Seth MacFarlane Cautiously Optimistic ‘The Orville’ Will Get A 4th Season

It’s been pretty quiet for The Orville since the third season ended last summer. The show has remained in limbo, but star and creator Seth MacFarlane is expressing optimism about the future of his homage to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Season 4 hopes from MacFarlane… and Chad Coleman

The latest update on The Orville comes from Seth MacFarlane himself via Twitter on Monday. Responding to a fan asking if there was any news on a renewal, MacFarlane said he was “cautiously optimistic,” but he pointed out the streaming television business is going through “upheaval and transition” at this moment, so there is no definitive answer.

MacFarlane was a bit more cautious than actor Chad Coleman (Klyden) who last week told Cinemablend, “We think it’s gonna happen, but it’s still up in the air.” Together, these comments are certainly more hopeful than the Hulu executive in January who simply reconfirmed no decision has been made yet about the future of the show.

In his interview last week, Chad Coleman said MacFarlane had “an amazing relationship” that included “promising meetings” with Disney co-chairman Dana Walden, who oversees entertainment for the corporation. But as noted by MacFarlane, Hulu, which is controlled by Disney, is dealing with the same market forces impacting Paramount and Star Trek. In fact, things are even more complicated as Disney is considering divesting itself from Hulu, which is currently partially owned by Comcast.

NASA honors Orville’s crew

The Orville is getting a bit of a boost from real-life space professionals. NASA’s Research Opportunities In Earth And Space Sciences report for 2023 uses members of the crew of the USS Orville as examples, including Ed Mercer, Kelly Grayson, Claire Finn, Alara Kitan, and Bortus. The Orville editor and producer Tom Costantino shared images from the NASA report on Twitter.

The Orville: New Horizons soundtrack available

Disney’s Hollywood Records has released the soundtrack for The Orville: New Horizons. The digital album features selections of the original music from the third season of the show composed by Joel McNeely, John Debney, Andrew Cottee, and Kevin Kaska along with the new main title and end theme by Bruce Broughton. Also included are songs from season three performed by series star Scott Grimes.

The soundtrack includes 72 tracks and it is available digitally on Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple. They also released a clip showing some of the music being recorded.


Keep up with all The Orville news and analysis on TrekMovie.

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I hope it gets renewed, have always enjoyed this show. I’m due for a re-watch of the first three seasons. As complicated as these marketing/licensing, etc. issues with all these competing studios are now, it’s a wonder we’re getting anything at all.

The third season was amazing, some of the best “Star Trek” that I’ve ever seen. I also hope that it gets renewed. But, it seems like the longer we wait for an answer, the less likely it is that the answer will be positive. :-\

I deeply enjoyed how season three had the discipline to avoid TNG-like reset buttons to make situations far more dangerous and their consequences more resonant (like not being able to reverse DNA rewrites… so easy in Trek it even happened in Enterprise).

if it’s gets a season 4 they better start doing some original stuff, if it’s TNG 2.0 but done worse again then nooooooo thank you.

Bring on Season 4!

Agreed! Come on, Disney, make it so! Renew The Orville!

I’ve enjoyed The Orville, especially S3. S3 was damn good Sci-Fi. I had once hoped that McFarlane would gain control of the Star Trek property but I have grown to love The Orville universe and I hope to explore it for many seasons to come.

With few exceptions, The Orville is LIFE! 🤩
Fingers crossed for more of this fantastic show! 🤞

Wow surprising but positive news. Yes, I too hope it gets renewed. I thought season 3 was amazing and really showed the potential the show had. It has gotten stronger every season and a lot of fun to watch. For me, this show has become just as good as some of the best Star Trek out there and its third season audience score is 82% which is higher than all the current Star Trek shows except the third season of Picard. That says a lot.

S2 is still probably strongest. S3 just felt like TNG. Orville had more identity in S2.

If they made it a straight-up drama and removed the humor — and maybe got rid of Seth himself — i’d be totally in. The writing seems pretty decent, and the stories reasonably compelling, and the TNG vibe totally works. But the humor and Seth ruin it for me. Fingers crossed.

The writing seems pretty decent…Seth MacFarlane is the head writer.

Yes, keep him in the writer’s room, but don’t let him write the final teleplays, that way they won’t be filled with juvenile gags. And good lord, get him out from in front of the camera. We don’t need to see him playing cosplay fan film.

The humor is what makes it stand out above a TNG clone.

It’s also what holds it back from being any good, for me at least.

Haha yeah about Seth (I keep looking for Stewie or Brian to show up – so it is hard to take the show seriously), but he is the force behind it, so I doubt he will write himself out and get rid of the humour.

Not voluntarily. But if he were too busy to return, but TPTB wanted the show back, I could see it happening. Both remain highly unlikely though. Too bad.

