The Orville has been away from the small screen for a year now. Fans continue to wait for its third season.
The Orville is a science fiction comedy-drama series created by Seth McFarlane for Fox. It has already spawned two seasons since its premiere in 2017.
Its second season ended in April 2019, and since then, its followers have been asking for The Orville season 3. It was previously hinted to come around late 2020, with episodes dropping weekly.
But with the current virus outbreak going on, it may be coming a little later than expected.
Producer update
To give an update on the show’s season 3 development, senior editor and co-producer Tom Costantino and executive producer and writer David Goodman spoke with TrekMovie.
Goodman and Costantino revealed that they were around halfway through filming season 3 when the pandemic happened. They were forced to shut down production, and now it remains on hold.
There is no word yet, but the delay in production could mean that the late 2020 release date target will be greatly impacted.
As of now, the team is currently working on a plan to restart production. Restrictions on film and television production in Los Angeles are being lifted soon. However, it’s still uncertain what their next move will be.
Returning to filming entails many logistics to be worked on to ensure that they will be working safely.
“There are lots of conversations going on at this moment, but nobody has made a hard decision on return to work,” Goodman said. “We want to get back to work as soon as we can, but we want to do it safely. And whatever strictures are in place, we don’t want them to get in the way of the show we want to make.”
Goodman also disclosed that their writers had mostly finished writing all the scripts even before the production started. And as of now, they are not making any changes.
The move to Hulu
When The Orville season 3 premieres, it will no longer be in its original network Fox. It will be airing its new episodes to Hulu, which has been considered a “pretty big deal.”
However, Goodman assures that the move isn’t going to bring in a fundamental change except for one thing, which is freedom.
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“It hasn’t changed. What being on Hulu does is allows more freedom. The way Seth runs the show, we take the idea where it takes us,” Goodman said.
“And what Hulu allows us is, once it is produced, we don’t have to be as worried about length. So, there will be a variety of lengths.”
Costantino confirmed that The Orville season 3 would be having longer run times, coming in at 60 minutes plus each so far.
Featured image courtesy of TV Promos/YouTube screenshot