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Seth Gabel

RECAP: Everything in its Right Place on FRINGE – Updated

Oh how I’ve missed you, alt-universe. Fringe returns to the Other Side in episode seventeen, Everything in its Right Place, with Anna Torv’s Fauxlivia toting a big gun as Seth Gabel’s Agent Lee faces off with Seth Gabel’s Captain Lee (Fringenuity‘s episode hash tag was a spot-on #FaceYourself).

So we had a double dose of Lincoln Lees but when Seth Gabel played both in Victory Square in downtown Vancouver on February 8th, I only managed to get decent shots of Fauxlivia, although I did see Captain Lee get shot (a spoiler I kept to myself because I couldn’t bear the thought of Fauxlivia losing her Lincoln Lee).

This episode opened in Walter’s lab with Gene the cow wearing an FBI “jacket” while grazing as Jasika Nicole’s Astrid complains to our Lincoln Lee about having to cross over to the other universe to help investigate a vigilante with a connection to the shapeshifters. Agent Lee offers to take her place on the bridge to the other side where he meets up with Fauxlivia and Captain Lee. Clearly Seth Gabel is as good as Anna Torv at playing dopplegangers: Captain Lee is so macho and Agent Lee is borderline dweeb.

From there we go to the top of a parkade at night where the vigilante shapeshifter is killing a criminal in the act. When Fauxlivia, Captain Lee and Agent Lee show up at the crime scene, filmed on February 13th, @MartiniHoudini had a window seat on the action on the Bentall Parkade and Seth Gabel as our Lincoln Lee, an alt-Lincoln Lee double and Anna Torv as Fauxlivia below.

Some of the funniest moments took place on this parkade like Fauxlivia weedling Agent Lee’s middle name out of him and then pranking Captain Lee with a “What’s up Tyrone?” Followed by a superhero debate: “What’s a Batman?” asks Fauxlivia, explaining their superhero is Mantis. “Seriously? Your superhero is an insect?” says our Lincoln Lee. “Because nothing says badass like a flying rat!” retorts Fauxlivia.

And then we’re at a Fringe Division Quarantine Zone at  St. James’ Anglican Church in the Downtown Eastside, where Containment Unit workers are reopening an amber area. Fringe crew turned almost an entire block of Gore Avenue into this quarantine zone on February 9th with DO NOT ENTER signs posted on the entrance doors to the church and FRINGE SITE – DO NOT CROSS red tape stretched across the corner of Gore & East Cordova. The red tape also kept spectators off set — although it’s amazing how close half-a-dozen fans were allowed to stand to watch the steadi-cam crew filming Anna Torv and Seth Gabel. And hidden in among all this set decoration, fans spied a Fringe Division Renewal poster, widely thought to be a subtle plea for a fifth season renewal. Well played Fringe. Well played. I photographed Seth Gabel and Anna Torv having fun in the rain ahead of filming a scene of them entering the church.
I didn’t catch Seth Gabel in character as Captain Lee at this set; only a Captain Lee photo double. But I saw quite a bit of Agent Lee looking dweeby.
A month later on March 15th, Fringe filmed a pickup scene on Gore Avenue recreating much of the Quarantine Zone and then moved to Oppenheimer Park to film the soccer scene with some Fringe fans from France and  NYC prop cabs in the background.
Much of the action shifted to the Terminal City Ironworks complex in east Vancouver, which you should recognize from the season four premiere. The two Lincoln Lees get into it about how their paths diverged until Fauxlivia quips, “Get off the line Girls”. They do have a vigilante shapeshifter to chase down and then interrogate.

BIG READ: FRINGE is Trending in Vancouver and Worldwide

Published February 17, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome

A Skype discussion early this year led to an amazing social media campaign by Fringe fans to make sure people knew their ratings-challenged show was returning in mid-January with a Winter Premiere after a long two-month hiatus. For five consecutive Friday nights, their unique episode hashtags have trended on Twitter worldwide, in the U.S. and in Vancouver. You may have seen #crosstheline, #enemyofmyenemy, #observeitlive, #takethelead and #breakingout trending and wondered what they were. Feel free to join in tonight by tweeting this week’s hashtag #BeaBetterMan after 5 p.m. our time.

The Fringe Campaign organized by @Fringenuity is smart. Audience isn’t just about Nielsen ratings anymore. Fringe has proved itself a social media success with a big presence on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. I’ve participated in all five Twitter campaigns to date by live-tweeting during the west coast broadcast but not in the GetGlue campaign, where fans check in to Fringe and the show’s sponsors — Nissan Leaf and Sprint — live during commercials. Fringe is topping the trending charts at GetGlue too on Friday nights, with over ten thousand checking in. The ongoing campaign helps decision-makers see how much reach the unmeasured Fringe fandom has coming up on discussions between broadcaster FOX and production company Warner Bros TV about whether or not to renew the cult show for a fifth and final season.

Season Four began dramatically with one of the show’s trio of main characters — Peter Bishop — erased from existence and the absence of Joshua Jackson, the actor who plays him, from his hometown. See my YVRShoots series post Where is Peter Bishop? He returned to existence with a big splash at Reiden Lake in the Fall but as a stranger to his beloved Olivia Dunham played by Anna Torv and to his “father” Walter Bishop played by John Noble. See my YVRShoots series post Here is Peter Bishop. Peter remembers them but they don’t remember him in this altered timeline. Are they not his Olivia and his Walter?

