TW Watches The Orville: New Horizons: Twice In A Lifetime

By Owen Quinn author

I love a time travel story. You might have noticed from all The Time Warriors books I’ve written, so sci-fi is the greatest backdrop upon to paint such tales.

In the third season of The Orville: New Horizons, we get a time travel episode that truly looks at the reality of it and how it can impact, not the galaxy but one person’s life. In season two an old cellphone was discovered. Accessing it, helmsman Gordon Malone (Scott Grimes) was able to interact with the videos within and fall in love with a musician Laura.

In season three the crew are testing the Aronov device, a literal time machine. When the robotic Kaylon sneak attack to take thee device for themselves, Gordon Malloy races to destroy it before they can take it. But he is hit by a beam of energy and believed to be dead. But they receive a message from three hundred years in the past from Gordon asking to be rescued.

Checking they find he became a civil engineer and pilot before dying in 2068. Union law states that if any officer finds themselves trapped in the past they must isolate themselves and leave no footprint in time which could affect the timeline. To do otherwise will incur serious punishment. As Bortus points out, since Malloy lived and died, they obviously did not rescue him. Since history is intact then their mission is already accomplished.

Isaac points out that events are still in flux given they have not made their decision yet as to go after him or not. Now this doesn’t make sense to me but then it is time travel so when does it ever. History is intact, Malloy had a full life with no consequences and this did not implode the space time continuum so it should be all good.

But Mercer’s logic is that his friend called out for help and cannot be left in the past alone. They must go after him. But when they go back, they damage the Aronov device and worse still, have arrived ten years after Malloy. They find him at the commercial airport in the full flow of his life.

While Charley and a disguised Isaac go searching for the mineral they need to fix the device to get them home again, Kelly and Ed start acting, to be frank, like idiots. And this is what I mean when I talk about the flippancy or careless attitude of the Orville crew, especially the Captain and first officer. They attack Malloy for creating a life for himself; warning he will face serious charges when he gets home. Ed berates him saying that he had no right to build a life for himself. Kelly comments on how he has acclimatised to life in the twenty first century. He tells them about deodorant and personalised car plates and says he has no intention off returning to their time. And they soon learn why. Malloy is married to Laura and they have a son, Edward and another on the way.

Malloy has broken the law and in Mercer and Kelly’s collective eyes in the most terrible of ways. He is a criminal who needs to be brought to justice. Given their past, are the recent glories between thwarting the Kaylon invasion and Krill alliance gone to their heads? Since when were they so duty bound that they take such a narrow and insular view? Especially when he is Mercer’s best friend.

Malloy warns them to go and not come back but they are determined to take him back. He agrees but only if his family come too. Mercer refuses seeing them as anomalies that should never have been. It is true that Malloy used his previous knowledge of Laura to find her but he was already in love with her from the previous episode. And it is here that Mercer and Kelly get an up close and personal look at the harsh reality of obeying the temporal law. It looks great on paper but to physically go through it is tougher than you think.

Ed tells them he did what he was told to and hid himself away from all other people. He lived by killing animals and eating them. That equates him to being a mass murderer. But the loneliness and isolation was too much to bear. Faced with a life of anguish and torment, Malloy spent three years alone but he went seeking Laura. Humans are not built to be alone and the temporal laws are not viable to the species they were written for. What they ask for is an impossibility and when no-one showed up, Malloy did what he had to.

Malloy pulls a gun on them and tells them to leave and never come back. He is happy and about to become a father again. It all seems very black and white to Mercer and Kelly to the point that they bring the super strong Tala as back up to rip Malloy back with them.

The scenes of Edward and Laura’s fears about him being taken are touching and show another aspect to this situation. But before they can take Malloy, Lamarr contacts them and tells them they have fixed the Aronov device and can leave. This new information gives Mercer another option. He is going to go back to the original arrival date and take that Malloy instead. This will cancel out this future.

Mercer is condemning the Malloy family to death.

Those final scenes of the Malloys sitting on the couch watching television knowing they are about to be wiped from existence are tragic. What Mercer is doing is killing an unborn child. They go back and rescue the recently stranded Malloy.

Now with him retrieved, do Mercer and Kelly have regrets about what they did in the name of The Union? They tell Malloy what they did but he is very understanding about it saying it must have been a terrible decision to make. We end with the Malloy we know oblivious to the exact consequences of what was done. he is no longer the Malloy that would die for his family. If you look at it, being part of the Orville crew is holding Malloy back from finding true happinerss and becoming a three dimensional man with a purpose in life. His family brought him to maturity while maintaining his comedic side. but Malloy is oblivious tot his. While there he sees others gain promotion or haver better sex lives than he does but separated from them, he becomes his own man. That’s an interesting theme. What if the people you call friends are in fact holding you back from a truly happy life? it is clear that they had no problem putting rules before friendship and Mercer is hypocritical as he bends the rules to suit himself. So is his friendship with Malloy real or a comfort blanket as Mercer took the Orville command in an unconfident mind. It is clear from this episode that Mercer puts duty over friendship at the drop of a hat when he and Kelly have broken the rules time and again. And let’s not forget, Mercer has a ha;f Krill daughter he has kept secret.

Let’s face it, none of this would have happened if Mercer had simply accepted that his best friend was gone, lost to the past where he lived a full life. Details of his family would have been on his bio that was found, yet for some reason (plot convenience) they fail to see that information. In fact it is Isaac that opens the argument that they cannot ignore this.

But it is clear that what they did was the wrong thing to do.

They saw that Malloy survived and thrived without them and made a very happy life for himself. The only reason this happened could be that Mercer could not bear to be without his best friend. The fact is that he witnessed first hand Malloy’s happy new life and how settled he was. Bortus was the only one here that spoke any sense.

The real crime here is what Mercer and Kelly did. Twice In a Lifetime is a perfect example of how laws are not always right; that life is not a straight road and the people that write the rules may not necessarily see all the consequences of their law. As they say, it’s easier said than done. Humans are creatures hat need contact with others to survive. Isolation is toxic to our very nature.

If ever there was a story screaming for a sequel then this is it. Somehow I don’t believe that the Malloys were simply wiped from the timeline. And while Mercer and Kelly might be happy with the way things turned out, I doubt that family man Malloy will see it like that. Indeed he may see it in a very different, perhaps vengeful light.

Highly recommended.