Nikita: Maggie Q Talks Season 4 and the Show Coming to an End
The good news for my fellow Nikita fans is the show will be back next season. The sad news though is it will be the end, as the show wraps up with a six-episode final season.
I spoke to the show’s star, Maggie Q, about getting prepared for the final season, her thoughts on the show ending, and what’s to come for the characters, on the heels of a big season finale.
IGN TV: Obviously this is bittersweet, because this will be the end.
Maggie Q: Yeah, this’ll be the last year.
IGN: What are you thinking about going into these final episodes?
Maggie Q: Actually, creatively, I’m really excited. Because in a final season, banging out six episodes… You know how big our episodes are. We’re going to make these even bigger, because there’s only six. So we want to go out movie-style, you know what I mean? Do six movies. You know where we ended it. This season, Season 4, it has to be fast-paced, right? She’s out there.
IGN: She’s out there, and you don’t have Division or any of the old trappings. Is that exciting for you?
Maggie Q: Yeah! She’s on the run again, she’s rogue again. But this time they know what she looks like. She’s being hunted. She’s not anonymous anymore. This is a total game changer like there’s never been. We don’t know how she’s getting out of this, so this is Nikita on the run. Like Run Lola Run… it’s gotta be intense. So six episodes -- if we did 13 it’d be harder. If we did a full season it’d be impossible to end with that bang. But my dream was four seasons, Eric. I wanted four. I didn’t want more than four. Six [episodes] hurt my heart a little, just because I’m going to miss my crew so much. I’m going to have to say goodbye to them in four months, which I didn’t expect to be so quick. But that’s it. Creatively, I’m totally fulfilled. But personally, my heart’s broken because I love my crew so much, and I don’t know when I’ll see them again.
IGN: Your show is known for so many twists and turns and things changing. With six episodes, do you think it’ll be pretty much week-to-week, that type of thing?
Maggie Q: I mean, people are literally going to lose their minds. You know how good Craig [Silverstein] is. He’s really on it. He’s got new shows; he’s a very busy guy now. He’s doing really well. So to have six means we can still have Craig involved, because he’s got a lot [on his plate]. I know now that he’s going to be really focused on banging these out and making them the greatest episodes we’ve ever made. So that’s exciting.
IGN: Obviously, you’ve got these two central relationships with Alex and with Michael. Right now you’re off away from both of them.
Maggie Q: I’m off of everybody!
IGN: [Laughs] So with six episodes, do you think Nikita might be split off from them for a good chunk of that?
Maggie Q: Oh, I think she’ll be gone the whole time, most of the time, I think. The thing is, there’s no real solution to this. Now that they know who she is -- well, kind of.
IGN: They’re close.
Maggie Q: They’re going to get there in two seconds. So Amanda did exactly what she promised to do - that she was going to put Nikita in a position where she will never be rewarded with that love. She wanted to take her life away and she did it.
IGN: Speaking of Amanda, are you looking forward to that final showdown, because, man, Amanda really got built up this season as the prime villain.
Maggie Q: I really am. I mean, I have to kill her in such a major way! I have to hang her by her toenails or something. It’s gotta be really intense, what happens between Nikita and Amanda, because Amanda will not win. But in a way, she’s already won. So that’s what’s sad about it. Because Nikita having a life with anyone she’s loved before puts them in danger, and you know she’s not going to do that.
IGN: Nikita and Michael, obviously, the fans are so invested in them. Suffice to say, it will take more struggles to get them back together?
Maggie Q: Absolutely. To clear someone’s name, after the way that they… As deep as they went to frame her for this, that is going to be really difficult. So we’ll see.
Nikita Executive Producer Craig Silverstein Talks Season 3's Finale and What to Expect in the Final Season
Nikita wrapped up its third season with a ton of changes and a big cliffhanger. I spoke to the show’s creator and executive producer, Craig Silverstein, about the events of the Season 3 finale and what’s to come in Season 4, which has been announced as a six-episode final season.
IGN TV: We’ve got a lot to talk about her with the finale and the final season announcement. So let me get to it with the fact that Nikita’s now on the run. As Maggie Q told me, it’s kind of a return to classic Nikita with her out there on her own. She wants to protect the people she loves, but what do you think made her decide to just needed to split off from them at this point?
Craig Silverstein: I think protecting them is a big part of it, knowing that she’s gone from anonymous to notorious in the blink of an eye, sort of. The other part -- which might be below the surface -- is that at heart, she’s always been a lone wolf. She cares about people, but I think there’s a natural pull for her toward that.
