The Orville is an American science fiction comedy drama television series created by Seth MacFarlane, who also stars as the protagonist Ed Mercer, an officer in the Planetary Union's line of exploratory space vessels in the 25th century. It was inspired primarily by the original Star Trek and Next Generation programs, and the series pays homage to both. The series also draws inspiration from the Star Wars franchise. Produced by Fuzzy Door Productions and 20th Television, it follows the crew of the starship USS Orville on their episodic adventures, as well as a serialized story which develops over the length of the series. According to MacFarlane, the series and the starship are named after the aviation pioneer Orville Wright.
The Orville premiered on September 10, 2017, and ran for two seasons on Fox and became available on streaming service Hulu the following day, followed by a third season exclusively on Hulu. After generally unfavorable reviews for season 1, season 2 onwards received critical acclaim. The show had relatively successful ratings on Fox, becoming the broadcaster's highest-rated Thursday show as well as Fox's "most-viewed debut drama" since 2015. A fourth season is in development.
Contents
Premise
The Orville is set on the titular spacecraft: USS Orville (ECV-197), a mid-level exploratory vessel in the Planetary Union, a 25th-century interstellar alliance of Earth and many other planets. The series begins in the year 2418, and consists of adventures encountered by the ship's crew, usually involving planet exploration and visits to various parts of the galaxy.
Cast and characters
Seth MacFarlane as Captain Edward "Ed" Mercer:The commander of the Orville. Mercer was an up-and-coming officer, on the fast track to commanding his own heavy cruiser by age 40. Following the end of his marriage due to his wife Kelly's relationship with an alien, he is cited for being lax in performance of his duties and for being hung over while on duty. Despite this, he is informed that the Orville, a mid-level exploratory ship, needs a new commanding officer, and that he is the man for the job.
Adrianne Palicki as Commander Kelly Grayson:The first officer of the Orville and Ed Mercer's ex-wife. The two divorced after Mercer caught Grayson in bed with a Retepsian named Darulio, triggering Mercer's year-long emotional crisis. Unbeknownst to Mercer, Grayson personally appealed to Admiral Halsey, asking him to give her ex-husband a command, insisting that, despite personal setbacks, he deserved it. Grayson asked that her involvement remain confidential. When Grayson is assigned as the Orville's first officer, she and Mercer agree to set aside their differences, to work as a team, and stay friends.
Penny Johnson Jerald as Doctor Claire Finn:The chief medical officer on the Orville, holding the rank of lieutenant commander. She has expertise in molecular surgery, DNA engineering and psychiatry. These exceptional credentials gave her her choice of assignments on heavy cruisers. Instead, she chose a mid-level exploratory vessel. As she explains to Mercer in the pilot episode, she prefers to serve where she feels she is needed, finding such assignments more stimulating. When she tells Mercer that she felt that he could use her assistance on his first command, he misinterprets this as indicating her lack of confidence in him, although she denies this. She never found the ideal person to marry, and she chose to become a single mother, but she later starts dating Isaac in season 2, and marries him in season 3. Her two sons Marcus and Ty travel aboard the Orville with her. Although she repeatedly rebuffs Lt. Yaphit's advances, they become physically intimate in "Cupid's Dagger", after falling victim to a Retepsian sex pheromone.
Scott Grimes as Lieutenant Gordon Malloy:The helmsman of the Orville and Mercer's best friend. Considered the best helmsman in the fleet, he was relegated to desk duty after he attempted to impress a girl with a precarious shuttle docking maneuver, damaging the vessel and losing cargo in the process. Mercer specifically requested Malloy's assignment to the Orville, despite Admiral Halsey's lingering concern over Malloy's history of sophomoric pranks. He is generally comfortable with his reputation for limited intelligence, to the point where he willingly answers a series of questions from Grayson, with the expectation that his answers will demonstrate in a Moclan court that males are not always intellectually superior to females.
Episodes
Production
Development
MacFarlane originally wrote The Orville as a spec script, which was given a 13-episode order by Fox in May 2016, making it the first live-action television series created by MacFarlane. Following the project's greenlight, MacFarlane said, "I've wanted to do something like this show ever since I was a kid, and the timing finally feels right. [...] I think this is gonna be something special." According to MacFarlane, The Orville was inspired by The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. He was also encouraged to sell the series due to the success of Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool.
In November 2017, Fox renewed the series for a second season. "Primal Urges", one of the thirteen episodes for season 1, was held for the second season due to a gap in broadcast dates caused by the broadcaster's lengthy Christmas programming.
In December 2018, it was reported that the California Film Commission had approved $15.8 million of tax credits for a potential third season.
