The Orville: New Horizons ending was perfect (but we still need season 4)

The Orville has had quite a run so far…but fans are hoping this isn’t the end. The show first debuted on Fox in 2017, where it leaned more heavily into creator Seth MacFarlane’s trademark humor while drawing inspiration from classic science fiction series like Star Trek. But even in that first season, The Orville made it clear to viewers that it was more than just a comedy. One of its first real breakout episodes, “Majority Rule,” depicted a dystopian society about a society governed by a ruthless social media system; days later, Fox renewed it for a second season.

After its second season aired in 2018-2019, it was announced that The Orville would be leaving Fox for Hulu. Then the pandemic happened, and its third season was a long time coming.

But my, was the wait worth it. Of all the things I had on my bingo card for 2022, The Orville: New Horizons becoming one of the best science fiction shows on television was not one of them. It’s not that previous seasons of The Orville were bad; they were very solid and I enjoyed them both quite a lot. But New Horizons improved the show to an almost baffling degree, with special effects that are literally better than most recent Star Wars films, intelligent writing that challenges viewers, lovable characters, and deeply thought-provoking stories.

The Orville: New Horizons wrapped up its season with “Future Unknown,” a fun victory lap of an episode that gave us one last chance to celebrate how good season 3 of the show has been. According to MacFarlane, the future of The Orville isn’t set in stone. “Future Unknown” was designed to stand as a series ender in case the show didn’t get renewed, and as of this writing there has been no word on whether the show will get a fourth season.

There are signs that the story of The Orville is still being written, such as the fact that all three seasons are now available on Hulu’s sister streaming service Disney+, which already distributes the show in many countries outside the United States. Disney may be trying to expose The Orville to more people, which is a good thing because it shows that they believe in it enough to promote it further. (Which they should. It’s better than most Disney+ originals by a significant margin.)

“Future Unknown” was a perfect ending for The Orville…but we still want more!

As for the ending we’ve got, “Future Unknown” feels like a perfect capstone to all that the show has achieved so far. It certainly left some doors open, like the fact that Lysella (Giorgia Whigham), who first appeared in “Majority Rule,” has now joined the Orville crew. There’s a feeling that her story is just beginning.

At the same time, The Orville: New Horizons finale wrapped up many of the show’s biggest plotlines in very satisfactory ways. The war with the Kaylon is over, and a seeming peace has been established. Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) and Isaac (Mark Jackson) got married, and while there’s still lots of room to explore what that means for these two characters, it also felt like a wonderful cumulation of their long journey together.

The penultimate episode, “Domino,” was the show’s big action send-off. When the dust settled, Charly Burke (Anne Winters) had sacrificed her life to save the Kaylon, and Krill dictator Teleya (Michaela McManus) was a prisoner of the Union.

If The Orville does end with season 3, it will have gone out at the top of its game, with as pitch perfect a season of television as we’ve gotten in recent memory.

But I really hope it doesn’t.

Why The Orville deserves a season 4

There are a few reasons that The Orville deserves to get a season 4, starting with the story. While New Horizons wrapped up many plotlines, there are still some big ones that it would be nice to get closure on. The Orville began with Ed Mercer (Seth MacFarlane) and Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) getting divorced. Over the course of the show we’ve seen them grow together as the leaders of the ship…but there’s still the lingering question of whether they’ll ever reconcile. “Future Unknown” nodded to this; one of the episode’s final moments was Kelly slipping her hand into Ed’s while the two shared a look during the wedding festivities.

I’m not 100% sure whether I’d want Ed and Kelly back together by the end or would prefer the show leave them with the beautiful friendship they’ve developed. But I do think they have more growing to do before the credits role on The Orville for good. I’d love also to see what happens with Topa (Imani Pullum) and Marcus Finn (BJ Tanner) as they grow up and become full-fledged members of the crew, Lysella adjusting to the sci-fi utopian life aboard the ship, and more.

Beyond the story, The Orville deserves a fourth season because it’s just a damn good show. The genre television landscape is packed at the moment, with shows constantly coming and going for a variety of reasons. This year alone, series like Halo and The Wheel of Time got early renewals, in part because their respective studios had invested so heavily in longterm infrastructure for them, while Raised By Wolves on HBO Max and practically every DC show on The CW were canceled despite great production values and passionate fanbases.

But as good as those shows were (huge Raised By Wolves stan here), The Orville: New Horizons is on another level in this conversation. The third season was at the top of the totem pole in terms of quality; though a slew of other sci-fi shows were airing alongside it, the only ones that even came close to touching it were The Boys and Stranger Things, and maybe Star Trek: Strange New Worlds depending on who you ask. That’s some heavyweight competition, and it says a lot about The Orville: New Horizons that it could not only stand toe-to-toe with them, but that it might even be better.

In an age where every TV studio is trying to find the next big genre hit, The Orville managed to adapt to the new trend of feature-length television while doing it in such a manner that felt like it really understood what it was doing. Each episode felt like a short film, exploring a different corner of The Orville universe. But since they stood on their own, The Orville avoided the bloat of other series with ambitious runtimes, like Stranger Things. This was a production that honed its method over two previous seasons, and by the time of New Horizons it became clear that The Orville had become a well-oiled machine with writing that never missed a beat, or phoned in a lazy plot development when there was a more interesting one to be found.

If Hulu and Disney don’t renew The Orville, they will prove they care more about numbers than quality. And sure, that’s always the case in the entertainment business; it is a business, after all. But when a show is as good as The Orville: New Horizons, it would stick out. Canceling a show when it’s flagging or when there’s a corporate shake-up is one thing. Canceling it when it’s at its peak, with backing from one of the biggest, most stable companies in the industry, is another. The Orville: New Horizons delivered, going beyond what anyone expected of it to an almost absurd degree. It deserves to stay on the air.

Seth MacFarlane has been open about wanting to make another season of The Orville, and other cast members are behind it as well. All that remains is for Hulu and Disney to give the show the shot it deserves. Hear the voices of the fans, and have mercy on us, Mickey. We know you’ll make 10 more Star Wars shows anyway…at least give us The Orville and maybe we’ll be okay with it.

All three season of The Orville are available now on Hulu and Disney+.

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