Fox Will Stream FRINGE Premiere To Colleges

Fox will be simulcast-streaming the season premieres of FRINGE (and TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES) through a special college portal which will be accessible only to .EDU domains. The "simul-streams" will be complemented with pre- and post-shows featuring behind-the-scenes footage and music videos, as well as cast and producer interviews. FRINGE will simulcast Tuesday, Sept. 9 (8:00-9:35 PM ET/PT) on FOX and on college campuses online at www.fox.com/fringe/college.

Click here to read the full press release

"FRINGE" AND "TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES" GO TO COLLEGE WITH INNOVATIVE SEASON PREMIERE SIMUL-STREAMS ONLINE AT FOX.COM
Released by FOX
[NOTE: The following article is a press release issued by the aforementioned network and/or company. Any errors, typos, etc. are attributed to the original author. The release is reproduced solely for the dissemination of the enclosed information.]

"FRINGE" AND "TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES" GO TO COLLEGE WITH INNOVATIVE SEASON PREMIERE SIMUL-STREAMS ONLINE AT FOX.COM

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES Premieres Sept. 8; FRINGE Premieres Sept. 9

In an unprecedented event, FOX will stream the premieres of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES and FRINGE exclusively for on-campus college students at www.fox.com. Only students on college campuses accessing through a college internet domain (.edu) will have the opportunity to watch the episodes online simultaneously with their primetime premieres.

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES will premiere both on FOX and on college campuses online at www.fox.com/terminator/college on Monday, Sept. 8 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT), and FRINGE will simulcast Tuesday, Sept. 9 (8:00-9:35 PM ET/PT) on FOX and on college campuses online at www.fox.com/fringe/college. The "simul-streams" will be complemented with pre- and post-shows featuring behind-the-scenes footage and music videos, as well as cast and producer interviews.

In the second season premiere of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES, viewers will catch up with the Connors in the aftermath of Cameron's (Summer Glau) jeep explosion. As they try to pick up the pieces, Sarah (Lena Headey) and John Connor (Thomas Dekker) are forced to confront the reality of John following his destiny. Meanwhile, Agent Ellison's (Richard T. Jones) faith is challenged and he's forced to confront the Feds in the aftermath of Cromartie's (Garret Dillahunt) massacre; and, Shirley Manson joins the cast as Catherine Weaver, the CEO of a high-tech corporation.

From J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the team behind "Star Trek," "Mission: Impossible III" and "Alias," FRINGE is a new procedural thriller that explores the blurring line between the possible and the unimaginable. In the series premiere, an international flight lands at Boston's Logan Airport carrying crew and passengers decimated by a mysterious virus. The event brings together an unlikely trio FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), brilliant but formerly institutionalized scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble) and his scheming, reluctant son Peter (Josh Jackson) who uncover a deadly mystery involving a series of unbelievable events that may be a part of a larger, more disturbing pattern.

Produced by Bartleby Company and The Halcyon Company in association with Warner Bros. Television, TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES is executive-produced by Josh Friedman, John Wirth and James Middleton. Toni Graphia and Natalie Chaidez serve as co-executive producers.

The FRINGE pilot is directed by Emmy Award-winning Alex Graves ("The West Wing"), and the series is produced by Warner Bros. Television and Bad Robot Productions. J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner and Bryan Burk serve as executive producers.

* Thanks to TheFutonCritic for this press release.

NY Times Interview: J.J. Abrams on FRINGE

The New York Times has an interview with J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Bryan Burk on FRINGE, where they discuss the FRINGE formula, and the lessons learned on Lost, Alias, and Felicity on how to make a TV show complex, without making it confusing.

Click here to read full article

Complexity Without Commitment
By DAVE ITZKOFF

IF you’ve ever been utterly baffled by a television show that J. J. Abrams had a hand in creating — too confused to follow the serpentine plot twists of “Lost” or “Alias” or, heck, even “Felicity” — know that Mr. Abrams, the prolific writer, producer and director, has been annoyed too. With you.

“I just got tired of hearing people say to me, over and over, ‘Yeah, I was watching it, but I missed one, I got really confused, and I stopped watching it,’ ” he said in a recent phone interview.

If viewers find this kind of show frustrating, it’s his own fault: he practically invented it. Over the past decade Mr. Abrams, 42, has helped pioneer a storytelling style that demands total commitment from audience members, requiring that they keep up not only with complicated single-episode plotlines (can a time-traveling castaway alter past events to help himself in the present?) but also with fiendishly intricate narratives (how did the Oceanic Six get off their mysterious island, and how might they get back?) that can take an entire season — or seasons, plural — to play out.

It is a strategy that has built cult followings for Mr. Abrams’s series and won him praise for his braininess. Yet even he recognizes that when it comes to recruiting new viewers, it’s about as effective as proposing to go steady on a first date.

“If you start going out with someone and immediately they’re like, ‘Look, we have to see each other every week,’ you run from that person,” Mr. Abrams said. “It’s like, ‘Can’t we just see how it goes?’ ”

Mr. Abrams is especially mindful of the television-series-as-relationship metaphor as he prepares “Fringe,” which will have its premiere on Fox on Sept. 9. Created with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the screenwriters of “Transformers” and Mr. Abrams’s forthcoming “Star Trek” film, “Fringe” is an hourlong drama about an investigative team whose explorations lead to a shadowy world of science fiction and the seemingly supernatural.

