'Fringe' panel: Acevedo still has role to play

Kirk Acevedo may be off "Fringe," but he'll still have a role to play next season.

"The rumors of Charlie's demise were exaggerated," say producers at the show's Comic-Con panel about Acevedo's character Agent Charlie Francis. "But I do think Charlie will undergo some drastic changes ... which will be a surprise ... Kurt's part of our family."

Here's THR's Lesley Goldberg with more from the panel...

Saying that they expected to reveal the show’s alternate universe, “Fringe” executive producer Alex Kurtzman thought the shift would be revealed in Season 3 or 4, not on the freshman season of the Fox drama.

“We always knew we were going to do the alternate universe, it just happened sooner,” he said.
As for Josh Jackson’s Peter being from said alternate universe, the actor said: “As an actor, you never want to read the line ‘And he looks at Peter’s grave.’”

“I love that the audience now knows something that Peter doesn’t,” Jackson said.

Executive producer Roberto Orci added that Season 2 of the show will focus more on “everyone taking control of their lives  and pursuing their own truths. And a war is coming,” adding that “when you learn things that are unpleasant, you have to take a side.”

Asked if current Walter (John Noble) would meet alternate universe Walter, or “Walternate,” EP Jeff Pinkner said: “That’s a fun place we could go, and we should do it.”

And as for the headlines that appeared in the alternate universe newspapers, Pinkner added that the “Twin Towers may have been saved, but the White House may not have,” referring to the “Obamas move into new White House” headline that appeared in the season finale.

And when it comes to the fringe science that the show is based on, Noble said that the actors all believe the story lines could happen.

“The stuff we do is not that unreasonable,” he said. “Theoretically, it’s all possible.”