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.

New Fringe Posters Feature Anna Torv

Three new Fringe posters have been released by FOX. They all feature Anna Torv, who plays FBI agent Olivia Dunham, and one features Joshua Jackson and John Noble as well. The posters don't offer any new clues, but there is something strange going on in Anna Torv's Fringe hair.

* Thanks to Fringe Bloggers for the photos

Fringe Report on Fox News Interview

FoxNews.com has a video about FRINGE, with interviews from J.J. Abrams, John Noble, and Joshua Jackson.

Sci-Fi Wire: 7 Reasons Fringe Will Rule TV

SciFi Wire has an story about the seven reasons why FRINGE will be "this fall's breakout success", which include: Anna Torv, J.J. Abrams, Mad scientist John Noble, Altered States' Blair Brown, Pacey (Joshua Jackson), Supporting cast (Kirk Acevedo, Lance Reddick, Mark Valley), and Goo!

Click here to read the full article, or visit SciFi.com/SciFiWire.

7 Reasons Fringe Will Rule TV

Here at SCI FI Wire, we pride ourselves on having our fingers on the bloody pulse of SF&F geekdom, especially the televised variety. We got the Spaced inside jokes in Shaun of the Dead before anyone knew who Simon Pegg was. We dug the new Doctor Who when Christopher Eccleston was still wearing the leather coat. And we saw the potential in Battlestar Galactica--the Lorne Greene version--way before Ron Moore turned it into a hit in its new, improved SCI FI Channel incarnation.

So that's why we think we're in the perfect position--i.e., out on a limb--to proclaim that Fox's upcoming SF drama Fringe will be this fall's breakout success: The show that will knock Heroes out of the sky and bury Lost like Nikki and Paulo on that irritatingly populated desert island.

From J.J. Abrams and his Star Trek writing team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, Fringe centers on FBI special agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), who finds herself drawn into an investigation of a mysterious aircraft disaster in Boston. Olivia's desperate search for help to save her gravely injured partner leads to brilliant scientist Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has been institutionalized for the last 17 years. And the only way to question him requires pulling his estranged son Peter (Joshua Jackson) in to help. The investigation gets weirder and weirder as Torv discovers that things--and science--are not what they seem.

Herewith seven reasons why Fringe will make you forget about Mulder and Scully and yearn for a cow of your own.

1. Anna Torv. This blond newcomer from Oz (Australia, not the Emerald City) radiates intelligence, spunk, anguish and drop-dead sexiness better than any federal agent since Gillian Anderson. And she's got one of those faces that morphs her into different people entirely, depending on the scene and scenario. One moment, she's as sunny as Without a Trace's Poppy Montgomery. Another, she's as somber as Galadriel. There's more going on in those blue eyes than in Teri Hatcher's entire body.

2. Creator J.J. Abrams. I know, I know. There's a mini-backlash against the Lost-abandoning, Tom-Cruise-loving Trek revisionist. But he's still our guy, and when he focuses his full creative powers on something, there's no one else who can better mash up genres, cook up truly scary scenarios or mix the mundane and the miraculous into such a funny, frightening, intriguing stew.

3. Mad scientist. When was the last time a show featured an honest-to-god raving evil genius? OK, Doctor Who doesn't count: Who can tell when an English person is being crazy or just English? In Fringe, the mad scientist is John Noble, another Aussie, who is best known to fanboys as the ill-fated Denethor in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Here, he's Bishop, "the Einstein of his generation." (I thought Einstein was the Einstein of his generation, but whatever.) So how crazy is he? When we first meet him, he rambles about butterscotch pudding and peeing himself. When he gets sprung, he orders a live cow installed in his lab for reasons known mainly to himself. His deadpan non sequiturs boost Fringe into a lunar orbit of its own.

4. Altered States. Really? you ask. Who even remembers Altered States, the prototype of all hyper-verbal wacko science fiction to come? It's fitting that Fringe inserts its homage to the Ken Russell/Paddy Chayefsky classic in the middle of the pilot: Fringe is a worthy successor to the 1980 movie. It's whip-smart. It's got beautiful intellectuals arguing about insane science fiction with the gravitas of Shakespeare. It's psychedelic in a way that only Ivy League mushroom-eaters can be psychedelic. And it's not afraid to take the ridiculous and make it plausibly frightening. Oh, and Fringe even features Altered States star Blair Brown in its cast!

