Seth MacFarlane has given new hope to fans of The Orville by dropping a hint that a fourth season could be on the horizon.
The creator of Family Guy and American Dad gave an update on the Star Trek homage that was thought to have been cancelled after the third season, dubbed The Orville: New Horizons on Hulu, in a recent interview with The Wrap. While he mentioned nothing about a Season 4, the cryptic statement he gave implies such.
"All I can tell you is that there is no official death certificate for The Orville," MacFarlane said. "It is still with us. I can’t go any further than that at the moment. There are too many factors."
Orville co-star Scott Grimes corroborated MacFarlane's statement about The Orville not being dead, adding that talks about the show's fourth season started before the infamous Hollywood strikes grounded film and television productions to a temporary halt. He said conversations about the next season are still being held.
"I do know that we are still talking about it. It’s not dead in any sort of way whatsoever. It’s just about when, where and how and building the stuff again," Grimes said. "I’m excited because it’s one of the greatest things to work on. So I just have my fingers crossed. And I know Seth wants to do it and that usually holds a lot of power. And I hope he gets to because it’s one of his babies that he just loves and it’s a blast to work on."
The Orville aired three seasons within a span of five years, with lags occurring due to a network swap from Fox to Hulu and production delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the third season of The Orville premiered on Hulu with a slightly new name, MacFarlane said in our interview that the show's network change allowed more audiences to discover the first two seasons on Hulu and become fans of the show because of how much it stands out from shows in the sci-fi genre, especially Star Trek.
"When we premiered on Fox, there was a really aggressive push by the network to bill us as this 'wacky' sci-fi show, and that's really not what we are," MacFarlane said at the time. "We're something very different, so once the dust kind of cleared and the show was just out there on Hulu ready for consumption, it built and broadened our audience."
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.
