Fringe - Producers Talk Season 4

Thanks to fringetoast

Diehard Fringe fans were certainly in for a surprise at the end of the season three finale, but perhaps the most surprising thing of all is that the show’s writers and executive producers Jeff Pinkner and Joel H. Wyman are still able to pull things out that garner such strong reactions from the fandom at all. After all, after three years of alternate universes, mysterious cases of the week, and mind-bending science, we really should know that just about anything can happen. Expect the unexpected, as these guys like to say! But that doesn't mean we didn't want to try to get a little something out of them about what we could expect for Fringe in season four!

“We always look at it as a new chapter every season. It’s like you get the book and so you can expect something you did not expect. We like to say that. It’s not as easy as ‘Oh, it’s a jump forward’; we always try to go a little deeper than that,” Wyman teased LA TV Insider Examiner when we caught up with him and Pinkner at the Critics Choice Awards.

“Josh’s character, Peter, made a heroic choice, and Walter recognizes he might have to sacrifice to save his son, and now we’re fighting the consequences of that,” Pinker followed up, reminding us.

Since Fringe plays with space and time and reality, the show pushes boundaries others do not and therefore can go places other cannot. For one thing, no one is definitively dead on Fringe, so if there is an old character for whom they really loved to write, they can always find a way to bring the person back.

“Without revealing anything, we have some really-- we have some things we’re very excited about. We’re bringing back some characters who were among our favorites,” Pinkner shared.

The third season of Fringe has been garnering some early Emmy buzz, which surely excites not only the fans but the showrunners who originally started with a six-year plan for the series. Naturally some of their ideas were implemented quicker than others, and perhaps than originally intended, while others are still unfolding, but the bottom line is there is a deep mythology to the story, and both Wyman and Pinkner are incredibly grateful to get to tell it on their terms.

“Our fans are incredibly loyal; we have the best fans!” Pinker emphatically announced, noting that he never worries about backlash from a controversial character moment or decision because he knows the fans trust the show and will come back to see how it all plays out and how they are taken care of in the end.

“It’s a relationship we really enjoy; we’re online; we connect with them. But I truly believe they’re going to love [the resolution from the season finale], and they’ll understand it. We have smart fans. They won’t be disappointed,” he promised.

Well, after hearing so many writers say that and then seeing so much online backlash after fans have been told to "trust" them only to feel let down, we have to admit we were wary; we weren’t sure about all that until...well, in all honesty, until we had the few minutes with these guys to learn first-hand just how thoughtful and passionate they are. We are what you would call “new” to the show because after hearing such great buzz about it we decided that it didn’t matter if it was on opposite another series we already cover, we were going to carve out time for its fourth season. And that of course, meant catching up with the first three years first. It was a luxury, that’s for sure, and it was one that Wyman pointed out not everyone can afford.

“We’ve had a lot of people say ‘We love the promos; we want to figure out time to watch’, but not everyone has time to sit down and watch [three full] seasons, so we tried to make this [fourth] season like a new pilot. We did that a little bit last season, too, but it will just be an entry point for people to come in who haven’t seen everything.”

After having done so ourselves, though, LA TV Insider Examiner can’t help but point out that there is still more than two months to marathon the already-existing episodes to be all caught up before the Fringe season premiere. Grab some snacks, some friends, your head (because some episodes may have it exploding!), and the early seasons box sets. We guarantee you will be glad you did!

Source: Examiner