The TV Addict & J.J. Abrams at the FRINGE Premiere Party in New York
1. THE TV ADDICT HEARTS J.J. ABRAMS:
J.J. Abrams gave the TV Addict a cupcake. A scrumptious chocolate cupcake. No really. As a mea culpa for arriving thirty minutes late to New York’s Gansevoort hotel, where Abrams, alongside fellow FRINGE co-creators Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Executive Producers Bryan Burk and Jeff Pinkner were kind enough to take the time to talk up their new series [premiering tonight at 8PM on FOX], Abrams brought cupcakes from New York’s famed Magnolia Bakery. So not only is Abrams the genius behind one of my all-time favorite shows — ALIAS. He helped co-create LOST and FELICITY, is currently putting the final touches on a little movie you might have heard of called STAR TREK and gave me a cupcake! Which I’ll soon be auctioning off on eBay… [kidding!]
2. FRINGE HAS AN ACTUAL PLANNED OUT END GAME:
Rest assured frustrated AAA fans, that’s ALIAS ADDICTS ANONYMOUS for those still scratching their head over what the deal with Rambaldi was. FRINGE executive producer Alex Kurtzman promises that there is already a planned end game to the show’s mythology and more importantly that the ending is very flexible in terms of when we get there. Elaborated Kurtzman, “If they [FOX] let us run for twelve seasons you’ll see it in season twelve. If they take us off the air after nine episodes you’ll see it there.”
3. THE WRITERS HAVE LEARNED FROM THEIR PAST ‘MISTAKES’:
Unlike both his LOST and ALIAS, co-creator and executive producer Roberto Orci does not, “think the stories we are going to come up with are dependent on ‘the answer.’ So we can, in theory, indefinitely continue to do what we’re going to do whether or not we have ‘the answer.'” Added Orci, “The fact that we actually know what we’re doing and have an end point is kind of a bonus. It allows us to have everything sort of make sense retroactively but I don’t think our show is predicated on the notion that we’re going to have to reveal the big secret every week.”
4. FRINGE IS MUCH MORE THAN A SIMPLE PROCEDURAL:
Realizing that nine of the ten top shows currently on the air are a variation of your standard procedural, J.J. Abrams and Co. went back to the drawing board to devise a show that would be similar to any of the seemingly never-ending variations of CSI: SVU & ORDER WITHOUT A COLD CASE. But rest assured, there’s more to FRINGE than meets the eye. Explains Orci, “We’re trying to crash a procedural with kind of the more genre type stuff we like. And in the classic procedural, the characters are together because they are assigned to be. And because one of them is the father, she [FBI Agent Anna Torv] needs him. And he can’t be there without his son [played by Josh Jackson], who doesn’t exactly want to be there either. So it’s a tenuous situation that they’re in.”
5. RAMBALDI MAY BE GONE, BUT HE’S NOT FORGOTTEN:
When asked by this TV Addict if there might be room for a Rambaldi reference in the mysterious unexplained world of FRINGE, Roberto Orci laughed, “That’s interesting, hadn’t thought of it, but now that you mention it… perhaps.” Deadpanned Bryan Burke, “He’s the guy who create the LOST island, right?” 
Don’t miss the Super-Sized Premiere of FRINGE [With Limited Commercial Interruptions] tonight at 8PM on FOX [CTV in Canada]