Hulu announced today that the third season of its sci-fi dramedy, The Orville, will premiere on the streaming platform on June 2, 2022. You can watch a preview of the new season’s first episode, “Electric Sheep,” above.
Subtitled The Orville: New Horizons, the new season will again star Seth MacFarlane as the USS Orville’s Captain Ed Mercer. Produced by 20th Television and Fuzzy Door Productions, MacFarlane will also co-direct the season with Jon Cassar (The Kennedys). MacFarlane created The Orville as a parody and homage to Star Trek. The series first aired on Fox in 2017.
The new 11-episode season has been the subject of serious delays caused by the pandemic. Deadline reports filming began in Oct. 2019, almost two years before production would end on the season. MacFarlane shared an image of text following the preview today, in which he explained the release date had been pushed back from its original March date due to “the ever-changing television schedule landscape.”
MacFarlane goes on to introduce the new footage:
We’ve always promised you television experience that will make it worth the wait, and we’re not wavering on that. We understand the frustration you’re feeling over more delays, so we want to give you a little taste of what’s to come.
MacFarlane will star alongside Adrianne Palicki, Penny Johnson Jerald, Scott Grimes, Peter Macon, Jessica Szohr, J Lee, Mark Jackson, and Anne Winters when The Orville: New Horizons finally releases exclusively on Hulu in June.