The Orville Season 2.5 Announced

The Orville returns to comics in a new Season 2.5 series set between the events of seasons two and three of the television series, Dark Horse Comics has announced. The Orville executive producer David A. Goodman (Futurama, Star Trek: Enterprise), artist David Cabeza (The Orville), and colorist Michael Atiyeh (Halo: Escalation, Tomb Raider) are re-teaming on The Orville Season 2.5: Launch Day. As with Season 1.5, these new stories will take place over two, two-issue “episodes”. The first episode is The Orville Season 2.5: Launch Day, in which seemingly hostile Krill ships cross into Union space and the Orville intercepts. Captain Mercer learns they are en route to a planet that left the Union decades ago, under mysterious circumstances. Scans have discovered a moon-sized construct above the planet, and the Krill intend a preemptive strike against the presumed weapon. But is it? The first issue goes on sale on June 3rd.

The Orville is making the jump from FOX to Hulu for its third season. “The Orville has been a labor of love for me, and there are two companies which have supported that vision in a big way: 20th Century Fox Television, where I’ve had a deal since the start of my career, and FOX Broadcasting Company, now FOX Entertainment, which has been my broadcast home for over 20 years. My friends at the network understood what I was trying to do with this series, and they’ve done a spectacular job of marketing, launching and programming it for these past two seasons. But as the show has evolved and become more ambitious production-wise, I determined that I would not be able to deliver episodes until 2020, which would be challenging for the network. So we began to discuss how best to support the third season in a way that worked for the show. It’s exactly this kind of willingness to accommodate a show’s creative needs that’s made me want to stick around for so long. I am hugely indebted to Charlie Collier and FOX Entertainment for their generosity and look forward to developing future projects there. And to my new friends at Hulu, I look forward to our new partnership exploring the galaxy together,” said MacFarlane in a press release when the move was announced.

“Fox Entertainment has been a fantastic home for The Orville and their willingness to support the show’s move to Hulu is incredibly appreciated; they really are great partners to us on so many shows and this is one more example. We’re thrilled as a studio to find this creative solution which is so meaningful to Seth and keeps the show on track to continue entertaining its millions of fans,” said Carolyn Cassidy, President of Creative Affairs, 20th Century Fox Television.

“We know our viewers are huge fans of The Orville, along with many of Seth MacFarlane‘s groundbreaking hit shows, and we can’t wait to bring Season 3 to them exclusively on the platform,” said Craig Erwich, SVP Content Development, Hulu. “Hulu is a home for the world’s most sought-after creative talent, and we’re incredibly excited to welcome Seth and the entire cast and creative team of The Orville to our Hulu Originals slate.”

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