The Orville season 3: Could it actually premiere in summer 2020?

Let’s start off this The Orville season 3 article with the most painful of reminders: While we’d love to see more of the series at some point in the future, it’s not going to be for a while. To be specific, it’s not going to be until 2020. That was confirmed by Fox when they released the fall schedule, but we don’t think that anyone is shocked by that. Season 2 was a midseason show, after all, and its renewal was granted significantly earlier than the one for season 3.

It’s actually the latter piece of information, though, that has us wondering: Will The Orville season 3 even be ready for early 2020 if Fox wants it? One of the things that we have learned about this series through its short run is that it has an especially long post-production time, which is understandable given all of the effects that need to be added in after the fact. It’s a highly ambitious series, and while it’s proven itself to be worth the wait, that does still require a wait — and it could be a long one. Let’s look at some more of the evidence that we could be waiting until spring, at the very least.

Where’s the room on Thursdays? When Fox does open up its Thursday night lineup in early 2020, it will be doing so with Last Man Standing alongside some new shows, including the hour-long Filthy Rich. Unless Filthy Rich flops or ends after 10-13 weeks, there’s no way for The Orville to fit on that night during the first half of 2020.

What about on other nights? Monday nights seem to be reasonably set right now, with 911 getting the split-season treatment and with Fox especially high on Prodigal Son. The Resident is probably going to have too many episodes to be off the air long on Tuesdays, and really the only spot we could see The Orville is as a fill-in series between the first and second half of Empire’s final season on Tuesdays … and that is provided that it is even ready at that point.

Let’s talk the summer

While at first airing a show like this over the summer may seem like a questionable idea, there are some good reasons to consider the idea. For one, it has some of those excellent summer-movie sort of qualities — from great action to a tremendous sense of imagination. Also, there’s less in the way of competition and hopefully, Fox could take advantage of that so that it could generate some larger ratings. Fox’s scripted lineup the past few years has been terrible; they need something to actually help them stand out there, and this could be it.

For some more news on The Orville in video form, check out the latest below! Meanwhile, subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube for some other information on all things TV, and we also suggest that you take a look at our official series playlist.

Also, think about things this way — in the summer, the ratings expectations are a little bit smaller. Fox renews So You Think You Can Dance there with regularity, and it doesn’t exactly have a tendency to draw big numbers. We understand that with lower ratings expectations could come a smaller budget, but with the sort of stories that The Orville excels with, it doesn’t always need epic space battles. Some of the best stories of season 2, including the spotlights on Dr. Fill and Gordon, were a little bit more just about the characters. Sure, this is a show about space battles and preserving the universe, but it’s also about these people who, while heroes, also have a shred of normalcy. They bleed and freak out just like everyone else.

For some more news on The Orville…

Check out the link here for some more news on the official renewal! Also, let us know in the comments if you’d like to see season 3 of The Orville air in the summer. (Photo: Fox.)