Zap2it: How far back did you have this plan to let the bad guys win at the end of Season 3?
Jonathan Nolan: Greg, when did we come up with this?
Greg Plageman: Man, this one goes back a ways. We initially conceived the idea of an alternate machine. Decima was an interesting international organization, sort of without boundaries. We kind of have always known that there would be a proliferation of AIs; there would be this competing entity as early as this season, we talked about it. The only question for us was, "When would this thing finally take over?" We talked about next season, and we get to that point where we just can't help ourselves and we pull story up. We say, let's go for it, let's blow it up and let's figure it out from there. In this case, it felt like the right move. It felt like it dovetailed really nicely, too, when the idea came up that Samaritan effectively created Vigilance as a construct. That felt too juicy to pass up. It kind of all coalesced very nicely in a monster twist where Mr. Greer drank Mr. Collier's milkshake. It was a blast.
I think the bigger twist was that it seems like you guys are throwing the procedural conceit out the door at the end of this season and our heroes have now lost their identities. Have you figured out yet how you want the show to move forward in Season 4?
JN: Yeah, absolutely. We like being reckless, but always with a plan. That was our pact with the audience, was that we would be reckless with them a little bit in terms of the risks that we take with the characters and the storylines, but that this was always going somewhere. This show has always been headed towards this season's finale, and headed out of it, we know exactly where we're going. There will be some fun surprises along the way. But one of the things that we were most excited about three seasons in is we had these superhero-like figures, but for Reese and Shaw and Root and Finch, their lives have been somewhat simple until this point because they just get to do the cool part. They just get to be the heroes.
Jonathan Nolan: Greg, when did we come up with this?
Greg Plageman: Man, this one goes back a ways. We initially conceived the idea of an alternate machine. Decima was an interesting international organization, sort of without boundaries. We kind of have always known that there would be a proliferation of AIs; there would be this competing entity as early as this season, we talked about it. The only question for us was, "When would this thing finally take over?" We talked about next season, and we get to that point where we just can't help ourselves and we pull story up. We say, let's go for it, let's blow it up and let's figure it out from there. In this case, it felt like the right move. It felt like it dovetailed really nicely, too, when the idea came up that Samaritan effectively created Vigilance as a construct. That felt too juicy to pass up. It kind of all coalesced very nicely in a monster twist where Mr. Greer drank Mr. Collier's milkshake. It was a blast.
I think the bigger twist was that it seems like you guys are throwing the procedural conceit out the door at the end of this season and our heroes have now lost their identities. Have you figured out yet how you want the show to move forward in Season 4?
JN: Yeah, absolutely. We like being reckless, but always with a plan. That was our pact with the audience, was that we would be reckless with them a little bit in terms of the risks that we take with the characters and the storylines, but that this was always going somewhere. This show has always been headed towards this season's finale, and headed out of it, we know exactly where we're going. There will be some fun surprises along the way. But one of the things that we were most excited about three seasons in is we had these superhero-like figures, but for Reese and Shaw and Root and Finch, their lives have been somewhat simple until this point because they just get to do the cool part. They just get to be the heroes.
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