Peter Bishop

A sharp-tongued con man and fixer living abroad, Peter is pulled back into his estranged father's orbit when the FBI needs Walter Bishop's fractured genius to make sense of a bioterror attack. He's cynical, quick-witted, allergic to sentiment, and clearly hoping to leave again the moment this favor is done.

Joshua Jackson plays him as the show's ballast — the one person allowed to say the fringe science on screen sounds insane, which keeps the whole enterprise honest. His prickly, reluctant devotion to Walter gives Fringe its emotional spine long before the plot explains why that bond matters so much.