It came down to the wire last year, with Castle‘s Stana Katic signing on for Season 8 hours before ABC’s upfront presentation. With deals pending for both Katic and costar Nathan Fillion, there’s been a lot of speculation about the show’s future, whether there are contingency spinoff plans or even a Castle 2.0 should Fillion and/or Katic opt not to return.

“We’d love for Castle to keep going for years to come,” ABC president Paul Lee said at a TCA panel today. “There are lots of good ideas for that. I don’t want to give a glimpse to what those ideas might be, but I’m feeling optimistic that we’ve got some good ideas.”