‘The Orville’ Getting Renewed For Season 4 Could Depend On Disney Plus

Orville has been on a pretty wild ride over the past three years, starting on FOX and moving to Hulu, where more creative freedom (and a bigger budget) has propelled the show to new creative heights. But what everyone wants to know is, through all this, if Season 4 is coming.

The Orville’s life trajectory is about to get even stranger, and its next move could determine how and when season four takes place. It’s been announced that all three seasons of the show will head to Disney Plus on August 10, which would make it the third place it’s aired in its short lifespan.

Seth MacFarlane tell TVLine Whether or not season 4 happens now, the odds are about 50-50, but Disney Plus could be the deciding factor for season 4 to get the green light and production:

“My hope is that when the show airs on Disney+, people who haven’t discovered it will suddenly give it a chance,” McFarlane said. “This is a potential game changer for us.”

In many ways, The Orville feels like a good fit for Disney Plus, which is looking to expand its horizons beyond its current Star Wars, Marvel and children’s shows. The Orville is one of the best sci-fi shows on TV right now, at least from viewer and critic ratings, and continued investment in it could make it a real competition for films like Star Trek on Paramount Plus opponent.

The tricky part of The Orville has been selling the show because it looks Like Seth MacFarlane’s parody of Star Trek, but it’s not like that at all. While it has comedic elements, it’s vastly expanded in both scope and type of problem-solving. As it has grown, its budget has grown, taking it from looking like an SNL skit to something that rivals any other major sci-fi production on TV.

I recently wrote about my own process of finishing seasons 1-3 in about 2 weeks and it changed my view of it dramatically because I didn’t expect to be as invested as I was and didn’t agree with the consensus yes , there are few better sci-fi series on TV these days (especially now that The Expanse is over).

In theory, this feels like it might be a good fit for Disney’s catalog, but again, the tricky part might be building that initial audience, and it’s going to take a lot of promotion and work at the end of Disney Plus to make sure people give it a shot.

We’ll see what happens, but hopefully the renewal odds of those coin flips will be in Orville’s favor once Orville arrives on Disney Plus and expands its audience again.

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