It is also Mr. Abrams’s attempt to rectify the narrative (and viewer attention span) problems he faced on previous shows and to synthesize the many lessons he has learned from them into a series that is both complex and accessible, and that is capable of arriving at a determined conclusion over an undecided number of episodes.

“The evolution from your ideas and expectations and intent to what actually occurs in the series is a massive gulf,” Mr. Abrams said. “It’s a best-effort scenario. But I think that’s what a series is anyway.”

His newest show was born from pragmatism. In 2007 he was preparing to direct “Star Trek” for Paramount, but he also owed a television series to Warner Brothers, the studio that produces “Fringe,” and he turned to Mr. Kurtzman and Mr. Orci for help. They traded ideas about beloved fantasy films and television series — “The X-Files,” “Altered States,” the early movies of David Cronenberg — but also looked carefully at procedural crime dramas dominating the networks. “When 6 of the Top 10 shows are ‘Law & Order’ and ‘C.S.I.,’ ” Mr. Orci said, “you have to be a fool not to go study what it is that they’re doing.”

Cross-pollinating these genres, they came up with three characters — a neophyte F.B.I. agent (played by Anna Torv), a brilliant but mad scientist (John Noble) and his wayward son (Joshua Jackson) — who solve a single mystery each week. (For starters: Who unleashed a flesh-melting virus on an airplane, killing all its passengers?) The initial goal, Mr. Abrams said, was to create a show that suggested complexity but was comprehensible in any given episode — a goal he felt eluded him on “Alias.” On that series, a spy thriller that appeared on ABC from 2001 to 2006, the internecine warfare between the C.I.A. and a rival agency called SD-6 became so bewildering that, Mr. Abrams said, no casual viewer could keep up.

“You’re trying to track this show,” he said, “in which these bad guys are acting like good guys, the good guys are acting like bad guys, and the good guys are letting the bad guys exist. I can completely understand tuning in to Episode 3 and being like, ‘Huh?’ ”

In the second season of “Alias” ABC asked Mr. Abrams to conclude the C.I.A./SD-6 story line, an abrupt move that he said hurt the show. “There was this inherent joy that the series took in its Byzantine DNA,” he said. “Once we destroyed that convolution, the show was a little aimless in some ways.” But not all of Mr. Abrams’s colleagues agree. “I was often taking the side of the studio and the network,” said Mr. Orci, who produced “Alias” with Mr. Kurtzman. The lesson of “Alias,” Mr. Orci said, is that “you can slow down, and you can tell stand-alone episodes with the same scale of story and mystery.”

As the “Fringe” creators further developed the show, they decided it should have an overarching narrative — that its many paranormal phenomena and mysteries would turn out be part of a larger pattern, referred to simply as the Pattern — to tie its individual episodes together.

Such storytelling devices, Mr. Kurtzman argued, were practically mandatory for a science-fiction-theme show in an era when Internet spoilers are a perpetual hazard. “When we were kids, you had to wait three years between ‘Luke, I am your father’ and Luke showing up at Jabba’s palace,” Mr. Kurtzman said, referring to the original “Star Wars” movies. “You want new information, you’re going to have to wait for the sequel. Obviously that’s not an option anymore.”

Yet the strategy of the multiepisode (or multiseason) story arc — of soap-opera-like story elements that are revealed, drip by drip, over the life of an entire series — is one that Mr. Abrams has introduced to his other series, often spontaneously.

When “Lost” began (with an idea from Lloyd Braun, who was then the ABC Entertainment chairman, for a series about survivors of a plane crash), Mr. Abrams and his collaborator, Damon Lindelof, quickly composed an outline that introduced major characters but lacked the arcane story components that became synonymous with the show: no Dharma Initiative, no Hanso Foundation, no enigmatic Others. Once this outline was approved, Mr. Abrams gathered the founding creative team of “Lost” to figure out what the show would actually be. In this meeting he began to concoct some of its more fantastical elements, including the use of flashbacks to reveal who characters were before they arrived on the island.

“Immediately we were like, yes!” recalled Bryan Burk, Mr. Abrams’s longtime producing partner. “And then J. J. was like, ‘And there’s a hatch!’ ” — a mysterious underground bunker, introduced halfway through the first season of “Lost,” whose full significance has not yet been revealed.

The hatch, Mr. Burk said, posed a problem: “Do you discover the hatch in Episode 2? Or do you discover it in Episode 10? And upon discovering it, do you go in it in Episode 11? Or Episode 12?”

The solution to such narrative puzzles, Mr. Abrams and his colleagues said, is to have a game plan with clearly defined goalposts that can be moved around as a season and a series unfold. Know the ending to your series when you begin it; hope your show continues in perpetuity but always be prepared to wrap it up. (In this spirit the producers of “Lost” announced last year that the series would conclude at the end of its sixth season, in 2010.)

In the case of “Fringe” its creators say they have figured out a finale — naturally, they declined to describe it — that could be deployed at any point in the series. “If we’re canceled at Episode 13,” Mr. Orci said, “we’ll tell you at Episode 13, and if we go on, you could literally find this out in seven years.”

