The Orville: Seth MacFarlane Reveals Season 4 Renewal Chances, Says Disney+ Views Could Be Game-Changer

By Jamie Lovett

The Orville's third season is finally over and fans are eager for news about the sci-fi show's future. Previous reports suggested that things weren't looking good for a fourth season, especially with the cast's contracts all expiring after wrapping on Season 3. Speaking to TVLine, The Orville creator/star Seth MacFarlane says that it's currently "50-50" as to whether the series will be renewed. However, the show was recently added to the Disney+ library. Coming to another streaming service (in addition to its home at Hulu) could help it find an entirely new audience. Those views stand to tip the scales in The Orville's favor.

"My hope is that when the show drops on Disney+, the people who haven't yet discovered [The Orville] will suddenly give it a chance," MacFarlane said. "That's a potential game changer for us.

"I think that creatively and audience-wise, when people sit down and give the show a chance, it upends their expectations. The biggest burden with the show is preconceptions. People think it's one thing — there are people out there who think it's a sitcom —  and when they sit down to watch it they realize its something completely different. Once you get people's eyeballs on it, the show does the work, its speaks for itself, and people tend to be hooked."

The Orville began as a network series airing on Fox. It moved to Hulu for its third season and changed its title to The Orville: New Horizons. However, COVID-19 delayed the show's return for months. Reviews on the new season have been strong, with MacFarlane and his team taking advantage of the advantages of streaming television.

"From a storytelling standpoint, it's much better for me because the biggest issue I have with, particularly, the prevalence of streaming programming, there's some talented writers working on network dramas, but the problem is that you have to cut everything down to exactly 43 minutes," MacFarlane told ComicBook.com previously of how the move to streaming changed The Orville. That's not how storytelling works. It doesn't. Not every story wants to be the same length and if you have a scene that's playing really great, that's emotional and you take your time with it. and it really makes the audience feel something, you may have to cut something down that really should not be cut down. Now, there's a discipline, at the same time, on the other side of things. You don't want to indulge yourself to the point at which you're boring your audience. But for a show like this, to be able to be cinematic and to take the time to set the mood is something you just can't do on a network because you're just so constrained by that time limit, and that, to me, more than anything else was the most satisfying thing about the move."

The Orville: New Horizons is streaming now on Hulu and Disney+.

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