FRINGE: Joshua Jackson Teases ‘Back To Where You’ve Never Been’ and the Show’s Future

Peter may be back, but in the last episode of 2011, fans noticed he was fairly MIA. Or as series star Joshua Jackson (Peter) joked to reporters at Fox’s TCA party Sunday night, “Peter was like ‘Where’s Waldo?’ in the last episode.”

But that all changes in this Friday’s brand new episode.

“He finally does take a proactive role,” Jackson noted. “but Peter is a tricky character, because he’s not the central character of the show. You would imagine that he is doing these things [in past episodes], but he’s doing them off-camera. So we finally dedicate two stories to him proactively trying to get himself home. As we find him at the beginning of the next episode, he’s kind of taking a Hail Mary pass and trying to [reach] the one man he really doesn’t want to have to deal with — which is Walternate — and we see him go through the machinations to convince Walter and Walternate and frankly anybody to help him to get him back to his world.”

While to say more about what he finds over in the other universe would be a bit too spoilery (and we’ll have that for you after the episode airs this Friday), I couldn’t resist asking Jackson if they were still in the new timeline in what he last shot. (The show is currently filming episode 14.)

“You know that I can’t answer that question,” he laughed. “I appreciate your asking, and I hope you appreciate that I can’t say.”

Fair enough. One thing he was more willing to talk about was the comments Fox president, Kevin Reilly, made at TCA, and whether the series would be gearing towards a series finale, in light of their struggling ratings.

“The truth of the matter is we’ve already had that conversation last year,” Jackson explained. “I think we sort of peaked ratings-wise in season 2. It was our most solid year, and I think creatively, that was probably our most consistently solid year. I would say season 3 was an extremely ambitious year — a lot of people tuned out last year. So we were prepared that last year might have been the end. I’m not involved in those conversations, quite frankly, but I think those guys are prepared for that if that was going to be the case, how they would implement that end game. And they’ve always said — and I believe them — that there is an end game to the show.”

“I’m guessing you guys heard what Kevin Reilly said [on Sunday],” he continued. “I don’t think you can be more honest and upfront and still be a network executive. If this is going to be the end of the show, if we are not making money or they are losing money, I just want to believe him when he says he’ll give our guys enough time to implement what the end game is. Because as much as I don’t want to lose my job, the thing we have to do as a show, and as a network supporting a show, is satisfy the people who have so passionately stuck with us and been so rabidly and passionately involved in our show. We cannot just got out — it has to finish, whether it’s now, whether it’s next year, whether it’s five years from now, it has to get to its end.”

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FRINGE returns January 13 at 9 PM on Fox.

Related:

FRINGE: ‘Back To Where You’ve Never Been’ You Ask, I Answer
FRINGE Photo Preview: ‘Back to Where You’ve Never Been’
FRINGE: John Noble Teases ‘Back to Where You’ve Never Been’! Plus, Check out a ‘Clear’ Promo for 2012

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