Recollections differ as to how much of the increasingly complicated “Fringe” story line was pitched to executives at Warner Brothers and at Fox when the series was ordered. “You always have to be on the up and up with your studio and your network,” Mr. Burk said. “There’s too much at stake, and they’re taking the biggest gamble.”

But Mr. Abrams cautioned against too much candor. “There are certain details that are hugely important,” he said with some mirth, “that I believe, if shared, will destroy any chance of actually getting on the air. These are the kinds of things that scare people away.”

Mr. Abrams has learned the hard way that a network gets what it wants, and that it’s not always detrimental to his shows. In 2002, when he was producing the final season of “Felicity,” his college soap opera on WB, the network told him that it was ordering five additional episodes of the show — just as he was preparing to shoot the graduation episode intended as the series finale. He and his staff quickly devised a five-episode epilogue styled after “It’s a Wonderful Life,” in which the title character revisits crucial moments from her past. “It was the craziest idea,” Mr. Abrams said, “but as soon as Felicity went back, she was the most interesting character she’d been in years.”

If “Fringe” is a hit, such decisions about what plot devices to employ and when to employ them will fall less and less to the show’s creators — who are busily preparing films like “Star Trek” and a “Transformers” sequel — and more to a writing staff led by Jeff Pinkner, a former “Lost” producer.

At this early stage in the show’s progress, Mr. Abrams acknowledged, it can be hard to let go of the reins. “We’ve been thinking about this story for a year, and our staff has been thinking about it just for a couple of months,” he said. “Right now it’s all hands on deck, to micromanage every decision.”

But on that day, some months or years away, when he is no longer fully immersed in the making of “Fringe,” when his writing staff produces plot points that take him by surprise, Mr. Abrams said, he will know the show is a success. “It takes discipline to be able to be gracious and go: ‘I had nothing to do with it. They really ran with it. This is their ball now.’ ”

Fringe Music Video: Kerli - Walking On Air

Here is a special FRINGE version of Estonian musician Kerli's "Walking on Air" music video.

Fringe Promotional Photos: Episode 1.01 - Pilot

Fox released these "episodic photos" from the Pilot episode of FRINGE, which premiers Tuesday, Sept. 9 (8:00-9:30 PM ET/PT) on FOX.

* Thanks to SpoilerTV. Photo credit: Ben Mark Holzberg/FOX

TV Addict Interview: Lance Reddick

The TV Addict has an exclusive interview with Lance Reddick, who plays Department of Homeland Security special agent Phillip Broyles in FRINGE, but is better know for playing Matthew Abaddon on LOST, and Cedric Daniels in the HBO series The Wire.

Lance talks about working on FRINGE, LOST, and The Wire, but is very careful not to reveal any secrets.


Click here to read the full article, or visit TheTVAddict.com

Exclusive Interview: FRINGE Star Lance Reddick

Let me start of by saying that you play TV’s most mysterious characters. From LOST to FRINGE I have absolutely no idea what you are up to! Do you?
Lance Reddick: In LOST I can definitely say I have no idea!

Do you get that type of reaction a lot?
A fair amount. I have to admit that not that many people have stopped me about LOST, especially after coming off the last and biggest season of THE WIRE. I get stopped for that a lot more.

Thanks to the critical acclaim of THE WIRE and your guest spot on LOST did you even have to audition for your role on FRINGE? That was the funny thing about FRINGE. I didn’t have to audition for LOST, but with FRINGE I actually auditioned for a different role.

Which role?
Actually when I first read the script the role I thought I was most right for was Broyles. But when I went to audition they had me read for Charlie. So I didn’t hear anything and a month later I got a call to come back and audition for Broyles. And a week later I as in Toronto.

Which coincidentally enough is my hometown! What did you think of the city.
I love Toronto, I’ve actually shot a couple of films up there. But now we’re shooting in show in New York.

Do you think it’s going to be a challenge arranging your schedule so that you can make it back to Hawaii ? When can fans expect you to return to LOST?
As with all things on LOST, I don’t know. I only know that I am going back. But I don’t know when or for how many episodes.

As an actor do you have a preference between working on a gritty realistic show like THE WIRE versus shows with more of a Sci-Fi bent like LOST and FRINGE?
My preference had always been to do gritty realism. But I’ve done so much of it in my career that I find myself now ready to have fun. With both LOST and FRINGE it’s like reading an Alexander Dumas Novel. I’m just ready for the action, adventure and fun.

As is the case with most of J.J. Abrams shows, the motivations of your FRINGE character Agent Phillip Broyles aren’t exactly clear. Do you know where your character is heading this season?
No.

Is Broyles good or bad and as an actor does it make a difference?
It’s a little harder for me on LOST. But as far as FRINGE goes, I’m not saying that the creators have told me I’m good. But I’m fairly confident that I’m a good guy.

That’s what I love about all of JJ’s shows. The line between good and evil is pretty murky.
Exactly. Let me put it this way, there is always more than one dimension.

Do you ever worry that you’re going to accidently spill a massive secret to a member of the press [TV Addict note: Fingers crossed!]. Or have you gotten pretty good, as the British say, at keeping ‘mum’?
Especially on this show, because I know a little more than I do with LOST, I tend to generally be on pins and needles that I’m going to say the wrong thing.

