Seth MacFarlane, the creator, writer and star of “The Orville,” has offered a cryptic update on the sci-fi series’ fate.
“All I can tell you is that there is no official death certificate for ‘The Orville’,” MacFarlane told TheWrap in an interview when asked about an update on a possible Season 4. “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 Scott Grimes added that conversations about “The Orville” Season 4 began before the SAG-AFTRA and Writers’ Guild of America strikes.
“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,” Grimes told TheWrap. “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.”
The update from MacFarlane and Grimes comes after their co-star Adriannne Palicki said she was “no longer doing that” when asked about a fourth season of the Hulu series during an appearance on Michael Rosenbaum’s “Inside of You” podcast in November.
Palicki proceeded to clarify that she “truly doesn’t know the answer” as to whether “The Orville” will continue.
“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 do,” she said. “We shot 33 episodes in six years … it became an actual real issue because there would be so much time in between seasons because Seth 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 because J. Lee was eating saltines and Gatorade at one point because we just couldn’t afford anything. It was horrible.”
In July 2019, it was announced that the “Star Trek”-esque show would move from Fox to Hulu for its third season. Season 3 of “The Orville” premiered on March 10, 2022 and was dubbed “The Orville: New Horizons.”
In addition to MacFarlane, Palicki, Grimes and Lee, the cast of “The Orville” includes Penny Johnson Jerald, Peter Macon, Mark Jackson, Chad L. Coleman, Jessica Szohr and Anne Winters. MacFarlane, Brannon Braga, David A. Goodman, Jon Cassar, Jason Clark and Howard Griffith serve as executive producers.
“The Orville: New Horizons” is produced by 20th Television and MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door. Representatives for Disney and Hulu did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
