[This story includes spoilers from the third season of Hulu’s The Orville: New Horizons.]
The Orville returned to the alien culture of the Moclans in season three, and it happened in quite an emotional way.
Following on from previous episodes that set the stage for the first two seasons of the sci-fi series that aired on Foxthe fifth episode of the Orville’the current season, aired on Hulu, focuses on Bortus (Peter Macon) and Klyden’s (Chad L. Coleman) child Topa (Imani Pullum), now a teenager, who shares that she identifies as a woman and asks for surgery to be reversed that all Moclan females undergo as a baby that changes gender to male. Bortus supports Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) and Isaac (Mark Jackson)’s efforts to fulfill Topa’s wishes, despite the anger it causes for Klyden, who was also born a woman.
Seth MacFarlanethe show’s creator and star who wrote and directed the episode tells The Hollywood Reporter that after laying the groundwork for the single-sex character and species in season one, the show’s team was eager to re-explore the storyline after enough time had passed, especially when there seemed to be some sense that the show could improve how it played out things the first time around.
“With this kind of material, you’re always threading a needle, and in the past there are things that we may not have tackled as skillfully as we could,” he says. “That’s part of the learning process – you definitely find your way with every show – but I’m really happy with the response from the fans.”
During his conversation below, MacFarlane reflects on a 2010 Family man episode where Quagmire learns that his parent identifies as transgender (at the time, advocacy groups, including GLAAD, had expressed concerns about the episode). MacFarlane also discusses what it’s probably needed for The Orville to get another season, along with his thought process about how he would approach an episode where he commented on the recent Supreme Court quashing Roe v. Wade†
Why did you feel this was the right story to tell right now?
When dealing with this genre and foreign cultures, the storyline doesn’t always come out right away. You have to discuss it in the room, and you have to sort out all the permutations of how it could develop. In many ways, when you get this far in a series, the characters and the universe guide you. We had founded Bortus; we had founded Klyden; we had established Topa to some extent and certainly the rest of the crew’s relationship with those characters. In a strange way, the universe of The Orville led the writer’s room in this direction. It seems like the most organic way for her story to come true, and as I was writing the concept I found it was not an easy thing to do, but so lighthearted it was a good indication that we were on the right track. . This episode was a joy to write because when I got into it there were all indications that the story had been built well and responsibly and with care.
Have you checked out the social media reactions to the episode?
Yes, I actually have, and it’s very gratifying. You always get a needle through with this kind of material and in the past there are things that we may not have tackled as skillfully as we could. That’s part of the learning process – you definitely find your way with every show – but I’m very happy with the response from the fans. They really saw it as a conversation starter. I hope The Orville never feels like we are sitting on a soap box. That’s never our intent – our intent is to entertain and start a thoughtful conversation. But for this episode, at least it seems to be the general reaction. People have taken it as a character story that is allegorical – it takes place in this alien world – but it also sparks a much more human conversation.
Topa (Pullum) and Kelly (Palicki) from “A Tale of Two Topas”
Thanks to Hulu
The Orville need to find his basis in this topic?
In general, The Orville took a minute to find his footing. There are definitely elements of season one that I would go back and refine a little bit, if I could, across the board. How serious science fiction and comedy work together is something that gets done wrong much more often than right, and I think there were some things we stumbled upon in the beginning. Late in season one, and certainly through season two, we were figuring out where those flaws were and where the machine creaked a little bit and we were able to correct course and get into a place that started to feel really organic.
Is there a different level of freedom to approach these kinds of topics with Hulu than with the show’s previous home at Fox?
Content-related? No, believe it or not. †laughs.) Fox — Fox Broadcasting Company, let’s be clear about that — would embrace this material and our dealings with it just as much as Hulu was. However, the difference to me is as simple as the running time. You do not stop six times for a commercial break, that always affects the structure of your story, and you can breathe on a streaming service. In an episode like this where you tell a very emotional story, there are times when you just have to let the scene breathe, and you have to see the characters’ faces and how they handle certain story twists. It’s hard to do that on a broadcast network because you have to cut everything down to 43 minutes, and not every story is 43 minutes long.