I’m honestly surprised there is some smoke on this, but I’ll take it!

I hope so.

…..so there is no definitive answer.
Sure there is. Until someone says yes, the answer is no.

Same reason Trek features are going to be at least ten years apart. So far, the answer is no.

Disney never said no…so it’s not yes nor no.

Disney+ is hemorrhaging cash, and shedding subscribers. If Orville isn’t part of the solution, then it’s part of the problem. Sounds like a no to me.

To play Devil’s Advocate, most of the subscribers Disney+ lost are from India, where they pay a lower fee and only go where the cricket streaming rights are. They’ve since flocked to Viacom18, which will be used to funnel subscribers to a newly-launched Paramount+.

That’s not even devil’s advocate that’s just straight facts. It’s not a good look, and bad for business, true, but not the devastating loss it looks like to some.

We need seasons 4-10!

For me, Orville is a cringe TNG knockoff including outdated TV aesthetics like over-lit sets, awkwardly stilted acting, fade-to-commercial edits, bland music – but with dad jokes. Unwatchable. Regardless, I hope the show renews for those who inexplicably enjoy it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t know … I like being able to see stuff in a TV show :-D

Agreed, but it has real potential, if it would take itself seriously and get a better lead actor.

Being a guy who dispenses Dad jokes from time to time, that’s one of the endearing parts of the show to me. :)

Count me among those who inexplicably enjoy it. I also think season 2 was the best so far. Hopefully there’s more to come for those who enjoy the show, and for those who complain about it too.

I explicably enjoy it, lol — and agree with you about season 2.

I think Season 3 looked great, but I think it suffered a little from the influx of cash (long, unnecessary effects sequences) and having no limits on episode running time.

I’m actually getting TIRED 230 odd days since the end of SEASON 3 with Seth’s excuses – he’s (and his associate producer and editor Tom Costantino) keep stringing along THE ORVILLE fandom when anyone who’s read the trades know HOW BAD things are at Disney (Including 20th Television, Hulu, and Disney+) It’s is a mess, (A major reorg across all 3 divisions, 7,000 layoffs planned being the biggest thing) and we’ve got looming Writers and Actors strikes on the horizon!

So frankly, Seth (and Tom) should just go media silent till they have good news or bad news and keep the focus on post-production of the TED TV series and Seth’s new album he’s working on (his 8th…)

What “excuses” are you talking about? McFarlane has zero control over whether the show gets renewed. He is delivering information, not making excuses.

That’s why I laugh when people criticize Paramount’s poor management. Things are bad all over the entertainment business right now, and worst of all at streaming networks.

Very disappointed that S3 didn’t get a physical media release. Does anyone know why La-La Land decided against CDs for “New Horizons”? Did S1/S2 not sell well?

It’s the Disney acqussition I believe. There are no physical releases for the D+ shows. That probably extends to Hulu now that they own that too. They want subscribers, not buyers.

I’m honestly surprised that Paramout is releasing all those Star Trek Box Sets.

Trek fans have demonstrated a penchant for buying multiple sets of the same series or movie over the years. They likely calculated that having a steady stream of new shows plus delayed blu ray releases wouldn’t stop too many of us from subscribing.

I thought I saw somewhere that the D+ shows were getting BluRays? But if they don’t, I’d certainly understand the decision.

No they don’t.

I think many Orville Fans hearts would skip a beat if they hear that they get an 4th Season Green lighted

I loved season 1, when it had still real humor. After that it kinda fizzled and they started taking it too seriously for my taste. I was so excited when I saw that first season trailer, only to get disappionted it wasn’t more comedy.

Renewal is a huge win for haters, bigots, and the RMB/Nerdrotic crowd. Unclear why Trekmovie celebrates blatant copying of Star Trek.

Homages to Trek I think are fine. Orville has its fans, and that’s wonderful, even if I’m not one of them. That said, it’s definitely NOT Star Trek, and indeed it’s always irked me that this site covers it like it does. I mean, where’s the line? Is this a Trek site or a broad sci-fi site? Or do they just cover anything that looks vaguely like Star Trek full time? The show has it’s own tab at the top which is mind-boggling.

That said, I typically just ignore it, it’s not my place to tell the admins what they can and can’t cover.

Your previous hateful comment was removed, and now you’re just trolling. Take your hateful attitude somewhere else.

Final warning for trolling.

CLOSED

I’ve only seen the episode where that robot gets rewired and tries to kill the small kid on the ship and the one where earth is being attacked by a fleet of ships. The VFX are quite good, however, the whole look of it borrows too much from Star Trek. And Seth McFarlane as the lead??? Of course, he’s got millions to spend from his other ventures and can do as he likes. Its just hard for one to take seriously.