Hulu’s Paradise Creator Reveals How Many Seasons the Show Will Last

Emmy-nominated Paradise series creator Dan Fogelman (This Is Us, Only Murders in the Building) has revealed there is a plan already in place for the show to span three seasons, as long as Hulu renews it. This is what Fogelman told THR in a recent interview, revealing that after coming up with the basic idea for the pilot, he took time to establish answers to questions about the premise of Paradise and where the story was headed after allowing “a couple close confidantes” to read over what he had drafted for the first episode. He realized he didn’t know where the show was headed after the initial idea, but after collaborating with John Hoberg and Scott Weinger (who are both writers and producers on Paradise), his “producing partner,” and “talking to experts from all walks of life” for three weeks, Fogelman crafted his path.

“After those three weeks, I said, ‘OK, I know what I want to do now,’” he said. “‘It’s going to be a three-season show, I know where it goes. I know what the shape of each season is. I’m going to go rewrite the pilot just to accommodate a little bit of that, and then I’m going to turn it into people who will hopefully want to make it.’ So I didn’t have it all mapped out when I wrote it, but by the time people got the first script, I knew where it was going to go. Then, as always, you hire a brilliant writers room and they figure out the stuff that you haven’t figure out yet.”

[Warning: SPOILERS for Paradise Episode 1 Follow!]

Paradise stars Sterling K. Brown as Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins, who is tasked with protecting President Cal Bradford (James Marsden). What begins as a political drama thriller told nonlinearly (with the plot unfolding between the past and present) shockingly expands into a sci-fi story when the premiere’s most significant twist drops near the end of the episode. Audiences who thought the biggest mystery of Paradise would be wondering who killed President Bradford were stunned to learn that in the present, our characters are living in a man-made underground city that was built below the Colorado mountains. It’s revealed that President Bradford gave special security clearance to Xavier after the agent took a bullet for the president and saved his life, leading to Xavier being included in the group of survivors moved into a city-sized bunker that was constructed as a save haven from an inevitable extinction-level event on Earth.

[RELATED – Sterling K. Brown’s New Hulu Thriller Series Surprise Drops First Episode]

When asked if Paradise would ever explore the supposed destroyed world outside of the underground city, Fogelman didn’t give a straight answer, but offered interesting teases about the show’s structure for fans to anticipate.

“I have a plan for three seasons of the show,” he said. “Without giving away too much, each season of the show is a slightly different show, within the same show with the same characters. The pilot reveals something at the end, and then there’s twists and turns in the course of the season. Then, the seventh episode is kind of a standout, standalone episode of the show. As we go into [the] second season, we pivot a little bit, but in a way that I think is very follow-able. But yes, there’s big moves ahead.”

“The goal at the end of the first season… I get frustrated by television shows that titillate and keep you guessing and have twists and turns, but then don’t give you the answers at the end of your first break going off the air,” Fogelman added. “I want to provide a complete meal by the end of the episode for the audience that’s invested. Any question that people have after the first couple of episodes should be answered at the end of the eighth episode. Then a new question and journey will start that takes us into the second season.

Paradise serves as a reunion for Fogelman and Brown, as the former created the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning NBC drama series This Is Us. Brown starred in the show and won his first Golden Globe for his portrayal of Randall Pearson in the series. He also earned his second Emmy Award for his performance (his first coming after playing Christopher Darden in American Crime Story). Fogelman told the outlet that he didn’t consciously have the Oscar nominee in mind when he was writing Paradise, but Brown became the obvious choice when the series was essentially greenlit. If the actor, who also executive produces the series, hadn’t agreed to take on the project, Fogelman might not have moved forward with Paradise.

“Part of me was insecure about even approaching Sterling with another TV show,” Fogelman said. “I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable; I didn’t want him to have to pass on something I was doing. I knew the world was his oyster as an actor. But I sent it to him then. And as people were saying that to me, I think I was picturing Sterling the whole time. Clearly, as I was writing this, I was writing it picturing Sterling in the role. And now that I’m sending it to him and I’ve said it out loud, if he says ‘no,’ which I was kind of expecting just out of timing or whatever he had going on, I was thinking, ‘If he says no, I think I’m gonna not do it.’ That was where I was at. Then I sent it to Sterling, and that night, he called me and said he was in, and we just moved forward with it.”

The first three episodes of Paradise are streaming now. New episodes will drop every Tuesday on Hulu.