Another star from The Orville says the show may still "be very much alive"

After two seasons on Fox and one on Hulu, Seth MacFarlane's Star Trek tribute The Orville gained a dedicated fanbase. And why not? The show has tons of heart, a great sense of adventure, and lots of lovable characters. We can't wait for season 4.

Only season 4 may never happen. Since the season 3 finale dropped on Hulu in 2022, there's been no official word about more episodes. What we have instead is a chorus of cast members and producers hinting that something could be on the way. The latest to weigh in is Peter Macon, who plays the thick-skinned Lt. Commander Bortus.

"I know [Seth MacFarlane] had a lot of fun and I know that he was challenged as an actor to work on The Orville, and I think that was really good for him," Macon told ComicBook.com. "And I think he thinks it was really good for him and I know he's really excited about it and you know, like he always says, it's not a dead stick.

"So, I think that there has been like a lot of rumblings and certainly before the strike...I was waiting for a call, but I think there's some retooling and then Ted, but I definitely… I'm not inside his mind but like, just my conversations with him, it's still very much alive in his world and it's up to him. But I certainly would love to go back to it."

MacFarlane himself, who does have a hit on his hands with the live-action Ted show on Peacock, weighed in on this topic back in January. “All I can say is the same thing that Hulu said, which is the show is not dead,” he said. “Nobody has told me that it’s dead from the network, so we’re proceeding under those auspices.”

Other cast members have weighed in over the past several months, some sounding optimistic and some pessimistic. One we haven't covered is when actor Scott Grimes (Gordon Malloy) talked to TV Line about The Orville's future back in January of 2024. “[R]ight before the strike, it feels like we were going to announce a Season 4,” he said, referring to the actors and writers strikes that shut down much of Hollywood in 2023. “I think it’s a better than good possibility that we get to do this again.”’

"This is [Seth’s] little child, he loves to do The Orville, and it’d be a shame if we didn’t get to do one more season. So I would say that I’m optimistic. That’s what I would say."

Hopefully these little trickles of hope eventually turn into a river, because I'd love to see one more season too, especially considering that season 3 ended with alliances shifting between major players in some very intriguing ways. In the meantime, you can see Peter Macon in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which opens in theaters next weekend.

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