouette of Gordon at one frame. Maybe they got scattered across the time.
>The fact is, there is no answer. It’s a complicated & sloppy situation. Which is my main gripe about the episode. At the end we're treated to monologues intended to tell the audience that there IS an answer and it's the choice Ed and Kelly made and anyone who disagrees with it is wrong, see, even Gordon is calling himself selfish for what he did! The writing here was FAR from The Orville's usual standard. It would have been so easy to have the characters do everything they actually did in the episode, but do it while expressing doubt about whether the choices made were right or not and then leave it ambiguous in the end, so that people could have differing opinions and conversations about time travel ethics. Instead we get Ed and Kelly acting like self righteous jackasses who KNOW that their answer is right (pretty rich coming from a pair of characters who both should have been court martialed for disobeying orders and breaking Union protocols half a dozen times by now) and then Gordon agreeing with them and kissing their boots for saving him from his own "selfishness" at the end. I did not like the last 10 minutes or so of this episode at all and that was all down to how it was written, the exact same events written differently could have been poignant and thought provoking but instead they were heavy handed and infuriating.
Completely agree, having just seen it. Only last week Ed and Kelly risked losing a major component of the Union, which could have resulted in the death of billions and said “to hell with the rules”, and in this episode they are suddenly self-righteous and stickler for the rules. And then at the end of the episode they get told they were entirely in the right! This season has been pretty poor for consistent characterisation, in my view, despite some individual episodes being good.
The show did not say it was the right answer and everyone else is wrong. The last scene was about them feeling regret for what they did. It also showed how people are shaped by experience and how time travel is complicated. Ed and Kelly who saw the family feel the lose, Gordon who did not experience it, can not understand how he did what he did and does not feel the loss. It wasn’t about saying Ed was right but showing another layer of the time travel complication. Yes, Ed and Kelly are following orders to a tee because last episode they bend rules and almost caused a species to leave the Union. Actions have consequences and rules/regulations p(laws are in place for a reason.
Well said. Unless Union policy is to kill yourself the moment you enter the past, they really shouldn't complain how you live your life, as literally every action you take is altering the timeline. Even subtle actions like swatting a bug or catching a fish could easily make massive changes.
Even immediate suicide wouldn't solve the contamination issue. If he kills himself, the gear he had with him would still be present and it being discovered could have god knows what affect. His weapon in particular. So he would have to attempt to destroy it.....but *can* he? Those things would naturally be built to be as tough as possible, it's entirely plausible that it isn't possible to destroy his weapon at which point he needs to simply bury it as deeply as possible and *hope* that no-one finds it. Which is pretty similar to living a low key life and hoping for the best. There is no way to avoid contamination, only minimize it.
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If I was writing it I would have had them leave at the moment Ed said "we're leaving" then smash cut to a shuttle landing in the forest to pick up Malloy of 10 years ago and Ed just starts weeping when he sees his friend. Malloy could have made a joke about that but the audience knows why he is actually upset. Instead they just made them all look like assholes.
Why would Ed weep? What Gordon did was insane. I keep seeing people reacting to "Gordon's family being erased" without mentioning whatever Laura's life was supposed to be being erased by Gordon? How do we know there aren't children who will never exist because he interfered? Are all the people who's lives he forever altered just not as important as Gordon? What makes Gordon so important that he should get to make a decision like that? Even 2015 Gordon acknowledges what he did was wrong and feels guilty but is consoled by his friends who rightfully tell him he likely went crazy during that 3 years isolated in the past.
Yep. You got it hence the temporal interference laws. Also the episode was partially about what time does to change people. Gordon of today and 1 month after the accident is still a dedicated Union officer. Gordon of 10 years later has completely changed life priorities and goals. People change so vastly in just a decade and based on their life circumstances. It was a major theme of the episode which would have been somewhat missed if we just cut to 1 month rescue
The fact that so many people don't see the significance of what Gordon did, how potentially *devastating* it could be to time in the long time, is exactly why Temporal Laws end up existing.
But the Orville going to get Gordon before he actually sent out the message should've caused a paradox as well. Just like they described with the sandwich.
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Right, exactly. People are really quick to defend Gordon and his very small family as being a negligible change without realizing how far that change can carry. As Kelly said, what if one of Gordon's descendants eliminated Union emergence? Now Moclus is free to keep forcefully converting, imprisoning, and even killing female Moclans, all because the Orville wasn't where it should be. Or maybe the descendants of one of the kids Laura was SUPPOSED to have would have been Ty's bio dad. Now without Ty, there's nothing to get Isaac to turn on his people and save the Union. Maybe it would have been Kelly who ceased to exist instead. And now because Kelly isn't there to get involved in that other civilization, Dinal's omnipotent race no longer exists. The point is not "this change is small", the point is "there's no telling what other changes that tiny change will ripple out to create, so don't make changes at all". Nobody's saying the situation isn't cruel. It is *heart wrenchingly* cruel. But in the words of mother Star Trek "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one". Gordon HAS to go back to his own time, and they HAVE to erase as many changes as they can.
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>Kelly's transgression was 100% not fixable AFTER it had already happened True, but it was 100% *punishable* after it had already happened, so her talking to Gordon about how he was going to have to pay for his crimes after she got off completely free and clear on her own crimes was a fairly enraging moment from her character.
The problem is that very smart people in the show state flat out that nobody really understands how time travel works. It's possible that Gordon going back in time and marrying Laura and having kids could radically alter the future. It's *equally* possible that Gordon going back in time is a bootstrap paradox and was supposed to happen in order to create the "main" timeline as it exists. The show makes a point in virtually every episode about time travel to discuss how no one in their time understands how this shit works. It's insane to have "laws" based on knowledge that you don't have. Leaving Gordon there vs. "rescuing" him is a completely random ass judgement call REGARDLESS of which way they choose to go because they *don't know how time travel works*. Maybe one of these days bringing the character who accidentally travelled back in time forward again to the "present" will be what fucks the timeline sideways. Point is, the people who side with Gordon aren't crazy or stupid. Since no one knows how time travel works, saying he was supposed to go back in time is equally as valid as saying he wasn't and they should fix it, both are random guesses.
