FX's "Fargo" wrapped up its second season last night to widespread praise and acclaim. Unfortunately, fans won't get to revisit the small midwestern town until at least 2017. Showrunner Noah Hawley announced the news during a postmortem conference call following the finale.
"The reality is you won't see it in 2016," Hawley said. "It's a winter show for better or worse. There is not time to shoot another year before this winter is over."
Hawley has long lobbied for more time to prepare each season of "Fargo," often lamenting the compressed schedule that television demands. He wants the majority of season three written before shooting begins.
"It's also very important to me and the other producers that we separate the writing from production. We take our time and break the whole story, write eight of the 10 hours at least and we end up knowing exactly what we're doing and exactly what the whole story is. We're going through the writing process now. I've written the first hour, we're about halfway through breaking the season. We'll be writing over the next few months with the idea we'll go into production, much like our first year, in November and be back on the air in spring of 2017."
Outside of the rigorous demands of "Fargo," it's no surprise that Hawley needs more time for season three. He recently signed on to executive producer and write both the TV adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" and the X-Men spinoff "Legion." He's also producing "Hellhound on His Trail" and "The Hot Rock," all for FX.
We can't say we like this news, but with a schedule like that, at least we understand it.
