Kelly finds Topa, Bortus and Klyden’s child, practising with the command training programs and offers to help him prepare for the Union Point training exam. As she does so, it becomes clear Topa is deeply unhappy and the decisions made in the first season episode ‘About A Girl’ return to haunt the ship.

There’s a lot to be said here about how New Horizons is doing interesting, innovative work exploring issues laid down back in the show’s first year. None of that matters as much as three words spoken by Bortas to Topa.

‘You are perfect.’

This episode walks the razor-thin line all great art does: explore and embody the issue at its core and also provide escapism for those who just want to get to another world for a while and God knows that’s most of us these days. Writer and director Seth MacFarlane manages this with an elegance and kindness that’s quietly rather staggering. As Bortus and Klyden’s relationship breaks down and the true extent of Topa’s trauma becomes clear, that plot carries the dramatic weight and the Orville’s crew getting out of its way becomes the light relief and also a lens to view that drama through. The crew’s desperation to help, up to and including Doctor Finn offering to resign her commission to reverse Topa’s surgery, is tangible and Ed, and MacFarlane, use that.

The benign conspiracy that ensues with Isaac doing the surgery while Bortus performs a concert for the crew is the sort of open-secret workaround that good organizations pull off all the time. It’s also an emotional hammer blow, one of many this episode, as Bortus performs Nat King Cole’s ‘Nature Boy’ and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’ It’s a light, kind, funny moment but it’s also Bortus expressing deep love for his child and for his chosen family.

That kindness is cleverly acknowledged, and arguably instigated by Admiral Howland, played by Andi Chapman. She plants the breadcrumbs, she dresses Ed and Kelly down when the surgery goes ahead and she also orders them to send her best wishes to Topa, with the tiniest hint of a smile. It’s a lovely performance, embodying the impossible situation the Union is in at the same time as the deep core of compassion that lies at its heart. The word is no. The crew therefore go anyway. Any Starfleet Captain you’d care to name would do the same thing and, odds are, get the first round in.

But this is all the structure in which the episode places its most important work. MacFarlane’s willingness to engage with the issue of gender dysphoria is as welcome as the kindness with which he does it. There’s no ‘both sides make good points’ here, no whataboutism. Instead, one of the episode’s most understated moments seems Blesson Yates as Topa asking Isaac what it was like to be dead with a flat affect a lot of former teenagers will find familiar. A later scene with Bortus counterpoints this as the stoic Moclan breaks down and, tears running down his faces, confesses he has no idea how to help his child. Peter Macon has always been a strong part of this show but this episode he does career best work all the way and that line I referenced earlier is dense with love, determination and absolute sincerity. The choices the crew make have a cost, not the least of which is Bortus’ marriage, but they all pay that price willingly.

Arguably the one exception to that is Klyden. Chad Coleman is a stunningly good actor and in what may be his swansong on the show he hits it out of the park. Bortus’ quiet, stoical grief is counterpointed by Klyden’s belligerent, furious shame and in the hands of a lesser actor and writer he’d be an easy reach as a villain here. But this story isn’t that simple, and somehow MacFarlane and Coleman manage to make Klyden understandable without being mealy mouthed, an antagonist without being a villain. The fact he went through the same process as Topa powers everything he does, from the guilt he feels at what was done to his child to the horror he feels at being forced to confront an event of abject trauma in his past. Klyden is in agony, and lashes out more than once here, at anyone in range. That leads to a pair of standoffs with Kelly, an actual fight and in the episode’s darkest moment, Klyden telling Topa he wishes she’d never been born. Coleman lands it all, the ugly and the understandable and the tragedy of Klyden is ultimately one of the most multi-faceted elements of the episode without once cheapening what Topa’s going through and the metaphorical weight it carries.

But even this isn’t the core of the story. That core is Topa, played as a boy by Blesson Yates and as a girl by Imani Pullum. Yates does fantastic work here, the quiet, dulled edge of Topa’s trauma slowly emerging, cut in turn with his desperation and rage. Pullum has the smaller but arguably tougher job, both building on Yates’ work and showing how Topa is both the same person and now the person they truly are. She succeeds admirably and if any of the other moments of the episode somehow didn’t make you cry, the end will. Called to the bridge, she’s greeted by the command crew and Ed, who offers her the Captain’s seat. As You’ll Never Walk Alone swells in the score, the episode calls back to its opening scene. There, Topa, trapped in the wrong gender, failed to save their crew. Here, Topa, relaxed and calm and who she truly is, gives the order to jump and she, and the ship set sail. It’s heartfelt and sincere, kind and honest. It is by some distance the best ending of the best episode the show has produced to date and I’m so, so glad that this is something The Orville has done.

Verdict: It’s needed. And it needs to be seen. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart