Warning: SPOILERS for The Orville season 3, episode 4, "Gently Falling Rain."
The Orville season 3, episode 4 shares a musical opening with creator Seth MacFarlane's other hit show, Family Guy. The glitzy, old-fashioned song and dance title sequence that opens each episode of MacFarlane's animated sitcom is representative of Family Guy's pop culture literacy and frequent musical numbers. It also reflects creator Seth MacFarlane's well-documented love of music and musicals, resulting in eight solo albums from the multi-talented screenwriter, producer, actor, and singer. With The Orville season 3, episode 4, "Gently Falling Rain," MacFarlane's love of musicals finds its way into his sci-fi comedy-drama series.
While the screenplay of "Gently Falling Rain" isn't credited to MacFarlane, it puts his character, Ed Mercer, at the center of the plot and reflects MacFarlane's love of musicals. Continuing to explore The Orville's thematic new horizons, "Gently Falling Rain," which is written by Star Trek's Brannon Braga and Andre Bormanis, is a political thriller with real-world relevance, tackling themes of the threat of far-right populism and the politics of isolation. It may not seem like the most obvious place to deploy a Family Guy-style pop culture reference by way of a Broadway musical number, but it's a neat piece of foreshadowing that has an emotional pay-off.
Still negotiating a treaty with their sworn enemies the Krill, the Union President and a trio of Union Admirals take the Krill delegation to see a production of Annie. This subtly reflects The Orville and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane's own views on modern Broadway musicals, believing that "the shows that were written in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s have withstood the test of time and can truly be called great shows." (via GQ). In the futuristic world of The Orville, diplomatic visits are made to see Broadway musicals rather than the ballets or operas of 21st-century visits. As well as expanding on The Orville's fictional world, the number from Annie leads to a fun bit of culture clash comedy when the Krill delegation notes the "haunting prophecy" of Annie's optimistic song "Tomorrow" noting, "In our culture, the sun is a symbol of suffering and death." But it also goes further than the occasionally hollow pop culture references of MacFarlane's Family Guy by foreshadowing an emotional plot for Captain Mercer.
Continuing the trend of previous episodes, "Gently Falling Rain" maintains the darker tone of The Orville season 3. The negotiations with the Krill fall apart when the populist firebrand Teleya is elected instead of the more open-minded Krill chancellor. Having first met during an undercover mission into Krill space, Teleya and Ed met again when she conducted her own undercover mission aboard the Orville. Posing as Union officer Janel Tyler, she and Ed became romantically involved.
Arriving on Krill during this brutal political upheaval, Ed is spirited away by a mysterious Krill group who introduces him to a huge new Orville character. Taken to a secret location, Ed meets a half-human, half-Krill child: his daughter, Anaya. Worried about her potential use as a political weapon, Teleya has hidden her away. Living alone in the care of sympathetic Krill, Anaya is effectively an orphan like Annie. It's a perfectly deployed callback that elevates the Family Guy-style musical gag from earlier in the episode into something deeper. Anaya is a symbol of hope for future diplomatic relations between the humans and the Krill, suggesting that in the planetary politics of The Orville, "the sun'll come out tomorrow."
The Orville: New Horizons releases new episodes Thursdays on Hulu