The Orville creator, writer, and star Seth MacFarlane, has offered an update on the fan-favorite sci-fi series, and reveals that it’s not dead yet. During a recent interview with The Wrap, MacFarlane was asked about the future of the series, and he said:
“All I can tell you is that there is no official death certificate for The Orville. It is still with us. I can’t go any further than that at the moment. There are too many factors.”
MacFarlane’s co-star on the series Scott Grimes shared his thoughts on the possible fourth season saying that talks started even before the Hollywood strikes began. He said:
“I do know that we are still talking about it. It’s not dead in any sort of way whatsoever. It’s just about when, where and how and building the stuff again. I’m excited because it’s one of the greatest things to work on. So I just have my fingers crossed. And I know Seth wants to do it and that usually holds a lot of power. And I hope he gets to because it’s one of his babies that he just loves and it’s a blast to work on.”
This is a very different tone than what we last heard from series star Adrianne Palicki, who said that she’s no longer a part of the series. She also talked about how difficult of a series it is to shoot. She explained: “I don’t know, truly, the answer to that. I think there’s talk that it could possibly be something that certain people want to do, but it’s a really difficult show to shoot, man. We shot 33 episodes in six years.”
If the show does move over, Palicki won’t be a part of it. It seems like it was a frustrating for her, and shared: “It became an actual issue because there would be so much time in between in between seasons because Seth [MacFarlane] wanted to write everything himself. So, it would just take so much time. At one point, we were like we have to fight the studio to give us a holding fee or something. J. Lee was eating saltines and Gatorade at one point because we just couldn’t afford anything. It was horrible.”
When previously talking about the future of the series, MacFarlane said: “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. 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 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.”
Do you want to see The Orville continue with a fourth season? MacFarlane obviously still has plans that he’d like to pursue with the series. I imagine if he does move forward on it, it’ll be awhile.