I imagine it wouldn’t be too good a feeling to wake up to a phone call from J.J. saying, “Lance, You ruined the season I can’t believe you gave away….”
By the same token. I only know as much as I have seen in the latest sript.

Don’t miss the series premiere of FRINGE on September 9th at 8PM on FOX

TV Guide Interview: JJ Abrams on Fringe

TV Guide has an interview with JJ Abrams, where he discusses FRINGE, his love of airplanes, Mad Men, and the upcoming Star Trek movie.

Click here to read the full article

J.J.'s Next Missions

Lost's J.J. Abrams explores strange new worlds with Fringe and "Star Trek"

BY SHAWNA MALCOM

Your sci-fi series Fringe is the most buzzed-about new show of the fall. Are you feeling the pressure?

I feel the pressure every time. I felt it on Felicity, on Alias, on Lost, and I feel it on Fringe. It goes with the territory. But I'm far more excited about people seeing it than I am nervous that they may not like it.

What can you tell us about it?

I don't want to give away too much.

What a shock!

(Laughs) I know, right?

OK. So the show revolves around a female FBI agent who investigates bizarre cases with the help of a formerly institutionalized scientist and his equally brilliant but estranged son. Will the story line be ongoing, like Lost's?

For the most part, you'll be able to tune in whenever you want and get it. You'll have a beginning, middle and an end. But if you want to track the big bad guy and the big overarching story, you can do that, too.

The first episode opens with a troubled flight. Was it an intentional nod to Lost?

It's almost embarrassing, but I wasn't even thinking about that. The idea for that sequence came to me, and then I thought, "Oh, Lord." [Laughs] Then I was like, "Do we change it?" But the Story could not be less like Lost. To me, there's just something about airplanes. I was obsessed with the "Airport" movies when I was a kid. I saw all of them, including "The Concorde-Airport '79." So it's a place that's kind of a go-to for me. But I'm guessing I can't really do another airplane thing for a while.

You've become known for writing strong female characters: Alias' Sydney, Lost's Kate and now Fringe's Olivia. Is this another go-to place for you?

It's funny because I don't consciously write strong women. I just hopefully write strong characters who may happen to be women. If Olivia were a guy, I don't know that you'd be saying, "Oh, it's a strong male." But what I love about Olivia is she's got a lot going on that's just barely alluded to in the pilot. And Anna [Torv] is so good because she's clearly the prettiest person in the room, but she's not inaccessible. She's not phony pretty. When I saw her audition, I had the same undeniable feeling I had when I saw Jennifer Garner or Evangeline Lilly.

In the last few years, you've primarily focused on film-directing "Mission: Impossible III" and the upcoming "Star Trek," and producing "Cloverfield." Did you miss TV?

I did. It's a lot of work, but every time I get to do television, I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

Are there any shows you watch now and think, "Man, I wish I would've come up with that"?

There's only one that I am in awe and envious of: Mad Men. My dad wasn't an adman, but he sold advertising time for CBS in the '60s and early '70s, and he lived that world. Mad Men doesn't just take place in that world - which is incredibly rich and funny and ironic and oddly heartbreaking - but it does so beautifully. It's just an incredible thing to behold.

You always have a million different ideas and projects bubbling at once. Does J.J. Abrams ever suffer a creative block?

Every day. I'm not kidding. You literally just described my status quo.

How do you overcome it - candy, alcohol, a baseball bat?

Part of the way I dig out of the hole is being reminded of the people I'm getting to work with.

On "Trek," one of the people you worked with was Leonard freakin' Nimoy!

I know! But it's funny, because it wasn't until very recently that it really hit me how cool that was. There was so much work to do during the shoot and there were so many fires that needed putting out that there wasn't much time to sit and acknowledge the reality of working with him. Then the other day I was watching the movie, and there he was. There was Spock! And it hit me like, "Holy s---!" [Laughs] It was kind of like a huge delay.

There are still nearly nine months until "Trek"'s release. What can you tell us?

All I can say is that I think this movie is going to be worth the wait. It's blessed 'with a wonderful optimism and an incredibly alive and invested cast. While the visual effects are gonna be unbelievable, the movie is working right now with only 50 of our 1,OOO-plus visual effects finished. It's funny, it's scary, it's dramatic, emotional and entertaining - all without having the stuff you'd think a movie called "Star Trek" would require. That to me is exciting.

FRINGE Series premiere: Tuesday 9/9, 8/7c, FOX

* Thanks to Susan via SpoilerTV for the scans.

Fringe Podcast: Fringe Dwellers

The first(!?) Fringe podcast is the Fringe Dwellers Podcast, brought to you by Jen from the Lost-related Hydra Cooler podcast, and Adele from the Three Chicks and a Mic podcast. Just like Anna Torv and John Noble, Adele is from Australia (although she doesn't fake an American accent.)



The podcast is spoiler-free, and talks about the general layout of the show, the cast, etc.

If you have a comment or question for Jen & Adele, you can email them at fringedwellers@gmail.com.

