Those who fell in love with Watchmen may not want to hold out too much hope for season 2. At least not in the immediate future. Or, at the very least, perhaps not with the same creative team. This comes just after the season 1 finale and showrunner Damon Lindelof has revealed that he has no plans for a second season right now, and that this was initially pitched as a contained, single-season arc.

Damon Lindelof didn't just adapt Alan Moore's beloved graphic novel for the screen. Instead, he chose to make something of a sequel to Watchmen, which went on to become a huge, critically-acclaimed hit. Speaking in an interview recently, Lindelof explained that he didn't want to repeat mistakes from his past and put the cart before the horse.

"I feel for someone who's wildly inconsistent in general, I've been fairly consistent on this point. When we first went public with the pilot at New York Comic-Con, I wanted to make sure that everybody who was going along for the ride knew what the design of the season was. Especially after what happened with Lost, and the way that a lot of serialized dramas unfolded, where the audience doesn't know how thick the book is when they pick it up. This is a love letter and an examination of the original Watchmen...

I wanted everyone to know this is not the middle of the trilogy, this is not the beginning of a seven-season run. In my opinion, the best iteration of any season of Watchmen would mirror the original [graphic novel] in that it would be a self-contained story with the resolution of a fundamental mystery. There's always going to be space for more Watchmen. I feel like this world is so expansive, hopefully more expansive now than it was before. You could call something Watchmen and not even feature any of the characters who were in the original or in this season as long as they all occupy the same world."

That does, indeed, leave the door open for more stories in that same universe. Perhaps Watchmen could go an anthology series route like True Detective or Fargo? Speaking further on the topic, Damon Lindelof explained that he doesn't currently have any plans for season 2 himself, but that doesn't mean someone else couldn't come in and make something in the Watchmen universe he's helped to lay out.

"I think particularly when it comes to Watchmen or Fargo where we're knocking the creators of the original, it's sacrilegious and really hypocritical to say, 'Nobody else can come along and do another season of Watchman.' If I was going to do another season of Watchman, I would need to have a really cool idea and a justification for doing it.

I don't have either of those things right now. It doesn't mean that they won't come at some future point. I just finished the show four weeks ago. My antenna is up, but it's like only getting static. I can't say that there will definitely not be a second season and I can't say there definitely will be. That's kind of where my head's at."

On the one hand, it's admirable that Damon Lindelof won't just do another season simply because he can. On the other hand, HBO found themselves a hit and it's hard to imagine they will just abandon ship simply because Lindelof doesn't have an idea. Will they turn to someone else? Will they do a spin-off of sorts? Either way, it's hard to imagine that network will just let it go entirely.

The good news for fans is that season 1 was a contained story. If, for whatever reason, Watchmen season 2 never happens, it's not as though viewers will be left with an epic unresolved cliffhanger or anything like that. Still, if one were to place a bet, odds would probably be in favor of HBO finding a path forward, with or without Damon Lindelof at the helm. In any case, it's probably going to be a little while before anything materializes. This news comes to us via Entertainment Weekly.