On November 29, 2023, Adrianne Palicki said that while there were talks of a potential fourth season, she had not been notified of the status of those talks. She also said that she does not plan to return for any future seasons either, citing the slow shooting pace, which prevented Palicki and other co-stars from taking on roles in other projects. On January 5, 2024, MacFarlane said the series had not been canceled by Hulu, but could not confirm further details of its future due to "too many factors". On August 8, 2024, actor Scott Grimes announced that Season 4 of The Orville would begin pre-production in early 2025. On March 3, 2026, while promoting season 2 of Ted, MacFarlane said that 10 episodes have been written for season 4 but his own time is needed for its production, as he is busy with other projects.
Casting
In July 2016, MacFarlane's role was revealed to be Ed Mercer, the captain of the Orville, while Adrianne Palicki had been cast as Kelly Grayson, Ed's ex-wife and newly appointed first officer of the Orville, and Scott Grimes (who voices Steve Smith on American Dad!, another show created by MacFarlane) was cast as Gordon Malloy, Ed's best friend whom he has assigned to pilot the Orville. In August Peter Macon and J. Lee were cast as series regulars. In October Halston Sage and Penny Johnson Jerald joined the cast while Mark Jackson was added in December. In April 2017, Chad L. Coleman was added as a series regular and Larry Joe Campbell in a recurring role.
At San Diego Comic-Con in July 2017, MacFarlane said that Charlize Theron would guest-star in an episode. The two had previously co-starred in A Million Ways to Die in the West. Theron appeared in the series' fifth episode "Pria".
In February 2018, Jessica Szohr was cast as a regular for season 2 and Chris Johnson in a recurring role. In November 2019, Anne Winters was cast as a regular for season 3.
Filming
In August 2016, actor and director Jon Favreau signed on to direct the pilot. Production on the pilot episode began in late 2016, and the rest of the episodes began filming in March 2017. Production wrapped in August, with a total of $56.2 million spent in California. Star Trek veterans Jonathan Frakes and Robert Duncan McNeill, who have directed episodes within the Star Trek franchise, have each directed one or more episodes of The Orville. Four episodes were directed by Brannon Braga, a long-time Star Trek alumnus who began his career as an intern on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was producer of Star Trek: Voyager, and co-created Star Trek: Enterprise.
Filming for the second season began in February 2018, and Frakes and McNeill each returned to direct another episode. Production for the second season concluded in October 2018, having spent $69.2 million.
Filming for the third season began in October 2019 but was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and ultimately completed in August 2021. MacFarlane and Jon Cassar are the only directors for the third season.
Visual effects
Studios hired to work on the visual effects of the show include Tippett Studio, CoSA VFX, Pixomondo, Crafty Apes, FuseFX, Eight VFX and Zoic Studios.
Music
The show uses a 75-piece orchestra for the music in each episode, written by several different composers, such as John Debney, Joel McNeely and Bruce Broughton, who wrote the show's theme and composed the score for the pilot. MacFarlane said "We score it like a movie" and "We really put as much into that as we do into the effects." A soundtrack album for season 1 was released by La-La Land Records on January 22, 2019. On January 19, 2021, La-La Land and 20th Television released a soundtrack album for season 2.
Marketing
On May 15, 2017, the Fox Broadcasting Company released the first trailer of The Orville as part of their upcoming slate of television series including the X-Men series The Gifted and the supernatural sitcom Ghosted. To promote the series, Fox organized a panel at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con on July 22 featuring cast members Seth MacFarlane, Adrianne Palicki, Scott Grimes, Penny Johnson Jerald, Peter Macon, Halston Sage, J. Lee, Mark Jackson and Chad L. Coleman, and producers David A. Goodman and Brannon Braga. In addition, Fox established an Orville Space Training Station at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Law with a "Cryopreservation program" for fans.
On July 22, 2018, Fox released the trailer for the second season of The Orville at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con. To promote the series, Fox sponsored a series of Orville-themed pedi-cabs for people attending San Diego Comic-Con. In addition, Goodman moderated a Q&A panel on July 21 at the Comic Con alongside cast members MacFarlane, Palicki, Jerald, Grimes, Braga and Jon Cassar.
Release
New episodes aired Thursdays on Fox during the 2017–18 season. On November 2, 2017, Fox renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on December 30, 2018. Fox renewed the series for a third season that was originally scheduled to be released on Hulu late in 2020. The third season titled as The Orville: New Horizons premiered on June 2, 2022.
The Orville is available for streaming in the United States on through Hulu, Amazon Prime, and the iTunes Store. In Canada, the series is available on Disney+ and was aired on Citytv. In the United Kingdom, the series is available on Disney+. In Australia, The Orville is available on the television channel SBS Viceland and most of season 3 streams on SBS On Demand and the complete series on Disney+ Star. The series is also available in New Zealand, on Disney+.
