there should at least be season 4..
We've talked in the past about your idea that you see this as a four-season show. Given where we've come by the end of this season, do you still feel that way?
Boy, I tell ya. This is the tough question of all time. It's the question I think about every day. Philosophically, I truly believe it's better to leave the party too early rather than too late. I'd rather leave people wanting more. I want to satisfy the audience as much as I humanly can. But I think it would be more satisfying for people to say, "Jesus, I wish they ran a little longer" than for them to say, "Man, that show used to be good, and then I just lost all interest because it became the same old thing, week in and week out." Of those two possibilities, I'd prefer the first.
Having said that, this show continues to surprise me, and I think it surprises my writers, day in and day out that, knock on wood, we continue to be interested in these characters ourselves. I think that's the root reason the show remains interesting: we, the people creating it, remain interested in the characters we're writing about and the stories we're telling. We continue to be confounded and fascinated by Walter White and why he does the things he does, and is there any good left in him? All these kind of questions continue to fill our days. They continue to consume us.
All of this is to say, four seasons feels pretty good to me, and I have said that in several interviews, but I can't say it with absolute certainty. At the end of every season, we try to end with a big enough bang, in a fashion such that if the whole series ended right then and there, it'd be somewhat satisfying, or at least end with a big enough bang. So if for instance we didn't get a season four, it'd be a bummer of an ending, but it'd be a big ending nonetheless, and it could work as a series ender. Having said all of that, season four might be a good place to end it, possibly we could go to season five. Can't picture anything beyond season five. I don't have a definitive answer for you, because the character continues to be interesting to me, and I'm not that Bobby Fischer player where I had the whole thing figured out in my head. I don't know exactly where Walt's going to wind up. I have the vaguest of ideas of how the series should end in a satisfying, at least to me, manner. But having said that, I don't know how long it'll take to get from the point we're at to that point, and I don't know how long we'll have. Because as with most TV shows, the structure of the business is such that if a show is doing well, you don't think about ending it, you only think about continuing it. We don't have any other business paradigm than any other show has in that regard. There's no real talk of ending things.
I don't have a definitive end date in mind. I kinda wish though that someone would say, "Okay, it's gonna end on this date exactly X number of episodes from now. So write to that wisely." That's how you have at least half a chance of ending a show in a truly satisfying manner, is to know how many days you have left. But in the absence of anyone telling me that, and I don't think anybody's gonna tell me anytime soon, we just have to continue parceling out the story as best we can and kind of hope to keep things interesting.