BEVERLY HILLS, California -- Snubbed by Emmy voters and largely ignored by mainstream audiences, spellbinding TV series Fringe will wrap up its sprawling storyline with a new twist while still bringing closure to the show's loyal viewers, said executive producer J.H. Wyman.
Wyman, who acknowledged that he was not a sci-fi fan before he began work on the show, realizes he's dealing with considerable fan scrutiny in the run-up to this fall's final half-season, when fans will see if "four years of their lives were invested wisely."
"I can only go back to what I want to see as a viewer," he said Monday at a press conference here. "I want to see the characters get what they deserve to get. I want there to be a feeling of hopefulness so that the next day, when you're driving to work, you can imagine that these characters will be OK, and let Fringe go into the ether in a way that is satisfying and bittersweet."
Centered on FBI investigators of "fringe" phenomena -- Olivia Dunham (played by Anna Torv), Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) and his junk-food-craving genius of a father, Walter Bishop (John Noble) -- Fringe evolved after its 2008 premiere into a massive mythology that traversed the "normal" world and a wormhole-connected alternate universe populated by döppelgangers that looked just like the primary heroes but had completely different personalities. Through it all, fedora-crowned, time-traveling Observers wreaked havoc on the crime-fighters' personal and professional lives.
Wyman and his team enjoy a rare luxury. Despite weak ratings, which went even further south after Fox shifted the series to the traditional prime time black hole of Friday night, *Fringe'*s showrunners got advance notice last spring that they would have a final 13 episodes to bring down the curtain on the elaborate world created by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.
"I've been a fan of many shows that got cut short before their time," Jackson said. "For us to collectively go into these final episodes knowing it's our last opportunity to tell our story.... I'm looking forward to the process of putting this to bed together so we can enjoy that ride off into the sunset."
Joined Monday at a Television Critics Association Press Tour panel by Torv, Jackson and Lance Reddick, who plays tough Fringe division boss Broyles, Wyman acknowledged that the show has suffered a few "missteps" along the way.
"There have probably been three or four endings," he said. "It's a living, breathing organism. I believe Fringe has a natural end but how that takes shape has always been in flux."
The final half-season, beginning Sept. 28, picks up in the year 2036, when the Fringe Division crew emerges from suspended animation to do battle with fascists from another planet who now rule Earth with an iron cybernetic fist.
It's the latest big jump for a show that's never been afraid to stretch beyond television's traditional template. Throughout all the changes, there's been one constant: Noble's transcendent performance as a wildly unpredictable scientist with a sweet tooth. Wyman said he simply could not grok why the veteran Australian performer, who was absent from the press conference due to illness, had been overlooked this year by Emmy voters, failing once again to pick up a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
"I can't comprehend it," said Wyman, hypothesizing that an anti-sci-fi bias might explain the snub. "I'm sitting in the editing room [watching Noble's performance] and going, 'Wow, this is incredible!'"
Still, Torv -- who over the past four years has played two versions of the same FBI agent, channeled the voice of Leonard Nimoy's William Bell character, and witnessed countless exploding heads and dramatized drug nightmares -- said Fringe has been a rare artistic success for sci-fi television.
"We're a little cult show with a little cult following," she said, "so we've been able to do sci-fi properly."
