Trivia: While reading the Anhkana, Ed compares its gruesome contents to writing by Bret Easton Ellis. Ellis is famous for having written the graphically violent novels on which American Psycho and its sequel The Rules of Attraction are based.
Trivia: At the start of the episode, the way Dr Finn's son is trying to wake her up is the same as when Stewie tried to wake Lois up in the Family Guy episode "Stewie Loves Lois", also by Seth MacFarlane.
Trivia: The story Dolly Parton tells about injuring her toes as a child is true, and happened exactly as her hologram recounts here.
Trivia: This episode guest stars Leighton Meester, who plays Laura, the woman from the past. In real life, Meester is married to Adam Brody. One of the films Brody stars in is "Thank You for Smoking." This episode features Bortus and Klyden becoming addicted to smoking.
Deflectors - S2-E7
Trivia: The 1945 program Commander Kelly Grayson has created has the film "Anchors Aweigh" playing. "Anchors Aweigh" starred Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson. The film also included Jerry Mouse and Tom Cat. Tom and Jerry were created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. "Orville" creator, Seth MacFarlane, got his start working for Hanna-Barbera.
Answer: The book "Flatland", which is mentioned in the show, is a real book that may answer your questions in full (it's the story of a 3-D being experiencing the 2-D world and the 1-D world). In the 2-D world, there is no height, so there's no way to slice anything in half (horizontally). A being living in the 2-D world sees any object or being as a line (it's messy, but the lines have thickness, just not height, but all thickness is the same). So if the Orville was seen, it would only be seen 2 dimensionally and be seen as a line and others beings could just move out of the way. While there were buildings in "Flatland", perhaps this world doesn't have any, or the Orville didn't bump into any. There is death in "Flatland" when a being isn't careful and is poked, but these are usually by lines and triangles and the Orville would more like the circles and not in danger of poking anything.
Bishop73