The God-honest truth is that Jeff and I just do what we do. You have no control. We didn't have control last year, or the year before either, or the year before that. We can only do what we do, which is to make the show that we love, continue to follow the path for the stories that we want to tell, tell great and compelling stories, week-to-week, that interest our fans, and really hope for the best.

What's a hero if not for its journey.

We can't say anything, but just remember that, on Fringe, nothing is as it seems. There's always a little more to the story behind the story. He's definitely a large part, going forward. A lot of things will come full circle.

It took me a long time to get to a position where I can feel that, with my art, I'm capable of saying what I need to say, and once I finish it, I can sit back and say, "It's done, and I'm okay with that. People can judge it good or bad, and it doesn't matter. I'm okay with it because I said something I needed to say." That's a really hard place to get, as an artist.

I believe in the human spirit. And usually the people who are following me - my fans and things like that - are like-minded people, in that regard. They like to hear about people being in pain, but that are okay, and people feeling like they can't go on, but then they find a reason to go on. How do you marry someone and love them, and then they die? How does that happen? Why are we on this journey? They want to talk about things, and they want to understand. So, this is the perfect vehicle for that.

So, I can live with people saying, "I didn't like it." But I can't live with people saying, "There just seems to be no plan here," 'cause there is a plan. And a lot of people fall into that, where they don't know what their show is yet. Their pilot gets picked up, and they have to figure it out. I would hate to be in that situation.

It's a sci-fi show on network television, and everybody knows that it's an amazing feat that we've been on for so many years. The fans, the press and everyone has been so incredibly kind and so incredibly supportive that we feel like it's a success, in any way, shape or form. It's an expensive canvas.