Seth MacFarlane To Create & Star In New Space-Themed Live-Action Series For Fox

Seth MacFarlane is set to create, act in and executive produce a new straight-to-series show set 300 years in the future. Fox has given him 13 hour-long episodes of the comedic drama series. It is his first ever live-action role in TV.

The show is set to air in the 2017-18 season, and it will most likely start filming late this year. 20th Century Fox, the long-time employer of MacFarlane, will be the studio releasing the program.

The untitled series will also be written by him. Fox was quick to jump on the opportunity, which, along with 20th TV, is overseen by Dana Walden and Gary Newman, longtime MacFarlane supporters and chairmen and CEOs of Fox Television Group.

“The show follows the adventures of the Orville, a not-so-top-of-the-line exploratory ship in Earth’s interstellar fleet. Facing cosmic challenges from without and within, this motley crew of space explorers will boldly go where no comedic drama has gone before,” Deadline reports.

Space is a passion for MacFarlane, as he executive produced Fox’s Emmy-winning documentary series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.

“I’ve wanted to do something like this show ever since I was a kid, and the timing finally feels right,” he said. “20th and Fox have been good to me for many years, and of course, Dana and Gary have been fantastic bosses and true pals, so it was a no-brainer to come to them with the project. I think this is gonna be something special.”

The two were just as excited as MacFarlane was. “For almost two decades, we’ve enjoyed an incredible collaboration with our partner and friend Seth MacFarlane,” Walden and Newman said. “He’s one of the smartest, funniest and most talented people we’ve ever had the pleasure of working with – a great guy who’s also had such an impact on both television and popular culture. Seth has one of the most original voices – in every sense of the word – and we’ve been waiting for him to bring us a project as special as this one. It’s classic Seth – fresh and funny, incredibly smart, wickedly subversive and undeniably Fox.”

In addition to the new series, MacFarlane’s Family Guy, is currently in season 14 and renewed through 2016-2017. MacFarlane is also co-creator, executive producer and voice actor on American Dad!, which re-uped for two more seasons on TBS. Furthermore, he serves as an executive producer on Fox’s animated series Bordertown. All three shows are from 20th TV. MacFarlane is an executive producer on the Starz comedy Blunt Talk, starring Patrick Stewart, who also voices Joe Swanson on Family Guy.