Fringe (new JJ Abrams show) : Mad scientist, flesh eating virus, a cow and talks with the dead

^YES^

very good episode and walter wasn't even being funny

ratings from Friday were abysmal. I'd really like this renewed.

Will the return of Belly be the first thing people cite as a shark-jumping moment? Or Soul Magnets?

I'm not saying it has! Just those are the kinds of things nerds lose their shit over.

Also hope it's renewed. But they put it on Friday, which is sort of saying they want to kill it, right? RIP Dollhouse.

Will the return of Belly be the first thing people cite as a shark-jumping moment? Or Soul Magnets?

I'm not saying it has! Just those are the kinds of things nerds lose their shit over.

If the nerds haven't seethed from the show saying that flipping 10 heads in a row signals a breakdown in the laws of the universe, I think they'll play along with soul magnets. (Also, I have to imagine that they'd get a kick out of Anna Torv doing her bizarro Nimoy impression.)

As for this last episode: suicide lady isn't Catholic, so what non-denominational Christianity does she practice that doesn't explicitly banish suicides from Heaven?

Also: at the end of the episode, was Bellivia making a play to occupy Peter's body when he had him drink TEA?

and major lolz at Bellivia perving on Astrid.

Fox Renews "Fringe" For Fourth Season

yeah this show has almost lost me :(

If the nerds haven't seethed from the show saying that flipping 10 heads in a row signals a breakdown in the laws of the universe, I think they'll play along with soul magnets.

the coin thing really angers me. i mean the show is ridiculous and i love/d it but surely it isn't "nerdy" to expect ppl to understand THE MOST BASIC RULES OF PROBABILITY THAT ARE USEFUL IN EVERYDAY LIFE

grrr

i think this season's high was at the start when it was constantly switching between universes - was really impressive how they handled that imo. i feel like it hasn't really recovered since coming back from the break

i wonder what the first / most influential 'accelerated pregnancy' story in sci-fi (or elsewhere) was.

I'm guessing/hoping this gets better? I am watching the first couple of eps and totally underwhelmed by it all.

Of the first season? Yeah, it gets a lot better and hits its stride in the second.

the early monster-of-the-week episodes (like the 2nd episode) were pretty bad. later on they manage to integrate the mytharc into them in a better way.

so was that the last episode of this season????

oh no there's more! cooool

i tried really hard to like this show but its really dumm

cant remember where i gave up but im gone 4 good

it is really dumb but it's fun and they eventually managed to build up some likeable characters and ambitious plots. but it kind of got sloppy recently (and it was always a bit sloppy, which was part of why it was great)

also it has a good sense of humour and pulls out a decent "jump out the seat" moment occasionally

yeah i feel like by the end of season 2 it had a momentum & a purpose that made all the contradictions & miscues & general inconsistencies unimportant or at least secondary to the interesting stuff the show was doing. but sometime around olivia's return to ~our world~ this season all those mistakes started to catch up w/ the good stuff & gradually overwhelemd it

i mean i cant even recall what was my personal tipping point although peter is really not as interesting or as sympathetic a character as the show's writers seem to think & i can see it being different for everyone but i lost interest in this shows myth

I want more Walter being goofy, less Walter being upset, and more weird things that involve really interesting ideas.

Now, I just got season 2 on blu-ray, so I'm going to go watch that episode with Peter Weller.

Peter is terrible. x-post

yeah i agree, especially abt peter. the stuff where olivia was freaked out by alt-oivia living in her apartment was really cool though. this show clearly treads a fine line but the writers are not afraid to be ambitious and i have some hope they could bring it back for the last 4 episodes.

The character of Peter is a lot better when they're alluding to his life before the events of the series. I felt like the recent episode with him doing some nasty espionage to get to the bottom of things could have been a lot better if they referenced that more obviously. Instead, in the chronology, he went from nice but screwed-over guy to violent schemer "because the machine made him."

I don't really have any strong opinions either way about how the actor's portrayal works.

In this ep, which was intended to be gripping and heavy, my mind kept wandering to 'wasn't Peter some sort of scary weaponized Terminator person a few episodes ago?, and why did they never follow that up?'

Peter's character - con man/Terminator/straight man to Dad/passionate about O but completely unable to act or articulate it - has to be one of the most incoherent I've seen on TV. I think the actor's doing what he can but I'm sure he realizes that he's more of a plot device than a person. The actress playing Olivia by contrast takes all the madness and makes it work, which impresses me more and more. I think in this ep she was confusing her fauxO voice with her Nimoy impersonation, though.

