Are you happy?
A few weeks ago I asked the question, “What do you want from Fringe?” I wanted to know if Fringe should stick to their original mythological premise or divert from it and become more procedural, add stunt characters and do what ever they can to insure season 5. Most of you voted for Fringe to stick to their guns and judging by their February sweeps month you have seen your faith rewarded.
So I ask you now, are you happy? Do like the way Fringe is headed? Are you particularly frustrated with any plot points? Are there certain characters that are getting too much or too little attention? What about you romance addicts out there, did the last episode leave you shaking your head or do you like a good tease?
Here are some salient points that I think are worthy of our attention and may help the general discussion.
- David Robert Jones: Love him or hate him? Not enough or too little?
- The Inter-dimensional war; Do you miss it? Has DRJ taken it’s place?
- The Observers: Still too many questions? Are you happy they are human?
- September: Is he a renegade or outlaw? Is he the endgame good guy or are we perpetually stuck with his fixes?
- The Time Line: Or should I say WHAT timeline? Is Peter home or not? What is home?
- Olivia’s plight: Is she the Blue Olivia we used to know or just a recorded over version?
- Peter: Is he nuts? Did he just walk away from his one true love the woman he used to define as his home?
- Lincoln Lee: Regulated to the background? What of the two Walters and Broyles?
Plenty of grist for the mill I’d say. Fringe will be back in a few weeks and we will get eight episode in a row. Are you ready?
And most of all are you happy? Here’s your chance to let us know and sound off below!
Howdy, ID. I love that FRINGE is sticking to its guns, and is showing loyalty to its deep base of fans. As for what I want, well, that’s sometimes irrelevant. Here are a few thoughts:
• DRJ: Can’t we have a love/hate relationship? I love to hate him. I think for now, we get a good sense of suspense from the amount of air time he gets, but i would love to see more.
• Interdimensional War I can actually do without. Since it now seems that regardless of Walter’s intervention and breaching of the universes, they are destined to unravel, I wouldn’t mind seeing a few more crossover episodes that would really force the Red and Blue verses to…gasp…work together? An episode of joined forces to defeat DRJ and Alter-Nina would be one worth watching. And where do Broyles and Alter-Broyles hold their allegiances? Hmmm…
• I don’t think I’m prepared to talk about the Observers yet, but I’m ok that they’re human. Have you seen Rise of the Planet of the Apes yet? I wonder how far in the future the Observers are, and how they advanced so much. Was it simply evolution of the mind, or something else? Are they offspring of lab-tested children/adults? Are they the direct result of Water/Bell experiments?
• Home is where the heart is. I think in the end, it may have to do with where Peter decides that is.
• As for Olivia and Peter…who knows. I think I’m happy not to know in the interest of keeping the show going.
• Lincoln who? What I want to know is, where’s Charlie in this re-written timeline?
As usual, great thoughts, and great discussion points. Which make for a great show. Thanks!
Howdy yourself Brian, good to hear from you.
I share your love/hate relationship with DRJ. He’s so dry, so clever, so evil! I’d hate to see him go again but I don’t doubt his days are numbered. I miss the inter-dimensional war. Those were the good old days for me. Evil Walternate has been de-fanged for the lesser I’m afraid. I can see your scenario where the two sides join forces to defeat him.
Peerless prediction time! Since everything seems to go in repetitive cycles I’m thinking Alter Broyles will die again. He’ll question his allegiance to DRJ and try to stop him. Unfortunately he will pay the ultimate price.
I really want to see the new Planet of the Apes. I have to find a time to squeeze it in when my wife isn’t around. Not her cup of tea. I was thinking on similar lines that the Observers may be lab created. Maybe that is where their desinations come from.
I’ve heard rumbling that Charlie may make it back before the end of the season.
Thanks for your great thoughts also Brian and I hope to hear from you again.
OK, this is a bit crazy question. I want nothing from Fringe. This show has given me more than everything for the last four years. There aren’t many mysteries left to answer anyway.
Well Donna I’m putting you down in the “happy’ column then.
