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.

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.

My favorite novels allow me to imagine the characters afterward and what happened, and that I've witnessed a really great story, where the world goes on.

The future that I see celebrates those types of like-minded ideals and ideas. I don't know what's coming, but I know that we're not going to get knocked out so easy.

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.

There are a lot of shows that have secrets and string people along and use the secrets of the narrative engine to keep people coming back every week. I don't know if those programs even have an answer. I don't know how they build their shows.

I'm not interested in leaving it open-ended. That would just cause me frustration. I wouldn't be satisfied. What's really cool about Fringe, and one of the things we did do right, was that the way we chose to tell the story was that, with every season, there was a closure and then a new chapter. That allowed us to actually make the closure.