It’s been almost nine months since The Orville season 3 finale came out, and if you’re one of those fans who are wondering whether or not there will be a fourth season of the series, then you’ve come to the right place! Continue reading below to find out what’s in store for the beloved sci-fi dramedy.
Has The Orville been renewed for season 4?
No, The Orville has yet to be renewed for a season 4. While it’s been nearing a year since the show wrapped up its third-season run, some of the stars of the series remain hopeful that The Orville season 4 will happen.
In an April 2023 interview with Den of Geek, Adrianne Palicki, who plays Commander Kelly Grayson in The Orville, said that “there have been talks” about the series getting picked up for a fourth season. “There have been rumblings about it, but there’s nothing official,” said the actress.
Palicki’s co-star Chad L. Coleman, who plays Klyden on the show, shared the same thing during an interview with CinemaBlend in February 2023. Coleman said he believed the next chapter was in the cards, despite things being “up in the air.” The actor also pointed out that series creator Seth MacFarlane has a good relationship with Co-Chairman of Disney Entertainment Dana Walden, suggesting that The Orville season 4 will likely happen.
“We’re all in the loop and out of the loop. We think it’s gonna happen, but it’s still up in the air,” Coleman said. “There’s so much going on with all of these studios that it’s just like, ‘Well, we gotta settle this thing first, then we can really decide on that thing.’ A bunch of that is going on. We hope so. Seth has an amazing relationship with Dana and with Disney, who’s running it now. And they said they’ve had promising meetings, so we’ll see.”
Meanwhile, MacFarlane, who also stars as Captain Ed Mercer in the series, tweeted in March 2023 that he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the future of the show. “The industry is in the midst of a time of upheaval and transition. I wish I could provide a definitive answer to your question,” wrote the actor in response to a fan asking how often The Orville needs to trend on Twitter before it’s renewed. “At the moment, all I can say is that I remain… cautiously optimistic,” MacFarlane wrote.
Back in August 2022, MacFarlate told TVLine that there was a “50-50” chance for the show to continue, noting that the fate of the series would largely depend on the number of views it would get once its first three seasons become available for streaming on Disney+.
“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.”
He added: “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 it’s something completely different. Once you get people’s eyeballs on it, the show does the work, it speaks for itself, and people tend to be hooked.”
MacFarlane shared similar sentiments in his interview with The Hollywood Reporter in July 2022. “I would love [a season four]. I know the entire cast is hoping for it. It’s a big question mark for a lot of reasons. It’s not an inexpensive show to produce. It requires an ambitious budget. But the flip side of that is, it’s not more ambitious than half the other streaming shows on television.”
He continued: “It really is going to depend on audience response, on whether the show gets discovered. I still think there are a lot of people who just don’t know that we’re out there and don’t really quite know what we are and when people sit down and watch the show, they’re almost always surprised, and it almost always upends their expectations. … At the end of the day, it’s a business. It’s dependent on whether we’re worth something to Disney and to the platform that we’re on.”
The Orville season 4 release date: When will the show return?
As mentioned above, The Orville season 4 isn’t official yet. But if the show gets picked up for a fourth season soon, then it would probably premiere sometime in mid to late 2024 at the earliest.
The Orville season 4 plot: What will happen in the potential fourth season?
At the end of the third season’s penultimate episode, the crew of the USS Orville made peace with their Kaylon enemies, so the Kaylons will be the Union’s allies in The Orville season 4. According to Screen Rant, the main threat for the potential fourth season would likely be the alliance between the Krill and the Moclans.
After peaceful talks with the Krill broke down with the election of an extremist candidate and the Moclans’ expulsion from the Union for their bigotry, the two races came together. A tense political situation involving the Krill and the Moclans would provide rich and interesting stories for The Orville season 4, as Ed’s (Seth MacFarlane) half-Krill daughter as well as Bortus (Peter Macon), Klyden (Chad L. Coleman), and Topa’s origins would be affected in a huge way by these potential galactic events.
Fans may also find Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) replacing Ed on the captain’s chair in The Orville season 4. When asked what she’d like to happen in the potential fourth season of the series, actress Adrianne Palicki told Den of Geek that she would like to see her character “take over as captain”, noting that she has already voiced this desire to MacFarlane. “He knows,” Palicki said. “[And] he’s not completely opposed, either.”
The Orville season 4 cast: Who will return for the new season?
The entire The Orville cast was released from their contracts when filming for season 3 wrapped in August 2021. So, the only cast member guaranteed to return for the potential The Orville season 4 is series creator Seth MacFarlane.
In an interview with TVLine in August 2022, MacFarlane admitted that “there’s some trickiness” involved in regrouping and re-signing the cast if another season of the show was ordered. He, however, pointed out that gathering the cast for another season is “the easy part” and the difficult one is figuring out how he can make a potential season 4 with all the other projects he’s currently working on, including his Ted prequel series for Peacock.
So if The Orville season 4 gets greenlit, fans can expect to see most of the following to return:
- Seth MacFarlane as Captain Edward “Ed” Mercer
- Adrianne Palicki as Commander Kelly Grayson
- Penny Johnson Jerald as Dr. Claire Finn
- Scott Grimes as Lieutenant Gordon Malloy
- Peter Macon as Lieutenant Commander Bortus
- J Lee as Lieutenant Commander John LaMarr
- Mark Jackson as Isaac
- Jessica Szohr as Lieutenant Commander Talla Keyali
- Giorgia Whigham as Lysella
Actress Anne Winters is not expected to return though, as her character Ensign Charly Burke ended up sacrificing herself to save the Kaylon emissary Isaac at the end of season 3.
The Orville season 4 trailer
There’s no trailer for The Orville season 4 yet, because the series, as mentioned above, has yet to be officially renewed for another season.
About The Orville
Inspired primarily by the original Star Trek series and its Next Generation successor, The Orville follows the crew of the USS Orville as they explore various planets in the galaxy. The titular mid-level exploratory vessel is part of the Planetary Union, a 25th-century interstellar alliance of Earth and many other planets.
The 12-episode first season of The Orville aired on Fox from September to December 2017, while the 14-episode second season ran from December 2018 to April 2019 on the same network. But when the ratings dropped during its sophomore run, not to mention the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of streaming services, Fox opted to move the show to Hulu for season 3. Titled The Orville: New Horizons, the 10-episode third season of the series premiered on the streaming platform in June 2022 after being delayed from 2020.
Is The Orville worth watching?
The Orville struggled to find the right balance between comedy, drama, and sci-fi during its first season. But the show gradually found its footing and developed into a far more coherent series in season 2. As for season 3, a lot of critics agree that it’s the show’s best season yet, noting that it’s a level-up in terms of craft and story. A few Star Trek fans even commented that The Orville season 3 captures the spirit of Star Trek better than some of the new Star Trek series.
Where to watch The Orville
All three seasons of The Orville are currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