Not many mysteries left to answer you say? I think the possibilities are infinite! Wouldn’t it be great if we find out at the end of the season we’ve been seeing a third universe mixed into the story line this season and they never told us?
Hey, Dave!
Personally I’m so happy / proud that Fringe hasn’t wavered on their storytelling. Sure from time to time we get a “case of the week” episode, but for the most part within these four seasons we’ve been lead in what I think is an always direction. From where we started to where we’ve ended up could never have been guessed, but having seen it all, it makes perfect sense and I love it.
• DRJ: Now that he’s back, I can’t get enough of David Robert Jones. Had he not died in season one, I think this is the path he’d have always taken… AND I think our Nina is working with him as well as the other Nina (who I think is a shape shifter) and always would have had he never been sliced in half. I know we have a lot more DRJ in store for us, but I hope this means we’ll see more of those tests for Olivia. I’m so curious as to what they might be! I’m really hoping for a DRJ backstory. Let’s SEE what landed him in prison. Let’s SEE how he fell into his ZFT / William Bell obsession. Let’s SEE when that something clicked that turned him into a diabolical villain.
• I don’t think the war is important to this season or the overarching storyline. From what September told Peter, the war between red and blue occurred because of his interrupting Walternate and thus Walter saving Peter. With the Bridge and a common enemy in DRJ, I feel like that’s finally resolved. It was a necessary plot… but it’s not a part of our tale anymore.
• I’m totally cool with the Observers being a future generation. Even though they came from a “possible future”, I think they still exist regardless of what goes on because of the equation. They were scientists and they discovered a way to exist outside of time. I think this enables them to remain regardless of whether their future happens or not.
I think the reason none of the other Observers knew what was going on with this timeline is because of the fact they’re human. Though they live outside of time and can view anytime… I think they are assigned to different points and thus no one but September was 100% aware of what was going on with our particular characters. There are still kinks in this, but I’m working on it.
• I think Peter is home. His home is just “recorded over”… Either there will be a massive bleed through with everyone going through what’s already happened to Olivia or Peter will accept his fate… because to me he is home.
• I think this is Peter’s Olivia and he is wrong. I’m going all in with the theory that the bleed through Olivia is experiencing is her original memories coming back, but that doesn’t eliminate the new ones… orrrr at least not yet. But, in the end, this is OUR Olivia.
• I know this sounds horrible, but I have no interest in Lincoln. He’s a good looking guy. He’s a solid character. But this show is about Peter and Olivia / Walter and Olivia / Walter and Peter / The Observers and Everyone / And Astrid 🙂
Cheers!
Hey Sarah!
The only thing I differ with you as far as DRJ and Nina go is that I think Blue Nina is dead and it is a Nina shape-shifter and Red Nina that are working with DRJ. As for the rest I am right there with you.
But I miss the war! I want evil Walternate back! I was afraid they were going to de-fang him and it has come to be. Maybe DRJ will frame Walternate and they’ll end up hating each other again.
Watch it, that bleed through/recorded over stuff may be a Trojan Horse. There is something about that theory that bothers me. Too easy or simplistic. I don’t know. Peter rejecting then accepting and then rejecting Olivia might have something to do with that thematically. I know it’s all in his mind! Darrell is going to kill me.
Peter told Olivia that she is the one that made him feel like he had a home. Well, he told the current Olivia that. There has to be a connection in that statement somewhere. If you are right about this being our Olivia then the problem is with Peter. He’s disconnected somehow. Maybe a trip to the sensory deprivation tank is in order.
Poor Lincoln, doomed to be a sacrificial lamb?
Always good to hear from you Sarah Maria!
Oooh! I like your thought on Nina. I hadn’t considered that option, but now you’ve got my cogs turning about it.
Also, I agree with you about the bleed through being too simple. And I still love your trojan horse idea… I remember your post on horses which is one of my favorites. My brain just can’t wrap around another idea yet. BUT I do remember the Jasika Nicole interview where she said it’s not a new timeline OR a new universe… SO, who knows what’s really going on.
