Should shows plan story arcs way ahead of time? 35 pages of This Is Us' series finale are already written

Los Angeles Times

This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman says planning for the long-term is a fool's errand. “I’ve made a lot of two-year shows,” he says. “The odds of being able to stay on the air long enough to execute a long-term plan are so slim, it feels like a fool’s errand.” Killing Eve executive producer Sally Woodward Gentle says it's important for shows to leave space to be nimble. "For Season 1 we knew the midpoint, and we knew vaguely where we wanted to take the women by the end," she says. "But you then color in as you go. Characters grow and mutate as you write them, and also as actors inhabit them.”