The Orville’s Move to Hulu Gives Seth MacFarlane More Freedom, Says Jonathan Frakes

The Orville is making the jump from Fox to Hulu in its third season. Fans may be wondering what this means for the series going forward. Jonathan Frakes suggests only good things. The Star Trek: The Next Generation star is a fan of The Orville, which is an obvious homage to Star Trek from superfan Seth MacFarlane. Frakes directed an episode of the show’s second season. He spoke to ComicBook.com about The Orville and says he expects the move to Hulu will give MacFarlane and his team more creative freedom with the sci-fi show than it had in its first two seasons.

“He really went for it in terms of people from Next Gen,” Frakes says of how MacFarlane staffed The Orville, referring to Star Trek veterans like Brannon Braga and Marvin Rush. “And I think, if I’m not mistaken, the audience was surprised that Orville was as serious as it was. I mean, it’s wonderfully funny, but it’s no Family Guy, certainly. I think Seth’s a wonderful storyteller and he loves him some Star Trek and he really wanted to be the captain of a spaceship and God knows he made Fox enough money that he can be. And now that he’s on Hulu, he has more freedom to play and not be limited by time, not be limited by censors, so I think he’s in the best of all possible worlds at the moment.”

When the move to Hulu was announced, MacFarlane said in a statement, “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.”

The Orville Season Three is expected to debut on Hulu in late 2020.