Fringe

Post by **earthbrah** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 7:10 am

I was watching episode 5 of season 3 (iirc), an alt universe episode. During the opening titles, I like to get in nice and close and look carefully. Beside the fact that I like the little globule effects, they often change the words that appear. So I'm in nice and tight to the screen, and I see a flicker of something in my visual field that was too brief for me to catch. Curious, I went back and paused paused paused until I found the right moment. And YES, I was right, there were other words flashed on the screen in a different script.

The words read: Observers are here.

Post by **Tulizar** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 3:39 am

Whoa, nice catch Earthbrah! I love that sort of thing. I need to pay closer attention.

Post by **Spiral Jacobs** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 12:27 pm

Excellent. There's loads of little stuff like that, I like that.

Post by **finn** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 2:33 am

finn wrote:
ItisWritten wrote:
finn wrote:We have yet to see anything more than season #1 down here so there is some perspective to yet uncover.

However I am not making a comparison of the two shows but merely one aspect common to both shows, which is fairly blatant. I am also accepting its legitimacy, but asking whether it could be done with a bit more creativity to try to make it more plausible than I think it has been to date.

You are entitled to you opinion of course but the weighting in the partnership or perhaps gender of the character seems irrelevent to the apropos of my assertion. That the scepticism happens in both seems to me at least, to be the only really relevant factor.
Oh. No wonder we're at odds. Here I am arguing from the start of season 3, which I must say is a much different show from the first season. And that's taking nothing away from the first season.
Yeah we are little behind in some things down here under the rainbow.....It's really frustrating because the TV companies won't buy the series unless the release of the DVDs is delayed locally till after the episodes have all been aired.

Finished season 2 now and it has certainly moved on!

Hard for Peter to be sceptical now that he's been to the other side and understands why his father is now a ditherer with empty spots in the brain pan. He also realises he is a part of the Fringe team after he takes off and finds his own mysteries in the Washington State forests.

The ending (with the switched Olivias) is telegraphed real early so no great shock at the end, but I do like the touch with Olivia actually being "Olive" and making her name sound more alluring; which IS what people really do.

I have a concern that JJA might take this off on tangents (a la Lost) and pad/spin out the central plotline by heaps of less than relevant backstories: the episode with Walter telling a detective story was frankly a con on the audience....were they short 42mintes in the second series? I'd like to see the story develop at a proper pace without flashbacks, exploring all the duplicate character's stories from the other side week by week, (most can be summed up in 5 minutes not 35minutes), whilst the plot staggers along L Ron Hubbard like, a padded inch at a time.

I hope that doesn't happen...... but it'll be a while I'd guess before we see anything of season 3 down under to find out!

Post by **Tulizar** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 4:56 am

***********************SPOILERS******************************

(for those of you who haven't seen any season 3 episodes yet)

I just watched the latest two episodes. Looking forward to Friday night!

It's nice to see the Observers are up to their tricks again. They repeatedly warn that tampering with the past will alter the course of history. The young Observer illustrates this point by introducing Walter to the man who lost his son as an indirect result of Walter taking Peter from the alternate world. The Observer then sets up an elaborate chain of events to prove that Walter is willing to let Peter go. Walter is convinced that it was all done to save his life (Peter drank his bad brain-growth experiment.) I'm not sure if this was the intention of the Observers. Did they anticipate this, or is Walter simply jumping to one of his wild conclusions? Not sure.

Anyway, if the Observers want to make sure Peter stays alive until they (or the alt world takes him), how important is it that small changes will alter history? Did they somehow set things right in this episode, or did they, as the young Observer claims, simply wish to prove that Walter would give up Peter if necessary? I'm trying not to get too caught up in time travel quandaries, but the Observers are apparently privy to future events, so what is their stake in all of this? If not altering the past is so important to them, why get involved with Peter and Walter? I'm not sure if they represent this world or the alt world's future or if they belong to a totally different reality.

When speaking to Walter I thought the Observer mentioned several futures happening at once. Does that mean several possible scenarios for this world and its alternate? Or are there multiple alternate worlds? Curious to see if other alternates will be introduced later in the series.

Will Walter get his brain back? Should be interesting to see what comes of Walter's experiments to re-grow his missing brain parts. Walter's pretty cool. In hopes of rebuilding his brain, he takes some experimental powder that included chimpanzee DNA. Later he makes some chimp noises and is fascinated by this. He is able to rationalize why this happened without freaking out. Walter is definitely one of the show's best characters.

I'm glad to see Olivia's finally getting over Peter's fling with Fauxlivia. It took her long enough to realize that she wasn't the only one who was screwed over by her alternate person. I was wondering how long they were going to drag that storyline out.

Post by **ItisWritten** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:35 pm

Tulizar wrote:***********************SPOILERS******************************

(for those of you who haven't seen any season 3 episodes yet)

I'm not sure if they (Observers) represent this world or the alt world's future or if they belong to a totally different reality.

They've mentioned a few times (even bought a book from the odd bookstore) about an ancient, pre-dinosaur society. I think this is where the Observers are from. Whether they are traveling from that distant past or survived to the present somewhere no one has seen is one of those questions the writers may not answer.

