IGN Interview with JJ Abrams

Found here.

Cool interview with the man behind Fringe, Alias, Lost, etc.

Finally some news!

E! talks about the pilot.

ARG for Fringe out!

If you go to the Future on Fox blog, you'll find links to the following websites that have something to do with an ARG for Fringe:

http://www.holomove.com
http://codewtrn8.blogspot.com/

Videos reuploaded

One of the most difficult things about posting video clips of Fox shows is how fast they pull these things off Youtube. Why they so desperately want to crack down on people promoting their shows is beyond me, but here are the videos reuploaded, minus the TV spot from last night:

Preview #1
Preview #2
Full trailer

New TV spot that aired during American Idol

Enjoy!

Sneak peaks of the pilot!

Booyeah!

First Fringe review: Very positive!

Check it out! Very positive!

Every once in a while a pilot comes along that is so perfect, such a shining indication of what the final series will be, so perfectly cast and directed, that it's impossible to look away.

That pilot, ladies and gentlemen, is definitely FOX's phenomenal science-tinged drama Fringe.

In a nutshell, Fringe is The X-Files for the new millennium: eerie, gripping, and still haunting even after the final credits have rolled, albeit containing a humor that never existed in that series. In this case, the aliens aren't from outer space: they're the mega-corporations that dot the American landscape, pushing science and technology past their limits and exploiting that for their own gain. It poses several ethical questions: when does the pursuit of scientific discovery go too far? Who is monitoring the rapid advances in technology in today's day and age? And what happens when a scientist--or a group of scientists--decides that the world is their laboratory?

Longtime readers of this site know my longstanding love for the pilot script, from Transformers scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman... who previously worked with executive producer J.J. Abrams on his seminal ABC series Alias and on the feature films Mission Impossible III and Star Trek. My original review of Fringe's pilot script from last October can be found here.

PICTURES!

Summary of the original pilot script

Here's a positive review of the pilot script. Here's a negative one that used to be readable, but can no longer be accessed:

We begin – in true Abrams fashion — on an airplane. Some mysterious fellow injects himself with a drug that causes his skin to melt. His skin melts someone else’s skin and their skin melts someone else’s skin and so on until no one’s got any skin left and the flight is nothing but monsterously deformed corpses.

At that same moment, our female lead Olivia Warren is having secret motel sex with her love, John Scott. Both are FBI agents and are forced to have this secret tryst to prevent their superiors from ripping apart their frowned-upon office romance.

John delivers one of the worst monologues ever committed to paper, confessing his true love and explaining why they must keep it secret at all costs.

But there’s no time for love! A plane full of bloody corpses has just landed at Logan Airport! The agents hit the scene only to be faced with grumpy Special Agent in Charge Broyles. He hates Warren because she ratted out some Marines some years back for sexual assault and now his best friend is in prison. The dialogue from Broyles (sometimes spelled Broyels) reads as straightforward and expository as that last sentence.

With everyone on the plane dead, Warren and Scott head off to investigate a potential terrorist link. They discover the remains of chemical experiments and spot (though they don’t know this) the same man who injected himself on the plane. Scott chases him and there’s a big explosion.

We return to a hospital where Warren is just waking up. It seems that Scott has been exposed to some bizarre chemical that is causing his skin to turn transparent and slowly killing him.

With an internet search montage, Warren finds the link between the plane and the chemical; A scientist named Walter Bishop. The guy’s a crazy, crazy scientist whose been locked in a mental institution for 20 years after killing some people in an experiment.

But since Broyles hates Warren he won’t let her talk to him! And she needs special permission for anyone other than immediate family to visit the mental institution! Oh no! Who’da thunk that an investigation into a potential terrorist attack on the United States involving super-weapons would ever be derailed by a minor grudge between two FBI Agents?

But there’s a solution! Bishop has a son! Enter Peter Bishop – a super-bright gambler and roustabout who now lives in Iraq doing crazy Han Solo type things. He hates his father but Warren convinces him to fly back to the US and uses him to gain access to the hospital where his crazy father is being held. Because that’s much easier than just asking the hospital’s permission.

Walter’s crazy in a funny, eccentric way. He speaks in non-sequiturs and even has a funny “I wet myself” scene. Comedy gold.

So father and son have an uneasy reunion and, apparently, it’s super-easy to sign someone out of an institution for the criminally insane as long as you’re related to them because that’s exactly what they do.

Walter, it seems, handled all sorts of super-crazy experiments through something called “fringe science” which is more or less “science fiction science”. He had a partner, William Bell, now the richest man in the world and head of a company called Prometheus.

Walter knows exactly what’s wrong with Scott but needs time to cure him. Broyles barges in and tells Warren there’s trouble; there’s a mole in the FBI!

It’s off to Walter’s lab (still around after 17 years of disuse for some reason) and crazy science begins! They can use science to send Warren inside of Scott’s comatose mind and find out the face of the guy he was chasing! This involves putting Warren in a bikini then into a tank of water and zapping her with science of some kind.

