It’s been four long years since Seth MacFarlane‘s space-faring sitcom, The Orville, last flew into action on Hulu. Fans of the series could be forgiven for thinking the ship and her crew had embarked on their last mission. However, there’s good news (and bad news) from the Planetary Union: the show isn’t cancelled, but its return isn’t quite imminent, either.
In a recent interview promoting the release of the second season of Ted, MacFarlane confirms that there are ten episodes of the show’s long-awaited fourth season written and ready to go, and that Hulu is prepared to greenlight it. The hitch, however, is that in addition to being both the show’s creator and writer, Marfarlane is also the star of the show, which means he needs time to film it. And time is not something the ever-busy MacFarlane has a surfeit of. “I’m the problem. It’s [a matter of] when I can make that my year, with all the other stuff we have in the works. But we can hit the ground running when it happens.” However, the series may be down a crew member when it finally re-launches, as co-star Adrianne Palicki recently spoke of her time on the show in the past tense.
What Is ‘The Orville’ About?
A loving spoof and tribute to the Star Trek franchise, especially The Next Generation, The Orville stars MacFarlane as Ed Mercer, a once-promising officer in the 25th-century Planetary Union whose life fell apart when he caught his wife, Kelly Grayson (Palicki), cheating on him with an alien. He eventually gets command of the Orville, one of the less-glamorous ships in the fleet…with Grayson as his second-in-command. Other crew members include the inorganic Isaac (Mark Jackson), ship’s doctor Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald), slow-witted helmsman Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes), and eccentric alien Bortus (Peter Macon). The series has also guest-starred a number of Star Trek veterans, including Robert Picardo, John Billingsley, Marina Sirtis, and Tim Russ. It premiered in 2017 on Fox, and aired two seasons there before moving to Hulu for its third.
MacFarlane is a longtime Star Trek fan, and even got to serve in Starfleet long before The Orville was a twinkle in his eye. He guest-starred on two episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise as Rivers, an Enterprise crewman.
The Orville is now streaming on Hulu.
via Collider