The Orville Is Now Streaming on Disney+ but It's Missing an Episode

By Jamie Lovett

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The Orville: New Horizons is now streaming on Disney+ but the series is missing an episode. Disney announced during San Diego Comic-Con that the Hulu original series from Seth MacFarlane, a sci-fi love letter to Star Trek with MacFarlane's signature humor lightly laced throughout, would come to Disney+ in addition to remaining on Hulu. All three seasons were meant to go live today, August 10th. That mostly happened, but one episode is missing, the most recent season finale episode "Future Unknown." MacFarlane took to Twitter to confirm that the episode's absence is due to a technical glitch and that it should be live on Disney+ before the end of the week.

"Almost all of @TheOrville is now available on @disneyplus," MacFarlane tweeted. "Due to some bizarre, head-scratchy technical glitch, apparently the season 3 finale, "Future Unknown", is not yet available, however I'm told it will be up by Friday at the absolute latest. Thanks for your patience."

At least the missing episode is also the latest, meaning new viewers can watch The Orville without worrying about it for a while. MacFarlane has said that new viewers checking out The Orville on Disney+ could decide whether or not the series returns for a fourth season.

"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 told TVLine. "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."

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The Orville: New Horizons only just wrapped its third season last week. The Orville began as a network show airing on Fox. It moved to Hulu for its third season and changed its title to The Orville: New Horizons, but COVID-19 delayed the show's return for months. Reactions to the new season have been strong, with MacFarlane and his team taking advantage of the advantages of streaming television, with better special effects, longer episodes, and more ambitious stories.

The Orville: New Horizons is now streaming on Disney+ (sans the Season 3 finale). It is also still streaming (finale included) on Hulu.

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