Exclusive

Will Olivia Fight Fauxlivia? Fringe Bosses Answer Your Burning Fan Q's: Part One, "Over Here"

Jeff Pinkner and Joel Wyman spill scoop on the return of our fave freaky-deaky sci-fi show, including what's up with Altivia and Peter's romance

By Jennifer Arrow Nov 02, 2010 10:00 PMTags
Fringe, Anna TorvLiane Hentscher/FOX

UPDATE, Wednesday, 6 p.m.: Don't miss Part Two: "Over There" for more fabulous Fringe scoop!

________

Shapeshifters, doppelgängers and evil twins, oh my! Fox's wicked smart sci-fi series Fringe is back with all-new episodes this Thursday, and us fans are dying to know if our boy Peter will realize that his girl's sort of a replicant, if Walter will be able to defeat Walternate's diabolical plan, and whether or not good Olivia can escape her mental prison "over there."

To find out the answers to these and other burning fan Q's, we took your Twitter queries straight to show runners Jeff Pinkner and Jeff Wyman, and here's what they revealed about what's going on "over here":

TWITTER: Follow @KristinDSantos and @JenniferArrow

@No1withaU (via Twitter): Are we going to see any Olivia against Altlivia? #fringe
Jeff Pinkner:
There will not be a confrontation between the two women in the early part of the season.
Joel Wyman: Not a physical one.

@chachithegreat (via Twitter): Does Peter know that Fauxlivia is not his Olivia? Is he playing her or does he really not know?
J.P.: Peter pretty much believes that's his Olivia. He's just clocking the changes that are going on with her, what he thinks is an existential change for the character, since she's been through so much and has come back. [He thinks she] has seen what you could call the error of her ways in how she's lived her life, and that she's sort of had this epiphany where she sees the world so much clearer than she did before. He [sees] normal changes that are more about her personality, rather than suspecting she's not who she says she is.

Are Peter and the other Olivia fully in the throes of a relationship? Was that sex that they had?
J.W.: That was sex! That was definitely sex, and the next time we see them together, which will be in two episodes from now, pretty early on in the episode, we define exactly where there relationship is right now.

So when Olivia comes back, she'll discover that her boyfriend had an affair with...herself?
J.W.: Yes, imagine that. Coming back and realizing that your boyfriend has sort of had an affair with you—and maybe a better version [of you], which is so sad.

@aquelegobbi (via Twitter): Please ask about Altivia turning good ;)
J.P.: Under the headline that no character thinks they're a bad character, Altivia definitely exposes herself to us as a fully formed thinking woman who's going to realize certain things about existence and the two worlds and what part she's playing and who the other Olivia is and who Peter is and what she stands for—there's definitely going to be a lot of different colors that we get to know about her. She's a really interesting character, because she doesn't have the same things happen to her as a child that Olivia had, so she's Olivia 2.0, the perfect version of the character. So we get to contrast Olivia with Bolivia, and we get to see what could have been for our Olivia, and what's holding her back as a character. It's our intention to really examine Fauxlivia and have her be well-rounded.

By the way, Anna's doing a wonderful job with the two characters.
J.W.: Both she and John Noble and Lance Reddick, all of them, but particularly Anna, it's amazing how authentic both versions of all their characters are. As Anna has said, "Olivia wants to save the world. Bolivia wants to win." And in her mind, Olivia is somebody who was damaged, as a child. Walter experimented on her and the consequence of the experimentation was that she denies her own personal needs in favor of saving those people around her, and the world. Whereas, Bolivia has the same intrinsic desires to help the world, but to her it's much more a competition, and not a competition against anybody else, but a competition within herself to do right and be good. They both come from a similar foundation, but they're so different.

@EnergyTanks (via Twitter): [Any] episodes featuring the Observers?
J.P.: Yes, there's an Observer-centric episode coming up. Let's just say that what we love to do with the Observer episodes like "August" is give the fans a chance to understand a little more about what they're about, and this time won't disappoint.

Are you concerned at all about the ratings? What are you hearing from the network?
J.W.: Fox has been very supportive of the show, and Warner Brothers has obviously as well. We're just going to keep making the best show we know how to make, and hope that is enough.
J.P.: We talk about, "Are there things we can be doing, are there things we should be doing to broaden our audience?" We're very very pleased with the show that we're making right now, and as Joel said, Fox has nothing but wonderful and supportive. Entirely. From creative point of view, from a numbers point of view, everything. There have been no grumblings at all—quite the opposite—and we have decided that we would rather turn out a show with perhaps a slightly smaller fanbase, but one that's really really passionate about the show, and not worry about gimmicky stuff. What we say is that not everyone likes licorice, but the people that like it, really like it.
J.W.: We want to make that show.

Do you like licorice? Of course you do!

Tell us (and your fellow fans) in the comments why you brave the scheduling crunch of Thursday nights to watch Fringe, and then check back tomorrow for part two of our interview with Fringe show runners Jeff Pinkner and Joel Wyman, and find out what's to come "Over There."

CLICK: Get this week's TV Spoiler Chat.

________

UPDATE, Wednesday, 6 p.m.: Don't miss Part Two: "Over There" for more fabulous Fringe scoop!