Joshua Jackson says his “excited” to be playing the father and the son in the final season of Fringe. Find out why below the jump.
Mild spoiler alert:
“I had such a good time with Georgina Haig, who plays my daughter. So I’m actually excited to go back and have more than one scene to do with her. She’s a lovely young woman and she brings a real vitality and energy and in the way that she chose to play that character, there’s a combination of Olivia’s cold steel and Peter’s more off the cuff ability to adapt on the fly. So that, I think, will be a ton of fun. I think it’ll add an interesting wrinkle into Peter and Walter’s relationship now that Peter is a father and can share the concerns that Walter has had.
As a son, as a child, you always feel a little bit like mom, dad, lay off, I’ll be fine. I think Peter’s had a bit of that with Walter every time he’s terrified to let him go out of the house. Now being a father, I think there’ll be a whole new avenue of communication or understanding between those two guys. I think the end of the journey for Peter, I think there are two important things.”
You can continue reading at Crave Online.
Fringe Seasons 1-4 On Netflix
Science Channel Confirms Fringe Hasn't Been Cancelled
Olivia-esque Powers Showcased In New 'Believe' Trailer
Fringe Features In Best Serialized TV Episodes 2012/13 Article
Fringe 'The Zodiac Paradox' - Book Giveaway
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
Can September come faster?
Like:
6
i suppose he could arrive at any time. he’s crafty like that.
Well-loved. Like:
23
Oh My, you are totally right about that!!! And it would be really better if he could bring some new Fringe episodes with him!
Like:
5
Except he died between 4.22 and 4.19.
Like:
0
Silly me, I thought you meant the month of September! The start of Season 5.
Like:
0
Josh has me excited to see how this pans out.
Like:
3
Except. of course, Peter is still largely a stranger to this Walter, for whom he never existed.
Jackson is talking, delusionally, as if the old timeline’s Peter-and-Walter relationship exists, like they’ve known each other for decades. It doesn’t, and they haven’t. This is a new relationship with little of the old dynamic – and when they’ve tried to insert the old dynamic it doesn’t ring true.
This Walter barely knows Peter, the timeframe in which they showed Walter finally even agreeing to talk to Peter was far too short for that kind of dynamic to arise.
Except that for this Walter, Peter died as a child in both universes.
Get it? No adolescence for Peter, no fatherly concern over late night teenage parties, nothing – none of that existed. Peter is a bootstrap paradox with no origin in this timeline – his memories are of a vapourised life that only he and Olivia remember – and her memories aren’t even hers, technically speaking!
So what house would Walter been terrified for Peter to have gone out of, for goodness sake?! The one that they’ve never shared in this timeline?
Sorry to be the wet blanket here, but I’m not going to be an uncritical adolescent fanboy, and I’m not going to pretend that they didn’t render the first three seasons largely meaningless with that unholy train wreck that was season 4.
Perhaps Josh is like me – trying to pretend that season 4 never happened?
Of course I’ll watch the last season, I remain a fan (but not of season 4), hoping against hope for redemption of the show, but with a sinking feeling…
Well-loved. Like:
18
Underseer I agree completely with what you said, and I have to tell I dont care because I do pretend that never season 4 never existed so therefore this is just a continuation from season 3 (ish) for me so as far as im concerned the relationship between walter and peter will be fine in season 5
Like:
4
But it can’t be a continuation of season 3. It’s a continuation of just one, aberrant, episode of season 4. An episode which contradicts all of the earlier seasons, too. It’s as if they had decided to make season 3 a continuation of Brown Betty – though at least in that there was a real and significant relationship between the Bishops.
Like:
1
“No adolescence for Peter, no fatherly concern over late night teenage parties, nothing – none of that existed.”
