Seth MacFarlane's 'The Orville' is Fox's Biggest Drama Debut in Two and a Half Years
The cast of Fox's "The Orville" which made Fox's largest drama debut since January 2015 when "Empire" made its debut (Photo by Fox Broadcasting).
LOS ANGELES – The premiere of THE ORVILLE, FOX’s new space adventure series created by and starring Seth MacFarlane, earned a 7-day multi-platform audience of 12.2 million viewers. Marking the network’s largest drama debut in two and a half years since EMPIRE (15.6 million viewers, 1/7/15*), THE ORVILLE posted a +44% lift in multi-platform viewers from Live +Same Day, according to Nielsen.
In Live+7, THE ORVILLE delivered a 3.7/12 rating, FOX’s highest-rated drama launch since LUCIFER (3.8/11 L7, 1/25/16*) and television’s highest-rated drama premiere in nearly a year (since 9/21/16, Designated Survivor, 4.4/15 L7*). The episode posted a +37% gain from its same day viewership last Sunday, Sept. 10, at 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PT, immediately following the NFL ON FOX doubleheader.
In the all-new time period premiere episode of THE ORVILLE, “About A Girl,” airing this Thursday, Sept. 21 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT), Ed (MacFarlane) and the Orville crew are divided between cultures when Bortus (Peter Macon) and Klyden (Chad L. Coleman) debate if their newly born offspring should receive a controversial surgery.
From Emmy Award-winning executive producer and creator Seth MacFarlane (FAMILY GUY, “Ted”) THE ORVILLE is a live-action, one-hour space adventure series set 400 years in the future that follows the exploits of The U.S.S. Orville, a mid-level exploratory spaceship. Its crew, both human and alien, face the wonders and dangers of outer space, while also dealing with the problems of everyday life.
The series stars MacFarlane as ED MERCER, the ship’s Captain, and Adrianne Palicki (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Friday Night Lights”) as his ex-wife, KELLY GRAYSON, who’s assigned as his First Officer. The series also stars Penny Johnson Jerald (“24,” “The Larry Sanders Show”) as DR. CLAIRE FINN, Scott Grimes (“American Dad!,” “Justified”) as GORDON MALLOY, Peter Macon (“Shameless,” “Bosch”) as BORTUS, Halston Sage (“Neighbors,” “Goosebumps”) as ALARA KITAN, J Lee (“American Dad!”, “The Cleveland Show”) as JOHN LAMARR, Mark Jackson (“That Royal Today” ) as ISAAC, Chad L. Coleman (“The Wire”) as KLYDEN and Norm Macdonald (“The Middle,” “Saturday Night Live”) as YAPHIT. Seth MacFarlane, David A. Goodman, Brannon Braga, Jason Clark and Liz Heldens are executive producers. Jon Favreau directed the series premiere episode, “Old Wounds.”
