Outlander in 'early' season 5 renewal talks 

Aimee Spinks/Starz; Inset: Rich Polk/Getty Images

nation: the head of the studio that produces the time-traveling show for Starz says he’s in “early talks” to keep the drama going for a fifth season.

“In order to keep this show year by year and not have a Droughtlander, we had better start hustling on season 5 right now,” Chris Parnell, Sony TV’s co-president of programming, told

this morning on EW Radio. “I can tell you there are early talks on us doing that, to absolutely not have an extended Droughtlander like we’ve had before. That’s the goal.”

As fans know, Starz already picked up a fourth season of the drama that’s based on the best-selling book series by Diana Gabaldon. Production on the next 13 episodes has already begun in Scotland and will be based on

, the fourth tome in Gabaldon’s series. (For more scoop, click here).

“I’ll tell you that I’m in this to tell Diana’s story to completion,” Parnell said. “We want to deliver

all the way through, just like Diana wants to deliver it all the way through. Where she leads it, we want to bring it there. I believe in my heart that our friends at Starz want to do the same thing. The worst thing that can happen is if we ended this prematurely.”

For more from Parnell about the struggles of adapting the novels for the small screen, and whether fans will ever get more than 13 episodes of the show each season, here’s the entire show.