Given your other projects, I’m not sure if your fans have always assumed you’d like to tell stories like this. Does this show feel like you’re offering a different way than you’ve tackled topics in the past – trans topics, but other topics as well?
It just depends on the show. Different shows have different needs. I’m working on the Ted series right now for Peacock and discovering that his needs are just very different. The comedy has not gone away. I’m still fighting for jokes that I think fit well with the universe of that show. With something like The Orville, it gets trickier because I know very well how the humor fits into the show, and I know people love the humor. I went back and recently watched part of season two and found that, tonally, what we’re doing isn’t really that much different. I think so much time has passed for people to think back The Orville in the old days like this laughter party, and it really wasn’t. It just depends on the story. This season, as we go along, you’ll see episodes leaning a lot more into comedy. Family man or Ted would treat the subject in their own way. This was the right way for The Orville†
“A tale of two greats”
Thanks to Hulu
So it wasn’t necessarily a “I want to change my legacy a little bit or make up for other jokes I’ve told in some way” mentality, but it was just more that the project feels different and acts differently.
No, it wasn’t. Look, there are always things you would do differently when you look back at earlier moments in your career. For me it’s more about nuance. There is no big change I would make. It’s more about individual moments and individual jokes. The intention of the Family man episode was to show that Quagmire’s father was still a war hero, and still someone to look up to and respect. That episode was actually written by Steve Callaghan, a writer on… Family man, who had the same experience with his own parent—his father had transitioned to a woman—and in many ways he wrote from his own experience. Now, certainly the language of Family man makes that story a little different than it would be on something like The Orville, but I think that’s something that sometimes gets a little lost when we think about that show, which Steve wrote from experience. But The Orville just requires a different kind of storytelling, and to be blunt, I enjoy it more. I’ve never enjoyed a writing process as much as I did this show.
I know the process of getting to a fourth season is complicated as the actors’ contracts expire after this season. But since there are still several topics to tackle with a show like this, including the recent Roe v. Wade In conclusion, do you find yourself hoping for another season?
I would really like it. I know the whole cast is hoping for it. It’s a big question mark for many reasons. It’s not a cheap show to produce. It requires an ambitious budget. But the downside to that is that it’s no more ambitious than half of the other streaming shows on television. It will really depend on the reaction of the audience, whether the show is discovered. I still think there are a lot of people who just don’t know we’re out there and don’t really know what we are. And when people sit down and watch the show, they are almost always surprised, and it almost always exceeds their expectations. Probably because it’s me (laughs), probably because most of what I’ve done in the past was very different, but it depends on the reaction of the public. After all, it is a business. It depends on whether we’re worth anything to Disney and the platform we’re on.
Do you know how to get one? roe storyline if you got the chance The Orville†
I have no idea yet. I have no idea. We got into it a bit in our fourth episode of the season [by using a storyline involving the Krill alien species to criticize the practice of some states forcing a woman to see an ultrasound before undergoing an abortion]† It was really just a bit of color for that episode to show a little bit more about how their world works. And it was purely coincidental that the episode aired the day that disastrous decision was made. I don’t know how we would go about it specifically. Right now it’s definitely something we want to dive into, but it would take many days to sit in the writer’s room and discuss it and how it applies to our world. You want to make sure you start that conversation without yelling at people, as we all would love to. It’s just not the way to tell a story. You have to nuance. It should organically inject itself into the bigger story you’re telling. It’s to make your point and make your point. Without preaching, so to speak, it’s a real Goldilocks zone. And that also takes a lot of time, with a lot of talented writers, to figure it out. And sure, I’m lucky enough to work with many of them.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
New episodes of The Orville debut Thursday on Hulu.