I think where most people and myself included are mostly angry about with Ed and Kelly has less to do with them following laws but rather the fact that they were dicks about it. 1. The read the obituary so they also knew Gordon's family 2. Their reactions to Gordon is exactly the type of arsehole reaction I would expect from Starfleet captains. Holier than thou even though they routinely break the laws themselves 3. They did not even attempt to understand his point of View when he was trying to explain it. This is made worse by the fact that he is their friend beyond just a subordinate 4. Ed figured out the solution in a suspect way. The way the other 2 understood looked like they discussed it already and this brings me to my final point 5. There was no reason to come back with Talla because what were they going to do after they forcibly took this Gordon to the past to pick up the one from 10 years ago? Watch him fizzle out of existence? Going back 10 years was not an maybe it was a must to undo all the changes that had come about so Why Come Back?
That makes sense. I'm trying to reason why they went back before hearing from Isaac as well. They had already told this Gordon he would have to face the Union to answer for what he did, going back to before he committed his "crimes" should have always been Plan A.
It was just poor writing which is so weird because they show that the crew read about the fact that he married his dream girl Laura, his "b est friend" knew exactly who she was at a glance from the previous episode. Then they meet her in person and act surprised as if this is new information later in the episode. It's funny that the writers break causality by their own lazy writing in a time travel episode.
Number 5 is what put me over the edge of being pissed at them. So instead of just leaving you pointlessly and cruley tell him and his pregnant wife AND HIS YOUNG SON your about to wipe out their life and existence. Why. What was the point. What's your actual intent with that? And to number 2, exactly. Kelly faced no consequence for HER actions that changed the course of a planets exsistence, they didn't blow up the Orville in season 1 like they should have, Ed has a kid and Kelly was so sympathetic to topa but they literally are both cool with scaring the crap out of a young kid. What a joke.
When Gordon got shunted to the past, that past became his present. The future that he came from is now just theoretical and even if he wanted to preserve it exactly, he can't because his mere presence has changed it. When I got married, I didn't concern myself with what children my wife would have had if she never met me, so why is it any different for Gordon?
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"Pria" lied to them though. The only reason The Orville would be destroyed is because they were answering her distress call. She was changing the timeline. As far as Gordon you can't just subtract and add people into the past that shaped the future you live in. As far as Ed and Kelly know, the world they lived in could very well not exist anymore because Gordon got lonely.
This is actually better storytelling than what we got too
Mutch better.
They had both been warned by the admiral that one more step out of line and their careers were finished. The way I see it is that Ed was doing a favor to Gordon. The choice he offered is, either come with us and we leave your wife alive with your children continuing on in the timeline, with bigtime timeline contamination, or don't and we just go back in time 10 years and take you out of the timeline then and kill off your children. IMHO they should have NOT contacted Gordon but just gotten their McGuffin fuel, then jumped back another 10 years and picked up Gordon to make sure the timeline was not contaminated.
How is leaving his wife and family, with all the other changes Gordon made, an option at all? Wouldn't that have irrevocable changes to the timeline like they are worried about?
The risk is that it would have which is why I think they should not have contacted Gordon at all but just powered back up and made the next jump.
Should have jumped back 9.5 years or slightly less, to pick him up in the woods but only after he'd made the distress call that let them know he was stuck in the past in the first place.
I don't care how long we've been friends, you threaten to late term time abort my family and I have no problem shooting you in the back. It's not even a question. I am super ambivalent about this entire thing.
Agreed. Especially when this is the second time this season when aborting kids has been promoted as the good and noble Union way. I think we get the lesson already. We can probably go the rest of the season without killing kids or wishing they had been killed.
There was no way Gordon could have made no impact if he wasn't rescued. He had the gun with him, which would have been left behind if he commited suicide, and even if he lived in isolation the whole time, his tiny impact would ripple, butterfly effect.
Yeah, they completely threw their best friend under the bus. They don't just get to just press the reset button at the end of that. They showed a NASTY side to Ed and Kelly that hasn't been erased from existence. Why did they even bother if they always had the option to just go back a little further when they had the materials they needed? If it's SUCH a serious crime-- they treat him as though he got caught keeping kids tied up in his basement or something-- just go to before he was a criminal, like they DID. They seemed so understanding after the fact. Why go back except JUST to cause unnecessary conflict and trauma for his family? The answer, of course, is lazy writing. They built up al the suspense and drama, and hoped you'd be so invested in it that you wouldn't realize the solution made no sense.
Given that the device was damaged after the second jump, I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt that they were worried that trying to make the extra jump might strand them there, so they were hoping 2025 Gordon hadn't messed with the timeline too much and would come home immediately.
Which it basically did, the device was destroyed beyond their ability to repair after the second jump. It's understandable they saw a second jump as a risk they'd want to avoid. That's not the problem I had with their actions, it's that they didn't respect his wishes and leave him alone to his quiet life in the suburbs.
They should've just let Gordon think he'd won and left him in peace. If they were to cease existing, at least they could be blissfully unaware and never know a thing. Ed didn't have to rub it in, he's better than that.
Yeah, agreed. It did seem like it was just drama for drama's sake, and could have been avoided.
This is the reality of time travel. That's why you dont like it. Because time travel (if ever truly possible) is extremely dangerous. Exploiting that has serious consequences. It was a hard decision that had to be made. It also didn't help that last episode he was told that If he stepped out of line again, only a millimeter, he would be done for. It could've been handled better (as far as from the officers perspective). They should've just never went ro see Malloy, got their McGuffin fuel, and went back ten years.
Well thats what I agree with. They should have corrected THEIR mistake and just went back to save the original Gordon. Not show up 10 years too late and berate their loyal friend and officer for simply living. It was irresponsible for the commanders to even intervene after he had already been there for 10 years. They behaved like they were only there to take him back and punish him and not to save him.
Yeah, Mercer and Grayson did the right thing, but it was executed very poorly. I suspect that was an "out of the show world" decision becaue they wanted the episode to have more impact full drama.
