People Can't Stop Watching 'Manifest,' Even Though Nothing About Flight 828 Makes Sense

NBC’s Manifest crash landed onto the TV scene this fall in a big way. The drama, which focuses on the passengers of a plane that went missing for five years and then suddenly landed with everyone aboard unchanged, almost immediately drew comparisons to other mysterious fan faves like Lost. It’s reached its midseason finale this week, and Manifest will return after the holidays, like most shows that take a break over these winter months. Though no official return date has been set yet, as per The Wrap.

After it finishes out its four remaining episodes, the season will be coming to a close, and as twists continue to unfold, it’s still unclear if Manifest will return for Season 2. According to TVSeriesFinale.com, there’s been no decision on Season 2 handed down by the network just yet, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Earlier in the season, NBC picked up an additional three episodes after the initial 13-episode order, according to Deadline, so that shows that they have some faith in the series’ future.

Fans on Reddit have expressed some frustration with the show — its characters seem a little flimsy to some, the pacing is lacking for others, and the multifaceted plot even has a few concerned that it’s misleading viewers unnecessarily. But a common thread throughout all the criticisms? People still say they can’t stop watching either way.

Creator of Manifest, Jeff Rake, has made it clear in the past that he’s in this for the long haul. He told Collider last month that he had the idea for the show more than ten years ago, and has an ultimate six-year plan for the show.

“In my first incarnation, I did basically have a sense of the ultimate end game, but as anyone who watches or writes television knows, there’s a long way from the beginning to the end,” he said. “Over the course of the years after I was unsuccessful in getting anyone to bite at the concept, it spent a few years on the shelf. And then, I would noodle with it, and give it more shelf time. And then, I would try to get a producer interested, and noodle with it. Ultimately, I was lucky enough to get Warner Brothers and NBC excited about it last summer.”

The same interview also revealed that in Episode 22, there’s a “big card” turned over in terms of the show’s mythology — given that NBC hadn’t even ordered that many episodes at the time of the interview, and still hasn’t, it’s clear that Rake has countless details in mind even in a still-imagined timeline.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Rake also spoke as though he was fairly certain Manifest would be back to tell more of its story even after Season 1 concludes. “Season 1 all transpires, basically, within six weeks of [the plane’s] return. You can expect a greater passage of time when we come back for our [not yet ordered] second season,” he told the outlet.

It’s a little unclear just how things will proceed on a show of this magnitude, especially with so many hidden aspects still to be revealed. But millions of people are still hanging on, waiting to hear the truth about Flight 828.