'Fringe' Won't Get Too Freaky

A series about "fringe science" typically would tease some pretty crazy things that would be more science-fiction than science. But when "Fringe" premieres Sept. 9 at 8 p.m. on Fox, executive producer and co-creator J.J. Abrams says it's a show that won't cross the line into unbelievable territory.

"The truth is, when we did the pilot for 'Lost,' we had the monster appear at the end of the first act," Abrams told reporters, including one from SyFy Portal, during a conference call Thursday. "We did that consciously. We wanted to say to the audience that we are jumping the shark now. We are doing crazy shit from the beginning. We are not going to wait.

"On 'Fringe,' we did what is in many ways a preposterous, out-there, far-fetched scientific story point, in order to say to the audience that this is what you're going to be getting on the show."

Abrams, who has made it clear how much the classic "Twilight Zone" series influences his work of today, says that pushing extremes is what makes any type of writing work interesting.

"For the most part, the fun for me in movies and TV shows -- especially in the genre of horror and sci-fi -- is that it's the pushing of the envelope and going further than you might otherwise," Abrams said. "And I think the show will definitely be pushing the edge of the envelope. I don't think we're going to be trying to top ourselves every week, or it's a race against ourselves, because there's no way to win that race."

The key is to tell stories that are as compelling as emotional, and as funny and as weird as possible, Abrams said.

"We don't want to be exploiting that aspect of the show," he said. "I'd rather be delving into who these people are and what makes them tick."

"Fringe" is a story that kicks off with a plane full of bodies that auto-lands at an airport, their deaths a mystery to a number of investigative agencies including the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. An investigative liaison named Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) finds herself in the thick of the investigation when her lover John Scott (Mark Valley) is seriously injured in an attack and she has to find a way to save him.

Dunham turns to the most unlikely source -- Dr. William Bishop (John Noble) -- a man who experimented in fringe science, but has spent the last 17 years in a mental institution. The only way to reach him is through his son, Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), creating a team that is not only fascinating, but with a touch of humor and intrigue as well.

"There is a lot of stuff going on with Peter, and I have a lot of fun playing him," Jackson said. "He's being a translator more often than not between Walter, who is brilliant but half-cracked, and Olivia, who is an intensely, no-nonsense type of person. She's not the type of character that you would have a lyrical, philosophical conversation with. She is sort of a just-the-facts sort of character."

The dynamic between the three characters, in fact, is more like a dysfunctional family, Jackson said. "It's something that is relatable and understandable in this fantastically outrageous world of 'Fringe,' and makes for an interesting day of work."

A lot of early feedback on the show's concept has compared it to "The X-Files," but Abrams says that while the storytelling style might be similar, the two shows quickly diverge. The same is true with some of Abrams' other popular television shows like "Felicity," "Alias" and the big one, "Lost."

"'Fringe' is a very different show," Abrams said. "One of the experiments we're doing on 'Fringe' in writing the show so that it's not an overtly serialized show as certainly 'Alias' and 'Lost' are or were. How that translates, I don't know. What it will mean s that there will still be the mythology, the evolution of the characters, the revelations of their story and what The Pattern means what they're doing and how they connect to that.

"We're doing it in a way that is much less week-to-week installments of that story, which then requires you to reset things from a mythology episode, which makes it, I hope, something [different from] you're not in the club in you're missing an episode."
For the last few years, it seems more and more shows are picking up science-fiction elements, if not overtly science-fiction itself. It's a fad that may not be going away anytime soon, Abrams said, even if he feels that "Fringe" is a series that is more mainstream with sci-fi elements, than simply a sci-fi series.

"'Lost' was always a sci-fi show, secretly a sci-fi show, and something like 'Battlestar Galactica' is much more overtly science-fiction," Abrams said. "The weird thing about 'Fringe' is that although you can say it's science-fiction, a lot of what we're talking about is stuff that is in the realm of possibility. We're definitely pushing it. Some of the stuff we're talking about now is not as much 'sci-fi' as it is 'sci.'

"We're living in an incredibly advanced and almost uncontrollable so period of scientific achievement, and it's pushing what we all thought was our kind of comfortable, quaint version of what sci-fi is to a different place. And that is sort of what 'Fringe' is."

Fans will get a chance to see "Fringe" for the first time next Tuesday on Fox beginning at 8 p.m. ET. An encore will air Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. on Fox.

This one show that Sci-fi didn't get.I really hope Fox will be better than that station called SCI-FI. GTO

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