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WonderCon: FOG! Chats With FRINGE Producers JEFF PINKNER and J.H. WYMAN

Forces of Geek is proud to welcome correspondent Patrick Lee, who covered WonderCon for us this past weekend.

Fox’s sci-fi series Fringe returns Friday with the first of eight new episodes to wrap up its epic fourth—but hopefully not last—season, and executive producers Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman sat down with reporters at WonderCon in Anaheim, CA, on Sunday to give us a preview and speculate about what happens going forward. (Possible spoilers ahead!)

First off, there’s no indication that the show ISN’T coming back, though Fox has yet to issue a pickup for a fifth season. The producers, writers and cast are all optimistic that Fox will stand by its quirky show as it has from the start.

But with only two episodes left to film, the producers have structured the upcoming season finale as the end of a chapter, not the end of the show. (Though rumors are that they’re preserving their options by shooting alternate endings that would serve either purpose.) As they’ve said in the past, they’ve had in mind the ending of the show all along; it’s just a matter of when to get there. (Cryptic enough?)

In the meantime, the duo confirmed the casting of Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond on Lost) and Australian actress Georgina Haig as guest stars in episode 19, in which they will reportedly play FBI agents. They also hinted that the characters could return if the show is picked up. (Haig isn’t the first blond Aussie on the show, of course; Anna Torv hails from Down Under as well, as does co-star John Noble).

As for whether we can expect Peter to return to his timeline anytime soon, you may be surprised by the answer, below.

After the jump is an edited version of our conversation with Pinkner and Wyman. Fringe returns on Friday, March 23, at 9 p.m. PT/ET with the episode “A Short Story About Love,” which Wyman also directs.

Fringe Executive Producers Jeff Pinkner (left) and J.H. Wyman at WonderCon, Anaheim, CA, on March 18, 2012. (Patrick Lee)

How has whether you’re coming back or not determined your approach to this year’s finale?

Wyman: In all honesty, it hasn’t. … The truth is, we don’t know, although we’re feeling very bullish, positive that we will be coming back next year. But when we set out to shape this season, we started with the finale and knew that it wouldn’t change whether it was a series finale or a season finale. It was pretty much the same thing.

Is that a cliffhanger?

W: Well we traditionally … do chapters, you know, at the end of each season, which was just a creative choice that Jeff and I had started with. So … it’s automatically that, and it’s automatically a closure of something and then a beginning of something else. Fans kind of understand that’s what our MO is. So he’s right, we never really adjusted anything

Pinkner: But no. It’s not specifically a cliffhanger.

One thing I really love about this season is you have returned to the centrality of the relationships among the three principal characters, and in coming up with this alt timeline, you have reemphasized how Peter is central to Olivia and Walter’s development and we get to see that develop again in a different way.

P: Bless you for recognizing that

W: Thank you, man … The show’s essentially about Peter. … If you call the show a quintessential kidnapping show, because I think it kind of is, it could be qualified that way. We’re always looking for ways to reinvent the characters. And we get chastised a lot for using the word “recontextualized” a lot, but it’s the only word that really sort of, I think, is accurate in describing what we try to do. We’re always trying to repurpose ideas and themes within the lines that we’ve created. So bringing Peter over to the other side and making him relevant was just another one of those things. … We said, “Oh, we can use him to highlight this theme or this emotion, and let’s do that.”

Would you say the same thing?

P: Yeah, of course. At its heart, I think, … this show has always been a family drama masquerading as a science fiction procedural. And the family dynamics are between–you know, the quasi-family dynamics, these Fringe characters having found themselves–are Peter, Olivia and Walter. All who sort of were, you know, at their own corner of a chessboard before this series started, and this show has brought them together, and as Joel [Wyman] said, we find different ways to bring them together.

You guys indicated that you had a chapter for each season. Do you have the overall ending to the story?

P: We do.

W: Yeah, yeah. … We know where we would like to go, and I think even from season one we understood what the series was really about and that’s the biggest challenge for any showrunners is that you have to — I don’t know how guys can look at a blank page and not really understand where they’re going. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people who are great at that. We’re not good at that. We have to know where we’re going, and we have to find a way to tell the stories within those confines. So we knew right away where we were going.

Is it a happy ending or a tragic ending?

P: Serial comic.

W: You know, look, it’s a satiating ending. You know? Because I think, it all depends on what you like, and we’re lucky because we like the same kind of things in literature that, you know, you’re feeling like satisfied that you’ve been through a journey that you’ve learned something about these characters, maybe something about yourself through the whole journey and saga. And we both love television, so we would never want to end it where we would be disappointed. You know, I would be really upset if somebody after … four years left me on a, “Oh, it was all a dream,” or–not that that wasn’t ingenious.

P: The answer is, hopefully, hopefully, the ending of the series will not betray people’s investment in the series. It will feel very satisfying. It will be true to what the show has been about, it will be true to the characters, and it will be, you know, hopefully reward people who have invested in the show and stuck with it. …

Can you talk about the new agents coming in played by Henry Ian Cusik and Georgina Haig?

P: I think the safest thing for us to be, anything we say will spoil their roles and their part in this story. I can tell you with sincerity that we were unbelievably fortunate to have them, they’re spectacular and I think our cast really enjoyed working with them, and they really enjoyed being part of the show and we were totally you know, blessed with their presence. They’re amazing in the way they just like fit right in.

W: Amazing.

P: But to tell you anything more than that really could be to betray a lot more surprise and the fun of seeing them.

W: You known that episode 19 is traditionally something that we deviate, so half the fun is waiting.

Is there a possibility that we will see more of them if the show is renewed?

P: Sure

W: Yeah

Will one of the satisfying endings be that Peter does return to his world?
 
P: Well, I think what, I think, I think, I think by the time we get there, that question won’t be relevant anymore. That question won’t be relevant anymore very soon, in fact.

W: Yeah. And also, … the question is actually a thematic direction that we were interested in going and asking that question. … And we said right up front, … how you impact other people’s lives and how they impact yours and what does that mean and how can you change your life with a decision–and all these things are sort of relevant to that ending. So that … will come soon.

Is there a finite time you have before that ending? If you did go three more seasons, would you have to change that ending? Or its that ending – if you went for another five years would you have to change things?

W: Well you know, its, its, the great thing about Fringe is that, you know, it starts out as a direction, and then there’s all these splinter things that we discover that just sort of enhance the storytelling for us, and again, the themes and the things we want to talk about. And you’re like, I never would have thought of that. Like in the beginning, when we were sitting around going, “What do we do this year?” You never think of those things. Those are like happy accidents that come. And you’re like, “Wow, that’s amazing.” So although we know what the end is, you were right. If there was a time, there’s longer, there’s probably many things that we would really like to investigate and get into a little bit more before that ending, which wouldn’t hurt the ending; it would just enhance it. … So, yeah, I think that … if we were fortunate enough, … we could definitely come up with those stories.

Fringe returns this Friday, March 23rd on Fox at 9pm/8C
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