5. Pacey. Wonder what happened to Dawson's Creek's cougar-loving Joey stealer? Joshua Jackson has matured into a handsomely grizzled adult in sharp suits. In Fringe, he functions as the exasperated Greek chorus to Noble's mad scientist and gets many of the best punchlines as a result. We won't spoil the fun for you.

6. Supporting cast. Genre pieces like Fringe may live or die by their leads, but they soar on the strength of their supporting players. Abrams, always a canny discoverer of unknown talent, struck gold with the casts of his previous SF series Alias and Lost and again assembles a top-flight cast of relatively unknown character actors who bring their own quirkiness and reality to the otherworldly story. In addition to the sinister Brown, Fringe features Lost player Lance Reddick, prime-time soap fixture Mark Valley and all-purpose street cop Kirk Acevedo in its solid supporting cast.

7. Goo. The opening frames of Fringe may at first suggest Lost's Oceanic Flight 815, but that's only until the slime begins to flow. And it doesn't stop there: There's drool. There's cow poop. There's even an edematous body, like Scully's jelly-like fireman from The X-Files: Fight the Future. Abrams et al don't soft-pedal the gross-outs, and Fox lets 'em go there, and that's why we love Fox.

See for yourself: Fringe premieres Sept. 9 and will air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Fringe Pattern: Case 0091 - Evidence 0004

The FRINGE viral website PHI (also ImagineTheImpossibilities.com) has been updated with a new piece of evidence.

Case 0091 - Evidence 0004 is an interview with one of the farmers whose flock sheep was affected by "The Pattern", which was shown in the previous evidence video.

Here is a transcript of the video:

Interviewer: Tell me about this picture of your sheep.

Farmer: Well, I’m not sure really, the sheep were going about there business, then I heard an earthquake or something underground.

Interviewer: And then what did you see?

Farmer: I’m not sure. The sheep didn’t make a sound, so I looked out of the kitchen window and saw them walking around in a circle... a perfect circle... like something was... controlling them. I've never seen anything like it.

[unintelligible voice]

UPDATE: Here is the audio of the strange voice at the end. I tried reversing the audio, but that didn't help. It really sounds like it is possibly a different language...?

Fringe Publicity Photo Shoot Video

Here is video from a Fringe Publicity Shoot for Fox, with photographer George Holtz, Joshua Jackson, Anna Torv, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Jasika Nicole, Blair Brown, Mark Valley, and Kirk Acevedo.

By the time you watch this video, Peter Bishop may already be dead ;)

Also, check out the FOX Fall preview commercial, with clips from all the new fall shows, including Fringe, which is described as "So Engaging" and "So Fearless".

Fringe picked up in UK, Sweden

The broadcast rights for Fringe has been picked up in the UK and Sweden, which will both air the show this fall.

Guardian: Lost creator JJ Abrams' new show Fringe snapped up by Sky:

Sky1 has acquired the exclusive UK television rights to Lost creator JJ Abrams' new science fiction drama Fringe.
...
Sky said the new series, which will debut on the revamped Sky1 this autumn, would "thrill, terrify and explore the blurring line between science fiction and reality"

Variety: J.J. Abrams' 'Fringe' heads to Sweden

Sweden's Kanal 5, owned by European broadcast group ProSiebenSat.1, has nabbed Swedish rights to J.J. Abrams' produced series "Fringe."

Kanal 5 has bought the first 13 episodes to air in the fall. The series, described as a mix of "Lost" and "The X-Files," debuts in the U.S. on Fox in September.

Kanal 5 programmer Katarina Eriksson said: "This is a different genre for us, since we have a lot of series aimed at women, like 'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Desperate Housewives.' 'Fringe' is more aimed at younger men. But this does not mean that we are going to change our mix, we see this as an addition."