SPOILERS ALERT!!!
Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basemet’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finished checking out Season 3 of ‘The Orville’ – also known as ‘New Horizons’ – on Disney+. I’ve greatly enjoyed checking out Season 3. Having enjoyed the first two seasons of ‘The Orville’ from 2021 to 2022, it’s so fitting that Season 3 turned out to be just as good.
I saw Season 3 of ‘The Orville’ from November 2023 to February 2024. I took my time with checking out this season, especially with some of the episodes being from 70 to 90 minutes long compared to previous seasons’ episodes that were from 45 to 50 minutes long. The episodes felt like TV movies. 🙂
Season 3, in some respects, was a troubled season, as it started filming in October 2019 before being halted because of the Covid-19 pandemic to eventually being completed in August 2021. The season was released from June to August 2022. You wouldn’t notice though, as the episodes seem flawless.
A casualty of Season 3 is that one of the episodes – the ninth episode, in fact – called ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ wasn’t filmed due to pandemic-related travel restrictions. Instead, the episode was novelized by Seth MacFarlane, the show’s creator. Perhaps I’ll check out the novelization someday. 🙂
In total, the season is 10 episodes long. The episodes are very good, with each having enjoyable and thought-provoking stories to tell. This mostly includes the story arc of the Planetary Union fighting against the Kaylon, Isaac’s robotic people, who want to wipe out biologicals in an intergalactic war. 🙂
The cast includes Seth MacFarlane as Captain Ed Mercer as well as Adrianne Palicki as Commander Kelly Grayson, Penny Johnson Jerald as Dr. Claire Finn, Scott Grimes as Lt. Gordon Malloy, Peter Macon as Lt. Commander Bortus, Jessica Szhor as Lt. (later Lt. Commander) Talla Keyali, J. Lee as Lt. Commander John LaMarr and Mark Jackson as Isaac. There’s also a new regular cast member in this season.
Anne Winters stars as Ensign Charly Burke, the Orville’s new navigational officer. It was interesting to watch Charly’s story in Season 3, as it’s revealed she lost her lover during a Kaylon attack. For most of the season, she resents Isaac, blaming him and his people for destroying her chance of happiness.
Thankfully, as the season progresses, Charly grows to respect and become friends with Isaac. It’s sad when we get to the penultimate episode and Charley self-sacrifices herself to save the Kaylon as well as the future of the Planetary Union. Isaac gives a touching speech during Charly’s memorial service.
The season also resolves an arc involving Bortus and Kylden (played by Chad L. Coleman)’s child Topa (played by Imani Pullum), who was originally female and became male and soon has his sex-change reversed. Unfortunately, this causes Bortus’ people, the Moclans, to being expelled from the Union.
The Krill, who became allies of the Union in Season 2, break up their alliance in Season 3. Ed Mercer’s former flame Teleya (played by Michaela McManus) becomes the new Krill chancellor. Mercer also discovers he shares a daughter with Teleya when he visits the Krill planet in the season.
The season also features Lt. Yaphit (voiced by the late Norm Macdonald), Claire Finn’s children – Kai Wener as Ty and BJ Tanner as Marcus, Victor Garber as Admiral Tom Halsey, Kelly Hu as Admiral Ozawa, and Andi Chapman as Admiral Howland. These characters appeared in the previous seasons.
Ted Danson (from ‘Cheers’) also appears as Admiral Perry in the season. It was a shock when Ted Danson’s character became a traitor in the season’s penultimate episode. Halston Sage also returns as Alara Kitan, the Orville’s former security officer, to attend Claire and Isaac’s wedding in the finale.
Yes, the season finale of Season 3 has Claire and Isaac marrying each other. I’m glad the season ended on that happy note, especially when a peace is struck between the Union and the Kaylon. It was funny when Bortus wasn’t good doing the best man speech and Gordon Malloy did it instead. 🙂
Most of the season is handled by two directors – Seth MacFarlane and Jon Cassar. The writers of the season include Seth MacFarlane, Brannon Braga and Andre Bormanis (both who’ve worked on ‘Star Trek’ and ‘The Orville’s previous two seasons), Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and David A. Goodman.
Season 3 of ‘The Orville’ has been a treat to check out on Disney+. I don’t know if this is the actual end of ‘The Orville’, although I would welcome a fourth season should it ever happen. Regardless, I hope to revisit ‘The Orville’ at some point in the future, as it’s been a great sci-fi series to check out.
Incidentally, I prefer the original ‘Orville’ theme music in Seasons 1 and 2 as opposed to the updated one in Season 3. I just feel the original theme music is more energetic and catchier than the new version. At this point, I’m wondering if an ‘Orville’ movie might be a possibility. I’d welcome that too.
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
Bradley's Basement 
I don’t watch Orville sorry to say. Though some friends of mine have discussed it often. As one of the many space age SF shows to be influenced by the success of Star Trek, yet set outside the Trek universe, I certainly appreciate how well it’s doing for SF fans. Thank you, Tim, for your review.
