Critical response Season 1 On
Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has a 31% critic approval rating, with an average rating of 3.8/10 based on 55 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "An odd jumble of campiness and sincerity, homage, and satire,
The Orville never quite achieves liftoff."
Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 36 out of 100, based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." Liz Miller writing for
IndieWire compared the series to
Star Trek, calling it a rip-off and "bankrupt: creatively, morally, and ethically." She criticized the lack of creativity, the blatant imitation, and was surprised that the show is "uninterested in being a comedy." Kevin Yeoman of
Screen Rant suggested, "The show might have stood a better chance with a different actor in the captain's chair, one better suited to navigating the inexplicable tonal shifts and maybe earn the audience's patience and empathy in the process." Tim Surette at
TV Guide says, "The truth is,
The Orville was never going to win over critics because it's a throwback and goes against everything modern television is. It's not that
The Orville doesn't know what it wants it to be, as critics assume, it's that it wants to be a little bit of everything." Surette also noted the discrepancy between audience response and critic response on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, with audiences response being significantly more positive. Nick Wanserki of
The A.V. Club praised the season's first episode "Ja'loja" for its character-driven drama and focus on low-stakes plots which built upon the first season's efforts to develop the crew of the
Orville into a group of people that the audience cared about. Liz Miller of
IndieWire awarded
The Orville a B rating, expressing hope that the series could evolve into a character-driven "dramedy" set in space, which she described as something unique that could make the show worth watching. Ryan Britt of
Den of Geek praised the second season for playing to its strengths as a sitcom and addressing the "wonkiness" of the first season. Kevin Yeoman of
Screen Rant opined that the series "had found its footing and maybe its identity in telling smaller, more character-driven stories, that better serve its sometimes confounding mix of sincerity and irreverence." Will Harris of
The Verge similarly noted that the two-part episode "Identity" demonstrated the series' ability to downplay its humor and "hold its own with any of the more traditional science fiction properties out there."
Season 3 On
Rotten Tomatoes, the third season has an approval rating of 95%, with an average rating of 8.25/10 based on 15 reviews.
Den of Geek reviewer Michael Winn Johnson awarded the first episode "Electric Sheep" five out of five stars. He gave a favorable appraisal of the Isaac-centric storyline for dealing with the themes of prejudice and suicide. Johnson also praised MacFarlane and his creative team for forging an "extremely strong identity" for the show despite its influence from other science fiction franchises, particularly
Star Trek. Remus Norona of
Collider gave the first episode an A minus, stating that the season premiere is "bigger, bolder, and a whole lot darker." He noted that the first episode explored themes such as trauma, suicide, and grief.
Tell-Tale TV reviewer Nick Hogan observed that the third season had a higher budget than the previous two seasons, allowing more investment in both the practical and special effects. Hogan described the second episode "Shadow Realms" as a "cool,
Alien-esque horror story that thrills both psychologically and physically" but criticised the "bloated" storyline. Reviewing the third episode "Mortality Paradox," Johnson praised the episode's writer
Cherry Chevapravatdumrong for mixing the third season with "thrills, humor, adventure and even a little horror."
Digital Trends reviewer Michael Green praised the third season, describing it as a "loving homage" and the spiritual successor to
Star Trek: The Next Generation. Green also praised the family dynamic between the main characters Seth MacFarlane (Captain Ed Mercer),
Adrianne Palicki (Commander Kelly Grayson),
Penny Johnson Jerald (Dr. Claire Finn),
Mark Jackson (Isaac),
Peter Macon (Bortus) and
J. Lee (Chief Engineer John LaMarr). Green further praised
The Orville high production values and gave a favorable appraisal of its stories which explored philosophical, intellectual and human interest issues. Green praised the Season 3 episode "Midnight Blue" for exploring the ethical dimensions of
gender reassignment surgery and its cameo featuring
Dolly Parton. He also gave a favorable appraisal of the
time travel episode "Twice in a Lifetime" which explored tampering with the past and sacrificing one's family for the "greater good."
Ratings After its premiere on Sunday, September 10, 2017, the show moved to Thursday nights at 9 p.m. In its first broadcast in the new time slot,
The Orville became Fox's highest rated Thursday 9 p.m. broadcast in two years. After taking into account DVR and VOD,
The Orville was Fox's most-viewed drama debut since the premiere of
Empire in 2015. It later moved to sixth place during the week ending September 9, 2022.
JustWatch, a guide to streaming content with access to data from more than 20 million users around the world, reported that
The Orville was the sixth most-streamed show in the U.S. from May 30 to June 5, 2022. The streaming aggregator Reelgood, which tracks 20 million monthly viewing decisions across all streaming platforms in the U.S. for original and acquired streaming programs and movies across subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services, revealed that
The Orville was the fifth most-streamed series during the week of June 11, 2022.
Whip Media, which tracks viewership data for the more than 25 million worldwide users of its
TV Time app, announced that it was the fifth most-streamed original series in the U.S. and Hulu's second most-streamed series behind
Only Murders in the Building from August 1–7, 2022.
Accolades ==Home media==