But if they are time traveling forward, they aren't changing the past (from their perspective), are they?

Post by **Tulizar** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:22 am

ItisWritten wrote: They've mentioned a few times (even bought a book from the odd bookstore) about an ancient, pre-dinosaur society. I think this is where the Observers are from. Whether they are traveling from that distant past or survived to the present somewhere no one has seen is one of those questions the writers may not answer.

But if they are time traveling forward, they aren't changing the past (from their perspective), are they?

I never considered that the Observers are descendants of the First People civilization. I figured they were simply familiar with the ancient civ, just as they are familiar with the ones they are currently observing. Perhaps they have just been hanging around for billions of years, observing numerous civilizations rise and fall. No time travel involved. Maybe the Peter-controlled machine the First People devised has been used countless times to end worlds so they might start over.

All along I assumed The Observers are from the future since they seem to know, or at least give the impression that they know, what's in store for both worlds. But if they've been around for billions of years, chances are they have pretty good intuition. What's going on now in these two worlds is nothing new to them and is probably pretty predictable.

Post by **earthbrah** » Tue May 03, 2011 11:05 am

I think that the Observers' apparent time travel ability is more like a space travel ability. Since they can apparently move through time at will as if it's all already happened, then this movement is more like going from point A to point B. If that be the case, I don't think they have a proper time, as it were. When is their proper present? In the future? Far back in the past? If all of time can be experienced as one moment for them thus allowing them to move with ease among what we perceive as separate moments, then it can be thought that all of time is their proper present.

Post by **birdandbear** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 11:07 pm

Yay!! There's a Fringe thread! Fringe has sorta become what I do for now...

It's such an amazing show, constantly exploring themes of what makes us who we are, and the impact we have on each other's lives - it's just unparallelled in quality and storytelling.

But like most thought-provoking, smart TV, it's in trouble, and we've been fighting tooth and nail to keep it alive. The weird thing is - we seem to be winning, even as the ratings continue to decline. We've been promoting the show through Twitter and other social media, and the response has been enormous: Friday's campaign was seen by more than 11 million people.

Fox is watching closely - they put our hashtag onscreen during the last broadcast, and it looks like they may do that for the rest of the season...

We aim to misbehave, and to change the way the networks look at a show's success. Not overambitious, right?

If anyone's interested, this is my website - home of Fringenuity, and the effort to prove that there's more to television these days than those antiquated Nielsen ratings.

Anybody here still watching?

Oops...it's been so long I forgot - is it allowed to post links to your own site in here? If not, sorry mods, feel free to edit.

Post by **earthbrah** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 2:02 am

Hell yes I am still watching!

Fringe is the best thing on television. Period. John Noble's portrayal of Walter makes this true, if for no other reason.

Post by **Spiral Jacobs** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 10:15 am

Another frequent watcher here. Really curious as to where they are going to take the rest of this season. I felt last week's theme of

Spoiler

'love conquers all' a horrible cliché.

Post by **Cail** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 3:21 am

Holy crap! What a huge left turn this week.

Post by **Billy G.** » Mon May 14, 2012 12:10 am

Cail wrote:Holy crap! What a huge left turn this week.

"Letters of Transit" Best episode of the year, up until....

Spoiler

Walter shot Olivia in the head in the finale.

Post by **earthbrah** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 2:24 am

Season 5 is off to a slow start...

While I admire the showrunners for taking pretty big risks over the years with this show--some of which paid off, some of which did not--I actually like the 2036 context.

But come on, we've only got 13 episodes in this final season! There's no room or time for filler episodes, and "The Recordist" just felt like so much filler to me, like a case of the week that we just do not have time for!!!

Hurry the hell up and get to the mythology stuff! Where is September???

Post by **wayfriend** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 2:28 pm

My understanding is that Fringe did a "stealth reboot", becoming essentially a different show. I don't think it's going back. Frankly, I lost interest in it during season 4.

Post by **Cail** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 3:29 pm

They're trying to wrap up a large story in limited time. It's a shame, because the larger story is pretty awesome.

So while I'm glad that the producers will have the opportunity to finish their story, I wish there had been another season or two to flesh it all the way out.

Post by **earthbrah** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 4:55 pm

I agree on both counts, wayfriend and Cail.

The show has had a couple 'stealth reboots', methinks. I really question why Pinkner left the show and Wyman was left at the helm to finish it off. I'm liking Wyman less and less...

Post by **Spiral Jacobs** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 11:53 am

I think it's fine there's only a limited number of eps to finish it. That means they have to get down to business and not waste time with too many MOTW shows.

What I do not like is how the whole 'parallel worlds' thing has been dropped for an obvious emergency finale to the series. I suspect the writers didn't quite know how to continue with that. And for some reason I hope the 'big plan' involves a darktower-esque end.

Post by **Cail** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 1:12 pm

The "parallel worlds" thing wasn't dropped, it was resolved when the bridge was closed. Could there have been more detail to it? Sure. Am I 100% in love with the fact that the original timeline is gone? Nope. But I have faith that the writers and producers know what they're doing, and they'll wrap everything up well.

Post by **Cail** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:18 pm

Loving this season so far. I hate that this is the end though.

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Fringe