Despite not meeting the same ratings as its pilot season, Wayward Pines may still be renewed by Fox for a fresh season, given that it is still the network's top performing scripted show for the summer.
It can be recalled that prior to renewal for season 2, there were many questions as to whether the story will continue since the series already exhausted the material from the Blake Crouch trilogy that was the basis of the show in the first place.
The trilogy was originally compressed into a one season miniseries. It became a surprise hit, rating 3.8 million viewers and a 1.1 demo rating and became the highest rating scripted show of the summer of 2015.
Season 2 had to work without the books as a guide and as a result, had some trouble finding its footing in the early episodes of the season but made headway starting from the third episode. Still, it turned up decent numbers and averaged 2.4 million viewers and a 0.7 demo rating.
Fox CEO Dana Walden, for her part, sees the potential in a third season.
"I definitely think there could be a Season 3. It's still the No. 1 scripted show of the summer," she said at the sidelines of the Television Critics Association summer press tour.
With regard to talks about Season 3, she said that they "have a really compelling for Season 3 that I liked very much. We're definitely talking about the show right now."
As for what would become of Season 3, a promotional image released by the network for Fox Now hints that the Abbies and the humans could be coexisting peacefully.
In the Season 2 finale, Jason Higgins made the choice of putting the humans to sleep in cryogenic pods as the Abbies brace to invade the town.
In an interview with Blake Crouch, he explained that the direction of the show has always been to explore mankind's final hours as it is faced with the threat of extinction.
"One of things that we kept coming back to was this idea of man facing his own extinction. What does that look like? Mankind would be the first self-aware species to go extinct. The last saber-tooth tiger didn't know it was the last saber-tooth tiger, but the idea that man knows he is in the sunset of his species is fascinating material to play in. And I think in a way, we push through season 2 to get to have that discussion in a potential season 3. What are those final hours, what are those final moments like? Are we resilient and brave? Are we afraid? We're probably all of those things. What does that mean for art? Does art still matter then? It's a bunch of really profound philosophical questions just about the nature of being, and so that's the space we could play in," he said.
