Fringe took over a block of West Hastings Street in downtown Vancouver last Monday dressed as New York City to film a scene of Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop dodging about two dozen cars while crossing the street for episode seven of the final season. Observers, Loyalist troops and citizens dressed in 1940s garb walking in the background told us this scene is set in 2036. It was a deceptively simple one of Peter crossing the street, coming to a dead stop in the middle of it until a New York cabbie yells at him to “get out of the way” and then continuing on to the curb on the other side. But all those moving vehicles required a stunt coordinator on set.
After the Peter Bishop scene wrapped, Fringe crew filmed an Observer crossing the street in the opposite direction. And not just any Observer. I spotted this one in last Friday night’s episode set on the Harvard campus but filmed at the University of British Columbia. Somehow this Observer is significant. [Update: turns out this Observer is a Windmark lieutenant, one of the three that Peter Bishop blows up in this episode in revenge for his daughter Etta’s death. Windmark is his next target.]
The background Loyalist performer below graciously allowed me to photograph the markings on her cheek which spell “Heed” in the Observer language and could read right to left not left to right like the English language.
I also photographed one of the ads on top of one of the prop New York taxicabs because signage on a Fringe set usually has significance too.
And here’s a photograph of Joshua Jackson on risers as Peter Bishop doing a closeup of his sudden halt in the middle of the street.
Fringe’s fiffth & final season airs Friday nights at 9 p.m. on FOX in the U.S. and Citytv in Canada.
Hey does anyone know the whole filming schedule? I’m going to vancouver area in March and I was wondering if they would be filming once upon a time then? PLease let me know!!!!