The Orville season 4: Renewal odds and everything we know about a potential new season

When it comes to sci-fi series, few have managed to captivate audiences like The Orville has able to since it first premiered on FOX back in 2017.

Hailing from Seth MacFarlane, The Orville is set aboard the U.S.S Orville, a mid-level exploratory vessel in the Planetary Union. The series has become known for masterfully blending social commentary and offering a unique blend of Star Trek-style space exploration with a comedic twist.

A lot has changed since the show first premiered, including a move from FOX to Hulu, but one thing that has never wavered is the fans’ dedication to the show. With the jump to streaming for season 3, The Orville show delivered its strongest season yet and fans, are eager for more adventures with the U.S.S. Orville crew.

At this time, The Orville season 4 has yet to be confirmed. Tthe show remains in limbo more than a year after its third season concluded. However, fans are still keeping the faith. After all, Hulu has yet to formally cancel the show and the cast has remained quite optimistic when discussing its future.

Latest The Orville season 4 news and updates

Due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, it’s been a few months since we’ve gotten updates from the cast or creative team. This isn’t because they don’t want to talk about the show, but because they can’t due to the strike rules. Actors cannot discuss projects involving struck companies. That includes Disney, which owns Hulu. However, we did get a few updates this spring before the strikes began.

During an interview with Cinemablend in March 2023, The Orville actor Chad L. Coleman (Klyden) revealed that there had been promising meetings with the studio about a potential fourth season. Still, things remain uncertain:

"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."

Shortly after Coleman’s interview, series star and creator Seth MacFarlane (Captain Mercer) confirmed that no decision had been announced about a fourth season. He did, however, note that he is “cautiously optimistic.”

The Orville hasn’t been renewed for season 4 (but also hasn’t been canceled)

After a three-year hiatus, The Orville returned for its third season in June 2022, kicking off its first season on Hulu after the streaming service saved the show following its cancellation at FOX.  In making the jump to Hulu, The Orville continued to release episodes weekly. The 10-episode third season aired across the summer before coming to a close on August 4, 2022.

Typically, networks will make a decision about a show’s future within a few months after a show’s latest season ends. However, as of October 2023, Hulu has yet to officially renew or cancel The Orville. This is quite unusual.

While networks typically try to quietly cancel shows, news of a show’s cancellation usually becomes widespread once media outlets catch wind of the story. Instead, there have been no reports of Hulu canceling the show, which has given fans hope that The Orville season 4 might be ordered. After all, if Disney had no intention of doing anything with The Orville, the assumption is that they just would’ve canceled it and we would know.

The Orville season 4 release date predictions

Considering that The Orville season 4 has yet to be formally announced by Disney, it’s highly likely that we’re in for a long wait for new episodes. When Hulu saved The Orville, it took over three years for the show’s third season to premiere, thanks in large part to the special effects that go into creating the show. Given the show has yet to be renewed as of 2023, it’s looking highly likely that the absolute earliest we could see a fourth season arrive would be in 2025, and even that seems like a stretch.

Due to the ongoing actors’ strike, we’re unlikely to get any news about a potential fourth season until after the actors strike a deal with studios. At that time, if Disney wants to bring the show back for a fourth season, it would begin the long process of inking new deals with the cast members, crafting the season’s storylines, filming the episodes, and doing months of post-production.

Filming on season 3 took place over nearly two years due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, finally wrapping on August 11, 2021, as confirmed by MacFarlane on social media.

After filming wrapped, the show needed months of post-production work. Season 3 premiered roughly 10 months after filming concluded in August 2021.

Considering the extended production timeline for season 3, one would have to imagine it could take up to two years to complete a new season. As such, if The Orville season 4 is ordered before the end of 2023 or early in 2024, it seems highly likely that we could have to wait until late 2025 or early 2026 for the new season to arrive.

The Orville season 4 cast predictions

Should a fourth season of The Orville be ordered, the assumption is that Hulu would attempt to reunite the core cast; however, this could prove to be tricky as the entire cast was let out of their contracts following season 3. As such, no member of the cast is under contract, which could lead to some cast shakeups should any member of the cast book new roles that would conflict with filming on a potential fourth season.

