Tommy Westphall Universe
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Tommy Westphall Universe

Fringe is an American science fiction thriller series created by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci for FOX. It ran from September 9, 2008 to January 18, 2013 for five seasons.

Series summary[]

A series of bizarre, super-scientific terrorist attacks and strange phenomena - known as 'fringe events' - are taking place across America, forming a pattern... but a pattern of what? After getting too close to a fringe event, FBI special agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) is recruited into the US government's Fringe Division, alongside genius-turned-conman Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) and his father, a mentally unstable but utterly brilliant scientist named Walter (John Noble).

The trio, aided by agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole) and director Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick), initially track many of the events to a terrorist cell named ZFT, but ultimately discover a much greater threat hiding outside of this universe.

Westphall connections in Fringe[]

  • In the episode "A New Day in the Old Town", the Fringe division looks like it is going to be shut down for failing to come up with entirely quantifiable results. During the senate hearing, mention is made of the 'X designation' used by the FBI in the 1990s, which also failed to find concrete evidence. This is a reference to The X-Files, which heavily inspired Fringe and was also about FBI agents investigating the paranormal. This is made slightly more complicated by the fact that a scene from The X-Files can be glimpsed on a television at one point but it should be noted though that John Much from Homicide: Life on the Street made a joke when there was nobody around saying that everyone was probably home watching the X-Files. Since we had a direct crossover with much that means The X-Files is a television series in The X-Files universe so it is not completely impossible.
  • In "The Firefly", Walter puts on a pair of glasses that have red and blue lenses, explaining that they allow him to see people's auras. He adds that the glasses were made by his friend, Dr Jacoby. Dr Jacoby was a character in Twin Peaks who was frequently seen wearing the same kind of glasses.

Westphall connections to Fringe[]

The inbox of suspect Diane Hanson in the pilot episode of Person of Interest contains emails from Fringe characters.

Prop and branding links[]

In "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide", William Bell is shown drinking a bottle of MacCutcheon Scotch Whisky, the same fictional brand drank by many characters in Lost.

Disputed Westphall connection[]

In "The Dreamscape", a murder victim is shown to have an Oceanic Air plane ticket. It is not the same airline from Lost. However, Oceanic Air is the airline used in Castle "In Plane Sight".

Continuity complications[]

In "The Man from the Other Side", one of the characters is shown watching an episode of Lost.

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