Looks like The Orville: New Horizons, as they’re calling season 3 of The Orville, will be leaning a bit more into Star Wars than Star Trek. A new sneak peek at the long-delayed third season coming to Hulu is basically a giant space battle full of exploding vessels and smaller ships buzzing around big ones. (To be fair, later Trek adopted this action style as well.) Alongside this four-minute The Orville: New Horizons sneak peek video comes a new release date of Thursday, June 2, 2022, a delay of three months. Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the series, put out a tweet apologizing for the extra delay.
The teaser appears to be the opening of an upcoming episode as it kicks into the title sequence after a cliffhanger conclusion. We see an older Marcus racing through a quickly deteriorating Orville to find his brother Ty as a slew of Planetary Union ships fight against Kaylon ships. Clearly, the war kicked off in the first season is continuing in this one, though the show’s plot description only says that it “finds the crew of the U.S.S. Orville continues their mission of exploration, as they navigate both the mysteries of the universe and the complexities of their own interpersonal relationships.”
Three things to note about the sneak-peek video for The Orville: New Horizons: The first is that it looks like the show has received a boosted budget from Disney / Hulu, as this is some of the nicest stuff we’ve seen from the series. Second, comedy is nowhere to be seen here. Compare this downright violent and dramatic action sequence to the full-out comedy of the first season, and it’s like watching a completely different show. Third, The Orville theme music is fantastic still and even better over a new opening sequence. This show still seems like it will be the best live-action Star Trek running despite not actually being Star Trek.
The series has been tossed around a bit after Disney bought Fox, finally finding its home on Hulu and bringing back its entire cast. Seth MacFarlane, Adrianne Palicki, Penny Johnson Jerald, Scott Grimes, Peter Macon, J. Lee, Mark Jackson, Chad L. Coleman, Jessica Szohr, and Anne Winters will all return.
Hold out a little longer for that new season 3 release date, as The Orville: New Horizons arrives June 2.
