As the inaugural season of Fox’s The Orville comes to a close, it is important for producers and executives to take a look at what went right and what went wrong during the season. Many television industry blogs that have been covering The Orville since Fox picked up the series have been pondering these questions this week.  The forces behind putting together The Orville clearly did something right as it was the highest rated premiere season of drama in the past few years.  Also the fact that The Orville will be coming back for a second season next year.  The business model of the show worked, particularly with distribution to OTT networks.  Even with these successes, there were still some mistakes that can be learned from.  For instance, one common criticism of the show this year is the storyline.  Some have felt that the guest characters on the show did not always fit well, while other criticized the length of time it took for certain characters to be revealed. Although no legal action has been taken, some still question the similarity of the show to the successful Star Trek series.  

Fox’s “The Orville” is still going strong, even with the competition of Thursday Night football.  The 18-49 rating for the show is still hovering around the 0.9-1.0 mark which it has been for the past few weeks. Even though the night of viewership of “The Orville” has been hovering in the 3-4 million range, millions more viewers each week are tuning into the program via DVR.  In some cases, the viewership via these platforms is higher than the night of viewing.  For instance, on Episode 6 of the series, there was a DVR viewing of 3.32 million in comparison to a same day viewing of 3.37 million, bringing in a total of 6.69 million viewers for the week. Taking into account these DVR viewership numbers, Fox’s “The Orville” is now the network’s most viewed drama debut since the successful Empire debut in 2015.  This is a great success for the Fox network.

Since the renewal announcement that came a week and a half ago regarding Fox’s The Orville series starring Seth MacFarlane, a puzzling piece of news has come out this week: this season of The Orville will be getting cut short.  The premiere season was originally intended to run thirteen episodes will be cut down to twelve.  Even though this is not a substantial change, the plot was originally scheduled to be spread out over thirteen episodes.  The change is happening due to changes in programming.  Fox’s programmer’s decided that it would make the most sense to wrap up the show before the holidays and allow for season two to premiere next September.  This news scared some fans of the show as they thought that it could be signs of trouble even given the renewal news.  Good news for them, the ratings are still hovering around the 1.0 mark for the series, the same numbers that granted the show the renewal in the first place.

Even though there are negative stories that are shaking up Hollywood at the moment, there is positive news that regarding The Orville, the news that we have all been waiting for.  It has been announced that The Orville has been renewed for a second season! The president of Fox Michael Thorn said the following about the renewal: “Once again Seth has struck a powerful chord with viewers.”  The news comes as viewership still hover around the high three to low four million per episode and the 18-49 demographic rating averages around 2.5.   Fox views this science fiction series as renewal worthy given the competition of the programs on other networks.  Fans of the show are very excited to hear about this renewal and have taken to social media to express their elation.  Season two will be scheduled to air at some point in 2018.  It will be interesting to see how the plot line will develop from season one to two.  

After weeks of mixed news, some good news has come out this week for Fox’s “The Orville” series. It has earned the superlative of being both the most watched and highest rated launch series on Fox since 2015.  The Orville’s nonlinear 35-day audience, only beaten by mega-hit empire, is a whopping 2.6 million viewers.  Although The Orville did not air last week, this week it came back with a bang , racking up the highest ratings since week two’s episode.  One of the biggest pieces of news that has come out of this week is that The Orville has gotten the green light for international expansion beginning in the U.K.  The Orville is set to premiere in the U.K on December 14th, 2017.  Fox officially made the announcement on October 30th on social media and star of the show Seth McFarlane reacted with joy. Even though this is great news, there is still mixed growth in the 18-49 ratings and no official word on if the show will get a second season.

Fox’s “The Orville” will not have a new episode this week, instead there will be a rerun of an old episode.  This decision on behalf of Fox not to release an episode has prompted discussion about why this occurred.  Fox has not directly explained the reasoning for pulling the episode, but many speculate that they would not be able to compete with playoff baseball, particularly with the New York Yankees doing so well.  There was also another speculation on television gossip sites that the show is canceled, but this also did not come directly from fox.  The show is likely not canceled, but just taking a week off to prevent another big ratings slump.  It will be interesting, however, to see how this strategy plays out as World Series programming is scheduled to start next week. With the Yankees possibly in the World Series, that is bound to be the most watched program of those nights.

Much of this week’s buzz about the Orville is surrounded around whether or not it will get picked up again for a second season.  As networks make a decision about renewing a show, they often look to mid season data, possibly why this topic has come up so much this week.  From the beginning,  renewal has always been a goal for show producers, however mixed messages in terms of viewership, ratings, and controversy have affected the probability of Fox’s “The Orville” being renewed for another season.  Seth MacFarlane is pessimistic about a season two stating that he believes that a renewal is ‘likely.’  With viewership on a steady decline and the 18-49 demo rating still hovering around 1%, the numbers may not look as promising as McFarlane would like to admit.  These numbers are unfortunate given attempts to bring guests on the show such as actors Liam Neeson and Charlize Theron.  In addition to these facts and figures, it’s additionally important to consider plot. Crafting a season two plot could be difficult. Producers would have to craft a plot that would keep watchers interested while still heavily relying on a Star Trek themes.

The Orville continues to keep people talking.  Even though the amount of people tuned in for last Thursday’s episode fell once again, social media was in a buzz when guest talent want announced for the series.  It has been announced that actor Brian Thompson who was the Night Slasher in “The Cobra” and also known for his recurring role on “The X Files.”  This guest appearance could certainly be a way to get the overall viewers to move back in the right direction as well as attract more people in the crucial 18-49 demographic.  Thompson recently did an interview where he expressed how excited he was for the opportunity.  Since the episode hasn’t aired yet, he has not gone into detail on his role, but he did say that “he thinks the show has marvelous possibilities” and that he has “a fun part [in the show].”  Him alongside Seth MacFarlane and the other cast members should certainly make for a great episode.

The Orville has now switched from being on Sunday night’s to Thursday Night. The absence of an NFL lead-in on Thursday Night Fox  seems to be affecting how many people are tuning into Fox’s “The Orville.”  Many viewers stuck around to watch these episodes, generating both great viewership and ratings.  Although we have already seen a decline between the first and second episodes, there was an even steeper decline between the second episode and the third episode.  The Orville’s 18-49 rating fell in half, standing at 1.1. Although the NFL programming is likely a factor in this, there could be more to the story. With many in the southern U.S still feeling the effects from hurricane Irma, and the brewing hurricanes that seem to be growing larger by the day out at sea heading towards the country, many Americans are tuning into weather related programming to prepare for and track the storms. This pulls from the viewer pool, affecting programs such as “The Orville.”

We’re only two episodes into the fall debut of the new show The Orville on Fox and there is already controversy and critical reception brewing over the program.  Positive ratings for the show on popular websites such as Rotten Tomatoes already hit a low of 17%. The strange thing however, is that these low positive ratings from critics doesn’t seem to fall in line with how fans are feeling about the show because they are still tuning in, in droves.  Episode two brought in 6.63 million viewers with a 18-49 rating of 2.2. Star of the show, Seth MacFarlane responded to this saying: “It happens to me almost every time I release a movie or TV show… I’ve grown to expect this from critics…”  Another important thing that could resonate negatively with critics is the similarities between Fox’s The Orville and the Star Trek series.  Some media sources have pondered potential legal repercussions of the striking similarities between the two. All in all, it does not seem likely that The Orville is headed for cancellation, but let’s see how the next few weeks play out.