Show creator Seth MacFarlane has penned a tale for The Orville crew called ‘Sympathy for the Devil’.
Updated 28/06/22: Thanks to a recent twitter announcement, we’ve learned a little more about Seth MacFarlane’s upcoming novella for The Orville.
Apparently, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ was originally planned as a New Horizons episode but unfortunately became a Covid shutdown casualty.
Due to Covid shutdowns, we had to scrap one episode of The Orville: New Horizons. It was an outlier—a conceptually experimental story. Rather than let it vanish, I decided to adapt it as a novelization. Available digitally July 19, you can pre-order here! https://t.co/T265xYNA0l
— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) June 25, 2022
Additionally, he confirmed the identity of the audiobook narrator reader. It’s not MacFarlane himself as we predicted, but sci-fi legend Bruce Boxleitner. The former Babylon 5 and Tron star has just guested on the show in ‘Gently Falling Rain’, under a ton of prosthetics.
How brilliant are @SethMacFarlane, @BartMixon, and the entire @TheOrville makeup team?
“I’ve never looked better.”#theorville #theorvillenewhorizons pic.twitter.com/wlRze8uz2G
— Bruce Boxleitner (@boxleitnerbruce) June 23, 2022
The Orville – Sympathy for the Devil is now listed on Amazon UK’s Kindle store. Presumably the audiobook will follow soon.
Original article follows…
The Orville: New Horizons is getting a spin-off novella
Show creator Seth MacFarlane has penned a tale for The Orville crew called ‘Sympathy for the Devil’.
After its long gestation, thanks to the pandemic and behind-the-scenes network changes, Season 3 of The Orville is currently playing out. Available on Hulu in the US and under the Star banner on Disney+ elsewhere, the show is dropping weekly episodes on Thursdays.
However, it appears that the new season – subtitled New Horizons – has another outlet too. Disney Books are listing a 120 page novella entitled ‘Sympathy For The Devil’. Penned by the show’s driving force (and star) Seth MacFarlane, it sits within the new season.
Here’s the blurb for The Orville – Sympathy For The Devil:
When Captain Ed Mercer and the crew of the U.S.S. Orville come face-to-face with one of humanity’s most vile ideologies, they must solve the moral conundrum of who to hold accountable for evil deeds real… and imagined.
Occurring just after episode 308, this is the Orville like you’ve never seen it before.
Further details are scant, save for the fact that it lists as an adult book.
The Orville – Sympathy For The Devil is available to pre-order on both Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. It’s available in both eBook and audiobook format. We imagine it will list in the UK presently.
The publication date is Tues, 19th July. By our calculations, that’s two days prior to the episode 8, ‘Midnight Blue’, the story the novella is set after.
There’s no suggestion of an audiobook narrator yet, but we’d say you would be daft to bet against Seth MacFarlane for that job too.