You can also download the episode at FringeDwellersPodcast.blogspot.com, or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Fox's Official FRINGE Site Gets New Look

Fox's official FRINGE website - Fox.com/Fringe has a slick, brand new look. The glyphs are gone, replaced with the usual TV show categories: Info, Bios, Blog, Videos, Gallery, Features, etc. There is also a Fringe newsletter that you can sign up for, and a new Fringe Widget that features a countdown to the Fringe Season Premiere.

* Thanks to Steve C. for the update!

Sci Fi Magazine: Fringe

The October issue of Sci Fi Magazine has a Fall TV Special with a section on Fringe, which they call 50% The X-files, 40% Alias, and 10% Young Frankenstein.

The article features interviews with J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, where they layout the overall plan for the show - stories with a beginning, middle and an end, plus slightly more engaging, conspiratorial stuff for the fans. They also have the endgame for Fringe already in sight.

"There is an answer. We know what's causing the Fringe," says Orci.

"We do know what the pattern is," Kurtzman laughs.

Click here to read the full article:

FRINGE

THE CREATORS OF LOST CRAFT A NEW CONSPIRACY THEORY SERIES THAT AIMS TO BE A NEW GENERATION'S X-FILES.

"THE WORLD OF THE DAVID CRONENBERG science pushed to its limits, mad science or science gone awry, corporate culture versus consumer culture, that place where the flesh and the synthetic begin ... these are kind of an obsession for me," says executive producer J.J. Abrams. "Altered States is a movie that I've been obsessed with since it came out. There have been these influences that have stayed with me. I was certainly obsessed with Twilight Zone. I loved Night Stalker. I loved X-Files.

"All these things have been percolating for me as a result of not seeing something like this or with this spirit on the air. I simply felt that coming up with something that would be in the spirit of those types of shows and movies, that would be fun to do. And then the specific story just came out of long discussions that I had with [co-creators] Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci," says Abrams.

What these longtime collaborators of such works as Alias, Lost and Transformers came up with is the new Fox mystery series Fringe. In the series, an FBI agent finds herself up against a rash of unexplained phenomena, and she recruits a possibly unstable genius and his son to help figure out what's going on. Fringe stars Australian actress Anna Torv as FBI agent Olivia Dunham, Joshua Jackson as Peter Bishop and John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop.

"I feel the show exists on the fringe," says Abrams. "It exists in that cutting-edge place where the things you would think are absolutely impossible are actually happening right this moment in the world or on the precipice. And that to me is a very cool and weird and dramatically fertile place to be."

"One of the themes of the show is that today's advancements can be used for unbelievably beautiful, wonderful things, but they can literally destroy us," says Orci. "And it is alluring for its potential benefits and its potential horror. That is a great thing literally; the science of the show and what happens with it is in the eye of the beholder."

"I think the other aspect of Fringe that is very exciting to us is that it's a really interesting character story," says Kurtzman. "We spent a lot of time thinking about what was our trifecta of characters that we knew we needed to put in this series.I think we came to the idea that telling a father/son story and a relationship story was a really compelling in [to the story]."

"It is a show about people who have real internal lives and real heartbeats and real points of view," says Abrams. "They're relatable characters. They're pitted against incredibly hyper-real and often terrifying situations. In other words, it's a recipe for my favorite kind of storytelling."

According to the producers, Fringe will be a mix of the procedural with strong mythology elements. "You still get crimes. You still get stories with a beginning, middle and an end. But then for the fans there will be slightly more engaging, more conspiratorial stuff.... The idea of literally crashing Law & Order with Lost is very exciting for us," says Kurtzman.

And yes, they are creating Fringe with an end in sight. "There is an answer. We know what's causing the Fringe," says Orci.

"We do know what the pattern is," Kurtzman laughs.

Beyond that, they aren't fighting the online buzz calling Fringe "The X-Files for a new generation."

When we did Alias, we were accused of ripping off Mission: Impossible, and when we wrote Mission: Impossible 3 we were accused of ripping off Alias. And so here we have The X-Files, which itself is a derivative of Night Stalker in the '60s, which is itself a derivative of The Twilight Zone. We'd love to be favorably compared to X-Files, but on the other hand I think we'd be doing this with or without The X-Files," says Orci.

- Kalhie Huddleston

Fringe Press Kit: The Phillip Broyles Files

Fox has begun sending out FRINGE Press Kits, which are made to look like an FBI case file, similar to one shown in the Pilot episode.

Included in the kit is a letter, a digital voice recorder, "evidence" of The Pattern, and a DVD of the pilot episode.

The letter, from J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci, describes the show and jokes about the leaked pilot:

We're so thrilled that you liked the pilot of FRINGE, which you more than likely downloaded illegally.

Also in the kit is a digital voice recorder with the voice of Phillip Broyles describing some events of the pattern.



Click here to read the transcript:

File 90908

John Thompson, a normal kid, went missing back in '98. He reappeared last month, half-way around the world - hadn't aged a day. 46 other children who went missing that same year turn up - same story.

Next...

A Sri Lankan fisherman reports a low-flying plane emitting a high-pitched frequency that blows out all their windows. An hour later, an 8.7 sub-surface earthquake in the same spot creates a tsunami that kills 83,000 people.

Next...

A patient in Lisbon wakesafter years in coma, writing a series numbers that turn out to be exact real-time coordinates of our carrier battle groups in the pacific - intel that's classified above top secret.

