Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville seemed destined to be canceled by Fox after its first season as many fans were not expecting what the show delivered. While MacFarlane has far and away become synonymous with crude and hilarious mature comedies such as Family Guy, American Dad and the movie Ted, The Orville appeared to many people to be a parody of Star Trek on its release. However, while the show does contain some of MacFarlane’s humor, the series is a lot more than the straight-up comedy that many expected, and the writer and creator and star of the show recently discussed what he originally wanted The Orville to be and how it is different to all other genre series. He told Screen Rant:

"From a scope standpoint, we wanted to sit up there with our competitors in a true way and really show what we could do with the budget that everyone else seems to be getting. [Chuckles] I think we were able to do that, we really wanted to prove ourselves as a legitimate sci-fi franchise. I think it still remains to be seen whether we've done that, I think it's too early to tell, but my goal was really to craft stories that could stand up to repeat viewing, that had real moments where that would affect the audience and elicit some kind of feeling. One of my favorite sci-fi movies is Contact, which I think does that so wonderfully. There's always big ideas and thoughtful elements of speculative science fiction and yet, there's these fantastically emotional moments as well that leaves you misty-eyed and the best sci-fi, to me, does that. I really wanted to have people walk away from these shows really being affected, whether that's in a positive way at the end of, say, the end of 'A Tale of Two Topas,' a more longing sense like 'Twice in a Lifetime' or just making them laugh, as hopefully we did in 'Future Unknown.' It's really about surprising people, writing story terms that are unexpected and keep them guessing, at the same time, never losing sight of the fact that this is a show about people. I think, to me, the thing that I hope separates The Orville from a lot of what else is out there is that we can put our characters in little rooms with no visual effects and no explosions and construct a story that still works and it still keeps you engaged. The soul of the show still is its characters, and in many ways, that's why the finale was the way it was, was to prove to ourselves and to our audience that, 'Look, things may be bigger and scope-ier and more epic in a visual sense, but never forget, this show is still about the people.' I think it's always good to keep that in mind."

Related: The Orville's Dolly Parton Cameo Was a Huge Challenge to Pull Off

Seth MacFarlane Hopes Viewing Figures Are Enough to Get The Orville a Fourth Season

There are very few certainties in Hollywood right now, as has been very clearly shown by the recent cancelation of Batgirl, and with The Orville’s third season having now ended, Seth MacFarlane is hopeful that the performance on the series will be good enough to push Disney to commission another run. Obviously, many of the shows that have acted as an inspiration to the actor ran for many years back in their day, and while very few series get the chance of having quite the longevity of Star Trek, MacFarlane certainly has ideas of where the crew of The Orville could be taken next if he gets the chance.

All seasons of The Orville are currently available on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally.