There hasn’t been a new episode of The Orville since 2022—the season three finale was titled, rather presciently, “Future Unknown.” But fans have held out hope that the sci-fi show, which ran its first two seasons on Fox before leaping to Hulu for season three, retitled The Orville: New Horizons, will return.
Creator and star Seth MacFarlane has done his part to keep that dream alive, answering Orville questions while promoting his other projects in the years since and always saying the show isn’t officially officially over. Recently, he even revealed he had 10 scripts written for a potential season four.
The Krill © Hulu
Actually bringing The Orville back would no doubt require a lot of maneuvering between MacFarlane’s busy schedule (and the schedules of the rest of its ensemble cast) as well as the budget needed to produce an effects-heavy show set in outer space.
However, all is not lost: all 36 episodes of The Orville are streaming on Hulu and Disney+, so you can spend some time with Captain Ed Mercer and the crew whenever the urge strikes. While the show did feature its share of arcs (and built up quite a bit of lore), you can for the most part also dive in and enjoy a one-off adventure.
Here are 10 of the best Orville episodes… so far.
“Old Wounds” (season 1, episode 1)
Directed by Jon Favreau and written by MacFarlane (who wrote the bulk of Orville episodes across its three seasons and directed several later entries), “Old Wounds” is an obvious entry point. We meet Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) and the crew and start to learn more about their personalities as well as what’s at stake for each of them. For Ed in particular, command of the Orville, a midsized exploratory vessel, is a last-chance career break after spending a year emotionally spiraling following his divorce.
When his ex-wife, Commander Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki), is assigned as his first officer, he’s horrified—but the events of “Old Wounds,” in which Kelly comes up with a clever way to save the day, show how well they work together, though awkwardness springing from their past relationship is a recurring theme.
“Old Wounds” also introduces the Krill, the show’s alien antagonists—who are, yes, suspiciously Klingon-like—and shows off The Orville’s top-notch VFX as the ship travels to a science outpost, where strange creatures, sci-fi devices, and a skirmish in deep space await.
The script shows off how the crew is rich in both competency porn, a la Star Trek, and extreme goofballery, with particular humor mined from two nonhuman members of the crew: the alien tactical officer Bortus (Peter Macon) and the robot science officer Isaac (Mark Jackson), neither of whom get pop culture references or understand the sarcasm or off-color jokes deployed by helmsman Gordon (Scott Grimes) and navigator John (J. Lee).
Less silly but no less layered characters are the young but superstrong alien security chief, Alara (Halston Sage), and the voice of reason, chief medical officer Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald).
“Pria” (season 1, episode 5)
Charlize Theron guest stars as Pria, a mining ship captain rescued by the Orville after they receive her distress call. Kelly, who’s already a little jealous of Ed’s interest in the glamorous new arrival, follows a hunch and discovers Pria’s not who she claims to be.
It’s a fun episode involving wormholes, dark matter storms, and a dastardly double-cross, but the biggest laughs come from a side plot involving Gordon’s decision to teach Isaac about practical jokes—and learning his own lesson that’s as ghastly as it is hilarious.
“Nothing Left on Earth Excepting Fishes” (season 2, episode 4)
Ed’s new romance with Lt. Janel Tyler (Michaela McManus) is going great—until he discovers she’s actually Teleya, a Krill teacher he tried to help in a season one episode. She’s been convincingly disguised as a human as part of a very involved revenge plot but must rely on Ed’s help when they crash-land on a sun-drenched planet, a perilous condition for her species.
Once they’re rescued, a heartbroken, humiliated Ed allows her to return to the Krill, hoping it will help open channels of diplomacy with the notoriously hostile race. Teleya barely wavers in her hatred of Ed and the Planetary Union, but there’s a tiny flicker in her facade as she leaves. The cheesy-smooth sounds of Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman to Me” (Ed’s sentimental favorite) make their parting even more poignant—and it’s not the last we see of her as The Orville continues.
Isaac, in rogue mode. © Hulu “Identity” and “Identity, Part II” (season 2, episodes 8-9)
Claire has just finished telling her two young sons that she’s dating the robot Isaac—they take it extremely well, considering Isaac is tactlessly vocal about his intellectual superiority—when he seems to undergo a total system shutdown. The Orville travels to his home planet of Kaylon, where they learn he’s been deactivated because his mission, which was to learn as much about humans as possible, is now complete.
The emotional component of this looming farewell, especially for Claire and her kids, is compounded when the Orville crew realizes the Kaylon have been stockpiling weapons. Earth is their target, and eliminating all biological life (not just humans) is their ultimate goal. This two-part episode packs in so much action, including space battles, sinister robots with scary red eyes, Die Hard-style escapes through vents (shout-out to Yaphit, the gelatinous Orville engineer), an unlikely alliance with the Krill, and a race to stop an extinction-level disaster.
Not to mention, it’s got a substantive arc for Isaac, who ends up choosing to stay on the Orville rather than return to the mechanical fold. It won’t be the last time the Kaylon strike terror, but the “Identity” episodes are the first time we behold their incredibly intimidating power.
