Fans of The Orville were relieved to hear that the show would get a season 3. It was a close one, as Fox waited until after the last episode of the second season aired before it announced that The Orville wouldn’t be canceled. However, we’re not too sure when The Orville Season 3 premiere will be. We do have some clues below as to when The Orville Season 3 air date might be and how many episodes it’ll have, and we’ll update this article as we learn more about Fox’s plans for the show.
When will The Orville Season 3 release date be?
For once Fox didn’t pull the plug on a fan favorite Seth McFarlane show. History shows it would have eventually gotten picked up again and gone on to run 10-20 seasons, but it’s nice not to have to worry about The Orville getting canceled now that a season 3 has been announced.
As to when The Orville season 3 premiere will be, we haven’t a clue yet. The second season ended in April, and we didn’t get an indicator that the show would be picked up again until May 11. We’d bet that not too much progress has been made on season 3 at this point.
If we had to take an educated guess, we’d say The Orville Season 3 release date will be late December 2019 or early January 2020. It’s a stellar show, but the ratings aren’t high enough for it to warrant taking a break between seasons. Fox also picked up a tax credit for producing season 3, and there’s likely an impetus to release it within a certain amount of time or else there’ll be penalties.
How many episodes will The Orville Season 3 have?
Since the first two seasons of The Orville were 13 episodes, apiece we’d guess that season 3 will be as well. Now, you may be thinking, “Wait! You’re wrong! Season 1 had 12 episodes and season 2 had 13. You’re a big fat idiot!” Well, that’s true as far as air dates are concerned, but the second episode of season 2 was supposed to be the 12th episode of season 1. Because season one ran up against holiday programming, “Primal Urges” was cut and moved to season two.
The days of 26 episode long seasons are (unfortunately) no more, so I don’t see them making more than 13 episodes for season 3. However, given Fox’s infuriating predilection towards canceling sci-fi programs at the drop of a hat, we’re lucky to get any at all.
