Near as I can tell, the purpose of The Orville: New Horizons Season 3 Episode 4 is three-fold: famous faces, fickle fancies, and fake news. None of it lands as particularly funny.

With the return of Admirals Halsey, Perry, and Ozawa -- portrayed by Victor Garber, Ted Danson, and Kelly Hu, respectively -- and by adding Babylon 5's Bruce Boxleitner as President Alcuzan, they had all their big guns in play.

Unfortunately, the parade of star power isn't enough to distract from the fact Mercer relationship storylines are always problematic.

And finally, the social commentary on election shenanigans and populist politics is pretty on the nose.

If Trek trolls have been lurking The Orville: New Horizons hoping to find a sci-fi series without that icky "woke" -ness they take such offense to, they're probably pretty irritated at the moment.

To present Teleya as the populist leader pushing a fear and anger...