The Orville star gives promising update about season 4 renewal
By Daniel Roman
It’s been over half a year since the finale of The Orville: New Horizons third season aired on Hulu, and fans are still waiting to find out if the show will ever get a season 4. When New Horizons aired last year, it was met with widespread praise. The Seth MacFarlane-helmed science fiction dramedy has always been great, but New Horizons marked an enormous leap forward for the series; it had razor-sharp writing, special effects that put most Star Wars shows to shame, and ambitious episodes reminiscent of the edgiest eras of Star Trek.
The results speak for themselves. Sure, more than half a year has passed since the end of season 3, but the show still regularly trends on Twitter as people share their hopes that we’ll get a fourth season. The Orville even has fans at NASA, who included a shoutout to the series in a recent report. If this thing got renewed for season 4 there would be a lot of happy sci-fi nerds out there.
The Orville season 4: “We think it’s gonna happen, but it’s still up in the air.”
While we still don’t have an official announcement that season 4 is happening, recurring Orville star Chad L. Coleman shared an update that’s giving us hope. Coleman plays Lt. Commander Bortus’ (Peter Macon) husband Klyden and has been involved in the show since season 1. He’s currently playing the villain Bruno Mannheim on Superman & Lois. That provided an opportunity for Cinemablend to ask about the status of The Orville season 4. Here’s what Coleman had to say:
"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. 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 [Walden] and with Disney, who’s running it now. And they said they’ve had promising meetings, so we’ll see."
While actors like Penny Johnson Jerald (Dr. Claire Finn) have shared their hopes for a fourth season before this, Coleman’s statement is probably the clearest we’ve gotten yet about the status of The Orville. It confirms that, as of this writing, The Orville has not been cancelled. His optimistic (“we think it’s gonna happen”) is surely a good sign.
Coleman isn’t the only one teasing a potential future for The Orville. Producer Tom Costantino reassured fans on Twitter over the weekend to “Just. Hang. Tight.” for news about season 4 after NASA’s most recent shoutout to the series. And MacFarlane himself has kept the show on the radar by hyping up the release of The Orville: New Horizons soundtrack album, which hit music retailers earlier this month.
Update: Since the writing of this article, MacFarlane took to Twitter once more to speak on this latest wave of hype for The Orville and its future. “The industry is in the midst of a time of upheaval and transition. I wish I could provide a definitive answer to your question [about how often The Orville needs to trend before it’s renewed]. At the moment, all I can say is that I remain… cautiously optimistic,” MacFarlane wrote.
All this is to say, there’s good reason to keep the hope alive for The Orville season 4. Seasons 1-3 of The Orville are currently available to stream on Hulu and Disney+.
Next. The Orville: New Horizons ending was perfect (but we still need season 4). dark
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