IGN: The big thing, of course, you also did in the finale was getting rid of Division, physically. They literally cannot go back anymore. How did you decide it was time to finally get rid of that and get rid of those sets?
Silverstein: [Laughs] Yeah. It was fun to see them blow up, wasn’t it?
IGN: It was very fun! Did it just seem like the right time to cut that cord?
Silverstein: Yeah, absolutely. It goes along with the same kind of thinking that led to the Death of Percy; that for any given storyline, we don’t want to wear out our welcome. And after so many people knew about the location of Division… the SEALs, the president, Team Nikita and Amanda… The biggest power of that place came from the fact that nobody knew where it was. So once that location started to get out, it was only a matter of time before the actual structure itself became obsolete.
IGN: Let’s talk about the President, because you had kind of a fun double switch there. First, the President choosing to kill herself when Nikita wouldn’t go through with it, but then the actual President still being alive. You could have just done the one and it would have been pretty shocking. How did you then decide to actually have that second layer on it?
Silverstein: That’s been coming for a long time, and it’s part of the framework of Season 4. You’ll also notice there are a couple characters we look back to that weren’t exactly what they seemed to be in the last few episodes. So that’s sort of setting up part of a grand plan by the group.
IGN: This season, you had some fun with “spy-fi” and introduced some elements that were a little more fantastical, as far as Michael’s hand and the ability for someone to be perfectly mimicked. Is that always a delicate line, to decide how far you can go with that stuff?
Silverstein: Yeah, all of those elements of spy-fi, everything you see is grounded in some kind of reality. Obviously the technology to grow back limbs and stuff like that exists. There’s an army department of regenerative medicine. They’ve been able to grow back fingertips, though not a whole hand. For the concept, there’s always an underlying basis of either something that’s real or something that is in development stages, which is what The Shop is all about -- the idea that the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed. But sometimes we don’t have the budget to pull them off in the way that the real world does it. So it’s trying to find that line between what really exists and what we can actually sell as realistic. But we like the science fiction stuff, the spy-fi, and we’d always be happy to push it that way, but we’re always, always seeking to ground a high concept.
IGN: Season 2 obviously left some important threads to deal with, but if it had been the end, it mostly could have worked as a series finale. The Season 3 finale was much more of a true cliffhanger. I have to ask, since you weren’t officially renewed at the time you made this finale, were you kind of rolling the dice?
Silverstein: No, I had a strong feeling that we were going to be coming back. I didn’t know for how many [episodes], but I did have a very strong feeling that we were going to be coming back, stronger than I had from Season 1 to 2 or 2 to 3. So that’s why we left it that way.
IGN: So let’s talk about Season 4 being six episodes. What were your discussions with the network like about that, and how are you feeling about the six episodes?
Silverstein: Six episodes, what I would say about that is that what we are going to plan is akin almost to the feeling of special event. It’s the way that the storylines would come together near the end of the season… Where weeks might pass between episodes in the early part of a season, when we we’re doing more standalone [stories], and then as things get tighter near the end, days are passing; or two episodes will take place over the course of one day. So it’s almost like the end run of a season; that’s what this is going to feel like, which is exciting because we get right to the good stuff right away. The way that Season 3 slingshots you onto that stage, where Nikita is the most wanted woman in the world and is being hunted by the world, is the perfect place to accelerate to.
IGN: I had Nikita fans tweeting me about this and I’m sure you had likewise, but the concern becomes, will this be enough time? With the different plotlines and the different characters and wanting to give resolution to them all, will you have enough time to fit everything in?
Silverstein: Yes, we’ll be able to deal with the major stuff. There are probably one or two storylines that we could have told and we probably won’t now, but they don’t have anything to do with closure. No one’s part will be sacrificed because of the six.
IGN: I’d assume you’d probably just have to be more laser-focused in terms of choosing your guest stars and things like that?
Silverstein: Yeah. It’s going to be heavily serialized. It won’t be about the bad guy of the week.
IGN: Speaking of bad guys, this had been a great season for Amanda, who was always a formidable character, but without Percy she really did come into her own. Has it been exciting for you to develop her and see how she could stand on her own away from Division and Percy?
Silverstein: Definitely. And I can tell you that the plan was to kill Amanda at the end of Season 3. We set out to do that and we thought she was going to die. I think Melinda thought she was going to die; everybody. Only really late, as we were approaching the end and thinking about next season, as we always do -- many of our decisions at the back half of a season have to do with next season, which we begin thinking about then. So we figured that Amanda actually had a place in it and that without her we weren’t as clear at what it looked like in the fourth season. So our plans changed, and Amanda lives to fight another day.
