As FX’s viral vampire drama The Strain readies Season 3, there are hints that next year might see the show’s swan song.
The Strain is currently set to unleash the viciously virulent projectile tongue that is Season 3 later this month, showcasing more vampire outbreak insanity plaguing New York City. However, with the show based on a trilogy of novels penned by the show’s creators Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, it’s being hinted that the series sandbox might be reaching its conceivable limits on the small screen.
At the Television Critics Association summer press tour, The Strain showrunner Carlton Cuse dropped some intriguing details about the show’s future, notably its prospective end. While Season 3 is about to be put on the menu, it seems that burgeoning plans for Season 4 are already germinating. Consequently, the creative coalition will soon arrive at a crucial impasse as the breadth of the original source material starts to be covered. As Cuse tells TVLine:
“As we are beginning to work on Season 4, we’re in the process of trying to figure out how many episode[s] we have left.”
Consequently, in a scenario that almost mirrors the dilemma experienced by the other series of its star David Bradley in the monolithically popular Game of Thrones, we could see The Strain coming back in 2017 for an abbreviated final season. Fielding a rumor that Season 4 will manifest with a 10-episode run, as opposed to the typical 13, Cuse wasn’t quite at liberty to be candid, stating:
“Anything is possible. It’s just too early to be definitive about that, but we are definitely moving towards an ending, and that’s great…. We’re being totally open-minded about it, for sure.”
The show has been adapting -- with noteworthy changes– Del Toro and Hogan’s book trilogy consisting of 2009’s The Strain, 2010’s The Fall, concluding quite definitively in 2011’s The Night Eternal. In a prime example of the television show’s progress, last year’s Season 2 covered the quest of aged vampire hunter Abraham Setrakian (Bradley) to obtain a potent lost grimoire known as the Occido Lumen, which purportedly wields the power to end the vampire threat. That storyline plays out in the trilogy's second book, meaning that this year’s Season 3 could spill into material covered in the concluding novel. Thus, talk of the series’ end isn’t just hype.
However, seeing as the show also happens to be the creation of source material authors Del Toro and Hogan, The Strain also finds itself in the unique position of not needing the blessing of the property creators to expand the mythology for the expediency of television. Thus, Cuse maintaining a mum demeanor on the seemingly inevitable issue of reaching the source material limits could be rooted in the distinct possibility that the show might just exercise (even more) major alterations to the book storyline to keep things cooking. Would such a strategy wear out the show's welcome?
The Strain will be bringing its hybrid brand of outbreak mayhem and vampire battling to FX when Season 3 debuts on August 28.