It remains inconclusive to me whether these events are linked by a conscious hand, or have occurred naturally though random events. Ongoing investigation in Argentina shares the rapid cell division that Dr. Bishop found in the most recent victim. The ability to regulate sustained grown through the body's own hormonal system will be further studied through our own research. Resurrecting dormant Bishop/Bell projects will need to be reconsidered in light of this new event. But I am not prepared to link these investigations. I am tired of repeating my colleagues mistakes. After years of separating the conventional progress of civilization from events that reveal a new form of advancement, I'm still left asking - is there a message, and if so... who is sending it?

The other bits of evidence include photos of: the missing boy John Thompson, the Sri Lanka tsunami damage, and the handwritten navy coordinates. These are the same "pattern" stories described in the Fringe Preview Comic.

* Thanks to TV Barn (via FringeBloggers)

Fringe Televison Talks to J.R. Orci - Part 2

Here is Part 2 of our exclusive interview with Fringe supervising producer J.R. Orci (part 1 can be found here):

Q: Who does the cow really work for?

J.R. ORCI: Arvin Sloane.

Q: What are your favorite movies / TV shows?

J.R. ORCI: I can't say I have ONE favorite of anything. But in my top five I'd count "Back to the Future" in the movie column. I'm a sucker for well executed time paradoxes. And any movie that has a scene where the main character is forced to make out with his mother to restore the timeline gets a gold star. For TV, I'd say "Battlestar Galactica" is among the current favorites. As a classic sci-fi nut you'd be hard pressed to find a more perfect example of the genre going back to its roots. That, and I like giant spaceships that make things go kablooey.

Q: Buzzsugar reports your brother Roberto Orci as saying that the Fringe team devours the press in search of "constructive feedback". Do you recall a specific instance of feedback that was especially constructive?

J.R. ORCI: It's extremely helpful in giving us insight into the audience's perceptions of where they think the story is going. That allows us to play with expectations and deliver unanticipated twists.

Q. Speaking of your brother, what did you have to do to get Roberto a job on Fringe?

It was easy... Since everyone still thinks we're the same person.

Q: I seem to have misplaced JJ's email address. You wouldn't happen to have it?

J.R. ORCI: I wish! I've never -- technically -- met him. In fact, I don't know of anyone who has. I'm not totally convinced he exists. There's a theory here among the staff that he's actually a sophisticated artificial intelligence program controlled by Bryan Burk.

[Bryan Burk was unavailable for comment]

Q: What is the general plan for the online presence? Is there a story to tell before the show, or will we just see more examples of "the pattern". Any chance of a full-on ARG (like Lost) maybe down the road?

J.R. ORCI: I don't want to give away too much about this... There are some things out there already and more on the way.

Q: Are you writing for the comic book too?

J.R. ORCI: I'm not currently involved in the comic book side of Fringe. It's in the very capable hands of some of our resident geniuses. Among them: Zack Whedon, Julia Cho, Alex Katsnelson, Danielle Dispaltro, Matt Pitts and Mike Johnson. [...more on the Fringe comic book team]

Q: Did you get to go to Comic-con?

J.R. ORCI: Sadly, I wasn't able to go... Some of us had to stay and man the fort! Which is a bummer since I was hoping to find myself a TNG-style Commander's Starfleet uniform with tricorder and phaser accessories. You'd think my brother would've been able to dig me up one given his Trek connections...but no dice.

Q: Who will play William Bell?

J.R. ORCI: That's a closely guarded secret -- even the actor doesn't know. However, we have a backup offer out to Bill Gates now that he's retired.

Q: Was "Massive Dynamics" repurposed from Transformers 2?

J.R. ORCI: That's preposterous. The notion that a respectable corporation like Massive Dynamic would be interested in ginormous extraterrestrial transforming robots just seems silly to me.

Q: Is there any connection between Massive Dynamic and The Hanso Foundation? The Pattern and The Dharma Initiative? William Bell and Thomas Mittelwerk?
YES -- and I can't believe you guessed that! It's actually an integral piece of the series mythology puzzle. We're planning to reveal that connection in season five. So if you want to know the answer, please watch the show so we can stay on the air.

Fringe Pattern: Case 0091 - Evidence 0005

The missing Case 0091 - Evidence 0005 from FRINGE viral website PHI (also the Imagine The Impossibilities site) has been found.

The image appears to be DNA analysis taken from the sheep seen in Evidence 0002 video. The samples are all named after the Iowa towns - Caroll, Vinton, Cresco, Estherville.

This appears to be what was shred in the Evidence 0006 video, which could explain why the link was removed from the site. I'm not sure what to make of the actual DNA evidence, other than they all do not appear to be the same.

Fringe Pattern: Case 0091 - Evidence 0006

The FRINGE viral website PHI (also the Imagine The Impossibilities site) has been updated with a new piece of evidence.

Case 0091 - Evidence 0006 is a security video of someone breaking into what looks like a lab, and shredding a piece of evidence. The person's face can not be seen, but a Golden Spiral can been seen on the white board, and a gun can be seen in one of the drawers. Case 0091 - Evidence 0005 is skipped over for some reason.

* Thanks to Steve C. for the email!

