S2E1 - Ja'loja notes
1. The meaning of the show is given by the music that was played at least twice curing the episode, which wasn't even noticed here, "As Time Goes By". (It was extra nice that this music also refers to Casablanca, where you can compare Rick and Ilsa to Ed and Kelly.) What this episode was about is that much like the 19th century sailing ships, Orville travels very long distances between ports (planets) and there is this incredible amount of downtime. What do people do to fill up all this time? Very few past shows have addressed this. Normally every show has just shown those moments of high drama and excitement, e.g. when the Borg attacked, when Q visited, etc. But there's this whole other side to the outer space experience and consistent with the show's attempt to show space life as it would actually be, this is a whole show about that. I think they deserve a lot of praise for realizing and finding a way to address this.
2.This show has been somewhat plagued by a too high male to female viewership ratio. Doing a show that mostly features relationships is a good way to get the female viewers involved as well. Everyone can enjoy the Orville, not just teenage boys. That's why this story was placed on the Sunday night premier where it was more likely to be accidentally viewed by women.
3. Intriguing how clingy the guys are on this show. Ed is clinging to his ex-wife. Gordon even clung to his stalker. Dan is already clinging to Alara. Even Cassius shows signs of being that way.
4. Obviously Mochlan kids grow up very fast. Not much time can have passed since last season since Dr. Finn's kids have not aged appreciably.