The Fringe panel at Comic Con contained the greatest amount of energy of all the panels I attended. Even though the panelists kept season 4 secrets closely guarded, the attendees made it known how much they love and respect one of the greatest sci-fi shows ever produced. Onto the highlights:
- The panel started with a sizzle reel highlighting major events that happened throughout the series so far. Peter Bishop (played by Joshua Jackson) was not present in the clip.
- When the clip ended the stage filled up with actors Anna Torv, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Blair Brown, Jasika Nicole, and new series regular Seth Gabel (he plays Lincoln Lee); and executive producers and showrunners J.H. Wyman and Jeff Pinkner. Again, Josh Jackson is no where to be found.
- Immediately the panel turned to the audience for a Q&A session. Pinkner confirmed, “It’s not that Peter’s consciousness is anywhere. There is no Peter. Peter doesn’t exist. But we’ll let you know when he shows up.” An astute fan asked how a lovechild between Bolivia and Peter could exist if Peter never existed. “The question is, is there a child?” replied a cryptic Anna Torv. Interesting…
- Cue another clip. This time it’s Peter Bishop audition tapes! The video features famous actors ranging from Lost‘s Michael Emerson to Community‘s Dani Pudi wearing a fake mustache. It ends with a shot of Joshua Jackson dressed in an Observer suit with pale skin asking, “What do you want me to do?” Watch it after the break.
- And the crowd goes wild! Josh Jackson emerges from stage right and sits down next to his TV father on the panel. He’s looking rather dapper donning an Observer-esque hat. Are all of these hints of what’s to come in season 4? One can speculate…
- When asked if Jackson will ever get to encounter an alt-universe version of himself he replied, “I don’t think Peter will ever have an alternate, but however he gets folded back into this season, it will be a very different version than what we’ve seen before. He’s in a different place now.”
- It was also brought up that viewers haven’t seen an alt-version of Nina Sharp. “I’m not sure that [she] isn’t an inanimate object like a lightbulb or a toaster,” Brown hinted. She mentioned that since we still don’t know which side Nina lies on (good or bad), perhaps she will reveal herself as something destructive on the other side if it turns out she’s working against our heroes.
- And what about Astrid? Nicole shared, “[We’ll see] a different kind of Astrid then we’ve seen before.” Then she belted out a rendition of Aerosmith’s classic tune with the words “Astrid’s got a gun.”
- When a viewer asked whether or not Olivia will learn to control her Cortexifan-intensified powers this season Pinker dropped this: “I’m not sure we’ve seen all of her powers yet.” He cushioned this with, “What’s going to happen is really hard to answer because we think it would spoil letting the show unfold.” And this was the theme of the panel; not much could be revealed and so we’ll have to wait until September to be fed answers.
- I cannot end this panel highlight post without mentioning Noble’s kind words that opened the panel. “Seriously, without your efforts, your rabid support, we wouldn’t be here right now. You are the best fans that ever existed.” He proclaimed that Comic Con “is our Emmys” and every single fan in attendance showered the panel with love.
Scrub through the gallery below to see pictures from the lovefest that was the Fringe panel.