If Hulu is able to get the core cast back for season 4, we’d expect that the following actors would return given their status as series regulars across the show’s first three seasons (sans Giorgia Whigham, who was set up for a larger role in season 4 following her return in the finale):

• Seth MacFarlane as Captain Ed Mercer
• Adrianne Palicki as Commander Kelly Grayson
• Penny Johnson as Dr. Claire Finn
• Peter Macon as Lieutenant Commander Bortus
• J. Lee as Lieutenant Commander John LaMarr
• Mark Jackson as Isaac
• Chad L. Coleman as Klyden
• Jessica Szohr as Lieutenant Commander Talla Keyali
• Giorgia Whigham as Lysella

How did The Orville season 3 end?

While The Orville season 3 finale was not designed to be a series finale, it was crafted in a way that it could serve as a swan song should the show not be renewed.

The season 3 finale put love at the forefront as Bortus and Klyden renewed their partnership after a tumultuous season that tested the couple like never before. However, it was the union between Isaac and Claire that took center stage in the finale.

After researching human matrimony, Isaac asked Claire to marry him and she happily accepted. Across the finale, we get to see the preparations for the ceremony as well as the couple’s wedding, which saw them exchange vows in front of all of their family and friends (as well as the entire Kaylon race).

The finale also welcomed back Lysella, who last appeared in season 1’s “Majority Rule,” which focused on a society ruled by an upvote/downvote social media form of government. As we discover, things only got worse on her planet after The Orville crew left, which led her to flee.

Lysella attempts to steal some schematics for advanced Union technology in order to help her society advance. However, she ends up sticking around and joining the crew, hinting at a larger role for the character in a potential fourth season.

The Orville season 4 would look to expand upon season 3 storylines

Although Seth MacFarlane has been careful not to say too much about what a potential fourth season might involve, he has hinted that it would look to expand upon some of the storylines introduced in season 3.

During an interview with Syfy Wire following the season 3 finale, MacFarlane seemed to suggest that season 4 would allow the show to explore what the shifts in recent alliances could mean for the Planetary Union:

"There are plot lines, and new developments this season that certainly suggest themselves as possible candidates for expansion in a Season 4. We can certainly guess what those would be, they’re pretty obvious. When we sat down to write Season 3, we didn’t plan to upend all these alliances and that the Kaylon would now be our allies and the Maclons would now be our enemies."

MacFarlane also seemed to hint that the fourth season would see Lysella take on a larger role in the show. As he told Syfy Wire, the character has the potential to act as a stand-in for the viewer and could open up a whole new world of storytelling:

"Lysella is us, essentially. That’s kind of how we looked at her in the world of the series. Lysella is our eyes into this world and in many ways, she represents the wish fulfillment of sci-fi fans wanting to just jump ahead to that magnificent, utopian future that we all long for. I think she’ll continue to be that voice.But what started off as a simple, ‘Let’s have her be our eyes into this amusement park and she can kind of take us through it in the finale,’ turned into a real challenge. And we’ve had to, through Kelly [Adrianne Palicki], really break down and justify the mechanics of our own universe and its political systems and to explain this thing that seems like a meritocracy, but is really something a little different. I think we’re still doing that, I think we’re still figuring [that out]. We’re not politicians, we’re not policymakers — we’re television writers. So we really are guessing in a lot of ways. They’re educated guesses to some degree, but they’re still guesses. And to be able to continue to do that through that character is an interesting challenge from a writing standpoint. I’d love to get into that."

Where to watch The Orville

After being canceled by FOX, The Orville became a Hulu original, with its third season airing exclusively on the streaming service. Hulu is the official home of the show’s three seasons, with season 3 being the show’s first Hulu-Original season.

You can watch via Hulu by following these steps:

• Visit signup.hulu.com/plans
• Select a payment plan from the following:
  • Hulu with Ads ($7.99/ month)
  • Hulu No Ads ($17.99/ month)
  • Hulu + Live TV Includes Disney+ and ESPN+ ($76.99/ month)
• Create an account
• Enter your chosen payment method
• Login to stream via your account

In addition to streaming on Hulu, The Orville is also available on Disney+. The show was added to the streaming platform in August 2022 following the show’s season 3 finale. All three seasons are streaming on Disney+.

You can watch via Disney+ by following these steps:

• • Visit Disney+ 
  • Select a payment plan from the following:
    • Basic Plan with Ads ($7.99 / month)
    • Premium Plans ($13.99 / month)
  • Create an account
  • Enter your chosen payment method
  • Login to stream via your account

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