Despite originally being conceived as a single season television project, Wayward Pines is currently being considered for a third season renewal – according to Fox Television Group Chairman and CEO Dana Walden, addressing the press at the Television Critics Association. The show was developed by Chad Hodge, boasts M. Night Shyamalan among its producers and recurring directors, and did well enough in its first season in 2015 to earn a surprise second season.
Those new episodes concluded on July 27th, 2016, and Dana Walden is now looking to the future of the show.
“I definitely think there could be a season three. It’s still the number one scripted show of the summer. It struggled. Most shows struggle year to year. We don’t know yet what we’re going to find when the multi-platform numbers roll up, ultimately how big that audience is. I think I’m sharing a point of view of Night’s that the first couple episodes were trying to find its way in a reset. By sort of the third episode on, it really hit its stride. It’s hard when you have to reinvent a series each season.
“They have a really compelling idea for season three that I liked very much. We’re definitely talking about the show right now.
“I hope to make [a decision] in a pretty timely way. I know that Night’s schedule is busy. We also have almost all the information we need. We just want to see a few more of the delayed viewing platform results.”
The show is based on the Wayward Pines novels by Blake Crouch, and is essentially a mystery-thriller with elements of science fiction mixed in. The storylines of the novels were largely covered in the first season, however, so the show’s writers are now very much off-book in terms of the way the show is evolving. As such, the “compelling” third season idea that has so impressed Dana Walden is impossible to predict – but hopefully we will get to see it for ourselves if the “delayed viewing platform results” go in the show’s favour.