Posted in: Hulu, TV | Tagged: The Orville

The Orville: Seth MacFarlane Keeps Hope Alive with Season 4 Reference

Checking in with Ted Danson, Seth MacFarlane had some nice things to say about The Orville, even dropping an interesting Season 4 reference.

At this point, it's been a wee bit more than three years since the Season 3 finale of Hulu and Seth MacFarlane's The Orville. That would be 1,099 days – but who's counting, right? So you would understand why any mention of the show that comes from MacFarlane (especially when it keeps hope alive) will get our attention. Earlier today, the latest episode of Team Coco and Ted Danson's Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast was released, with MacFarlane joining Danson for a one-on-one that covered a number of topics. Of course, "Orville" fans know Danson from his recurring role as Admiral Perry during the second and third seasons (and as the voice of Dr. Ray Petit on MacFarlane's animated series American Dad!).

During the conversation (at around the 56:45 mark), we were treated to some meaningful references to The Orville from MacFarlane. At one point, Danson and MacFarlane discussed the moral responsibility we have to not just concern ourselves with the present but also look ahead to what we're leaving behind for future generations. "And look, this is the kind of shit we fuck around with on 'The Orville,' and why I love writing that show. But it's a great question. It's like what what do we owe the future? And I think we owe, I would say we owe the future as much as we owe the present."

Later in the conversation (at around the 1:02:00 mark), the two discuss the importance of art not just to always point out what's wrong with society but also to sometimes offer a sense of hope or how things can be different. Danson does an amazingly effective job reminding MacFarlane how he has been "moving the needle in the right direction" regarding the important conversations that need to be had. "That's why I did 'The Orville' and that's why I, you know, we're gonna… we still have yet to do a season four. That's why I did that show, because when I was a kid, Hollywood was providing that voice… in various forms. There was a lot of hope," MacFarlane shared, explaining one of his goals with the series while also dropping a Season 4 reference.

Back in November 2023, Adrianne Palicki (Commander Kelly Grayson) was speaking with Michael Rosenbaum on the Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum podcast. At one point during the interview, Rosenbaum brings up that she's currently working on a series as a segue into a conversation about The Orville, where Palicki expressed how much she enjoyed the show itself but that the lag time between seasons was frustrating on a number of levels – including how it impacted the actors' abilities to take on new projects. "No, it became an actual real issue because there would be so much time in-between… between seasons – because Seth [MacFarlane] wanted to write everything himself – so it would just take so much time. And at one point, we were like, 'We have to fight the studio to give us a holding fee or something' because, you know, J. Lee was eating Saltines and Gatorade at one point because we just couldn't afford anything. It was horrible."

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