The Orville Not Dead, Season 4 Suddenly Got More Real
Many Star Trek fans who didn’t love the NuTrek flavor of shows like Discovery and Picard have found themselves clinging to old episodes of The Orville for comfort. That’s not surprising: that show was created by Trek superfan Seth MacFarlane, and for three seasons, it served as the spiritual successor to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Fans have been understandably sad that The Orville wrapped up after season 3, but MacFarlane gave fans hope for a season 4 recently when he said, “All I can tell you is that there is no official death certificate for The Orville.”
Fans hoping to hear something a bit more concrete from the Family Guy creator will likely be disappointed that he didn’t say anything more definitive about The Orville getting a season 4. After saying that the show “is still with us,” he clarified that “I can’t go any further than that at the moment” because “there are too many factors.”
It may just be our inner fanboys talking, but we’re actually looking at MacFarlane’s vague statement as a positive sign that The Orville may finally get the green light for season 4. If there was absolutely no way for the fan-favorite sci-fi show to make a return, MacFarlane would likely put us all out of our misery by confirming that. Instead, the fact that different factors are affecting what he can and cannot say on the matter means that there may be some behind-the-scenes discussions going on to bring the show back in some form or another.
One person who seems relatively confident that The Orville might get a season 4 is series co-star Scott Grimes. He confirmed that “we are still talking about it” and that Seth Macfarlane “wants to do it, and that usually holds a lot of power.” After the long-running success of his shows Family Guy and American Dad, MacFarlane wields plenty of clout, and that may be enough to help The Orville get another season.
In addition to MacFarlane’s own passion for the franchise, one thing that might help season 4 finally get off the ground is the fact that The Orville is gaining more fans every year. It gained a passionate cult following when the first two seasons aired on Fox, and once the show moved to Hulu for season 3, it gained more fans who had cut the cord on cable but still wanted to stream solid sci-fi. Now that the entirety of the show can be streamed on Disney+, it has a bigger audience than ever before, and sheer fan demand might be enough to bring The Orville back.
Whether you’re a longtime fan or someone who has never taken the plunge into this quirky series, you should check out The Orville now that it’s available to stream on both Hulu and Disney+. You’ll quickly discover helmsman Gordon Malloy was telling the truth when he declared that The Orville was the “weirdest” ship in the entire fleet: that basically describes the show as a whole, and in a world where big sci-fi franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars keep playing it safe, we love a spacefaring show that isn’t afraid to get strange and silly with it.
Here’s hoping for season 4 of The Orville, a fun show that has never been afraid to weirdly go where no show has gone before.
Source: The Wrap