Reception
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has a 31% critic approval rating, with an average rating of 3.8/10 based on 55 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "An odd jumble of campiness and sincerity, homage, and satire, The Orville never quite achieves liftoff." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 36 out of 100, based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews."
Liz Miller writing for IndieWire compared the series to Star Trek, calling it a rip-off and "bankrupt: creatively, morally, and ethically." She criticized the lack of creativity, the blatant imitation, and was surprised that the show is "uninterested in being a comedy."
Kevin Yeoman of Screen Rant suggested, "The show might have stood a better chance with a different actor in the captain's chair, one better suited to navigating the inexplicable tonal shifts and maybe earn the audience's patience and empathy in the process."
Tim Surette at TV Guide says, "The truth is, The Orville was never going to win over critics because it's a throwback and goes against everything modern television is. It's not that The Orville doesn't know what it wants it to be, as critics assume, it's that it wants to be a little bit of everything." Surette also noted the discrepancy between audience response and critic response on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, with audiences response being significantly more positive.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the second season has an approval rating of 100%, with an average rating of 7.6/10 based on 14 reviews. The website's critic consensus states: "Fun, focused, and surprisingly thoughtful, The Orville's second season makes good use of its talented crew."
Nick Wanserki of The A.V. Club praised the season's first episode "Ja'loja" for its character-driven drama and focus on low-stakes plots which built upon the first season's efforts to develop the crew of the Orville into a group of people that the audience cared about. Liz Miller of IndieWire awarded The Orville a B rating, expressing hope that the series could evolve into a character-driven "dramedy" set in space, which she described as something unique that could make the show worth watching. Ryan Britt of Den of Geek praised the second season for playing to its strengths as a sitcom and addressing the "wonkiness" of the first season.
Ratings
After its premiere on Sunday, September 10, 2017, the show moved to Thursday nights at 9 p.m. In its first broadcast in the new time slot, The Orville became Fox's highest rated Thursday 9 p.m. broadcast in two years. After taking into account DVR and VOD, The Orville was Fox's most-viewed drama debut since the premiere of Empire in 2015.
According to Parrot Analytics, which looks at consumer engagement in consumer research, streaming, downloads, and on social media, The Orville: New Horizons was the fourth most in-demand streaming show in the United States during the week ending August 26, 2022. It later moved to sixth place during the week ending September 9, 2022. JustWatch, a guide to streaming content with access to data from more than 20 million users around the world, reported that The Orville was the sixth most-streamed show in the U.S. from May 30 to June 5, 2022. The streaming aggregator Reelgood, which tracks 20 million monthly viewing decisions across all streaming platforms in the U.S. for original and acquired streaming programs and movies across subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services, revealed that The Orville was the fifth most-streamed series during the week of June 11, 2022. Whip Media, which tracks viewership data for the more than 25 million worldwide users of its TV Time app, announced that it was the fifth most-streamed original series in the U.S. and Hulu's second most-streamed series behind Only Murders in the Building from August 1–7, 2022.
Home media
Season 1 of The Orville was released on DVD on December 11, 2018. Season 2 was released on December 10, 2019.
Comics
In 2019, Dark Horse Comics released a pair of two-issue comic book miniseries set between the first and second seasons of The Orville, collected as The Orville: Season 1.5. Both miniseries were written by television series executive producer and writer David A. Goodman, illustrated by David Cabeza, and colored by Michael Atiyeh. The first storyline "New Beginnings" deals with Captain Mercer and Lieutenant Malloy responding to a distress call from a lost Union ship while Commander Grayson has to contend with a domestic dispute between Bortus and his spouse over their son's education. The second storyline "The Word of Avis" deals with the Orville crew investigating a Union ship heading into Krill space.
In 2020, Dark Horse Comics reunited the same creative team for The Orville: Season 2.5, beginning with the two-issue miniseries "Launch Day".
Books
Three books have been written about The Orville. On January 16, 2018, Jeff Bond released The World of The Orville. On April 26, 2021, Exploring The Orville: Essays on Seth MacFarlane's Space Adventure was published. On July 1, 2022, Cassandra Parvaz's Religion in The Orville: The Dangers Religion Poses To Modern Society as Reflected In Seth MacFarlane's The Orville based on her theses was released.
Sympathy for the Devil
The third season was initially announced as having eleven episodes, but one episode was not filmed due to pandemic-related delays. Titled "Sympathy for the Devil", it was instead adapted as a novelization written by MacFarlane, and takes place after "Midnight Blue", intending to be the ninth episode of season 3. The audiobook is narrated by guest star Bruce Boxleitner. The novella was released on July 19, 2022.
