Back to the Fringe (

By:Rob Vaux
Date: Saturday, August 08, 2009


Producers and cast members spoke at length about the second season of Fringe at the TCA press event Thursday, addressing the surprise ending of the first season and the ways in which the hit Fox show will advance in the future. Producer Jeff Pinkner was joined by co-creators Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and cast members Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, and John Noble.
"As we went along," Pinkner said, "we got a better handle on the balance of our characters and the plots, making sure that our plots where character-centric… we learned this with Alias and Lost: with the shows that are really about the characters, the characters and the actors playing them start to meld a little bit more.
"One of the lessons that we tried to remind ourselves of all the time is that--as much as we should be making a show that is intriguing and makes you think and that is about these mysteries, first and foremost, it should make you feel something."
As for the season finale--which revealed a parallel universe where 9/11 apparently never happened--Pinkner says that the show will remain focused on it, and not branch out into further dimensions. Though the next season takes place predominantly in our universe, "what happens over there impacts what's happening over here."
Pinkner was also high on actor Leonard Nimoy, who plays William Bell on the show and will be returning for Season 2. When asks how many times Nimoy would appear, he replied "as many as he wants. Truly. We have an open invitation. We've already filmed one of them; there will be several more. It was 106 degrees outside when he filmed, and unlike LA or New York, the sound stages in Vancouver don't have air conditioning. And like a pro, he sat there all day, never went back to his trailer, and did pages and pages and pages of dialogue. Sincerely, his wife told be that he practices biofeedback, and he just sort of regulates his body temperature. It's very Spock-like."
Both creators and cast were quick to cite fans as the reason Fringe has done so well.
"[The fans] are incredibly intelligent, which helps us out a ton. There is a certain accepted dramatic irony, a certain accept humor. The stuff that the characters are dealing with is admittedly on the fringe, it's admittedly weird… and yet here it is!"

Series: Fringe