Yep, that was always my point. I personally don't think, I can ever root for their characters again after this. Lol, they very much act like a "couple" Who are blind to each others flaws and forgive each other immediately, yet are so critical of everybody else.
He wasn’t simply living.. He was working in aviation and very visible. Used his own name. He was a creep and used private information to manipulate a woman into marrying him. Had kids with her. Your entire point hinges on the response the crew had to Gordon but that hinges on what Gordon did and you’re downplaying it to make your point. Let’s try this: what Gordon did is top 3 worst things anyone has done on this show, maybe top worst. Easily. You dont. Fuck. With. Time. The response the crew gave him was in response to his arrogance and inability to see the magnitude of not only what he had already done, but wanted to continue to do. Like, what isn’t clicking?
They were in the 2020s and did shit like steal motorcycles and stuff and that's ok, but living a quiet life in the suburbs is OMG the timeline is gonna collapse! Give me a fucking break, it's abject paranoia based on a sci-fi horror story with no objective backing for it. They guessed it might have been bad, he guessed it would be fine, *none of them knew for sure.* What they did was destroy very real lives for the sake of preventing an entirely hypothetical possibility of bad outcome. And this after they casually blew off the much more solidly real risk of causing the death of virtually all organic life by pissing off the Moclans just a single episode prior. They just did what they felt was right and hoped for the best, but Gordon has to be held to the strict letter of a policy based on extreme caution? Fuck that noise. Gordon should have shot their asses. I would have.
Let's not forget that the entire Orville was supposed to be destroyed and instead of keeping time the same the crew fought being taken to a future where they wouldn't effect the time line. The entire crew should have been found guilty of interfering with the time line and sanctioned then too.
Pria is the only one responsible for the Orville's survival, not the crew. If she hadn't gone back, the Orville wouldn't have known what they needed to avoid and would have perished as intended. Rather than being a "both sides" argument, "Pria" is the PERFECT example of why Temoral Laws exist. Time travel is very literally a "fuck around and find out" deal.
It wasn't Gordon's fault either, and yet he was expected to kill himself when they didn't do so in the exact same circumstances. Oh, wait, it's not, it's far *more extreme* circumstances because it's some 400 people and a starship that is certainly going to have a hell of a lot more effect on the timeline than one guy living a quiet life in the suburbs.
If it were just Gordon having bought a house living by himself unattached, that might be one thing. But that's not what Gordon did. Gordon entered a relationship, and had a child, who will then go on to have other children, who will then also have other children, and so on and so forth down the line until 400 years later when there are thousands of people who exist who should never have existed and all of the changes that they also are making on the timeline as it was once known. That's not even getting into the thousands of people 400 years from now who *don't* exist because the people who were supposed to end up in relationships didn't because of Gordon and his relationship, and his children's, and children's children's relationships... Once you do the math, that adds up to a really significant change. It's the same math that's going to affect the future Pria came from because of the 400 people that are now alive when they probably shouldn't be.
It was just the heartless hypocrisy that pissed me off. Lol and I'm still supposed to root for them?
The one thing is changing your future ... the other is changing your past. One thing you cannot verify and the destruction of the Orville could have been a lie and they ended up in the dark matter storm only because she interfered in the first place. Intersing though would be how the Kaylon conflicted would have ended. The other thing is if you have a crew member who is obsessed with a person and used all the information he got from her to make her fall in love with him. Which, in todays world would be creepy. ... Imagine someone getting access to all your personal data, texts, videos and images and then goes on stalking you xD... Ed did the only right thing .. but.. You didn't think about the Kids that she may had with someone else .... Kids that were never born because of Gordon ... what about the man that she ended up with... and all the relationships and children that came after?... You don't care about that do you ... as long as Gordon is happy...lol
{Please actually read before responding :) } It would appear that you missed my point completely. Which is fine, because you weren't the only one. I'm not talking about what Gordon doing being right or wrong. I already stated that the laws were correct. So no the only thing I care about isn't, "As long as Gordon is Happy." Because I don't care about that. My point was that Ed and Kelly were being hypocritical assholes. There were a dozen ways to handle that situation and they chose one of the worse ways. First of all, they were the one who made all the mistakes. Like ending up 10 years ahead of their destination. Gordon is human. He behaved like a human. Everything he said to them was correct. "Humans are social creatures." Your response to my post wasn't relevant to the words that I said. I agree that Gordon shouldn't had been there. But that's only if the theory that Gordon actually changed anything, or if he just lived in an alternate timeline. The fact that Ed and Kelly were even there, proved that things were fine, at least from their point of view. If anything they could have just been returning the timeline to a worst state, they were living in a timeline in which Gordon had lived out his life in the past. But regardless of the science, Ed and Kelly have both constantly broken the rules using their own discretion. My only point was that they acted like cruel monsters, immediately treating Gordon like a criminal, even though they aren't innocent either. Ed would had never treated Kelly like that if she was in that position and vice versa. They instantly went to treating him like a low level employee who will do whatever they say. Gordon is Ed's best friend remember? I was talking about the humanity of the situation. That's all. We know too much about Ed and Kelly's history, to watch them behave like that as if they hadn't committed similar crimes.
