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Seth MacFarlane says ‘The Orville’ Season 4 is written but there’s one major problem: ‘The 10 scripts are...’

'The Orville' creator and actor Seth MacFarlane talked about the future of the series after Season 3 was released in 2022.

Almost four years after the conclusion of 'The Orville' Season 3 on Hulu, creator Seth MacFarlane has finally dropped an intriguing update about the science fiction show's fourth season. The celebrated producer was recently promoting the upcoming launch of the Peacock series 'Ted' when he spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the status of the fourth season of 'The Orville', which had long been rumoured to be in the pipeline. MacFarlane revealed that the writing team behind 'The Orville' had already written 10 episodes for a potential Season 4. 

MacFarlane opened up about the future of the franchise, "I will be honest with you: Season four is written, it’s just a question of when we have the time to produce it." Created by and starring McFarlane as Captain Ed Mercer, Seasons 1 and 2 of 'The Orville' aired on Fox before ultimately moving on to Hulu. MacFarlane further revealed that although Hulu was ready to produce a potential Season 4 of the show, his own busy schedule hasn't allowed him to take the project up to date. "The 10 scripts are done," MacFarlane remarked, further adding, "I’m the problem. It’s (a matter of) when I can make that my year, with all the other stuff we have in the works. But we can hit the ground running when it happens."  

In a 2022 interview, MacFarlane expressed his and his cast's desire that Hulu would increase the episode count per season. As is widely known, 'The Orville' is a high-budget production, and perhaps this has been a determining factor in the delay behind the show's renewal for Season 4. Additionally, the issue of actors' contracts expiring after the third season has also been persistently causing bottlenecks. Previously, MacFarlane reflected on the future of the show when he said, "I would love it. I know the entire cast is hoping for it. It’s a big question mark for many reasons. It’s not an inexpensive show to produce. It requires an ambitious budget. But the flip side of that is, it’s no more ambitious than half the other streaming shows on television. It really is going to depend on audience response, on whether the show gets discovered."

'The Orville' is set in the 25th century and follows the crew of the USS Orville on their adventures and exploits. The debut season premiered back in 2017, and the cast of season three included Penny Johnson-Gerald, Adrianne Palicki, Peter Macon, Scott Grimes, and Anne Winters. and Jessica Szohr. Among these, Palicki had voiced her unwillingness to return to the show's fourth season in a podcast interview, "No longer doing that. It became an actual issue because there was so much time between seasons. Seth wanted to write everything himself, so it would just take so much time." 'The Orville' is exclusively available on Hulu.