The Orville

[Morgaine]

While the paraphrasing of Q's speech from "Tapestry" is good, I'm not sure you can say Orville "plays it safe" either, although it is clearly going for more of an episodic nature than arcs.

That's fair. But compared to what Discovery is trying (as a spiritual successor to DS9), Orville does feel like it is taking the safer approach.

DS9? Hardly. DS9 never bogged itself this much with arc stories even in the final season, it left some room for a breather here and there.
Discovery apes the arc formula of Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones etc without any breakaway from the insipid war arc. Even their version of an anomaly of the week episode just had to be tied down with it.

The Orville is simply more Trek like.

It’s funny you should say that, because if anything I think we’ve seen too little of the war. Yes, almost every episode has linked to it, but it’s been fairly lacking in terms of episode time spent on it. It reminds me of the break down of the peace with the Klingons in series 4 of DS9. It colours a lot of the events, and actions are taken as a result, but we still aren’t seeing huge amounts of the conflict.

If you tune into any Discovery episode, you will know that the Federation is at was with the Klingons. And that’s as it should be: was is a huge event. DS9 didn’t have the same focus on the conflict because they weren’t at war, they just weren’t friends anymore.

You're both right and wrong.
You're right that we see little, but you're wrong in that this very likely isn't intentional.

I put it down to bad writing. We are constantly told about how the Discovery is single-handedly winning the war and never shown other than the initial battle, which was absurd (six Goa'uld Deathglider.. I mean, "Birds of Prey" that die in one shot took out a whole Federation fleet?). Nevermind the fact that no matter how mobile the Discovery is, it's no match for any true warship (it's buzzing bee maneuver is said to be new in episode 10 so it wasn't that).
In one episode the Federation is winning because of Discovery. In the very next episode the Klingons are winning because of their cloaking device.
We are constantly reminded of the war and it shapes every single episode but we're never actually shown anything of significance. It feels like a schoolyard roleplay fight where one kid announces they have the infinity shield and the other says they have the infinity shield +1.

Also, in DS9 we've already gotten to know the characters and setting for a bit before the Klingon and later Dominion war. The viewers have something at stake.
In Discovery, the war starts immediately, and I don't know or care about any of these characters because they insist on pushing this arc above all else, there's no time for characterisation, adventure or, amusingly, discovery.
The most characterisation we've gotten is that Lorca is a psychopath and the writer's nonsense attempts at arc welding Michael to Spock's family.

[Paul Walker]

If you tune into any Discovery episode, you will know that the Federation is at was with the Klingons. And that’s as it should be: was is a huge event. DS9 didn’t have the same focus on the conflict because they weren’t at war, they just weren’t friends anymore.

DS9 probably didn't focus entirely on the Dominion War (and yes it was a war, not just two neighbors having an argument), because, despite being located on a rather valuable location, the front lines had moved away from the station for the time being. Discovery, on the other hand, is a front-line ship - which is rather stupid, IMHO, considering she's essentially a prototype/test bed and the only one of her kind; DS9 and VOY at least showed that Starfleet built more Defiants. Then again, it's kind of hard to build more ships that have a drive system that requires as many complicated variables as the Discovery apparently does; I dare say that system is bordering on "Awesome, Yet Impractical" territory.

I meant with the Klingons, when Gowron abbrogated the Khitomer Accords. I know that it was a war they had with the Dominion.

Also, it's awesome yet impractical, and untested.

[Darth Wedgius]

The latest Orville was the typical space anomaly of the week type story that turned up for better and worse in TNG, but I think it was a little more imaginative than the random quantum filament. I do like the title, "New Dimensions," for the double meaning.

[TGLS]

My view: The episode was really stuffed to the gills here. You have: The A-plot, involving a space anomaly; The B-Plot, where not-Geordi becomes Chief Engineer, because apparently we're doing TNG now; and The C-Plot, where the Captain feels he doesn't deserve to be captain. This is not to say it was bad because of this; it's just that there was a lot going on.

[Redem]

So like now they have a super-advance planet that come into the univers every 2 week or so?

[Morgaine]

I dont think they quite thought the implcations of that planet through, in another few months or so they'd have the Q if they're lucky, or the Borg if they're not.
I kept expecting the last appearance of the planet to be a nuked husk, but that would've been a downer.

Also, nobody in any advanced future should ever be allowed to think panda eyes are fashionable.

[Darth Wedgius]

There are a few places the episode could have done better -- a super-advanced civilization is out there, as mentioned above. Having them deciding not to get heavily involved with the Union in the future because they've seen that can awry could have been a nice touch.

Obviously there are a lot of similarities to Voyager's "Blink of an Eye," including use of the artificial person to visit the world for a long time, subjectively. But I still think it was nicely done.

The main objection I had through most of the story -- that if we can come up with Merlin, Coyote, or Anansi, it seems unlikely that one healing would drive the world-wide culture into centuries of worship, was pretty much defused when the Kellyians (Kellyites? Kellyioids?) noted that anything could have served as the seed of that faith. Some note of Our Lady of the Perpetual Hangover Charities might have been a nice note, acknowledging that religion isn't all inquisitions and duck-weighing.

Still, if a bit derivative, it's my favorite episode of the show so far. The personal story dovetailed into the A plot nicely, and, once again, my hat's off to Brannon Braga as a director.

[Redem]

I think the episode had a good idea structure for the Ed/Kelly plotline (Ed/Kelly think they might have a shot at being together again, Kelly messes up, but Ed protects her, she realise that is bad and decide to break it off), though the blink of an eye fit a bit ackwardly around it, also there's a slight storytelling issue I think in that Kelly interference whoses incredibly minor result in dire consequence while Isaac one is even more massive but frame as entirely positive

[LavarosVA]

The thing that got me about the season finale is that it didn't really feel like one. Even Trek had built up Finales in the era The Orville is trying to ape. I expected the Krill to show back up or The Orville to be recalled. Something to keep us on the hook. But instead of it feeling like a "see you next season" episode it feels like a "see you next week."

[Robovski]

The last episode of this season got moved to next season so that probably answers that.

And welcome UK viewers who are just getting the show now in typical UK broadcasting form.