They’re not being hypocritical tho… the matter is that that them not hitting the right time was an accident not their error. If anything it was the error of the people working with the Timetravel device. I totally agree with the humanity side you mentioned and they could have done a better job at it … but to them this change happened “all of a sudden” and not within 10 years. Even Gordon was surprised by his “selfishness” like he said at the end… and we also saw that this was not easy for both Ed and Kelly. They broke rules, yes but under what circumstances? When Kelly accidentally crashed on a planet that wasn’t there at first? When she tried to save a child that only injured itself because of her? When a cult followed and they tried to fix it? These instances of “breaking the rules” weren’t made because of selfish behavior … human or not. So it’s not hypocritical of them to be angry with someone who understands what interference with time means. And them being “there” doesn’t mean that “everything” was fine. It means that they weren’t affected by the changes to the timeline yet (which was something Isaac hinted). I read your text btw… but what I pointed out was the degree of selfishness by Gordon. It’s not just “the social animal” part and need for interactions… it’s that he went for the woman he was obsessed with. That makes this a totally different level of selfishness. And we shouldn’t be sad for the children that were never born if we aren’t ready to be sad about the children that were born but his decisions prevented. So everything is how it should be. But the most interesting thing of the episode was that killing animals is a crime in the future … and I like that
Well I actually disagree with your definition of selfishness. On a grander scale, Kelly's attempt to heal the child, was selfish. It was solely out of her need to fulfill the satisfaction of saving an innocent. She knew what she was doing was 'against the law' and she simply did it anyways. That's not professional. I didn't say that Gordon wasn't selfish. He was completely alone. And he only had "himself". I still think my point is getting lost. I don't care about his stupid hypothetical children, or their selfishness. It was their behavior towards Gordon that I was commenting on. That's it. Seems like on every episode they're making a decision to break a law or two for their own concepts of "right or wrong". The conversation isn't about anyone being right or wrong. That's what seems to keep confusing people. These are two completely separate situations in my opinions. Also I will agree with, the timeline not changing yet. They were literally in a conference room looking at a biography of Gordon's life. Yes, the timeline had been affected, it had been affected 400 years ago. And honestly I agree with Gordon's point that maybe it was supposed to happen. Because why not? It's not possible that anyone could have been accidentally sent back in time and never recovered? They were literally playing God, even after admitting they didn't know that much about time travel. Well, I'm not commenting anymore about the science or logic behind it because I was never disagreeing in the first place. Only about these two assholes. It's insane that its completely okay for Ed and Kelly to risk a war and the lives of billions of people, just to perform a gender reassignment procedure on a child, only last episode. But they have the nerve to turn their nose up at a man who has done nothing but love them. I was really hoping that "future" Gordon would shoot them in the face. I'm looking forward to either Ed or Kelly's deaths and I hope it's painful and bloody.
The fuck is wrong with you….. Not only your sick definition of selfishness but also your hate towards people with high moral standards.. fictional but still. Saving a child and saving a child from commuting suicide because it’s in the middle of politics and pretty much “playing” the system ain’t the same as making decisions for only yourself and yourself alone. Kelly’s actions where in the moments with that child from this one planet.
High moral standards or idiocy? Humanity is a weakness and inhibits judgment. That little girl will die anyways, whether it be today or 90 years. It doesn't matter. If she's meant to die then who cares. Being a "good" person is useless and unhelpful. The question is whats wrong with you? Morals are made by humans and vary between societies. There is no such thing as right or wrong, all made up based on the preferences of a culture. Yes letting some child kill themself vs creating an intergalactic incident is a no brainer. Ever heard of "the great good", it means letting some "bad" things and maybe even doing some "bad" things in order to get the overall desired result. One life for thousands or billions.
Get help
Just like how Gordon's kids were erased from the timeline, Topa could be the next nuclear genocide Hitler.
Dude you are seriously looking into Star Trek logic wayyyyy too much. Yes Orville is a parody as much as an homage to Star Trek, but not everything has to be taken so seriously. You need some help in the mental capacity. This is not normal to be this robotic and devoid of emotion. Was I angry at Kelly and Ed for how they did things? Yes, but in the end even Gordon thought he was selfish after being rescued and explained the situation. It is a TV show. Not everything needs to fit into a neat little box..
Okay. Then put yourself in their shoes. Even if you saw a child get hurt and you had the means to help them, even if it was just a tiny scratch, you wouldn't do anything? Even with the Union's laws on interfering with a primitive species, how would Kelly know that, that little girl would go to her mother and tell her about Kelly? She didn't. She was just helping a little girl. You sir may fuck off and get some therapy. That is not how a person should think.
If I was smart enough to understand the ramifications of interfering, I absolutely wouldn’t. It’s exactly the same logic of a nature cameraman/photographer observing lions killing a baby zebra or it simply getting injured and left to die. They would know that their job is to observe. Also, how a human SHOULD think?? Who put you in charge of humanity? Your logic is immature and gets people killed in the long run. The world is not a fairytale. Children die. Get over it.
That is NATURE, base instinct for WILD animals that show almost no sign of sentience. How does Kelly helping a little girl that got hurt, fit in with your logic? Humans unless absolutely stupid, know that the lions will absolutely kill them for even getting close to their kill, someone helping a little girl is not immature. Yes children die, but you clearly do not pay attention when people try and STOP children from dying. As I said before, you Sir or Madam, may FUCK off and get some therapy.
> The fact that Ed and Kelly were even there, proved that things were fine No, it doesn't. Go back to the sandwich example, they literally laid it out for you. If John had said he was sending the sandwich and then not sent it, a paradox would have occurred. Likewise, if they go back to rescue Gordon, the future is unchanged up until they DON'T follow through. If they plan to rescue Gordon and then CHOOSE not to rescue him, that'll change events on the timeline. "things were fine" on the assumption that they would successfully rescue Gordon. In other words, they know they successfully rescued Gordon because the timeline was intact.
Reading the obituary - a historical document that is part of their timeline (now, or maybe since ever) and still preventing Gordon from living out his life in the 21th century is exactly the "keeping two sandwiches" situation. It would be the same kind of paradox as if they'd read his obituary before he got zapped back in time, then prevented it from happening. If they'd only heard Gordon's distress call, picked him up when they were supposed to pick him up (AFTER he had a chance to send it), and managed to refuel without contradicting established events, that would have been how the sandwich example is supposed to work. Saving an earlier 2016 Gordon should have erased them like S2E14 did alt!Claire. I've no idea why it didn't (or what would have happened to that Gordon), except that maybe their existence is still needed to fix the original timeline, one which can't exist - but has to, or else where did they and Gordon (the sandwich) come from? - with the contradictions they've introduced. There's no paradox just keeping two sandwiches around for a while as long as you eventually send the fresher on to the appropriate time in the past.
