The Orville, renamed as The Orville: New Horizons, debuts its third season on Hulu on June 2.
There have been a lot of questions about the fate of The Orville with the cast having been released from their contracts and moving on to other projects. Also, the three year wait between season two and season three may have cost the series quite a bit of fans who have forgotten about it or have lost interest. So the question of whether or not the series will return for a fourth season has been up in the air since before the trailer even dropped for the third season. And the answer right now is: we don’t know.
What we do know, according to a recent Trekmovie interview with writer/executive producers Brannon Braga and David A. Goodman, along with director/executive producer Jon Cassar, is that the series has not been officially cancelled. Goodman even said that “if the fans and the audience shows up on Hulu, they’re absolutely can be a season four.”
Creator and star of The Orville, Seth MacFarlane, confirmed that It’s up to the audience whether The Orville stays or goes.
After being asked the question about The Orville’s fate, MacFarlane, told TVLine that it all comes to down to the question: is there an audience. He added that was what remained to be seen, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since the series is coming back after a long hiatus. Through no fault of its own, the series suffered from production and release delays, and since we live in a “get it now” type of world where practically anything we want to watch is streaming at our fingertips, the previous audience might not return in full force. However, given how epic the show is supposed to be in the third season, there’s a very good chance new fans could find their way to the series when it debuts on Hulu this Thursday.