'Fringe' Bosses on Season 5 Chances: 'There Are Conversations'

FOX; Getty Images

"Fringe" with executive producers Joel Wyman and Jeff Pinkner (inset)

Could Fringe live beyond a fourth season?

our editor recommends

'Fringe' Star Joshua Jackson Open to Shortened Fifth Season, TV Movie (Video)

'Fringe': Stephen Root Reveals How His Wife Helped Him Get the Role

'Fringe' Boss on Peter's Absence: 'We're Not Going to Drag It Out Until the Point of Frustration'

'Fringe': John Noble Talks Season 4, Peter's Return and Re-Establishing the Timeline (Q&A)

"There are conversations with both the studio and the network [about possibly going to a season 5]," executive producer Jeff Pinkner tells The Hollywood Reporter. "It is certainly our hope that we have a season 5 and beyond and creatively we know what season 5 would be."

In recent weeks, the heavily mythologized drama has hovered around 3.1 million viewers with a 1.1 rating among the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demo, the latter a series low, on Friday evenings. Fox entertainment chief Kevin Reilly even admitted last month that the network was losing money with Fringe. "At that rating, on that night [Fridays], it’s impossible to make money … and we’re not in the business of losing money," Reilly said at the time.

PHOTOS: 17 New Shows Premiering in 2012

Even so, Pinker and fellow executive producer Joel Wyman are forging ahead. "Definitely we feel very confident that we know where we would go, should we be lucky enough," Wyman tells THR. (When asked by THR in early January if a truncated fifth effort or a TV movie presented itself, series star Joshua Jackson was open to the notion.)

It was brought up that Fringe would end its current season having broadcast 88 hours, including the two-hour pilot in September 2008, and if reaching 100 was a significant point.

"I think for all shows that is. I mean 88 is good, but 100 is better," Wyman says. "To Jeff and I, we don't really think about those things. That's for someone else to think about. We just do our show and write our episodes and love our show."

He continued: "We would never want to continue unless we felt that we had something incredibly creative to say and to do. We do and if the powers that be deem it a plausible solution to go forward, then we're thrilled."

On a conference call with reporters late Thursday morning, Wyman said that they "will find out like everybody else" with Pinkner likening the show to The Little Engine That Could.

Fringe airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on Fox.