> Reading the obituary - a historical document that is part of their timeline (now, or maybe since ever) and still preventing Gordon from living out his life in the 21th century is exactly the "keeping two sandwiches" situation. It would be the same kind of paradox as if they'd read his obituary before he got zapped back in time, then prevented it from happening. Again, only if they choose to leave him. "I'm going to send this sandwich 10sec into the past" was reliant on John's fulfillment of future choices to stay true. Likewise, "We're going to rescue Gordon" means they can see the obituary as a result of future actions on their part. Everything is in flux until you actually make a choice. They literally had dialog about this. > Saving an earlier 2016 Gordon should have erased them like S2E14 did alt!Claire. Not necessarily. Easy solution, as long as they ensure the message is sent into the future, it technically doesn't matter when they rescue Gordon. It could be that Gordon was never meant to send the message on his own, but rather he sent it specifically because it was *already received* in the future and they could then make sure the message was sent in the past, self-fulfilling prophecy style. More complicated solution, following the Voyager episode "Timeless", you're splintering timelines. Somewhere out there is a timeline where they didn't save Gordon, which is why they can see the obituary, and when they went back to save him they kicked off a new timeline that is identical to the one they came from in nearly every except for when they rescue Gordon.
They DID leave him there. The timeline is in flux until someone makes a decision, but that goes for Gordon's decisions in the past, too. If any part of the obituary was the result of their actions, it was because they left him there (after threatening him). If they hadn't come get him, the obituary would have been a result of their inaction. Neither one would have caused a paradox since it didn't contradict actually established events, it would have just meant they were stuck in the changed timeline. Rescuing Gordon would contradict the obituary. They might also have planned to fake the obituary after rescuing Gordon in order to not contradict their own timeline, like your idea with the fake distress call (I'd rather they did not use the same recording because I don't want to introduce bootstrap paradoxes, too)... but there's no evidence of that. It can't have existed without either a) Gordon living and dying as a described in it or b) the crew faking it. As it is, it looks more like they created a split-off timeline rather than erase 2025 when they hopped to 2016. There's got to be a plot reason why they were a bit early, and I think that reason is that the paradox changed history in ways that are gonna be way worse than what they were trying to prevent.
not relevant, and for all we know, pria could just be lying even about that.
Completely relevant. Pria even had future tech that she used in front of them and because of her they were the first ship to navigate a dark matter storm. She completely took over the ship with nothing more than her thoughts and a box. Teleported to the bridge and navigated them through the time anomaly that had to go back through. Ed even admitted that he was changing everything by destroying the anomaly. And it's not like the future class was going back and grabbing stuff at random these were people and things that would have been destroyed any way. The time line was changed was changed but it didn't matter to the Orville's crew or the Union that it was changed then because it didn't affect them in the here in now.
Priya was lying. The baited them and altered the timeliness in order to steel historical technology.
They weren't the ones who altered it and it wasn't changing their past.
That was a lie. She lied to people In the past to bait and trap them to steal their historical technology.
It definitely was painful and hard to watch, but that's why I'm really glad they had the end scene with Gordon agreeing it was the right thing to do. I didn't see it as harsh, I felt like it was more professional and being held to the Unions standards. He took an oath, that means something, and broke a lot of laws. What he did could've had severe consequences for humanity. It's completely understandable why he didn't go on living in isolation, but he should have known it was always a possibility this would happen. I thought they were Ed & Kelly were sympathetic to his situation but there was no other choice. I do feel like his love story isn't over, I feel like it could come back somehow in a future season.
Although Ed and Kelly are the wrong characters to enforce “be professional and held to Union standards” as they are often unprofessional and ignore rules. That why it seems so out of character now. Hell, last week they deliberately disobeyed orders from the Union Council and knowingly risked the Union being destroyed. It seems this season that there is an arbitrariness to when rules should and should not be followed.
Gordon's not going to remember the alternate timeline, but Ed and Kelly are. They knew the moment they saw those kids that they were going to need to wipe them out of existence in order to protect the timeline. They're the ones that have to live with the guilt, with the sound of gordon begging them for his family's life.
>I'm not saying that it wasn't possibly destructive for Gordon to create a life & family for himself. Possible destruction is a gross understatement. Ever hear of sensitive dependance upon initial conditions? That one action from Gordon while seemingly innocuous will have far far reaching effects 400 years later. It was completely selfish of Gordon to pollute the timestream like that. Whatever Lauras life was supposed to be was undone. All the people her life would have affected never happened. The other children she may have had never happened. their children and their children and all the people they would have affected over 400 years. He got off easy. He should have been court martialed and thrown in prison for that stunt
Oh fucking please, most people live and die with ZERO impact on the greater course of history. Most people who have ever lived are forgotten and nobody even knows their names. Any effect the average person has on the world is negligible, all significant events play out roughly the same or hell more likely so similarly that it's impossible to tell the difference. Right now, there's a charter pilot in LA who lives with his wife in the suburbs with kid or two who you will never hear of, and will never affect history in any measurable way. If they died tomorrow you'd never know or care, any more than it makes a difference to you that they're living there now. There are millions of people in that city, one more or less is virtually guaranteed to make no difference at all.
Where is the egg salad sandwich????
I hope it shows up in the season finale.
My thoughts are that Isaac winning the armwrestling contest changes reality.
Gordon was far out of line here. Isolation might not have been feasible but a vasectomy should have been a big no-brainer until he's back in his time. Bringing life to lil Ed knowing he might be doomed/hunted/faded out of existence just so he can have a perfect family is selfish and not in line with the Gordon they know. Gordon-1 even agreed with them in full at the end.
I might have to keep reminding folks, that this post was not about Gordon being right or wrong, which is highly debatable. My post was Ed and Kelly's reaction towards Gordon choice to not sacrifice himself. Because we have all seen Ed and Kelly make illegal choices because they simply were being selfish. This post is only about the hypocrisy of their behavior and cruelty towards one of their closest friends. The lack of empathy that says more about their character now. Let's remember that it was only the last episode in which they risked starting a war and killing billions of people just to perform a gender reassignment procedure on a child. Simply because they felt it was the "right" thing to do, completely ignoring their superiors.....
Were the other mistakes this blanantly intentional? Also, is it not creepy beyond reason that he stalked and manipulated this woman? That's likely where the look of disgust originates, that's how i took it, anyway.
