As was pointed out quite a while ago, when The Orville came out there was a substantial gap between the audience reaction and the professional critic reaction. Behold:

The Orville now has two episodes of season two under its belt. They are effectively indistinguishable from season one episodes; one of them was, in fact, a holdover from season one. So the reactions *should* be the same… audience loves, it, critics hate it. But instead we see this:

Baaa-bwuuuuhhh?

Note that the audience score is *exactly* the same, but the critics have utterly changed their tunes. As I noted, the show is essentially unchanged… same cast, same characters, same writing, VFX, everything. No time jumps or mirror universes. So what gives? What could *possibly* have caused critics to suddenly decide that thy like this show and that they want to curry favor the shows higher-ups by writing glowing reviews?

Disney-Fox Deal Could Close By End of January

Huh. Imagine that.