FOX Renews ‘The Orville’ For Season 3
The crew of ‘The Orville’ fly again, as FOX renews the sci-fi series for Season 3.
From Emmy Award-winning executive producer and creator Seth MacFarlane (‘Family Guy’, ‘Ted’), the sci-fi dramedy is a live-action, one-hour space adventure series set 400 years in the future that follows The Orville, a mid-level exploratory spaceship. Its crew, both human and alien, face the wonders and dangers of outer space, while also dealing with the familiar, often humorous, problems of everyday life. The ensemble series stars MacFarlane as the ship’s Commanding Officer and Adrianne Palicki (‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’, ‘Friday Night Lights’) as his ex-wife, who’s assigned as his First Officer.
Additional cast members include Penny Johnson Jerald as Dr. Claire Finn (’24,’ ‘The Larry Sanders Show’), Scott Grimes as Gordon Malloy (‘ER,’ ‘Justified’), Peter Macon as Bortus (‘Shameless,’ ‘Bosch’), Jessica Szohr as Talla Keyali (‘Shameless’, ‘Kingdom’), J. Lee as John LaMarr (‘Family Guy’, ‘The Cleveland Show’), Mark Jackson as Isaac (‘That Royal Today’) and Chad L. Coleman as Klyden (‘The Walking Dead,’ ‘The Wire’).
Although FOX seemed to leave the renewal quite late, ‘The Orville’ was pretty likely for renewal. It’s well-liked by the network and had landed the all-important tax credits from the California Film Commission, meaning it is cheaper to film. It had lost some of its audience in Season 2, but that is quite normal for a network show, and was sitting around the middle of the table amongst the other dramas on the network. The bigger sticking point might have been that it is produced by 20th Century Fox Television, which is now owned by Disney, not FOX themselves. However, that (thankfully) hasn’t hindered the series getting a new season.
The Orville’ also airs on FOX in the UK and recently concluded its 2nd Season.
