With a third season of The Orville set to premiere on June 2, 2022, on Hulu, fans are excited to once again embark on Seth MacFarlane’s love letter to Star Trek The Next Generation. It’s ironic considering how far from the tone of TNG the current official Star Trek shows are, including Picard, the direct continuation of the TNG brand. In many ways, The Orville is delivering what many Trek fans actually want – a return to the 1990s era Star Trek, complete with a signature corniness, a kind of ‘scout’s honor’ quality, with a tendency to get unexpectedly absurd.

MacFarlane’s brilliant use of comedy allows the Star Trek formula to go further down hilarious rabbit holes. Yet, for the most part, the show seems to bear its comedic colors less and less, essentially becoming more or less a great Star Trek knock-off as opposed to a parody.

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MacFarlane’s love of TNG is no secret with the multiple out-of-nowhere cameos of the Enterprise-D gang in Family Guy. The undeniably talented show creator is known for wearing his fan colors shamelessly on his sleeve, which has no doubt helped to elevate and inform his entertainment career. The Orville, unlike any show in history, treads a line between parody and homage that is so thin, it may have actually been completely broken at this point, but you don’t hear anyone complaining about it. While the show is not as outright ridiculous as something like Space Balls, it was still marketed and sold as a Star Trek parody.

Comedy, however, unlike other genres, has a tendency to evolve much faster and serves as a reflection of modern sensibilities. In contemporary fandom culture, where fan films and other questionably legal intellectual property theft happens on an hourly basis thanks to the internet, perhaps The Orville represents a new kind of sneaky I.P. theft which is simply using comedy to disguise its true intent. Star Trek in many ways does own a kind of monopoly on the general concept of a space fairing future, whereby anyone who attempts to develop a similar concept is immediately compared. MacFarlane’s show has created a kind of loophole to avoid this trapping by not shying away from the fact that it is a blatant parody, yet once the gimmick was established, it wasn’t going to stop the show from taking on a dramatic life of its own to the point where many Star Trek fans want the show included in the same universe.

Let’s take a look at what we can expect from the upcoming season of The Orville, and how it may continue to evolve toward being just an awesome science fiction show versus a Star Trek parody.

Star Trek at Its Best

     Fox

While the particular 1990s vision of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek series isn’t really in fashion at the moment, The Orville perhaps fills a void for Trek fans who might seek a return to form. With the second season of the show reaching further into its mythology, expanding the scope of its characters, and delivering Star Trek like drama, it is very likely the third season will continue down this path of fewer laughs and more sincerity. At it’s core, it is a science fiction drama, possibly quite aware of the fact that it’s really more on point for many Trek fans, and taking advantage of Paramount’s arguable missteps with the official Star Trek properties.

While season three may go even more bleak, it is unlikely the show will take itself too seriously to the point of losing comedy all together, especially with Seth MacFarlane taking over most of the directing duties for season three. Lacking levity has been a problem for Star Trek Discovery, whereas you’re unlikely to go more than a few minutes on The Orville without a laugh, though these bouts of genuine drama seemed to increase in length as season two progressed.

Orville’s Future Unknown

     20th Century Studios

Previous episodes have been called out for featuring a number of veteran Star Trek actors, with Jonathan Frakes even directing an episode. This is likely why season two started to feel so much like genuine Star Trek. Word is that season three will only have two directors, Seth MacFarlane and Jon Cassar. An article from TVline suggested the greenlight of a Ted prequel series could signal season three as the last of The Orville which has some fans concerned. Scott Grimes is also set to appear in the new Ted series, meaning if there is to be a season 4 of Orville, contract negotiations have yet to begin.

With Hulu set as the premiering platform for the new season, its future is unknown, but with upcoming episodes getting longer (45 minutes+) it isn’t impossible to imagine Netflix or another streaming service vying for Orville season 4 or even a feature film. Considering MacFarlane’s passion for the series as well as an incredibly loyal fan base, it may very well happen.