We still don’t know about this Olivia and Walter but it was wonderful to catch a glimpse of the Fringe trio acting more like themselves this week at a CBC Vancouver shoot for an upcoming Spring episode, along with junior Fringe agent Astrid Farnsworth played by Jasika Nicole.

Fringe’s fourth season is divided into three acts — the Fall, Winter and Spring episodes. When World Series baseball on FOX unexpectedly pre-empted the eighth episode showrunners planned as their big Fall Finale it hurt the dramatic arc of the show and disappointed viewers.

So the Fall Finale became the Winter Premiere. In Back to Where You’ve Never Been, Peter Bishop decides to Read More »BIG READ: FRINGE is Trending in Vancouver and Worldwide

BIG READ: Here is Peter Bishop on FRINGE

Published October 14, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

Delayed-viewing Friday night hit Fringe recently changed its promotional tagline from “Where is Peter Bishop?” to “Here is Peter Bishop” followed by “Witness the Return Soon”. Hopefully this signals the on-screen return of one of the show’s trio of main characters — the ceased-to-exist Peter Bishop — as well as Joshua Jackson, the actor who plays him. Perhaps that on-screen return will be as soon as tonight’s episode, Subject 9, filmed partly at the Brixton Cafe in Chinatown and the Sherburn building in the West End.

After all, Joshua Jackson made his first on-set appearance on August 23rd at that Sherburn building location where Fringe filmed part of Subject 9, the fourth episode of season four. Jackson filmed inside for half an hour wearing a shirt with motion-capture tags so that ghostly images of Peter Bishop could be inserted into the first three episodes of the season. But it’s also possible that the Sherburn building will be the place where Peter Bishop finally breaks through into the altered Fringe timeline. I’m hoping it will be at fictional Reiden Lake instead — in actuality Rice Lake in North Vancouver where Fringe filmed a couple of weeks later — because Peter Bishop returning to existence at Reiden Lake would provide symmetry in Fringe mythology.

However it happens on screen, Peter Bishop has been back on the streets of Vancouver for almost two months. For example, Fringe fans got to see Joshua Jackson filming a scene today as Peter Bishop with Seth Gabel as original-universe Fringe Division agent Lincoln Lee outside the Orpheum Theatre, where so many pivotal Fringe events have taken place.

Fringe fans have missed Peter Bishop on screen but his disappearance in the season three finale last May did lead to one of the most amazing expressions of fan love I’ve ever seen in a video called #WhereisPeterBishop?, uploaded on YouTube ahead of the season four premiere on September 23rd. “The following footage was shot on location by Fringe fans around the world” — it says in the opening.

These fans photographed or video-taped handmade signs saying Where is Peter Bishop? in Canada, the U.S., Brazil, Israel, Kenya, France, Germany, Russia, Thailand, Australia and 27 other countries. Over 500 fan submissions in total. Fan video editor Zoey M. used as many she could, as well as photos taken by Fringe online promotion head Ari Margolis of cast John Noble, Jasika Nicole and He-Who-Does-Not-Exist Joshua Jackson holding up 4 signs representing season four.

I had met some of these international Fringe fans at the West End and Chinatown shoots in August Read More »BIG READ: Here is Peter Bishop on FRINGE

BIG READ: Where is Peter Bishop?

Published August 30, 3011 on Vancouver is Awesome

Friday night delayed-viewing hit Fringe did something unprecedented with its third season finale: it made Peter Bishop, one of its trio of main characters, cease to exist and asked Joshua Jackson, the actor who plays him, not to appear in the show for an unspecified amount of time in the fourth season filming now.

It appears much has changed since Peter Bishop averted the apocalyptic future of season three and created a bridge where Fringe’s two warring parallel universes could cross over and interact. Early episodes of season four are said to focus on what the lives of his beloved Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) and “father” Walter Bishop (John Noble) , as well as their alternate universe dopplegangers Fauxlivia (also Torv) and Walternate (also Noble), would be like without him. Lives that are not necessarily worse in the two universes, just different, except for Walter, who is a very sad man without Peter, as you can see in the photo below of Torv and Noble filming a scene of the two of them sitting on the back of an ambulance.

FOX began promoting the upcoming Fringe season with a sublimal teaser which spelled out “Where is Peter Bishop?” backwards and there have been several more teasers since, as well as promos for the aptly-named premiere, Neither Here Nor There, the latest of which appeared last night during a FOX commercial break. And of course the Twitter-savvy Fringe has its own hashtag #WhereisPeterBishop?

Filming of the season four opener began in mid-July and included a stint inside the old Terminal City Ironworks compound in east Vancouver where the two universes overlapped in last season’s twisty finale. Props crew were inside for several days but what they built and what Fringe was filming remains a secret as does almost everything about the premiere, except that it’s big (Observers spootted on set along with Hartford police car). I had speculated Joshua Jackson snuck into town for this on July 21st until I read a report that he’d been briefly hospitalized in Santa Monica that same Thursday for an allergic reaction.

Fringe, needing someone to fill the gap left by Peter Bishop, did upgrade Seth Gabel to series regular. Gabel, who plays Fringe Division agent Lincoln Lee in the alternate universe, reportedly will spend more time as original universe Lincoln Lee and his thick black glasses this season.Read More »BIG READ: Where is Peter Bishop?