I wasn't greatly impressed with Fringe when it debuted last fall. The series, about a team of investigators looking into a series of strange episodes of fringe science — called "the Pattern" — just felt a bit loose, a bit unsure of what it wanted to be.

Things improved through the season and culminated in a finale that really burned the barn down, but I didn't get excited about the show until after the Fringe panel at Comic-Con.

My change of heart came about because I now have a greater understanding of what the show is about. It started with the opening montage that summarized Season One of Fringe. It included a voice over of John Noble's Walter Bishop reading from the ZFT manifesto and explained that there is a war going on between our world and a parallel world that is similar and different to ours.

Now, I know this information was revealed in "Ability", episode 14 of the show, but it wasn't until I heard it today that things clicked for me.

Just in time for the show's producers and cast to take the stage.

Executive producers Jeff Pinkner, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and J.H. Wyman were joined by Anna Torv (Olivia Dunham), Joshua Jackson (Peter Bishop), Jasika Nicole (Astrid Farnsworth) and Noble.

Kurtzman admitted that in terms of plot, the producers didn't expect to actually reveal the alternate Earth until the second or third season.

"We knew where we were going," said Pinkner, "but we got there quicker than we thought."

In Season Two, Wyman said, the characters are going to be much more involved, much more invested.

"In the first season we were reactive," explained Jackson, "now we are proactive."

The conflict between the two Earths becomes much more prevalent, it seems. Kurtzman said a war is coming, Orci said people were going to have to choose sides and Jackson talked about being on the front line.

And as if to prove to themselves that the audience has — unlike me — been keeping up with the plot, the cast asked questions of the audience through the entire hour-long panel. They asked for the name of one of Walter's food fetishes, for the name of one of Astrid's minors from college, for the name of Olivia's former brother-in-law.

Many people in the audience knew these specific details and were rewarded with t-shirts.

I'm going to be paying better attention when Season Two premieres on September 17.