| Don Orville | |
|---|---|
Wayne Knight as Sergeant Don Orville |
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| First appearance | "Assault with a Deadly Dick" |
| Last appearance | "The Thing That Wouldn't Die: Part 2" |
| Created by | Bonnie and Terry Turner |
| Portrayed by | Wayne Knight |
| Information | |
| Species | Earthling |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Police Officer |
| Title | Police Sergeant |
| Significant other(s) | Sally Solomon (on-off girlfriend) |
Officer Donald 'Don' Leslie Orville is a fictional character in the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. He is portrayed by Wayne Knight and works as a Police Sergeant in the fictional town of Rutherford, Ohio, though he is consistently referred to as "Officer" throughout the series, much like real-world Police Sergeants and others are referred to as Officer by lay-persons, despite their actual rank. The character is first introduced to the series late in the first season, in the episode Assault with a Deadly Dick, in which the Solomon family go to the police for help after they fall victim to crime.[1] Knight portrayed both Don and his more-iconic Newman character from fellow NBC show Seinfeld during the first three years of 3rd Rock's run.
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Although Don works as a police officer and later sergeant throughout the series, he is often shown to be somewhat incompetent, for example, in The Physics of Being Dick he lets Dick interrogate a criminal with him, despite it being highly illegal.[2] Also, when he is paged, he never appears to know what any of the crime codes actually mean.
As well as this, he often makes a blunder of things, for example, in Stuck With Dick he thinks Mary's house has been broken into and attempts to burst in through the front door, but ends up making a mess of it and shouting "Ass right there, freezehole!",[3] and in Dick's Big Giant Headache, Part II, he claims to always be losing things, adding "I even lost a whole dead guy once".[4]
As the final season draws to a close, Sally discovers him hiding in a frozen foods freezer during the robbery of a local store, and he admits that he is a coward, and only joined the police force because he thought he'd be safe around all the other officers.[5]
Throughout the series, he maintains an on-off relationship with Sally Solomon, a coupling which sees her in the dominant position, and able to persuade him (usually using her feminine wiles) to do anything she wants.
As an ongoing gag of the show, one of the pair appears to be able to tell when the other has entered the room, and says their name, before turning round to see them (notably, in the episode Two Faced Dick, in which Dick and Sally swap bodies, Dick enters the room and Don still thinks it is Sally, before turning round to find himself shocked).[6] Another of the pair's running gags is that the conversations held between them are somewhat dramatic, and reminiscent of an old film noir 1930s crime drama.
In the Alternate Universe, Don is still dating Sally, but he is the philandering Mayor of New York City. He also admits to being married, which causes Sally to break-up with him again cause she couldn't take the guilt.
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