Fox to Fill Fringe's Gap with "Hole"

One of the unique features of the premiere season of FRINGE is the so-called "remote-free TV", which promises half of the normal commercials of a regular show (typically 20 minutes per hour).

However, we have wondered how an one hour and 22 minute show could fill a two-hour premiere slot and have less commercials.

To fill the gap, Fox will debut "Hole in the Wall" immediately after the FRINGE season premiere, "letting viewers sample two of its highest-profile new shows at once."

"Hole" is Japanese style game-show that is already a hit around the world, and on YouTube where is goes by the nickname "Human Tetris".

After the premiere, "The Wall" will move back to it's regular time slot on Thursdays, and FRINGE will continue the rest of the season with 50 minutes episodes and 10 minutes of commercials.

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

Fox's 'Hole' to Ride 'Fringe' Coattails

By Josef Adalian

Fox is hoping the creator of "Lost" can help its new reality show "Hole in the Wall" get found by viewers.

The network has quietly scheduled a 25-minute sneak preview of "Hole" behind the Tuesday, Sept. 9 premiere of "Fringe," the new drama from J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. "Hole" will air from 9:35 p.m. until 10 p.m.

Among the most highly anticipated new shows of the fall, "Fringe" was designed to air as a two-hour pilot. But in May, after the pilot was filmed, Fox announced that the show would air with a reduced commercial load, allowing advertisers to hawk their wares in a less-crowded environment.

Weekly episodes of "Fringe" will run about 50 minutes, with producers cramming in extra content. But with the show's pilot built to fit into a normal two-hours-with-commericals slot, Fox needed to find something to fill the programming hole.

Enter "Hole."

Fox executives considered several possibilities to fill the gap, including a fall preview special. Ultimately, the network decided to turn the night into an event, letting viewers sample two of its highest-profile new shows at once.

"Hole" is still scheduled to settle into its regular Thursday night slot on Sept. 11. The pilot for "Fringe" will be repeated on Sunday, Sept. 14. Fox is still finalizing plans for how to fill the 25-minute gap left by the Sunday encore

Fringe Pattern: Case 0091 - Evidence 0007

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

Case 0091 - Evidence 0007, dated 8-25-08 12:03 PM, is an image of braille letters, which translates to PARKERSBURG. Parkersburg is a town in Iowa (see map), most notably known for a F5 tornado that stuck there on May 25, 2008.

UPDATE: If you click the dot which I highlighted in red, it will take you to the "weather" page, where you can download two actual Parkersburg tornado videos, titled "Bank" and "House".

BTW, the videos are hosted on WeatherMatrix.net, a large online weather community, which means these are actual videos from the Parkersburg tornado.

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)