In the world of sci-fi television, few shows are like The Orville. You’re either the kind of person who is furious the show hasn’t been renewed for a fourth season, or you’re the type who asks, “What’s The Orville again?” The semi-comedic show, created by and starring Seth MacFarlane, debuted in 2017 on Fox, just a few weeks before Star Trek: Discovery. This detail is relevant because The Orville doesn’t even try to hide that it’s a Star Trek show with the serial numbers filed off.
Like the earliest Star Trek shows, the journey to make more episodes of The Orville has been a tricky one. The first two seasons aired on Fox, while the third season, subtitled New Horizons, aired on Hulu in 2022 before being added to Disney+. Despite positive reviews for Seasons 2 and 3 and a very vocal fanbase, details about a fourth season have not been forthcoming... until now.
At the Star Trek Las Vegas 2024 convention, actor Scott Grimes — who plays Gordon Malloy on The Orville — seemed to confirm that Season 4 will start shooting in 2025. This would suggest a late 2025 or 2026 release date. This would also mean there will potentially be four years between Season 3 and Season 4, assuming Season 4 happens at all.
Featuring an ensemble of quirky space explorers, led by MacFarlane doing a vague Captain Kirk impression as Captain Ed Mercer, The Orville has embraced the story-of-the-week format common to TV before the prestige era emerged in the late ‘90s. But while The Orville began as a send-up of Star Trek with dorm room humor, the show has evolved into a more serious version of itself. MacFarlane is a massive Trek fan, while the behind-the-scenes talent includes former Trek producer Brannon Braga and veteran Trek writers. Several Star Trek guest stars have also crossed over, and some episodes were directed by Commander Riker actor Jonathan Frakes.
There are more connections, but in short, The Orville has a lot of sci-fi cred connected to various iterations of Star Trek. In fact, the show seemed to be courting the Gen-Xers and millennials who grew up with The Next Generation in a way Discovery didn’t.
At this point, however, it’s difficult to argue The Orville offers anything that the humor of Lower Decks or the episodic format of Strange New Worlds doesn’t. The best thing The Orville has going for it now is its own inherent Orville-ness, a show that can somehow exist outside of the shadow of Star Trek despite fashioning itself as a Star Trek show. Its audience is tricky to predict; does the show still offer enough to attract a bunch of Trek fans as the series apparently moves into Season 4?
Dropping Season 3 on Disney+ surely helped viewership, and if Grimes is speaking the truth, this could mean another big season for The Orville in a year or two. But until something comes straight from MacFarlane, Season 4 is still a hope, not a fact. Let’s also hope it still has an audience amid the modern Trek landscape.
