TV Shows Like The Orville
If you like The Orville, here are 11 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.
FOX · Drama · The Orville is likely cancelled
The Orville works because it refuses to pick a lane and somehow pulls it off anyway. On paper, a comedy-drama set aboard a mid-tier starship in the 25th century should feel like a parody that outstayed its welcome, but the show earns genuine emotional weight alongside its workplace humor. Creator Seth MacFarlane clearly loves classic Trek-era science fiction, and that affection shows in the way the series uses alien-of-the-week stories to explore real human questions about identity, tolerance, and how people under pressure treat each other. The crew is flawed in recognizable ways, and that keeps things grounded even when the ship is dodging laser cannons.
The best shows like The Orville
1. The Expanse
The Expanse has the same commitment to a fully realized future society that makes The Orville feel lived-in, but it strips out the humor and turns up the political tension considerably. The show follows a detective and a ship captain drawn into a solar-system-spanning conspiracy, and it treats space travel with a physical seriousness that gives every scene in a cockpit real weight. If you liked The Orville for its world-building and its ensemble of people just trying to do their jobs in an impossibly complicated universe, The Expanse delivers that in abundance.
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2. Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica is the show to watch if The Orville's more dramatic, high-stakes episodes were your favorites. The crew of the Galactica are the last remnant of humanity, hunted through space by an enemy that can look exactly like one of their own, and that premise keeps the pressure on every character at all times. It has the same sense that a ship's crew is a kind of family, complete with the friction and loyalty that implies.
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3. Halo
Halo takes a beloved science fiction universe and tries to build genuine human drama inside it, which is exactly what The Orville does with its own future setting. The conflict between humanity and the Covenant is staged on a large canvas, but the show earns its spectacle by investing in the personal stories around it. Viewers who enjoy The Orville's balance of big-picture stakes and individual character moments will find a lot to like here.
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4. Invasion
Invasion takes a quieter, slower approach to alien contact than most shows in the genre, following ordinary people around the world as an extraterrestrial threat dismantles the world they know. That focus on how regular humans process extraordinary chaos connects it to the more grounded, character-first episodes of The Orville. It is worth noting that patience is required here, so it suits Orville fans who prefer the show's reflective side over its action sequences.
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On the Bubble42%
5. Star Trek: Picard
Star Trek: Picard is an easy recommendation for any Orville fan because The Orville was, in large part, a love letter to this exact corner of science fiction. The series catches up with Admiral Picard decades after his Enterprise days, trading exploration for a more personal and at times darker story. The sense of history, the moral seriousness, and the affection for what came before are all present, and for anyone who watched The Orville wishing the tone were slightly more earnest, this scratches that itch directly.
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More on shows like The Orville
Fans of The Orville tend to want two things in roughly equal measure: a sense of wonder about the universe, and characters whose relationships feel real. They are comfortable with shows that take their time, that let a quiet conversation carry as much weight as a space battle. They are also, generally, fine with serialized storytelling, because The Orville rewards the kind of viewer who pays attention across episodes rather than dropping in cold.
The five recommendations here cover a decent range of that appetite. The Expanse and Battlestar Galactica are the closest matches in terms of serious, character-driven space drama, with Battlestar leaning harder into tension and survival and The Expanse offering some of the most grounded, physics-conscious world-building in the genre. Star Trek: Picard is the most direct spiritual ancestor, revisiting a beloved universe with older, more complicated characters. Halo brings the large-scale conflict and rich lore for viewers who want spectacle alongside their story. Invasion is the outlier, a slower, Earth-bound take on first contact that prioritizes human reactions over action, which will suit Orville fans who liked the show's more contemplative episodes better than its louder ones.
More shows like The Orville
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like The Orville?
- The Expanse is the most popular show similar to The Orville in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like The Orville still on the air?
- Of the 11 shows similar to The Orville listed here, 0 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like The Orville?
- The recommendations come from TMDB's similar-titles data, and each is shown with its current AI renewal verdict so you know which are still going.