We’ve got another member of The Orville‘s crew courtesy of the inestimable Patrick Goodman. He’s working his way through the whole crew and today we’ve got the ship’s doctor, Claire Finn.
Claire is an awesome character on the show, dubbed “the show’s secret badass” by Gizmodo, and an example of the sort of diversity you expect on both The Orville and Star Trek. She’s a single mother by choice with two kids who live with her aboard the Orville. Like Bortus, these familial dynamics offer an interesting parallel story to the diplomatic twists and space battles of the rest of the series. As a competent professional Dr. Finn mentors the less mature members of the crew, including the actually young Lt. Kitan and the captain and first officer when their petty bickering gets in the way.
Aside from the character details, Dr. Finn also points out the shared DNA between The Orville and Star Trek. The actress, Penny Johnson Jerald, looked familiar when I was watching the season and I thought it was because she is the captain on the later seasons of Castle. I’m embarrassed to say that it took me until after I’d finished the first season to realize she’s also Captain Kassidy Yates from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine! A definite facepalm moment…
Click on the image below to get the PDF.
She will always be Cassidy Yates to me.
I occasionally find typos and stuff in my work, and I try to post those corrections ASAP. The most current version of this document can be found below.
http://sta.patrickgoodman.org/documents/characters/Claire-Finn-ORV.pdf