Before they can do this, though, father and son have to put together some crazy technology, giving Warren the chance to head to New and get clues from the Prometheus corporation. It’s also crazy into science we learn because one of the women who works there, Nina Cord, has A ROBOTIC HAND! That’s all we learn from that.

Warren goes back to Boston and inside her boyfriend’s mind – a silly sequence in a junkyard that represents their mixed memories and learns the face of the guy Scott ran after. Waking up, she has the FBI sketch it up and it’s recognized as the guy from the flight or, rather his TWIN BROTHER! That’s right, the guy who you don’t who he is is really another guy who you don’t who he is! Except, we learn, he worked for Prometheus!

Suddenly robo-hand girl is friendly and gives up all information on this fellow, Richard Stenson, who worked from Prometheus two years earlier. They catch him in Boston and pretty easily make a cure for Scott.

Warren is approached by Broyles who tells her that he’s in charge of a secret FBI group that investigates the paranormal. And he wants her to join! And also Walter and Peter! It’s going to be sciencey hijinks from here on out in the name of national security!

Stenson is questioned and claims that he was threatened into developing the chemical by an unknown entity and forced into killing his own brother. But by who? The mole, of course! Warren realizes it’s Scott and he’s immediately killed in an ensuing car chase.

But who was he really working for? Perhaps one day our crazy team will find out…

Transcript of the 3 and a half minute trailer

So, what do you think? Looks like "The Pattern" will be the central mystery surrounding the show for a while. Think of Lost's Monster or Rambaldi from Alias.

FLIGHT 627
ORIG: HAMBURG, GERMANY
DEST: BOSTON, USA
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PHILLIP BROYLES: Most of what I'm about to show you has not been made public.
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FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Stop! You have to sit down!
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OLIVIA DUNHAM: Olivia Dunham, FBI.
INVESTIGATOR: Navy scrambles two F-18s for escort. Their report is "stains in the windows and no signs of live onboard the jet".
DUNHAM: Stains?
INVESTIGATOR: Blood.
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FROM J.J. ABRAMS
AND THE WRITERS OF TRANSFORMERS
ALEX KURTZMAN ROBERTO ORCI
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HAZMAT CREWMAN: Holy God.
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BROYLES: Over the past nine months there have been three dozen authenticated incidents like the Hamburg flight. They named these events the Pattern.
DUNHAM: The Pattern?
BROYLES: Someone out there is experimenting only the whole world is their lab.
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DUNHAM: You may be able to help us.
PETER BISHOP: No I think you got the wrong guy.
DUNHAM: Either you come with me or I let certain people know your whereabouts.
PETER: What time do we leave?
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BROYLES: Strange things are happening.
DUNHAM: Things like mind control, teleportation, genetic mutation, reanimation.
PETER: Reanimation? Really? So you're telling me, what, my father was Dr. Frankenstein?
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DR. WALTER BISHOP: I knew someone would come.
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WALTER: So much happened here. So much is about to.
CHARLIE FRANCIS: Is it a cow?
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NINA SHARP: Science and technology have advanced at such an exponential rate. It may be way beyond our ability to regulate and control them. You should know what you're getting into Agent Dunham.
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DUNHAM: Have you done this before?
PETER: It's not an exact science.
WALTER: It's not EVEN science. I'm telling you that man will kill you!
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WHAT IF SCIENCE
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BROYLES: You're prohibited from discussing this with anyone inside or out of this office.
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COULD EXCEED OUR IMAGINATION
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DUNHAM: I'm coming to you with a solid lead!
BROYLES: You're wasting your breath and my time.
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WHAT IF THE UNIMAGINABLE
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DUNHAM: What is it you're afraid of?
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COULD BECOME
REALITY
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DUNHAM: I've been trained for a lot: hostage crisis, chemical attacks. What I've been seeing recently...I'm scared. I just want to go back like before.
BROYLES: I don't think you can.
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FRINGE
FOX

Fringe will have limited commercial breaks

Fringe will have "dramatically reduced commercial breaks." The most awesome thing about this? It looks like this won't just be for the premiere, but for every single episode of Fringe.

Fox Broadcasting Co. is shaking up the commercial TV model with "Remote-Free TV."

At its upfront presentation Thursday, the network announced it will air two new drama series, J.J. Abrams' "Fringe" and Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse," with dramatically reduced commercial breaks.

"It's a simple concept and potentially revolutionary," Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Liguori said. "We're going to have less commercials, less promotional time, and less reason for viewers to use the remote. We're going to redefine the viewing experience."

Both "Fringe" and "Dollhouse" would have network commercial loads of about five minutes per hour, about half the usual. The commercial pods would also be shorter and they would have about half the promo load as well.

Full-length trailer released

Welcome to The Fringe Spoiler!

I hope to turn this into one of the best resources for Fringe news and spoilers on the Internet. THIS WILL BE REGULARLY UPDATED! Make sure to keep checking back here to see what new stuff we have as we get ready for Fringe, the latest from J.J. Abrams, in just a few months on FOX.