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Hi scifimike,
Glad you enjoyed my review on Season 3 of ‘The Orville’. I took my time with checking out this season, but I greatly enjoyed each of the 10 episodes and they were very compelling when I watched them on Disney+. I don’t know if more ‘Orville’ seasons will be made in future, but I’m pleased this is another ‘Star Trek’-like series that I can check out and revisit when I get the chance to do so on Disney+.
I plan to check out the ‘Star Wars’ series ‘Andor’ next. Stay tuned! 😀
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
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The Orville is part of a bracket of television I like to call Trekalikes (or Trek-lite). Once upon a time, this would have included series like Space: 1999 and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Programmes whose very premises were radically upended in their second season for a variety of behind-the-scenes reasons.
Nowadays, we can include more deliberate examples like Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, which was initially helmed by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. A prominent recurring writer on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Andromeda is what would happen if Captain Kirk was marooned in the universe of Blake’s 7. His new crew more suited to the original Battlestar Galactica. Their enemy being the Shadows from Babylon 5. Layer upon layer of addition and obfuscation, but still, at its core, inspired by Star Trek.
The Orville is incredible for that reason. It wears its influences on its sleeve. Breaking character only to provide the parodic elements that keep it on air. However, after a certain point, the jokes and the tongue-in-cheek story developments fall away. The captain and commander’s broken marriage goes from the butt of a joke to a poignant meditation on the strain of commanding a starship. Isaac and Claire’s relationship becomes a metaphor for neurodiversity in similar romances. The Moclans struggles are so nail-bitingly real that it goes places I don’t think even Deep Space Nine was prepared to go. And all of this sincerity and earnestness is to The Orville‘s benefit.
It’s a love letter. Not just to Star Trek, but to its nearest and dearest, as well. The aforementioned Andromeda featured Tarazed as a prominent world in its early storytelling. Tarazed III is the site of a historic pact between two warring species. Babylon 5‘s John Sheridan became the Interstellar Alliance’s President. His actor, Bruce Boxleitner, was cast for the role of the Union’s President. They even explain the economics of something like the Federation/Union in a way that Star Trek on television wasn’t quite able to grasp (they’re a meritocracy; their currency is merit).
This series lives and dies on the head of a pin. Season 3, when it shifted to Hulu, was a chance for it to throw off parody and embrace its capacity for compelling drama. It had already proven itself in Season 2, but Season 3 was something else. Compelling, sure, but also powerful, clever, confronting, poignant and even, at times, poetic. It lived like Farscape did. Never taking its time for granted. It doesn’t have the Star Trek stamp, but its soul embodies all those virtues and more. It advocates for peace, mutual understanding, the wonder of exploration and an expanding empathy.
And given when it was produced, the state of the world, then, such an optimistic view was breathtaking. I hope we get a Season 4. If we don’t, though. If this is it, then, The Orville went out on a high.
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Hi Wolfie,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insight on ‘The Orville’ and comparing it to other sci-fi shows like ‘Star Trek’, ‘Babylon 5’, ‘Andromeda’ and ‘Blake’s 7’. I’ve not seen the latter three shows yet as ‘The Orville’ was like another ‘Star Trek’ for me in the style of ‘TNG’, ‘DS9’ and ‘Voyager’ compared to what we get nowadays in ‘Star Trek’ like ‘Strange New Worlds’ and ‘Picard’. Although I’ve enjoyed some of the latest ‘Star Trek’ shows, they don’t have the same thought-provoking style of storytelling that I’ve enjoyed from watching ‘Star Trek’ shows made in the 1990s as well as ‘The Orville’ itself.
It’s amazing how far ‘The Orville’ has developed as a sci-fi series. Initially, it started as a parody of ‘TNG’, but I’d like to think it got better with how it defined its characters and storytelling, and it certainly helps that a lot of the thought-provoking material contained in most of the episodes, particuarly by Seasons 2 and 3, was taken seriously. I particualrly like how the Topa/Moclans story angle was handled and you can tell how much of the comedic aspects aren’t as prominent in Season 3 compared to what was in Season 1. I really like how the Union/Kaylon conflict was handled, particularly in the penultimate episode with Charly self-sacrificing herself and the peace established between the Union and the Kaylons.
I don’t know how things will turn out for ‘The Orville’ in terms of its future, but I hope it won’t be the final end for the series, as I’d like to see a fourth season or perhaps a movie based on the series. As you say, ‘The Orville’ does seem to end on a high, particuarly with the marriage of Clare and Isaac, but there is potential for the series to continue, especially with whether Ed Mercer will be reunited with his half-human, half-Krill daughter in Season 3.
Again, many thanks for your thoughts and insight on ‘The Orville’. Greatly enjoyed reading them.
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
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