Will ‘Fringe’ Jump Through Time for Final Season?

Now that just about every major genre show has wrapped up its season for the moment (save for 'Game of Thrones,' bring on "Valar Morghulis!"), loads of questions still remain over where (or when) well find our favorite characters when the next season begins.  'Fringe,' in particular has a number of questions to answer when it returns for its final 13 episodes, chief among them, just what the heck year will the team have to travel to explain that crazy "Letters of Transit?"

The moment 'Fringe's executive producers greenlit the time-bending episode "Letters of Transit," they knew they'd mapped out a pivotal turn for the cult sci-fi hit's coming seasons, likely final if the ratings had anything to say about it.  With the next batch of episodes confirmed to be the show's last, will the action shift to 2036, or divide time between multiple periods via a system of flashbacks and forwards?

Speaking to SFX, 'Fringe' executive producers Jeff Pinkman and Joel Wyman were able to shed just a bit of light on how the 2036 timeline from "Letters of Transit" would be incorporated:

Yeah, I think it’s safe to say you will [see that future]. Part of our storytelling is about reveals and re-contextualizing what you think you know and what you’ve seen and putting it in a different mind frame for the viewer. It’s good to say that future is important to our storytelling but it’s not the be-all and end-all.

The critical question is always why do we do flashbacks or flash-forwards and for us there is always a reason. Does "Letters Of Transit" have further implications? It does. You need to understand what it is, or was, in order to fully grasp the thematic things we want to tell this year.

The end of 'Fringe's fourth season mostly revolved around the attempt to stop a returned William Bell (Leonard Nimoy) from collapsing universes, while only the tag of "Brave New World, Part 2" addressed the Observer-centric future seen earlier.

What say you?  Are you feeling any clearer on how 'Fringe's final season will play out?  What would you like to see when the show returns this fall?  Give us your theories in the comments below!