FRINGE: Producers On ‘Plenty Of Story To Be Told’, 7 Seasons; Bishops Reunited Spoiler Clip

Huff Post also grabbed a few words with Pinkner and Wyman who gave their first in-depth public response to FOX’s proclamation that Fringe loses money. They also discuss the season’s overarching trajectory:

On Reilly’s comments that Fringe isn’t making enough $$$:

Joel Wyman: I mean, it’s funny — if you remember, ever since we moved from Tuesday nights, people have been saying that we’re gone, but here we are. We’ve consistently said that the network has been transparent with us always. We have no reason to believe that we’re not in the same game that anybody else is in in the world of television. You’ve got to get numbers; you’ve got to do a certain number; how much does it cost to make the show? The question becomes, “Is there a way to make ‘Fringe’ that makes financial sense?” Jeff and I are both producers that always and have always rolled up our sleeves in order to be financially responsible. You never know.

The most important thing is the following: We’re not changing our plan, nor have we ever. We know where we’re going every season. We believe that the most important thing to our fans is to leave them satiated and to make them feel like there’s an ending that they can wrap their minds and hearts around and say, “I love that ending. I totally understand. I feel like I’ve watched an incredible saga and it’s come to a natural conclusion that I believe in.” That’s our main goal. At the end of each season, fortunately for us, we’ve always closed a chapter and opened up a new one. We have ideas where we would go if there was a fifth season and a sixth season and a seventh season. There’s plenty of story to be told. The question is, can we close a chapter and allow it to be a finale that lets everybody in their hearts go on and say, “I can imagine where it would have gone, but yet, I feel strangely satisfied.” That’s what we feel we have right now. We’re not going to change anything. We’re going to tell the story that we’ve been telling since the beginning. We feel that if we were the viewers and we were presented with an ending like what we have, that we would be very satisfied.

They also reiterate one of their main conceptual goals for the season – the notion that life is valued by the connections people make — and how, as the season progress, fans will further come to understand the facets of that exploration. In addition, they reveal their surprise that some fans really thought they’d erase the first three seasons of the show:

Wyman: Jeff and I were actually shocked that people would think for a second that we would have one of those sequences where, poof, the character is gone and everything that you knew about our characters and everything that you learned didn’t really happen or is gone. We would be terribly frustrated if we came across that, being fans of television ourselves. So we would never in a million years do that. What we were really trying to do is have the audience really understand that all this stuff really did happen — “I’m with Peter and I’m in his shoes; I want him to be able to experience what he’s lost. I want to get back there and I want those relationships. I know that he belongs with Olivia. I want him back with Olivia — I don’t know how, but he’s got to find his way back.” That’s what we had always intended, so we were a bit shocked when people thought, “They just erased a couple of years of character history.” It’s not true. That’s not what our intention was, nor is it where we’re going.

You can read the entire interview over at Huff Post.

Interesting interview, I agree that the concept is one well worth exploring — it’s one of the reasons I’m careful to distinguish between some of the season’s duff notes (i.e lack of seriability and conflict) and the concept, which remains one of the best on television, for me.

On the future of Fringe front, they certainly drink from the same pool of optimism as JJ. Abrams, and quite right too — they give a balanced assessment of the situation and understand the show’s fortune of getting this far (not that it hasn’t earned it, but still). If they’re able to pull off a final arc that can satisfactorily resolve the journey while also working as a segue into a potential fifth season, then more power to them. That’s the challenge isn’t it?

Of  course, the proof is in the seriable pudding.