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

Fauxlivia isn't totally punchable anymore either!

During the episode, I was thinking LL's fanclub would be swooning over this episode, until, you know, one of them bites it.

Btw: Eugene's hat!!!!

I don't think enough people here are fully appreciating the cow's hat.

It's grazing day

Not bad at playing drunk Olivia

Fauxlivia in dress uniform and hair up is AGL.

i know that double astrid farnsworths is not real, but this show makes me believe

cute opening sequence.

although why the observers apparently like to pave things over so they can all walk back and forth holding suitcases is somewhat beyond me.

also, the ending -- they didn't have a stick or something??

dude Desmond has to be noble and self-sacrificing in every Abrams-related show

Given all the time spent setting up all the plots of the past episodes, did the show really need to be rebooted? I'm fine with being surprised, but none of this seemed necessary. I would love to have been in the first table read for this and have everyone look at each other blankly while reading the opening crawl. Did they just suddenly lose access to the guy who plays Lane on Mad Men and just give up?

(That said they did do the one storyline where they went into the future, and there was a daughter in that one too, wasn't there?)

have everyone look = watch everyone look

i don't know about 'felicity', but the norm on other abrams shows (and this one, in earlier seasons) is to reboot every single season.

Next week isn't reboot. Pretty cool starting it now. Plus, this episode was pretty cool

I figure it's not a reboot, but just something to bounce back and forth between a bit before resolving. They've done this pretty frequently on Fringe in the past.

The new intro was super cute.

I love Walter so much.

"these aren't the droids you're looking for."

and then stealing the candy just as the guard lets them through.

oh it was desmond. totally failed to click that. i too was tickled by 'i am not a number…' followed by 'these aren't the droids…'

Gods, this was awesome (even DESPITE the apparent plot holes with the Observers -- if they're not limited to time, they should've completely pwned any and resistance by now) (also, Observers still just white people, but seeing as they're an occupying presence now...).

Despite the obvious CGI, I kind of was hoping that we'd get Nimoy again.

Also, lol, completely lost track of which universe we're in now. Our Walter + Our Peter = Our U, but Henrietta is on the other side, no?

Also:

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2wigbGH9e1qdw3xpo1_500.gif

Bolivia's baby with Peter was named Henry iirc, so Henrietta is maybe with Olivia.

So much awesome in chopping off dude's hand

Also kind of funny seeing a skinhead observer pimping a hoe

Henrietta iz a pretty good character so far

I wonder where Lee is going to be in this future. I like that Fringe can have people "time travel" (etc.) and move on all in one episode unlike Lost which had interesting time-travel plots but you had to piece together how it worked over a course of one million episodes. There isn't as much waiting for Fringe mysteries

I hope this episode, with the cheesy opening crawl, was a sort of parody, like the X-Files used to do in later seasons. Turning the Observers into baddies out of an L. Ron Hubbard novel can't really be where they're going, can it? This reminded me of that Dollhouse episode where we jump into the future and see a bunch of folks we've never seen before fighting against the bad guys who have somehow conquered the world.

the lack of consistency w/r/t/ what the Observers can or can't do killed a lot of the episode for me

I like the Observers as altruistic people. Seeing them having an actual stake in what's going on other than "gotta keep the timeline going" was weird, but the episode definitely had moments.

Anyone else feel like the Walter went from kind of amber brain-damaged to Walter pre-lobotomy? He seemed sharper and more curt than the our-universe Walter.

that's because they put the evil part of his brain back in.

I don't know if he's evil as much as he is capable of all kinds of stuff that he was scared of. The original reason was both to keep himself from doing things he didn't like AND to get rid of the parts of his brain that stored the ability to put together a universe portal device, right?

It's the brain stuff that Walternate never lost.

yah

I wonder where Lee is going to be in this future.

I was so OMG DESMOND <3 <3 I forgot Agent Lee existed. :/

Btw maybe I am dense but this was just pointed out to me re: the episode where Alt-LL dies, and they were discussing why LL and Alt-LL turned out so different despite living nearly identical lives. The only difference? Olivia was present in one and not the other. ;_;

you mean he met her earlier in one?

yep

I wonder where Lee is going to be in this future.

Huh? I'm probably going to be on ILX, complaining about the newest hit smellevision show.

Aww poo, you weren't talking about me. If only there were an alternate universe where I could go and be appreciated. /fishing

Renewed for a 5th and final season, 13 episodes. Don't L O S T this, Fringe guys.

That is actually GREAT NEWS. I've become surprisingly attached to the characters in this show.

Everything I had read recently made it sound like a 5th season was pretty unlikely, so I'm pretty happy about it.

If fans keep campaigning will they throw in a sixth? Doesn't hurt to ask.

Compared to Lost, it's not like there's a Big Secret left to unravel, it's more like, "How are they going to get out of this?"

It's sort of the opposite to BSG -- I'm more interested in the characters getting good endings than the producers tying up all the mythology stuff.

i am super happy about this news!

It's also, probably very intentionally, just enough of an order to trip the 100 episode level for syndication -- which may seem less important in the 'watch via Netflix' era or the like but that still very much has a place.

So the Double Rainbow Guy is from the other side?

which is double rainbow guy?

great episode - loved the scene between the two Walters (was kind of amused though how Peter's somehow morphed from a belligerent, selfish con artist into this perfect good son)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI

oh you meant THAT double rainbow guy. lol sorry, thought you meant there was a character from one of the various timelines/futures who talked about seeing a double rainbow or something.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. TT_________TT

aw, spock ain't that bad

Not complaining about Spock per se... :(

action astrid : )

wait WHAT noooooooooooooooo : (