Fringe Televison Talks to J.R. Orci - Part 1

The name Orci comes up a lot when talking about Fringe. Roberto Orci is, after all, one of the Co-Creators, Writers and Executive Producers of the show. So when we stumbled upon JROrci.com, we naturally concluded we'd found Roberto's personal website. It later dawned on us that who we'd found wasn't J. Roberto Orci, but his brother J.R. Orci.

J.R. Orci is the Supervising Producer on Fringe, and the writer for episode 3. He has previouly worked with J.J. Abrams on on Alias as the Co-Producer, and was also a writer on the short-lived series Vanished and Journeyman.

Following the rabbit-hole from J.R.'s Blog will lead you to his Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, and Facebook pages. There are references to Fringe scattered throughout - for example, these Fringe-related tweets:

• Officially on "Fringe" - March 07, 2008
• Moooooo? - March 26, 2008
• Sciiiennnnnnnnce! - April 18, 2008
• Fringe: Day one. - May 05, 2008
• Fringe - picked up!!! - May 09, 2008
• Unleash the cows!- May 15, 2008
• Proudly donning my Fringe hat. - May 30, 2008
• Gangbanging 102 outline. Progress! - June 02, 2008
• needs more Fringy-ness. - June 08, 2008
• In our new "Fringe" offices above the Hustler store on Sunset. - June 16, 2008
• Episode 3 is mine enemy. - June 30, 2008
• In outline hell and only 5 days til prep. NO. ES. BUENO. - July 04, 2008
• 103, Writer's Draft -- DONE! - July 11, 2008
• First re-write begins... - July 12, 2008
• Awaiting Fox 103 notes... - July 16, 2008

J.R. was gracious enough to answer a few of our questions. Here is part one of our interview:

Q: Who wrote the show bible for Fringe, and what exactly is a show bible?

J.R. ORCI: A handful of us were responsible for writing the show bible. It's basically a document that lays out the series for the studio and network. Although there's no specific template for it, it generally includes things like bios and season arcs for each character -- general direction of the series-- a map of the first season's storyline -- the overall mythology of the show -- a description of what the first six or twelve episodes would be -- and a long string of sentence fragments separated by double dashes. I believe the document is sometimes used by the network to help them figure out marketing demographics and things of that sort as well.

Q: How many writers are currently working on the show? How is the work divided up?

J.R. ORCI: We have a staff of about ten writers. The way the work is divided up is pretty straight-forward. The writers' room goes through the process of breaking the rough moves of each story. Once there's a skeletal structure in place, the individual writer/writers of that particular episode split off to figure out the details and write an outline. From there it's just the process of refining until it's ready to go off to script.

Q: What episode is currently being written/shot? Has Fox ordered a full season? Would a full season run straight through like 24, or will there be a mid-season break.

J.R. ORCI: Episodes 105 and 106 are being written as we speak. And we’re currently shooting episode 104. We're still operating on the initial order of 13 episodes, but hoping for the full season pick-up. There's no "extended" mid-season hiatus planned at the moment. But there will be a few breaks in the air schedule scattered throughout our run (can you say IDOL?). This is all subject to change, of course...

Q: Assuming the episodes turn out as good as they are on paper, which episode are you looking forward to watching the most and why?

J.R. ORCI: I'm extremely psyched for episode 102. There is some...unsettling stuff in there that I'm dying to see once all the visual effects are completed. All I can say is -- that episode will not be lacking in the creepiness department.

Q: Are there any sci-fi subjects in Fringe that are "off-the-table", such as time travel?

J.R. ORCI: I wouldn’t say that anything’s categorically off the table. We approach these stories by starting in a place of science reality… Some interesting fact, phenomenon or theory. Then we run with that notion and take it one step further into a hypothetical “what if” sort of place. Given the insane state of science and technology these days – that allows us a pretty wide playing field as far as the stories we can tell.

Q: One of the talking points of the TCA and Comic-Con panels was to establish that Fringe won't suffer from the impenetrability characteristic of Alias and Lost. However, some of the fans like impenetrable, and are now wondering if that means Fringe will lack the depth and complexity characteristic of their favorite shows. Is it an either or equation, and will Fringe ultimately warrant a Fringepedia.net?

J.R. ORCI: Doing a show like Fringe is a tricky balancing act. You don't want to make the series impenetrable to new viewers, but you need to keep the die-hards (of which I count myself) satisfied. I'm confident we can straddle that fine line that satisfies both. There will be serialized threads running through the episodes, and our characters will be very much alive and develop over the course of the series. But aside from that... We will definitely have a deepening mythology running over the course of the season, and there will be episodes devoted solely to telling that ongoing storyline. Fringepedia.net will have its work cut out for it!

Q: What question should I have asked, that I haven't asked so far...?

J.R. ORCI: You should've asked, "Who's the cow really working for?"

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our interview with J.R. Orci, where we will find out who the cow really works for, and other Fringe related things.