IGN: I assume that almost feels like a nice bit of serendipity, because if she was dead it would be a lot more difficult in six episodes to say, “Here’s someone you should really care about as the new main villain,” as opposed to already knowing and being invested in a character like her.
Silverstein: Yes, absolutely.
IGN: That being said, though, are we going to get to know the people in The Shop a bit more as she works with them in the final season?
Silverstein: I think so, yeah. I think you’ll meet some people from there, and you’ll definitely understand what The Shop is, finally -- who those people are and what they want.
IGN: And I have to ask about poor Owen, who -- forgive me if I’m wrong about Season 1-- but I don’t think Owen has ever been in a season finale of Nikita.
Silverstein: [Laughs] It’s funny that you would mention that. It’s true! He’s always intended to be, we always think he will be, and then for one reason or another it doesn’t work out. I was shocked that we weren’t able to find a way to get him into the finale, but the rule with Owen has always been that we never want to see him if he’s just standing around. And there wasn’t a big enough move. We could have easily. He was still contracted for an episode, Devon [Sawa], so we had to pay him anyway. But unlike Amanda, when we hop to Amanda at the end of Season 2, [to show] she was still there… Really, with where Sam is right now, which is off with his money, our idea was to show him watching with the broadcast that painted Nikita as being assassin of the President. And it just seemed like… it seemed like would be more of a letdown if that’s all we see, then to wonder what’s going on with him and then catch up and find out what’s going on with him next season.
IGN: But suffice to say there is a specific plan for how his story will play out in the final year?
Silverstein: Yeah, absolutely. The other way we were thinking about it was to have him Han Solo back in and save the team, but I’m having too much fun with Sam. I think Sam is a great character. Even though there’s a bit of hope in him and certainly he remembers all of the times with Owen and is still grappling with what that means, there’s still a lot of fun to be had with the wild card.
IGN: Then Alex, it was an interesting year for her because it really showed that it was not easy for her to get over all the things that have happened to her, nor should it be. Are you looking forward to seeing how it’s going to work for her next season with her new sort of cover role that’s not a cover role, and how that’s going to be a part of her life?
Silverstein: Right, it’s a bit Bruce Wayne. Yeah, we’re excited for that. It’s almost like embedding a spinoff-type of idea within the final six and marrying it with the larger arc that happens.
IGN: By you even just using that word as a term, of course, you know that some people are going to say, “Spinoff idea!? Is there a possibility of that?!”
Silverstein: [Laughs] I mean, if they are bringing Nikita to an end, you know, it’s because of the ratings. I think shows get spinoffs because they want more ratings. I don’t think that a spinoff is in the cards, no.
IGN: Circling back to the six episodes, fans are so happy to have the show back, but at the same time they’re frustrated that it’s only six. Understanding that people are passionate about this show, how do you look at it from a fan’s perspective, that there will only be six for the final season? I assume that you wanted more yourself, but that just wasn’t in the cards?
Silverstein: Right. Look, I think that the most exciting thing as a fan -- and there’s no bigger fan of the show than me -- is the idea that it’s actually not going to just go off the air. It’s going to build to a finish, and it will be a complete set at the end. That’s exciting. I’ve never been a part of a show that’s gotten to do that. I’ve been on shows that have been cancelled or I left and the show kept going, or it stopped before it got a true ending. So I think that that’s the satisfying thing. It’d be less satisfying if we didn’t come back at all.
IGN: But now you know that there will be 73 episodes of Nikita - that that is the story you’re telling.
SIlverstein: And you can pull them out of the drawer whenever you want!
IGN: Lastly, let me ask about Mikita. Clearly, these two have had some dramatic highs and lows. What would you say regarding the chances for a happy ending for the two of them?
Silverstein: Well, I won’t talk about their ending, but what Maggie said about the show returning to classic Nikita… As you see by the last few moments of the Season 3 finale, Nikita goes on the run and Michael moves out of frame to chase her, which is the dynamic we all recall so fondly from Season 1.
IGN: So there’ll be some heavy return to the past there with the two of them then?
Silverstein: Yeah, I think so. Because nobody’s better at tracking her then he is.
Have a good read.
so happy 
Any other network would've shot it down instantly. 
can't wait for Fall omg
I'm just mad that I heard that it was officially confirmed to be a SIX episode run. Which is stingy as ****. 10 or 11 would've been nice.
Let's just hope The CW overthinks this decision when all their shows minus SN, VD & Arrow are flopping. Other than that, I'm more than relieved to see that Amanda is still very alive and breathing, I always felt she was the true antagonist of this show. After all, this is not a conspiracy show. It has always focused on the personal motives of these people.
