130 free Fringe trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Fringe trivia quiz covers all five seasons and 100 episodes of the Fox science-fiction series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, which ran from 2008 to 2013. The easy questions are the ones any viewer will know: who plays Olivia, Walter and Peter, the name of the company run by Nina Sharp, the drug Walter tested on children, and what the bald men in fedoras are called. From there it digs into the mythology: the Pattern and Reiden Lake, ZFT and David Robert Jones, the shapeshifters and their mercury blood, the amber, Walternate and Fauxlivia, the Machine, the First People, the alternate timeline of season four and the Observer occupation of 2036. There are episode questions on the pilot, "Peter", "White Tulip", "Brown Betty" and the finale, and behind-the-scenes questions on the $10 million pilot, the glyph code, the Friday night death slot, the move from New York to Vancouver, Leonard Nimoy's William Bell and the show's awards. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the series, its mythology, its seasons, its characters and its cast before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our X-Files and Lost quizzes next.
30 of 130 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which three people created Fringe?
J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci
Kurtzman and Orci were working with Abrams on the Star Trek film at the time.
Q 02On which network did Fringe air?
Fox
It premiered on September 9, 2008.
Q 03How many episodes of Fringe were made?
100
The shortened 13-episode fifth season pushed the total to the number needed for syndication.
Q 04Who plays FBI agent Olivia Dunham?
Anna Torv
She also plays Olivia's parallel-universe counterpart and, briefly, William Bell.
Q 05Who plays Walter, the Fringe team's mad scientist?
John Noble
He was best known before Fringe as Denethor in The Lord of the Rings.
Q 06Who plays Peter Bishop?
Joshua Jackson
He was the last main character to be cast, after auditioning for Kirk in Abrams' Star Trek.
Q 07In which city is the Fringe Division based?
Boston
Walter's lab is at Harvard, though several other campuses stood in for it.
Q 08What is the name of the biotechnology giant founded by Walter's former partner?
Massive Dynamic
Its exterior was filmed at 7 World Trade Center.
Q 09Who plays Nina Sharp, the executive who runs Bell's company?
Blair Brown
Her character has a bionic arm and a long history with Bell and Walter.
Q 10Which Star Trek legend plays Walter's former lab partner?
Leonard Nimoy
He came out of retirement to voice an animated Bell in season three.
Q 11What are the bald, pale men in suits who watch the Fringe team called?
Observers
One appears in almost every episode, in an Alfred Hitchcock-style cameo.
Q 12Who plays Phillip Broyles, the head of Fringe Division?
Lance Reddick
He also plays the parallel universe's Colonel Broyles.
Q 13Who plays Astrid Farnsworth?
Jasika Nicole
Walter can never remember her name, calling her Asterix, Aspirin, Ostrich and more.
Q 14Which nootropic drug did Walter test on Olivia as a child?
Q 21What government post does Walter's counterpart hold?
U.S. Secretary of Defense
He rose to power after his son's abduction.
Q 22What is the fan-derived nickname for the parallel universe's Olivia?
Fauxlivia
She is a redhead and a better marksman than Olivia.
Q 23What is the name of Peter's son with the parallel Olivia?
Henry
His blood is used to activate the Machine; the Observers later erase him.
Q 24What year does Peter's vision inside the Machine show him?
Cortexiphan
It gives her weak psionic abilities and lets her cross between universes.
Q 15Which body of water in New York state is the geographic center of the Pattern?
Reiden Lake
Walter crossed universes on its frozen surface in 1985.
Q 16What does the German acronym ZFT stand for in English?
Destruction through Advancement of Technology
Its manifesto was apparently written by Walter before his institutionalisation.
Q 17Who plays ZFT leader David Robert Jones?
Jared Harris
He is killed in the season-one finale but is alive in the season-four timeline.
Q 18How many years did Walter spend in a mental institution before the series?
17
His son never once visited him at St. Claire's.
Q 19Why did Walter cross to the parallel universe in 1985?
To cure the other side's Peter
His own Peter had died of a genetic disease.
Q 20What nickname do the prime-universe characters give Walter's parallel counterpart?
Walternate
He is the U.S. Secretary of Defense over there.
2026
The parallel universe has been destroyed and the same fate threatens the prime one.
Q 25What does Peter use the Machine to create at the end of season three?
A bridge between the two universes
Time is then rewritten so that September never saved him.
Q 26Which agent, played by Seth Gabel, is part of the season-four Fringe team?
Lincoln Lee
His prime-universe version was first stationed at the FBI in Hartford, Connecticut.
Q 27Who is revealed as the mastermind behind David Robert Jones in season four?
William Bell
He wants to collapse both universes and build a third under his control.
Q 28How does Walter stop Bell's plan in the season-four finale?
He shoots Olivia
The Cortexiphan in her body repairs the wound but she loses her powers.
Q 29In what year is the fifth season set?
2036
It follows on from the flash-forward episode "Letters of Transit".
Q 30In what year did the invaders from the future arrive and begin "The Purge"?
2015
They had ruined the far-future Earth for themselves.