Last Sunday’s WonderCon TV lineup included, much to the geek fans’ thrill, a panel for Fringe. It was extremely entertaining, and gave us some good insights into some of the characters, though not much in the way of spoilers. In attendance were showrunners Jeff Pinkner and Joel Wyman, and stars Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Blair Brown, and Seth Gabel.

It started off with a hilarious featurette of Walterisms:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bk8VfK7TRM[/youtube]

Then we saw a long clip from the upcoming episode. I’m guessing that it’s the opening minutes before the title sequence, and … it’s great. This episode marks the directing debut of co-showrunner Joel Wyman, who said about it that “it’s a very important episode to us because it sort of brings together a lot of the ideas that we’ve been working towards throughout many many seasons.” Ooo! And that, my friends was the only spoilery-type thing that was said. Sorry, spoiler hounds!

The actors were asked about what it was like to create new characters for the new timeline. John Noble said that it was definitely different, playing a Walter who has lost his son when he was a boy, but it was hardest when there was no Peter there at all.

Seth Gabel didn’t have many issues with the new characters; he had more difficulty thinking he could handle the part in the first place, having come from being a 25-year-old playboy who kissed Lucy Liu a lot. He wasn’t sure if he could pull off being the militaristic character of alt Lincoln, but since he was asked back he thought maybe he could do it. There is a conversation coming up between the two Lincolns comparing their pasts, trying to determine what happened when, to make them turn out so differently.

Blair Brown said it was hard to not tip off the audience that she was playing “Meana” – a name which she coined – so that scenes would sometimes need to be reshot since she would do something that might be too suggestive of the fact that she wasn’t who we thought she was.

She went on to point out that there is actually always a real story behind each new character:

Meana  – this is a woman who’s thwarted in her life, she had the same energy, the same thoughts, the same intelligence, passions, that good Nina had, but there was no William Bell, there was no Massive Dynamics, so she was never asked to the table, was how you guys described it [indicating Wyman and Pinkner], until Jones comes… But I still wouldn’t trust Nina…

So, no William Bell in the new timeline alt-verse… Speaking of which, they were of course asked if there was any possibility that we’d see any more William Bell. “As the great Leonard Nimoy has said several times, he is retired. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t constantly knocking on his door, sending cookies. Josh is going straight from here to Leonard’s house to do some yardwork… It would be incredible, he’s a sensational performer, (but) it is what it is.”

They were also asked if there was any chance that we’d be seeing Charlie (Kirk Acevedo) again. Pinkner and Wyman said that although there are no plans at the moment, Acevedo’s series (Prime Suspect) has unfortunately been canceled, and they’d love to have him back.

A question came up about how they approached Jared Harris for the return of his character David Robert Jones: “when Jared, who’s spectacular, when his character died, when Peter killed him, cut him in half, he asked if he could come back.”

The panel was clearly having fun, and they were fun to watch. A fan asked asked about what a young Walter would  be like as a 20-year-old, which got John Noble thinking. “College student, taking too many drugs, going out with Diana Ross. Astrid is our love child.” He couldn’t stop thinking about it, and when someone suggested he write a comic about young Walter (Josh Jackson wrote Beyond the Fringe), he declared “I’m genuinely interested!”

Josh Jackson mentioned that he thought Peter just needed to make up his mind about whether to stay or go, this Olivia or original. When he was asked what he brought from Dawson’s Creek (an earlier role) to Fringe, he said “Dawson’s Creek was actually the inspiration for Fringe” and laughed. “Humans in both. And the relationship thing. He [his Dawson’s Creek character] couldn’t make up his mind either” then realized that’s probably why he was hired for Fringe. “This kid can waffle!”

Of course, the question we all waited for was the status of a Season 5. No, they don’t know. When Joel Wyman said they don’t pay attention or think about whether they’ll get renewed, Josh Jackson fake–sneezed “horsesh!t”. But Wyman went on:

If you can’t control it, you can’t worry about it. We’re gonna make the same show, we’ve always made the same show, we’ve never changed our direction for any body or any division… Our biggest concern, to be frank, is for our fans. We want you guys to feel satiated and feel like you’ve spent four years of your lives investing in something that is going to pay off, and that you’re going to feel really good about. So if we’re concerned about anything it’s really not our jobs, it’s really how we’re going to leave it with you, because without the fans and without the incredible reaction from the press, we would not be here…

(Last year) as soon as we found out we let everybody know. It’s a very expensive canvas to make a television show, and it takes a lot of things… Fox – they have decisions to make that has nothing to do with creativity, has nothing to do with anything else, just has to do with their business.

The show creatively, we feel spot on to where we want it to be, and that’s all we can do. So we’re hoping for the best for everybody’s sake. We have a lot of story to tell but we’ll see. You really don’t know these things til the last minute.

Then Jeff Pinkner continued, tongue in cheek:

Having said that, season 4 will leave everybody in a total lurch.

No – the end of season 4, which we’ve known since the beginning of season 4, hopefully will make this journey really really worthwhile and will be a launching pad for season 5 and well beyond.

The emphasis was mine, but just in case there are any skeptics out there, who think they make the show up as they go along, they don’t.

The final question, which came from a young fan: “Was Peter always supposed to be with our Olivia or was that only after the Observer messed up and distracted Walter in the lab?”

Joel Wyman replied: “Do you believe in fate?”

“Yes…” she answered slowly and uncertainly.

Joel Wyman replied with a shrug.

Fringe returns with all new episodes this Friday at 9/8c on Fox.