That concern never happened in the original timeline either. Remember, Walter was an absent father first by choice and then by force, when he was institutionalized. Peter was raised by his alternate mother. I don’t know why people romanticize original Walter’s fatherly role toward Peter. Their loving relationship developed over the course of 3 years, the ones before the reset. Before that Walter was everything a father shouldn’t be. This version of Walter and Peter could have developed the same relationship offscreen over the course of 4 years, before they get ambered. It might not be as satisfying as their previous relationship to the audience, but to the characters it would be about the same or maybe better, since this Walter doesn’t remember what a horrible father he was.
It is true that this version of Walter showed very little fatherly concern if any for Peter, but original Walter did every now and then, when Peter was in a dangerous situation. Josh is talking about that from Peter’s perspective (Peter does remember), how he dismissed those worries, but now he’s a father and he’ll get to experience all those concerns about Etta’s safety.
So I don’t see how Josh is delusional at all. Even if Walter doesn’t love or care about Peter S4-style, Peter knows this is the same Walter, he remembers their story before the reset and he loves Walter, even if its not reciprocated.
Well-loved. Like:
15
Nice thinking number six. I would have really appreciated a scene in season 4 where walter and peter have a conversation after walter realises peter is in the right timeline and says how he’s missed out on all his childhood and stuff and peter says something like : “we didnt speak for 17 years, so you havent missed out much” kind of thing, i think they missed out on a lot of stuff they could have done with the new timeline last year.
Like:
3
They missed all the opportunities to make this relationship satisfying in S4. All of them. I know Josh loves the Walter/Peter relationship, I used to as well, but the writers went to every length to destroy it in S4 and as much as I’d like to pretend it never existed, it did. That love story is over from my point of view and they can’t sell the new Walter and whatever he has with Peter (if he has anything) as an acceptable replacement. I understand why Peter would accept this Walter, but I just can’t.
Like:
6
I agree completely.
The rewritten timeline COULD have been good, if the HAD changed things that made sense.
Unfortunately they just changed what seemed “cool” to them and made no sense at all.
Now Fringe will most likely consist of five seasons with three nearly independent stories (S 1-3; S4; S5).
Like:
4
There were some moments when Walter started coming around towards the end.
Walter to Lincoln: “Its Perfect” “Lincoln what? My culture it is fine?” Walter: “No them! I didn’t realize how much I longed for family.” Lincoln: “Yeah there perfect alright” sigh.”
Walter: “Peter i tried to call you last night but you dint answer.” Peter: “Yeah I was out.” Walter: “With Agent Dunham making up for lost time.” Grinning
Also the DNA sample was in the likelihood of 99.7% chance of Walter Bishop being Peters real biological father.
There were other Father son bonding’s as well. The B-Day toys, The Hug. The message from Walter to Alt Broyle’s about rescuing Peter all over again to justify Alt Broyle’s wrong doings for his son as well.
But I do agree season 4 IMO dragged so slow towards the the season finale and a lot of material could have been covered during that time. I believe Peters sacrifice and re introduction could of been handled better by the creative story writers. I just skip the first 8 Episodes of season 4 during a re watch TBH.
Like:
4
Underseeer also forgets in the next series we will be best part of 25 years on. That dynamic has had planty of time to be reastablished, as number 6 states that dyamic wasn’t there before because of Walter being a poor father and his incarceration.
The dynamic played out on Peter getting Walter out of hospital, a dynamic that was built up over just 3 years. I think over a 24 year period (or what ever time it was before they got ambered) they will be in good shape.
Like:
2
technically they have have been in amber for like 20 years and only 5 years passed after the end of season 4 before they were ambered
Like:
4
You also have to remember that the relationship is going to even more different because Walter’s brain has been restored (4.19).
Like:
1
I hope you are right. Walter with his brain restored is a cold and scary man, very much like Walternate. I would like to see that, since I find Walternate much more interesting than S4 Walter.
Like:
1
There are still elements of the Walter we love though.
When they got Astrid out of the amber he grinned and said “Hello, Astro!”, so there are lots of elements to him now.
