- 8.4/1038 votes
#1 - Standing Up in the Milky Way
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 3/9/2014
The Ship of the Imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies, can take us anywhere in space and time. It has been idling for more than three decades, and yet it has never been overtaken. Its global legacy remains vibrant. Now, it's time once again to set sail for the stars.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Carl Sagan
- 8.4/1027 votes
#2 - When Knowledge Conquered Fear
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 3/23/2014
There was a time, not so long ago, when natural events could only be understood as gestures of divine displeasure. We will witness the moment that all changed; but first, the Ship of the Imagination is in the brooding, frigid realm of the Oort Cloud, where a trillion comets wait. Our Ship takes us on a hair-raising ride, chasing a single comet through its million-year plunge towards the Sun.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Steven Soter
- 8.3/1019 votes
#3 - The Immortals
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 5/18/2014
The Ship of the Imagination travels across the cosmos to discover the possibility of beings that live forever and explain why other civilizations perish. Then, visit the Cosmic Calendar of the Future and contemplate what lies ahead with a hopeful vision.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Steven Soter
- 8.3/1026 votes
#4 - A Sky Full of Ghosts
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 3/30/2014
An exploration of how light, time and gravity combine to distort our perceptions of the universe. We eavesdrop on a series of walks along a beach on summer nights in the year 1809. William Herschel, whose many discoveries include the insight that telescopes are time machines, tells bedtime stories to his young son, John, who will grow up to make some rather profound discoveries of his own.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
- 8.3/1017 votes
#5 - The World Set Free
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 6/1/2014
The Ship of the Imagination travels to our near neighbor Venus, where we begin our journey to discover the long history of global warming and the greenhouse effect. Later, explore the detrimental effects of climate change and trace the magnitude of our impact on the Earth’s atmosphere. However, with knowledge, technology and science within our grasp, imagine a hopeful future where we dedicate our efforts to taking care of our home, Planet Earth.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Steven Soter
- 8.2/1019 votes
#6 - The Clean Room
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 4/20/2014
To determine the true age of the Earth, geochemist Clair Patterson developed the uranium-lead dating method to make an unprecedented discovery – calculating Earth's age of 4.5 billion years. But Patterson's groundbreaking discoveries were just beginning. Patterson made it his mission to draw public attention to the detrimental effects of lead in the environment and dedicated his career to fighting against the petroleum and chemical industry, eventually achieving public health's biggest victory of the 20th century.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Steven Soter
- 8.2/1013 votes
#7 - Ladder to the Stars
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 3/9/2020
An adventure spanning billions of years into the evolution of life and consciousness. A visit to a 100,000-year-old laboratory. The story of the change in life-style that radically altered human existence and the life of the heretic who found god in the book of nature, opening our way to the stars.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
- 8.2/109 votes
#8 - The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth
Season 2 Episode 7 - Aired 3/30/2020
A revelation of the hidden underground network that is a collaboration of four kingdoms of life, and a true first contact story between humans and beings who communicate in a symbolic language and have maintained a representative democracy for many tens of millions of years.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
- 8.2/108 votes
#9 - Magic Without Lies
Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 4/6/2020
Meet the man who stumbled on a hole in the reality of quantum mechanics and the still-unfolding technology that made it possible.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
- 8.2/1019 votes
#10 - Sisters of the Sun
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 4/27/2014
Discover the remarkable story of Annie Jump Cannon and Cecilia Payne, two incredible women who challenged conventional wisdom and uncovered the real-life story of the stars. Cannon led a group of female astronomers in the early 20th century to catalogue the spectral characters of stars, and two decades later, young British beauty Payne joined forces with Cannon to analyze the data and uncover the chemical compositions of the stars. Later, travel on the Ship of the Imagination to explore the lives and deaths of stars.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Steven Soter
- 8.1/108 votes
#11 - A Tale of Two Atoms
Season 2 Episode 10 - Aired 4/6/2020
How a deadly embrace between science and state altered the fate of the world, and a gripping cautionary tale of mass casualty and unlikely survival.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
- 8.1/1019 votes
#12 - The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth
Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 5/4/2014
The Ship of the Imagination embarks on a journey through space and time to grasp how the autobiography of the Earth is written in its atoms, its oceans, its continents and all living things. Later, American geologist Marie Tharp creates the first true map of Earth’s ocean floor, and discovers microscopic life that exists deep beneath the ocean.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Steven Soter
- 7.9/108 votes
#13 - Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Season 2 Episode 11 - Aired 4/13/2020
An exploration of human potential for change, concluding with the story of one of history's greatest monster and his virtuous transformation.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
- 7.8/109 votes
#14 - Lost City of Life
Season 2 Episode 3 - Aired 3/16/2020
A new vision of genesis at the bottom of the blood red sea of the infant Earth. And the story of the man who found the first clues to life's beginning in a green jewel. As he searched for life's origin, he risked his own, daring to toy with his Nazi tormentors.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
- 7.8/1041 votes
#15 - Mad Idolatry
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 12/7/2017
Ed and Kelly consider the possibility of reforging their relationship, but Kelly soon crash-lands on a planet in another universe with Isaac and Gordon.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Seth MacFarlane
- 7.6/108 votes
#16 - Seven Wonders of The New World
Season 2 Episode 13 - Aired 4/20/2020
Take a trip to the 2039 New York World’s Fair, where the problems we now consider hopeless have been solved and thrilling possibilities exist.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
- 7.0/1036 votes
#17 - Firestorm
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 11/16/2017
When a fire breaks out on The Orville and a crew member dies, Alara begins to question if she is fit for her job, just as unusual and terrifying things start happening on the ship.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Cherry Chevapravatdumrong
- 6.8/1047 votes
#18 - About a Girl
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 9/21/2017
The Orville crew is divided between cultures when Bortus and Klyden debate if their newly born offspring should receive a controversial surgery.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Seth MacFarlane
- 6.6/1037 votes
#19 - Into the Fold
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 11/2/2017
Ed and the crew set out to save Dr. Finn, her two sons and Isaac after their shuttle gets thrown into uncharted space and they crash-land on a moon that is light years from the Orville.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Brannon Braga