I covered ‘An Evening With Fringe’ at the Paley Center for the LA Weekly art blog last Thursday. You can read the coverage here: Fringe at the Paley Center: A Panel of the Show’s Actors and Producers Discuss Human Drama Through Science Fiction.

The event was very much different from when we went to the Supernatural panel during the Paley Festival. The Fringe panel was held at the actual Paley Center and the theater was super small and intimate. I was lucky to have gotten the press ticket for the show, thanks Sunny from the Lippin Group for accommodating our last minute request. Before I did the one-hour-traffic ride to Beverly Hills, I watched the last five episodes of the show through Hulu.com just to get an idea of what was currently going on. I don’t watch the show, at all, though I think I will watch it one of these days.

Admittedly, this made me a little apprehensive on writing a professional blog for the event since I am not a fan myself. It’s hard to write for a show that I didn’t watch from the beginning to end. I did end up making a mistake and misunderstanding some things the producers said. They kept mentioning scenarios for the next season that didn’t involve Peter Bishop, Joshua Jackson’s character and I thought they said that he wouldn’t be in the next season. Oops! Of course, the Fringe fandom immediately got on there and corrected my mistake.

Although it bothers me somewhat that other than correcting my mistake, none of the fans seemed grateful for the coverage of the panel. I tried to write it for them and hoped they enjoyed the photos at least. Alas, that’s the nature of fandom (not just Fringe)- they are more keen for attacking you on one mistake and then overlooking to say a simple thank you for any effort. There was one sweet girl who I got to converse with through comments on my LA Weekly blog though and making one person happy is good enough for me! I do respect the passion fans had for the show. I certainly understood where they were coming from since I have been part of fandom before. I’ve lightened up a lot as I got older though and rarely find myself attacking anyone on the internet to defend my love for the characters/etc. To each their own though, right? ;)

(**NOTE: There are lots of lovely Fringe fans and I’m glad to have talked to them too!)

The panel itself was pretty awesome and John Noble was adorable and charming. They screened an episode before the Q&A which was moderated by Ralph Garman (KROQ DJ and Kevin Smith’s co host for Babble-On Hollywood), who has been one of my heroes for many years. I should have said some thing to him when I had the chance, but I got shy. I only get shy around certain entertainers, really. The fans also had intelligent questions and seemed pretty balanced. As in, the fangirls did not overwhelm the audience. I have a feeling this show has appealed to a lot of the older sci-fi audience though since it doesn’t really pander to fangirls as much. No offense to fangirls, of course, since I can be quite a big one myself.

I did kind of get into the series and I can’t wait till I have the time to watch it from the start. Plus, I still have a secret crush on Joshua Jackson. Don’t judge! He was awesome in the Mighty Ducks movies and Dawson’s Creek. I also appreciate how the show creators seems confident that they do know where the plot is going to go. It really gets frustrating when a sci-fi show tend to meander by the fourth or fifth season and you really can tell when the writers are kind of dicking around– and it happens to plenty of them, that’s for sure. The actors in the show are amazing too. Their performance really is half of what made the series compelling.

I will have to admit that this show might just be almost as good as The X-Files!

Here is a collection of the video clips I took during the panel.

Check out my slideshow of the rest of my photos.