Well-loved. Like:
10
That joke got old in S3, when Astrid became awesome and asserted herself with that great “Wally”. It’s sad that that nice piece of character development was deleted, together with the first 3 seasons.
I know it’s supposed to be endearing, but when the current Walter failed to show any concern for Astrid, after she got shot, I was very disappointed in him. Not a single question, when it was his recklessness, that put her in danger. She is so caring about him! She even cried at the hospital, because she couldn’t protect him.
He can call her all those names for laughs all he wants, but to me it’s hollow, not cute.
Like:
4
Agreed. In season 4, Walter was a whining spoiled brat.
The characterisations of the entire season were implausible, infuriating and handled with shocking ineptitude, contrasting quite jarringly with the brilliance of the previous three seasons.
Like:
4
I think we have to accept that a lot of the re-establishing of the relationships have happened off-screen.
Also, John Noble mentioned in an interview that Walter won’t be totally cold and mean . . . there will be those crazy loveable traits that we’ve grown to love.
Look, I’m not a huge fan of season 4; my favorite was the reunion and final consumation of the Peter/Olivia relationship. I have confidence that all four seasons will tie-in to this **sniff sniff** last season.
Like:
5
Yes, I agree with you. At this point we have to accept season 4 was what it was, and left the characters where they needed to be in order to tell the final part of the story. I guess things could have been handled differently in and there are quite a few things that don’t quite add up, but that’s the story the showrunners decided to tell and that’s what we’ve got.
I’m excited for season 5 and I’m willing to embrace whatever parts of the story seem contrived in order to make sense of the overall picture.
So season 4 wasn’t that good, but it opened the door to an awesome new chapter that is 2036. Letters of Transit just makes up for everything else to me.
Like:
5
Good point JM!
Number Six – I hadn’t forgotten that Walter had been in an institution for 17 years, my point was that even so, Walter still wanted to see his son while he was there, and said so in season one (and two, I think). So the emotional undercurrents were there for Walter and Peter – in season 4 such undercurrents couldn’t exist.
Also, I don’t infer that Josh is referring to their post-season 4 relationship. And is the entire season going to be set in the future? I seem to remember Wyman saying it (the future) isn’t “the be-all and end-all” of season five (his words). Maybe I’m mis-remembering, or he’s back-pedalled since then.
By the way my ‘delusional’ comment wasn’t an attack on Joshua Jackson. I like the guy, watching him at Comic-con he comes across as one of the few grounded, down to earth people in an industry filled with shallow, self-obsessed, money-worshipping piranhas.
In fact I fervently wish that he’d been the showrunner in season 4 and that we’d followed his ‘Beyond the Fringe’ comics, because his ideas were far more intelligent and intriguing. I would have loved to see the high-tech spin on the lost continent of Hyperborea.
Like:
6
“Walter still wanted to see his son while he was there”
To tell you the truth, I don’t know what Walter wanted in S1. I don’t know if he thought Peter was his real son (and therefore his feelings had nothing to do with real Peter) or if he was aware that he was an alternate version, that he had stolen from another universe or if he just wanted to use Peter as caretaker. His memory wasn’t reliable, sometimes it seemed he knew what was up with Peter and sometimes it didn’t. Anyway, the story of them becoming a family is the one I experienced on TV and the one I was invested in. In that regard, I agree with you it’s not the same. However, from the point of view of the characters, Peter knows this is his Walter, he remembers their past together, so the undercurrents are there for him.
Like:
1
Relationships are mutual things. It would be Peter’s tragedy if the feelings are there for him, and not there for Walter. The relationship would have been severed, just the same as if they both had lost the development we saw in seasons 1-3. A story-thread they seemed to abandon in season 4 was the visions Walter (and we learned Olivia) had of Peter at the beginning. Maybe the near loathing Walter seemed to exhibit was a consequence of these tormenting experiences, as was perhaps his repeated insistence that Peter should go home and not restore his relationship with Olivia, but the question of why his relationship with Peter had bled through into the second time line wasn’t addressed. Yet, as with Olivia’s, it was essential to the restoration of Peter – these were his anchors to reality.
