While it was not exactly a collision of all-star television shows last night, it’s still impressive that Seth MacFarlane’s l’il sci-fi show — a program that elicited shrugs upon its initial voyage — is starting to earn some notice. Only two other shows received enough reviews to qualify for our round-up, both wily veterans. Supernatural sent the Winchester Bros. out on a heist (which while we did not watch, sounds like a lot of 13th season-style fun), while Gotham brought out a bridge episode, or as Vinnie Mancuso put it in a hilarious recap on Collider: it was a “little boring” in that “only one (1) mute orphan in a bow tie died in a fiery explosion.”

Thursday, November 30th’s Best: The Orville (8.0/10)

Buoyed by a triumphant re-imagination (of sorts) of a main character, The Orville continued on its bumpy course with an episode that received generally favorable reviews. Nick Wanserski of the AV Club praised the rebound episode as it “offered a second, much better opportunity to reintroduce us to John LaMarr.” The suggestion that the outwardly quirky gadabout (newly minted) chief engineer is secretly a super-genius is the “kind of out-of-nowhere character trait introduction that would be more annoying if it didn’t make John a much more interesting character than he has been all season.” While Den of Geek‘s Michael Ahr gave it a near-perfect rating as “the writers managed to give full service to more than one character development arc while still delivering an utterly unique storyline packed with heart-pounding action, admirably cogent techno-babble, and a skillfully embedded metaphor.” Offering a bit more of a measured tone was Diana Keng at TV Fanatic who concluded “It may not be the best script of the season – it certainly isn’t the worst – but it was extremely FUNCTIONAL.”

The Rest of the Night

Supernatural – 7.2

Gotham – 6.71