The conversation surrounding The Orville has more or less exclusively become about whether or not the series will return for Season 4 or if it's canceled. The chatter has even bled into Seth MacFarlane's attempts to promote Ted, and once again, the creative has had to talk about his sci-fi series while doing media for Ted's premiere. MacFarlane was gracious enough to give an update on the series currently available with a Disney+ subscription, but I'm unsure of how I should take his comments.
The Orville was mentioned when Seth MacFarlane spoke to Collider about Ted and was asked about the future of the sci-fi series. MacFarlane was careful with his words and offered the following diplomatic response:
How do I answer this question? It is not officially over yet, no.
With these latest comments, I'm left wondering what "not officially over yet" is supposed to mean. Is this Seth MacFarlane saying the show is effectively dead, but no one has told him that is the case? Or is this him merely responding and saying that the series is nowhere close to ending?
At the same time, if The Orville is dead, then Seth MacFarlane could've just said that in clearer terms. The fact that he didn't could mean there is still nuance to the issue and a chance that we'll see what will happen in Season 4 at some point. It might be more of a question of how that will happen and if MacFarlane can find the time in his schedule to return to it.
Seth MacFarlane's latest comments about The Orville come after star Adrianne Palicki opened up about why shooting the series was so difficult. There's no shortage of cast supporting the show returning, but at the same time, actors like Chad L. Coleman can only provide optimistic updates while taking gigs elsewhere. So much time has passed since Season 3, it could be a difficult task to coordinate the schedules of the cast to do a new season as this point.
All this to say, if The Orville is returning, it's certainly not a part of the 2024 TV schedule. It would be great, at the very least, if the fans could get some definitive answers sometime this year on whether or not the series will continue. Even if the news is bad, it would be nice to actually mourn the quality sci-fi series rather than maintain false hope that it will return.
The Orville is available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu. Given the latest update on the series, now might be a great time to hop on streaming and assure whoever is making decisions that it's still a loved show. Regardless, we'll just continue to wait on some concrete update on whether or not it's returning.
