It's no wonder she's so hard on herself all the time. God, I'd like to punch that guy in the face.

When a character leaves a show, the writers of that show generally want to do one of two things.  Spend some time examining that character’s relation to the other characters on the show, or spend some time giving the character more of a fleshed out story before retiring them permanently.  Somehow, with Alara Kitan (Halston Sage)’s departure, neither of these is really done, and we get an awkward subplot thrown in.

The science behind the set up for Alara’s departure is sound, if not entirely borrowed from a Deep Space Nine plot (If you haven’t seen it, check out season 2′s ‘Melora’.  Then remember that it’s a season 2 episode and that was before the show got good).   That is one of the things that routinely is bothersome about ‘The Orville’.  I understand that the series is a bit of a love letter to the ‘Star Trek’ series gone by, but when we get into the territory of being able to name which episode the show is impersonating, it gets a little weird.  Like as in when that blind date shows up wearing the exact same outfit as you weird.  I really want to like ‘The Orville’, but I don’t want to walk away every week with unplaced deja vu.  

Alara’s relationship with her family is also just a bit off, in that there doesn’t really seem any evidence of a relationship at all.  If you’ve set up that the relationship between a character and her parents is strained, then the reconciliation should be pretty easy to melt hearts with.  Here you are just left questioning why they now are getting along, and why Alara would choose to go live with them again rather than just having the occasional email exchange.  I don’t know what Sage’s actual departure schedule looked like, but this idea, teased out over a few episodes, might have made more sense.  As is we’re left as an audience feeling bad that she is returning to borderline abusive parents.

Enjoying your old room? It's like a flashback. You hardly changed anything. Yes, well, we always knew you'd come back. Or at least we hoped. Because you missed me? Of course we missed you. And we want what's best for you. God, you just can't help yourself, can you? What?

Dad, can you just can it for one second, please? That's not why I called.