Jasika would say it’s the same Universe and it’s the bleed through from the recorded over Universe and I would scream, “Noooooooooo!” I just don’t like it so let’s hope it is a curve ball they are throwing at us. (You won’t see too many of those from Papelbon btw!) My sister told me she heard the theory that the Universes exist along a spectrum of light. I’m a little leery of that one too but it has some merit in some respects. (Colors, frequency etc.)
I’m still wondering what that device was for that September was going to use in the first or second episode of the season. Was it to erase Peter from Walter’s mind or something entirely different. I have to do a re-watch on that one.
Fringe is still great I likebthe direction. Hopefully in March they will explain the “beacon” as the observers call it.
Having DRJ back with new shapeshifters makes things interesting.
It seems that Peter ended the interdimensional war last season so that’s fine it’s better than having them drag that story arc on for too long.
It makes sense that the Observers are humans from the future, a lot of their behavior is similar to Milo Stanfield, the Guy from the other side who after being given neurotrophic drugs could cause complex chain reactions with a pen, knew what someone would say before he said it and was a little detached from humanity. In fact the only thing tha stopped his planfrom working was an unpredictable variable, like the Observers plans.
I think September is getting his humanity which is why his decision are different from the other Observers who are cold, calculating and detached.
In one of the first episodes September said THE timeline has been rewritten so there shouldn’t be a different timeline to go back to. Olivia probably still has her old memories because of the effects of the Cortexiphan, there is probably a similar process that keeps the Observers from changing every time they change time. On a side note I rewatched someof the last episodes from season 3 and I found it interesting that after Peter was knocked out by the machine and woke up confused about who he was, when he left the hospital he left a note that said “I am going HOME”. I’m not sure if it means anything but it was interesting that it was the same advice he got from September.
Peter is nuts… but I guess they couldn’t make it too easy.
I have no problem with Lincoln being a less prominent character similar to Astride.
Omar, nice catch on the parallel to Milo Stanfield, I had forgotten about him. I’ll be interested to see how that parallel continues in respect to the Observers. September said he could see all possible futures yet he still makes mistakes. It must be your unpredictable variables.
Humanity for the Observers is not unheard of. Remember good ol’ August? It’s good to know humanity hasn’t died out in the deep future no matter what iteration it takes.
Oh right! Peter did say he was going home. Another nice catch! Hmmm, poor guy doesn’t know where home is. It must be Olivia Prime but does person even exist anymore? You can’t re-write rewritten time lines.
We’ll have to keep an eye on your “Home” and Milo parallels. Thanks for writing in!
One thing that stood out to me and was a big concern was what William Bell was afraid of and we saw happen early -on the collision of the Mugs(alternate universes)!Every one rushed to prevent this.Now, after it’s happened we see the debris.There is also an obvious intentional collision in the Fringe script writing. We once thought Olivia was the main ,stable voice. If one Character was narrating Fringe which one would it be? Would the voice have changed a few times? Test September’s Blood.Somehow , I still think the constant is Olivia Did someone suggest Henry is related to September? I think so.
Don’t you think that Walter has a sample of September’s blood on hand after they stabilized his wound. Surely he is clever enough to do that. Then they can compare his DNA to Olivia’s and Peters. That would be a jaw dropper if they found a link!
Thanks for the response adamg!
Speaking of going home didn’t young Peter leave a note saying he was going home when he went to drown himself in the lake? (Although I think he thought that would actually take him home because it was the route that had brought him to the Blueverse,
I’m tired of playing hide the ball with Olivia. I want both Peter and the audience to know which Olivia Peter is supposed to be with, I want to know soon, like a few hours from now after I’ve seen the new episode. i also don’t want any angsting about the vanished baby nugget.
DRJ is a fine villain but I don’t want him depriving our regulars of their screen time (including Lincoln). I believe his co-conspirator is Blueverse Nina, I don’t think there is a shape-shifter Nina.
I’d describe myself as happy but irritated. It’s time to solve the Olivia problem. Other than that everything’s fine.
so a short story about love answers all.
it’s not a timeline problem…
it’s not a universe problem…
IT’S A LOVE PROBLEM!
this could have been a really good episode. i guess the writers painted themselves into a corner. sunshine and daisies people, all sunshine and daisies.