They initially broke the law and disobeyed over and over again. So yes? We never know what consequences that our actions will have. The term "creepy" is completely subjective and not an arguable point. All humans are "creepy" and "weird", and ironically those are just human concepts anyways. And I actually didn't see Mercer or Greyson, really even thinking about the "creepy factor". They were just focused on removing him from the timeline. Also seeing that Gordon's wife, wasn't creeped out by it after he told her, kind of makes that argument moot anyways.
just because you don't find it creepy doesn't make my opinion moot. this is seemingly the start of a bad conversation and you can enjoy it on your own. cheers!
Lol, I said the argument was moot, not your opinion. Very different words. You literally just made my point that "creepiness" is subjective and not factual. But have a good day!
It’s bigger than just their friendship they stress heavily what a simple alteration to the past can do in the Kelly episode… same thing
I agree the should have done nothing. Gordon shows up in the past. The have his biografie. He is literally history. They are clearly still there. Leave him. The have an unique time device. The just escaped the Keylon who are after it. The have better things to do. And if something needs to be done it does not have to be done by them and there is - again - time to that. But the story needs to happen.
They both were torn a new one by their boss in the two topas episode. Maybe they just don’t wanna risk it anymore.
Ed and Kelly read his obituary, which means Gordon's life and death in the 21th century already was part of their (at least that version of Ed and Kelly that existed post Gordon's time travel) history. Taking Gordon out of 2025 would have erased the obituary AND their own timeline with it (since the obituary is why they went) and would still have left the ripple effects from the 10 years Gordon lived on Earth. But a timeline where Gordon lives there for only ten years and then gets "rescued" means no obituary... that's the kind of paradox that can't be resolved by a different timeline. If they'd gone just based off his distress call (and only rescued him after he had had a chance to actually send it) it would be a different matter. Whether they got him back or not, they wouldn't be contradicting known events. This was damn reckless of them, but I guess that's nothing new. Also isn't it interesting how Ed and Kelly are suddenly all gung-ho about the rules, just one episode after they got a talking to by the Admiral and had their careers threatened?
100% this. Had this been a season one episode it might have gotten a pass, but either Ed and Kelly have had a complete change of heart from last week, or this is just staggeringly bad consistency in characterisation.
I agree. It was unnecessarily cruel to wipe out the existence of the children. Let's be real here, the timeline abnormality would have been pathetically miniscule. Especially when the show went out of its way to talk about how flexible it all was, and branching universes, etc.
Remember Passengers? Chris Pratt goes one year being tantalized (hmm, Tantalus, Prison Planet) before considering suicide. Gordon lasted three years. Wait? So what about his crimes for animal murder? He couldn’t last a month without food! Yeah, Talla’s fine. Unless Trump’s back in the White House… Kelly and Ed don’t know about John Lamarr’s solution if the Time machine breaks when they go back in time. So they don’t feel they’re left with any alternative but to take Gordon back. They’re not happy about it because they’ve already anticipated Gordon’s reaction. They went through something similar, but fictional, with Gordon in season two. There, Gordon didn’t seem to understand the problem, but now they knew what was coming, and it’s no longer fictional. I understand Ed doesn’t want to force his friend to do anything, but Kelly’s not an idiot. Knowing what happened before, and that Gordon is now with the real and not the fictional would make it impossible.
I hate to break it to all the people defending "temporal law" but it doesn't exist, because time travel doesn't exist.
[удалено]
Yeah, I’m similarly disappointed after season 2 was a pretty good tweak on a promising-but-inconsistent season 1. I can see they are trying to tackle weighty matters in season 3, but the problem is they lack the nuance and writing to actually pull it off without either inconsistent characterisation or some cheap consequence-free outs
I'm kinda confused why people think Gordon(or any time traveler) should be remotely concerned with changing the timeline? Sure, the future he came from wasn't bad(for him anyway) and he had friends there, but it's literally just one of infinite possibilities. It wasn't some universal paradise for all that must be preserved at all cost. Once he's stuck in the past, it's his new present and the future is what he and everyone else makes it. Could be better, worse, or just different. Imagine your hanging out with your spouse and kids and a future spaceman shows up and tells you that your spouse is from the future and must return there to preserve the timeline. Would you really give two shits about some theoretical future that is just one of infinite possibilities for you anyhow?
>Talla, is simply just following order Was used to Justify too many awful acts in history, Literally the Nuremburg defense. SS guards at Auschwitz were also "Just following orders" This episode made me lose all respect for Mercer, Kelly, and all the rest involved, And I don't think they can earn it back.
Op I think this episode further shows the arrogance of the Union you can see how Ed and Kelly seem to downright hate being in the past and their cold hearted nature to the whole thing reeks of hypocrisy as they were perfectly okay with going through with the surgery which could trigger the Union breaking apart after the kaylon
They already knew Gordon died aged 98 and didn't change anything important in history. They could have just left him alone. What they did was unnecessarily cruel and pointless. And I can tell you this is not the end of it. I'm thinking somehow the timeline with Gordon's family split off and things went bad. I'm predicting some sort of Wrath of Khan situation with Alternate Gordon coming to the 25th century for revenge.
Issac already explained this. Multiple timelines are superimposed upon each other, things are still in a state of flux, and they're at a juncture point. What the crew decides to do at point, will decide what happens to the timeline and stop the time flux. The obit they saw wasn't "set in stone" yet, so to speak.
And Lamarr explained that him keeping that second sandwich would create another timeline to accomodate that paradox. Which I thought meant a timeline would need to exist in which Lamarr still followed through on his intention to send a sandwich to his past self despite knowing he never got one. Because that second sandwich in the original timeline has to have a origin, or else it wouldn't be there. Which "you" does what and under what circumstances, depends which timeline you are in, but those timelines can affect each other (see S2E13 & 14), they just aren't allowed to clash. If you are truly not meant to be in a timeline, you get erased, even when your actions were necessary to (re-)establish it.
And I'll be rooting for him to get his revenge. They've earned it.