Like:
2
” It would be Peter’s tragedy if the feelings are there for him, and not there for Walter.”
Maybe, but sometimes relationships are like that, one feeling more than the other… feelings not being quite reciprocated.
The development from S1-S3 was lost, abandoned for the next seemingly shinier thing. That’s the tragedy.
“A story-thread they seemed to abandon in season 4 was the visions Walter (and we learned Olivia) had of Peter at the beginning.”
Yeah, and what about Olivia’s dreams? What were those about? Why wasn’t she affected by them? What caused Walter’s change of heart from loathing Peter to calling him “son”? Why did Olivia fall out of love with Lincoln and in love with another guy? Just because he went to a birthday party and he wasn’t there for a couple of episodes? I think that the relationships in general were handled very poorly.
Like:
2
@Number Six
“Yeah, and what about Olivia’s dreams? What were those about?”
They were dirty dreams about Peter (im sure you can find more than a hundred different videos on youtube regarding the scene in 4×12 welcome to westfield)
“Why did Olivia fall out of love with Lincoln and in love with another guy?”
I’m sorry but when was she IN love with him? this still annoys me the most about season 4! I just remember Gabel saying in all his interviews they were “in love” just a joke. They didn’t know each other and it was just ridiculous.
Like:
2
Oh yeah and regarding the dreams, I’m completely lost. Walter and Olivia seemed to think Peter was doing this on purpose and Olivia was surprised when Peter didn’t know he was doing it to them. They never once stopped and thought about maybe there is something to this….
Like:
0
Yeah, for a scientist and an FBI agent, they were absurdly and conveniently (for the sake of prolonging the tension) incurious. You would think they’d be all over their biggest Fringe event.
Like:
1
Wasn’t that dream exclusive of that one time in Welcome to Westfield and not like her previous dreams of him? They never clarified that and her reaction toward him at the beginning, loathing, was very different from her reaction in episode 4.13.
Like:
1
I was actually watching an interview with Anna Torv from comic con, and the differing reactions are probably because the cast themselves were not told this was the real timeline, she even said she would have played Olivia very differently if she had known that, specifically the way she reacted to Peter.
Like:
2
In my opinion what the reset in season 4 did was put Peter in a place where he really wanted Walter in his life. It also showed how much Peter had an effect on Walter, and when Peter came back Walter slowly became as close to his pre season 4 self as he could be, but without some of the bad parenting baggage.
I guess you could say that they were each a better realized version of themself
Hot debate. What do you think?
8
I like that Joshua Jackson said in the interview that this is a time of happiness and excitement. Fox renewing a show that was getting bone-yard ratings on a graveyard night was not expected, but it was a HUUUUUGE white tulip to the fans who have been there for the ride. So of course it is a time to celebrate and work with passion and excitement.
It will be cool to see the interaction between Peter, Olivia, Etta, and Walter.
I also like his commitment to the Peter-Walter relationship. After 4.15, it was apparent to Peter that this was his Walter, since this was home and his Olivia. In the last few episodes, Walter called Peter his son. The end of BNW Part Deux, Walter is whistling “Rock-a-bye Baby,” so clearly, he has bought-in to the belief that the baby (Etta) is his grandchild. Although the producers burned through a lot of goodwill with the way season 4 started (Wallflower? REALLY?), they did right the ship (shippers?) with BTWYNB and everything else toward the end. The door is open a crack for Walter to remember/realize that this was his Peter. It would be great if Wyman closes the circle on this part of the story. (I would also like some resolution to Peter, Walternate, and Elizabeth, but that was effectively sealed-off when they closed The Bridge.)
Only downside to the interview was the question about Dawson’s Creek.
Now if we can just make it to 09/28/12 (and the day after 4.19)…
Come on, season 5, get here.
Like:
2