To a question about his own expectations for the show, Abrams noted that it’s impossible to second guess what anyone will think. However, he said, "I can say that it’s one of those shows that if I had nothing to do with it and saw it coming out, I’d want to kill myself. I’d be so miserable because it is so the show that I’d want to watch ... That doesn’t mean that it’s good or bad. It just means it is so the kind of show that I am excited to see." And that, he said, is the key advice he would give to writers trying to break into television writing: “Write the show that you desperately want to see and that is the closest you can get to certainty that it will appeal to a lot of people.”
Turning to the casting of Joshua Jackson as Peter Bishop, Abrams explained, “As a director/writer/producer, all you ever want is to work with actors who make you look better, who make the work you do seem as good as it can be and even better than it is. I always felt that Josh had that ability. I’m thrilled to finally get a chance to work with him.”
Jackson had his own share of questions, which the actor fielded with a dry sense of humour that bodes well for the likeability of his character. Jackson hasn’t been on the small screen for a while, partly to recover from the time demands of TV. The reason he signed on for Fringe was "the quality of the script ... and the density of it. And the fact that even while it was a totally satisfying story unto itself, you [could] see that it was laid in there, the potential for a whole world, a whole universe of other stories." And, of course, he pointed out that Abrams’ track record for keeping stories compelling over a long period of time didn’t hurt!
Jackson sees his role as a translator between his mad scientist father Walter Bishop (John Noble) and no-nonsense FBI Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv). In his view, “that’s an interesting dynamic because ultimately what that boils down to ... is a very typical dysfunctional family. And you put that dynamic, something that’s relatable and understandable to everybody, and you put it in this fantastically outrageous world of Fringe and it makes for an interesting day’s work.” Besides the character’s complicated relationship with his father, there will be eventually some focus on the sparks between Peter and Olivia. Abrams confirmed that “there’s no doubt going to be a sort of slow burn relationship that develops between the two of them.”
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