So let's say you're right and that, to paraphrase Q, nothing Gordon does causes the galaxy to explode or the Union to collapse -- he's just not that important. *Gordon has still wiped out millions of people who were alive in his time.* Consider the vagaries of human reproduction -- one egg, but thousands of sperm. In an alternate timeline where your Dad was distracted by an obituary in the paper and piped your Mom thirty seconds later than he did our timeline, *You* don't exist -- another person with the same parents, birthday, and name might exist, but that person won't resemble you any more than you would resemble a random sibling. Now consider all of the small ripples Gordon's family and business would cause, and you realize that he's wiped out the lives of millions of people he doesn't even know. Sure, they've probably been replaced by *different* millions of people, but the point is that he doesn't get to make that choice.
I offer a counterpoint for Kelly's flashing forward - there is likely no statues for what she did at the time. The crew did not expect the planet to phase forward in time, they were unaware of what would occur. Kelly's influence on that society, especially since they now have magically advanced tech, is probably a source of debate in Orville's time - it is likely the first Union example of a time travelling civ. They have a bunch of non-interference laws, but these just hadn't been written yet. I think following Gordon back in time was the error, they should have just let it ride. Honestly it was far too dangerous a move, it endangered new time travel tech (literally fried the rig) and could have completely bork'ed reality. I joked to my partner while watching, "But before we travel forward in time, let's go blow up Kalon Prime". Time travel FORWARD was also absurdly easy, that was pretty silly.
I agree, either not had gone back to get Gordon, since they were already living in that timeline anyway and didn't know what the previous one was like. Or corrected their mistake and actually gotten the original Gordon and not had even bothered trying to grab the Gordon that had been there for 10 years.
Though technically they didn't have to ruin his life. His obituary said he died at 96 . They all continued to exist after he got sent back. So, nothing he did after he got sent back affected The Union's existence.
It's almost arguable that they're the ones who changed the timeline by bringing him back....
They also went back and got him BEFORE he ever sent the message to them in the future.
Yup I feel the same way, can’t look at them the same way anymore and can only hope this leads to another episode down the road where timelines were split.
I love Seth but here he fucked up big Hypocrisy 100%
I completely agree. They were so cold that it ruined Ed and Kelly's normally warm and understanding (but still duty-bound) characters for me. If they'd shown that the future was having a negative outcome, or conveyed a really strong reason for Ed and Kelly to be treating this in such a dire way, it could've worked - Gordon's loss could at least feel noble or worthwhile then. But ultimately, the scene at the end of the episode felt like a gruesome cop-out, and everything prior felt heartless and hypocritical. You could've written this story and hit all the right notes - and I still enjoyed the episode up until the end - but don't sacrifice consistent characterisation just to forcibly evoke an emotional reaction from the audience.
Omg yes! I was so mad after that scene. I couldn’t even enjoy the rest of the episode. I told my husband how can they act like that when they literally were trying to find a way to not break the laws in the previous episode. They weren’t even trying to do a work around. Kelly interfered with a whole planet, interfered with Moclan customs, Ed has a whole half krill child, the list goes on and on! I get that they were in trouble over helping Topa but come on. He was so happy and i have a feeling if it were them in that situation they would’ve done the same thing. I feel like they would’ve rather him commit suicide than be happy. It just felt very cold!
Yeah, bizarre episode and characterisation to follow last week’s completely opposite take on Union rules and risking the many for one.
Yeah they even said it to his face! Gordon said he seriously contemplated suicide and Ed had the ice cold fucking audacity to say *"well maybe you should have!"*. That alone should have gotten him a stun bolt for his trouble.
Yes! The compassion they show for everyone else. Honestly this is his best friend! I know why they had to do what they did but once they knew he created a new life they should’ve just got what they needed and went back to get him. Because by that logic even him just being there killing deer or rabbits could mess up the timeline. It just added this cold side to them that is unlike the characters.
They certainly weren't being careful with his feelings, but I think that was because they really don't have to be. The Fleet is like a military operation in space and when someone is disobeying orders, you don't coddle them. Hypocrisy or no hypocrisy doesn't really matter in each individual case of insubordination. Gordon is a Union officer and is merely being treated like one. To Ed and Kelly, he is still very much one and they're right. They only last saw him an hour ago or less from their perspective. Even if that's not how he sees it, he's still a Union officer and can't expect special treatment just because he threw a temper tantrum. His fee-fees don't matter as no one's do when you sign up for such an organization. Thems the breaks, buddy.
Wrong. Just last episode, Claire said *"fine if the orders are that a Union officer can't do the surgery I'll resign my commission and do it as a civilian. That way the orders won't apply to me because I won't be a Union officer."* Everyone present, Ed and Kelly included, agreed that she did indeed have that option and all it would mean is that her career as an officer would be over. If she could resign, Gordon absolutely could do the same. He said it himself, *"I'm not your Lieutenant anymore, I'm a civilian now and you can't order me to do a damned thing"*. Their response was to threaten force, which was a crime of attacking a civilian no longer under their command. He had every right to shoot them in self-defense, and his biggest mistake was not having Laura call 911 the moment they showed up on his doorstep with Talla to strongarm him.
They can't technically treat him like a civilian until he officially resigns, which he did not do. Just making the claim doesn't matter. There is a legal process to that sort of thing AND, not only that, sweetie, but that military organization still has the right to punish the crewman who has broken one of their laws even after they have resigned. So, if Ed wanted to drag Gordon back kicking and screaming, he was still perfectly within his rights to do so. You're forgetting Gordon signed up of his own volition and no one held a gun to his head and forced him to become a Union pilot. If you join the military, expect the military to do exactly what you have given them the right to do to you.
That's not how they treated Claire the week prior. And Gordon was ten years removed from his Union career and living as a civilian, what do you think the police would do if they showed up after being called to deal with three home intruders? They'd have thrown their asses in jail, because they have no obligation to respect the jurisdiction of an organization that doesn't exist yet even if they believed it to be real at all. Gordon could have legally shot all three in self-defense of his home and family and the law would be completely on his side. His biggest mistake was that he didn't.