“The Road Not Taken” (season 2, episode 14)
A time-travel glitch in the previous episode (“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow”) results in Kelly and Ed never continuing their relationship past their first date. The season two finale shows us the result of that: a post-apocalyptic alternate timeline in which the Kaylon rule most of the galaxy, and “biologicals” must hide while scraping by to survive.
Determined to set things right, Kelly tracks down almost every member of what would’ve been the Orville‘s crew, including Talla (Jessica Szohr), the new security chief after Alara left earlier in season two. Alara does make a surprise appearance here to lend some much-needed assistance—and the wild, in-the-nick-of-time teamwork helps course-correct not just all the characters’ lives, but the fate of the galaxy.
“Gently Falling Rain” (season 3, episode 4)
Ed’s Krill foe, Teleya, returns to cause more trouble in an episode that sees the Planetary Union and the Krill on the verge of signing an important treaty. In the time since their wilderness adventure in season two, she’s gathered more political power as an extremist leader, and she’s determined to prevent any sort of alliance with the Krill’s long-standing enemies. Things turn violent when the Orville crew arrives as part of the diplomatic mission.
There’s a surprise element in all this: a half-Krill, half-human child who’s revealed to be Ed and Teleya’s daughter, conceived while Teleya was deep undercover as “Janel” on the Orville. There’s too much chaos to get the treaty signed, but Ed and company manage to escape Teleya’s wrath—and Ed realizes he has a suddenly important new reason to figure out a path to peace. Though Telaya is eventually captured later in season three, Ed never gets a reunion with his daughter. Something for season four to follow up on, perhaps?
“A Tale of Two Topas” (season 3, episode 5)
Across its run, The Orville frequently examined Moclan culture—the home planet of Bortus, his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman), and their child, Topa (Imani Pullum). We’re told at first that Moclans are an all-male species, but when Topa is hatched female, we learn there’s an enforced tradition of gender reassignment to preserve societal conformity. We also discover there’s a resistance movement against this practice, but it doesn’t prevent Topa from being surgically transformed into a boy.
The Orville brought surprising nuance to this storyline, which it returned to frequently. In “A Tale of Two Topas,” the character—now a bright, capable young teen—realizes the truth about their origins and asks to be made female again. Not only does this cause a rift between Topa’s parents, as Klyden is dead-set against it, but it’s also a potential political disaster. Moclus, a crucial weapons supplier, might depart the Planetary Union if the surgery is performed aboard a Union vessel.
Long story short (though the New Horizons episodes are much longer than previous seasons; “A Tale of Two Topas” runs 75 minutes, a good 30 minutes more than any of the Fox episodes), Topa becomes a girl again, and some sly maneuvering means Claire and Isaac, who perform the surgery, skirt the rules with success. Bortus and Klyden’s relationship, however, hits a serious road block—though they do later reconcile.
© Hulu “From Unknown Graves” (season 3, episode 7)
The Kaylon origin story! As Ensign Charly Burke (Anne Winters) struggles to work alongside Isaac—she’s grieving the death of the woman she loved amid the Kaylon attack on Earth—she comes to a greater understanding of him in “From Unknown Graves.” The episode not only shows us why the Kaylon grew to hate biological life forms in the first place, suffering great mistreatment by their creators, but also demonstrates they are capable of deeper emotions than originally believed.
While Charly does get to meet an older-model Kaylon with a greater range of feelings, Isaac’s too new to undergo that reprogramming on a permanent basis. That’s OK with Claire, who loves him the way he is. Charly soon comes to see Isaac in a new light, an arc that dovetails with her heroic death in episode nine. It’s an act of self-sacrifice that achieves the impossible: inspiring the Kaylon to reconsider their own negative view of biological life forms.
“Future Unknown” (season 3, episode 10)
The Orville‘s final episode is such a satisfying send-off for the series it would almost be acceptable if it ended there. At the start of “Future Unknown,” Bortus and Klyden renew their “mating vows” to each other in a typically elaborate Moclan ceremony.
At the end of the episode, Claire and Isaac get married—a historic event which even the Kaylon fleet, now part of the Planetary Union, shows up for. We also get one last Alara cameo, and an outstandingly awkward Bortus toast to the happy couple, followed by a much more appropriate one from Gordon as well as his sweet rendition of James Taylor’s “Secret O’ Life” as the camera shows the Orville sailing off into space. The future may be unknown, but at least it’s a seemingly happy one.
Honorable mention: “Midnight Blue” (season 3, episode 8) 
© Hulu
Four words: guest star Dolly Parton. The country legend plays a holographic version of herself in an episode centered around Moclan’s secret all-female colony. Parton pops up to help convince rebel leader Haveena (Rena Owens) to come out of hiding and testify in front of the Planetary Union—a move that’s not without consequences but ultimately helps protect Moclan girls and women.
All three seasons of The Orville are streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Did we skip over your favorite episode? Share your picks in the comments below.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.