Total Sci-Fi: Joshua Jackson Interview

Total Sci Fi has an interview with Joshua Jackson, in which he discussed the extreme security involved in TV and movies nowadays:

I have never dealt with so much security. My script has my name printed on it, they have to change the letters inside the script to serialize them so they know who leaked it in case it gets out. I also had to sign a non-disclosure agreement for when I get my script every week.
...
For the X-Files movie, I went to meet [producer/director/writer] Chris Carter and asked if I could read the script. He said, “There is only one script and it is in a vault in my desk in my office. There are no pages to read.” I’m like “Okaaaay…”

Click here to read the full interview

Joshua Jackson: Beyond the Fringe

From ice-hockey-playing child star to Dawson’s Creek pin-up, Joshua Jackson has walked the streets of Hollywood in a back-to-front fashion. From movies to TV and theatre, and then back to movies, in recent years he has managed to avoid the mainstream hysteria courted by other actors of his age and caliber. But that could all be about to change. The 30-year-old Canadian is embarking on a TV series journey that could be the making of him, all over again. As the star of J.J. Abrams’ new pilot show, Fringe, he should be preparing for a media circus. Bryan Cairns caught up with him to find out how he got involved…

These days, most of your credits are for feature films. What attracted you to the TV series Fringe?

Very simply, the appeal is good work with good people. The script is excellent and the character is Indiana Jones-ish. The whole piece is slightly darker than that but the character is adventuresome and smart. Usually on TV, you can be the smart guy but you have to wear glasses and sit in the car or you can be the adventuresome guy and look like Superman and be a lunkhead. This is a nice change.

You can’t really get any better than J.J. Abrams as a producer on television or film. Alias was pretty damn good, Lost is excellent, and Felicity was good as well. He’s definitely made his mark on television. That is the difficulty of television, maintaining quality and being able to keep cranking these things out. That is the thing that has held me back over the last few years from working in television, is knowing the amount of work that goes into it and how difficult it is to keep something good, fresh and interesting for the audience.

Had you auditioned for a J.J. Abrams project before?

I had auditioned for Star Trek, which I think was sort of my audition for the series. Nobody will say that but I think that is the truth. As much as I am enjoying working for J.J. and Bad Robot right now, he is like a hunted man. Everything that he does or writes down, people are trying to get on the internet. I have never dealt with so much security. My script has my name printed on it, they have to change the letters inside the script to serialize them so they know who leaked it in case it gets out. I also had to sign a non-disclosure agreement for when I get my script every week.

Lost has certainly struggled to keep that top secret element as well.

In a perfect world, hopefully Fringe is that good and obviously that is a high water mark with the Bad Robot people. J.J. promotes from within his own company and the guys at Lost are brilliant. Everything they’ve done with that show is brilliant and the hardcore fanbase is rapid and probably a little unhealthy [laughs]. That being the case, when you can get people that engaged in a show, it just allows you a certain freedom. Most of TV is pretty thin but Lost is incredibly detailed because they know people appreciate it.

Can you talk about how your character, Peter, gets sucked into this paranormal world on Fringe?

He is drawn in because of his father [a research scientist who’s in a mental institution, played by John Noble]. Fringe isn’t like The X-Files, which dealt with the paranormal. The basis for this show is hard science but taken to a sci-fi level. So at some point earlier in Peter’s father’s life, before he had been institutionalised, he had been conducting these far-out fringe science experiments. His experiments [are now of interest to the FBI] and they need access to him. I get drawn in to break him out of his shell.

J.J. always weaves these complicated and intriguing relationships. How does Peter get along with his team mates?

Well, you just hit the nail on the head. The relationships are very multi-faceted and complicated. Usually, on a TV show, you get the geek, the jock and the hot girl. On this show, each one of these characters is allowed to have many of those facets inside of themselves so the relationships are constantly changing depending on the situation…They’re unusually deep and rich for a TV show or a film actually.

So is Fringe the new X-Files or Lost?

Lost is a thing unto itself. I don’t know if there will ever be a TV show like that again. Even if Fringe has that success or level of engagement with the audience, this isn’t a mystery show. When it comes to Lost, people are obsessed with peeling away the layers and trying to get one step ahead. While there are mysteries inside our show and will certainly be ongoing elements, I don’t know if it replicates the intrigue Lost has.

If you remember at the beginning of X-Files, it was all about Mulder having to find his sister. That was the driving force and then there was all these strange paranormal things happening around them. This isn’t that show. Because it’s science based, taken to the level of science fiction, there will never be the werewolf episode, we will never have a Jigsaw Man unless there is a scientific explanation, which would be a bit of a stretch.

You read for the role of Batman that ultimately went to Christian Bale. Did you also meet the producers for the upcoming Justice League movie?

No, I wasn’t in Los Angeles and in the crazy world we live in with all the Harry Knowles [type journalism] the script could never leave the office. For the X-Files movie, I went to meet [producer/director/writer] Chris Carter and asked if I could read the script. He said, “There is only one script and it is in a vault in my desk in my office. There are no pages to read.” I’m like “Okaaaay…”

Fringe begins on 9 September 2008 on FOX.

New Fringe Promotional Photos

Fox released a large batch of promotional photos featuring the Fringe cast. There's this creepy ghostly image, some glyph/equation shots, the standard mugshots. In the Glyph photos, it's interesting to note that the women are all with the leaf glyph, and the men are all with the hand glyph - except for Joshua Jackson who is with the apple. One other thing about Jackson's photo - check out what's displayed on his screen. It's not the standard mathematical equations like in the other photos, but a screen shot of the '80s video game Tempest.