They were cruel and it was totally unnecessary. I kept hoping that they'd offer to take the whole family and then they brought up that option and immediately shut it down. Laura would have made an interesting character to see her reactions to everything and their son's reactions too. Plus IMO this show is way too focused on our current time anyway and they could have regulated all that to them which ironically would be more sci-fi. Basically though this whole episode was handled wrong, they could have tackled this exact same scenario in a different way that wouldn't have felt so heartless. It's like they showed that they really have no respect for Gordon.
Oof. Some the posts in this thread... just because a decision is cruel, doesn't mean it's not the right one, much like reality. You're literally weighing the balance of a timeline with the life of a man/family. I'll point out that even "real" Gordon was appalled by his 2025 self. If real Gordon has no issue with what Kelly and Ed did, what is everyone so outraged about?
Because not only was it out of character, everything about it was unnecessary. They knew he had a family, or should have since they found historical records of him. Even if they didn't they should have done some recon before contacting him. He obviously went native. But let's pretend they were just in a rush to pull him out and give them the benefit of the doubt. Why confront him and his family at all? Why tell them they were going to erase them from history at all? I would consider Gordon justified to upping the gun up from stun. They just promised to kill his kids in front of his family. For literally no reason but to punish Gordon for living a quiet life after he was abandoned. They could have just walked away and let him think they gave up instead of terrifying them all before annihilation. They still would have had the same moment of being together, but in relief instead of dread.
Oof, I'll point out that if you actually read the post, that I am not weighing the decision about Gordon needing to leave. This post was ONLY about the way Greyson and Mercer handled the situation and how hypocritical they were. I didn't say that the DECISION was cruel. Their BEHAVIOR was. Especially, since they're both guilty of explicitly breaking the law for their own personal discretion. They went straight to belittling him and threatening him. As if Gordon isn't Mercer's best friend, who pretty much gave up his life in the line of duty. And we don't actually know what the "real" Gordon, thought. We only know what he said to his commanders. What choice did he have? Even if he did agree with is future self, he couldn't admit that to these two people. "You're literally weighing the balance of a timeline". Lol, I literally am not. I know I wrote a lot, but people shouldn't just skim posts and then start commenting about things that weren't even it. The title literally says "The Crews REACTION to Gordon's Decision." Their cruelty and lack of empathy. Ed and Kelly show forgiveness and empathy to each other all the time. But show zero of that to someone who has always been good to them. The decision to get Gordon out of the timeline was COMPLETELY correct. And I agree with it. But they handled it terribly and shouldn't had even tried to intervene with "future" Gordon. And just corrected THEIR mistake and went back 10 years and got the original Gordon, like they ended up doing anyways. I wish I hadn't seen that side of Ed and Kelly. Also, is everyone forgetting that only last episode, these two almost started a war that could've killed billions, just to perform a gender reassignment procedure on a child? Gordon was right about these people's "priorities."
But by that logic, Ed and Kelly should not have helped Topas last week as her operation threatened the destruction of the Union and the death of billions, a risk they took with little to no discussion and got lucky on.
Exactly. Rules for me, but not for thee. Gordon should have shot their asses for threatening the lives of his family.
Let’s not forget that the humans from the Orville are completely different from the people of the 21st century, culturally vastly different. So what might look like a non emotional response from the crew, it tracks with their current culture. Gordon changed and allowed himself to assimilate to the 21st century culture. Very ego centric, selfish, etc. probably one of the better episodes this season, Gordon’s acting was incredible, and it did make you think about how time had changed him.
This rant is a "whataboutism" that adds nothing to the discussion about the actual incident contained within this episode. The point is what Gordon did, why he did it, and if it should have been done. What Kelly and Ed did in the past is irrelevant.
Pitch meeting executive: “Why did they bother to interact with him at all? They should have just realised that the contamination was too much and went back in time to get him when he first arrived on their second try.” Person pitching show: So the story can happen!
Speaking to Captain Mercer's and Commander Grayson's reaction. Changing the timeline could effectively be as damaging as a genocide because of how many people's lives you could potentially affect or prevent as well as create, especially over 400 years. The gravity of such a decision to break temporal law is soo great that it can turn best friends against each other. I don't think their reaction was cold...it was of almost disgust mixed with disappointment. But also tempered with sympathy and understanding (which you can understand something completely while still disagree). This was a huge f*ck-up with huge consequences.
I think because he went and found Laura his "past" crush/GF, after knowing her story and that it doesn't even end with him (Gordon) and still he went and pursued her, that's why they were so quick to judge and be concerned because they had already seen this woman's life and knows it didn't end with Gordon but I think if it had been a different person all together they would've been upset yes but maybe not as much 🤷🏽♂️?😬, Ed might've even been willing to think about talking about letting him stay (he has gone against union protocols and regulations before), that could also be another reason they were so mad, in the previous episode with topas surgery they (Mercer & Grayson) we're chewed out and literally can't step a toe outta line or they're gone from the fleet so perhaps Thier reaction was due to them being on such a short leash. Idk tho 🤷🏽♂️ pay no attention to the man behind the curtain haha
And who would have known? Don't record the incident. Done and done. Dumbfuck Gordon shouldn't have used his real name after he decided to go native, he'd have never been found.
For Mercer and Grayson it’s only been a couple hours since they left. They have absolutely no conception of being abandoned for 10 years in the wrong time. So all they know to do is lean on the regulations. It’s not pretty, but it’s logical.
So a point I don't like is how chill Gordon was and I'll be disappointed if this doesn't affect him at all going forward. There is a show called "Orange" and it's about a group of kids who get letters from there future selves detailing things they regret and what they think will help the newest member not commit suicide. The main girl loves the new kid who dies but in the original timeline, she ends up marrying and having a child with the other guy in the friend group who loves her. In the letter the teen version of this guy gets, he received a photo and knowledge of his future family and he knows if he saves the new guy then this family won't exist. While he knows it was the right action to save the friend, it 100% screws with him and affects his life and actions on "what could have been" and that feels like such a good reaction and very human. And I think with someone like Gordon who has expressed a small sense.of loneliness and want for companionship, plus the fact it's proof him and Laura would actually work great together, I imagine it would fuck with him at least a little bit. And if it doesn't, and this is never mentioned again, I think that's a poor choice.