Wondering why fauxO didn't grab ALL the little universe-jumping things (which turned out not to work anyway). Why have them follow you if they can?

i thought he wasn't weaponized, it was deliberate.

In the show, I remember Peter offing a bunch of replicants to snag their spine drives. When Walter confronts him, Peter has this gotta-be-a-gangsta face on and Walter says 'well of course, it's the machine transforming you into a vicious Slaughtery McSlaughterson, isn't it' ... and this idea was promptly dropped to make way for other stuff.

I know what you mean, but I think that was all part of the "look how driven Peter is to SOLVE THIS" story, like lying to Walter about working on it and hiding in a new workspace. The threads drift off to nowhere, like you pointed out, but I think I see where the overall thing is headed.

I have seen all of it (except last ep). It's pretty good. But those noire type eps were blergh. (Probably didn't help that I had a massive migraine attack when I saw it)

It's not just your migraines. :\

I don't mind sloppy characterizations in my SF, as long as it's bringing the wowz, which, unfortunately, French is not doing lately.

pretty tough 'acting class exercise': 'ok, now we need you to try to type on the typewriter through the mirror in the parallel universe, WITH YOUR MIND'.

Got kind of interesting this week, no?

Did the other side's 9/11 happen in 2021 or was that just the year that their memorial was laid?

That was our side he was in. Just in the future.

oh no, does that mean there are going to be time-split storylines next season?

xpost
Oh! I thought I saw a bronze Statue of Liberty -- guess not.

btw intersting parallels with Olivia's dislocation in season 1 into the middle of (para)military operation.

maybe i'm totally wrong then. I thought that plaque said 9/11/2001, with the memorial erected in 2021.

Jeez, it's going to take 20 years after the fact to get something up??

I barely had time to read the plaque, so all I saw was 9/11/2021 and for whatever reason thought the other side had a terrorist attack on the exact same day 20 years later.

Anyway, will have to wait for FringeFiles to get their caps up.

oh shit a KID! it's the beginning of the end!

wow did they turn peter into a reverse dawn-from-buffy?

In case the JJ Abrams poll didn't scare all the Fringe fans away, it's back this Friday!

yeah, I didn't do a good job defending olive in that thread. I did say that she is an everyman character but so is doug funny imo (and I dont think every man could relate with doug).

the plots and other characters are more rewarding than whatever level anna torv's acting ability is. honestly, I don't really notice anything off about her acting but then again I don't really pay attention to acting skill in general. anna did have a talented breakdown scene last season when she found out the extent of fauxlivia and peter's relationship. usually when I pay attention to acting skill it's when someone is crying or laughing

Didn't know it was back so soon, that's great! Me and Mrs Chuck really warmed to Fringe over the three seasons. The first season it was just trashy comfort viewing, the second half od season 2 was "Wait, this is actually getting good," and parts of season 3 was some Reaganing awesomeness.

Torv is great! O and Faux are clearly different/same characters -- really difficult trick to pull off. Weird how Pacey had better chemistry with Faux than O.

parts of season 3 was some Reaganing awesomeness.

lololol truthbomb.

Weird how Pacey had better chemistry with Faux than O.

Picked up this show again after my sister convinced me it was worth it and she was right - wtf why hadn't anyone told me earlier how great it had gotten? Walter is awesomeness.

lol upthread at someone pointing out that Peter was more plot device than character - one of my first "wait, didn't he...?" moments was in the first season where I think they had a subplot about Peter's past catching up with him, except... it never did.

Interview with John Noble from the other day:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/09/john-noble-and-the-beautiful-challenge-of-fringe.html

Thanks! dude is def the best part of the show - I mean, there are about five different Walters, all at different ages/realities, and it's just amazing how he manages to keep them all distinct but essentially the same person simultaneously.

I think the structure of the season opener, going from monster of the week to intro to multiple universes to showing that it wasn't a monster of the week episode but a possible lead into shady goings-on was a decent, if kind of boring, plot.

Yeah, I was thinking as the ep was going on that this was all setup for the season arc in the guise of 'wacky case of the week'.

Liking the idea of retconning your own main character/plot device out of existence. Though without Peter how does the whole parallel universe thing happen in the new timeline? Given the 'he has reasons to hate you' Walter is still responsible, I would assume Peter dies in both timelines after the parallel universe is broken into.