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I remember the first time I watched the series, and wondering when they were going to restore back to the first timeline, and about season 3, I realised they never were, and it was just going to branch off further and furtherer.
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Apr 15, 2023 18:54
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zer0spunk posted:And yeah, joshua jackson was either phoning it in, or giving it his all and his all has no range. I liked him on the affair, but he really is in that school of james franco where he doesn't stretch at all...I think that's what makes the later seasons even worse, he sucks as a lead I couldn't disagree more, Anna Torv is pretty wooden in the first season, but she improves a lot from then on, and Joshua Jackson is good from episode 1
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Apr 15, 2023 22:01
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Oasx posted:John Noble was the best actor on tv for a good 4-5 years during this strech. I will watch him in everything he appears in because of this show. Sleepy Hollow was stupid but still fun. Him as Morland Homes was great. He also showed up in the last episode of Forever and sadly then got cancelled which I blame solely on him not being in the show from the start. Same goes for Michael Cerveris. I loved the whole Observer thing regardless how crazy it was. Had no idea about all the drama surrounding the show and actors etc. TV must real suck at times to be on.  Reddick, guy was just something else in the show. And his protrayal of Broyles ruledOasx posted:I’m completely blind when it comes to product placement, I have rewatched Fringe many times and I still never notice it. zer0spunk posted:also lol anna torv married the actor who played john scott, there's some fun fan fic for you when you watch this Still angry what they did to Human Target. that poor second season.
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Apr 15, 2023 22:38
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Oasx posted:I couldn't disagree more, Anna Torv is pretty wooden in the first season, but she improves a lot from then on, and Joshua Jackson is good from episode 1 Torv has more range than she’s generally given credit for; the character as written is pretty subtle in characterization versus Fauxlivia’s exuberance. It takes her a good three seasons to really open up and with the fourth she closes back off until she gets her memories back from the original timeline . The permanent jump of the fourth season leading into the fifth really is unsatisfying even if we do get an episode with Chadwick Boseman out of it
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Apr 16, 2023 03:03
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And Jill Scott. I really liked the fifth season though . Feels like it was originally planned to do that plot based on the third season finale, but then that got post poned and redone with a different alternative future set up in the fourth season.
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Apr 16, 2023 04:50
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Open Source Idiom posted:And Jill Scott. I had a lot of trouble getting through that season personally. the pieces of the machine/weapon thing was straight out of bad anime...any post mortems on this show out there on what was happening in that writers room? i meannnn cmonnnnn [img]https://i.imgur.com/m4fkLep.jpg[/img] e: more s5 thoughts- - the observers being the villains didn't work for me at all, so septembers arc did nothing for me. i think i actually laughed when he gets shot in the last min ala trope - the ending was ok, going for sentimental obviously. the problem was the callback to "white tulip", the season 2 ep i mentioned earlier does the entire concept 1000 times better. - the interdimensional war plot line was actually interesting, but looking at the thing as a whole what they shifted into was lame - amber? really? amber??? this bothered me so much when it aired e2: in case you can't tell i'm really hard on mythology/serialized television after it became clear that lost and the x-files were both making it up as it went along after a certain point i also realize that having a coherent plot line across dozens of episodes is a lofty goal, especially for a FOX show of all things..i think most people gave a lot of the issues i had with fringe a pass.. that said the first 2 seasons, maybe even all three are something i'd recommend, it's a shame this show went off the rails zer0spunk fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Apr 16, 2023 |
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Apr 16, 2023 15:35
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Holy poo poo, I really didn't expect this thread to keep going after it kinda died down originally after Reddick's passing! That's FANTASTIC that there have been more watchthroughs, I'm so happy! I actually checked in because on tonight's Colbert episode, there was a random shot during an interview I was half-watching and it was so perfect for this thread when this happened: I gotta read back and reply! Woo hoo!!  SamBishop fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Apr 18, 2023 |
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Apr 18, 2023 10:30
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Webbeh posted:This is another example of the very annoying shuffling FOX did with the early season running order. It’s kind boggling an executive looked at this and thought it was the right approach. Keep in mind this was (might be? I haven't watched a show there in literally like a decade) the era where FOX just opted to gently caress with episode order on all their shows like they had any idea what they were doing. They didn't, and as Jerusalem mentioned, Firefly was just one show that wasn't even a half season and they STILL hosed with the episode order. You guys all eventually got to the hilarious "Charlie is randomly alive again" thing in S2, but yeah, the show was not without major problems - many more behind the scenes even on production, as it sounds, which really makes me sad. Another thing to remember is that this show was PERMA-BUBBLED; it was always on the verge of being cancelled, but fan fervor sort of kept it limping along, so the fact that it even made it to Season 5 is a small miracle. This is never more evident in the decrease of episodes from the first couple of seasons, though that was more of television as a whole shortening. Still majorly budget-related. Jerusalem posted:The 1980s opening credits in season 2 is loving amazing This was my phone ringtone from the second it aired until about... 2018 when my dad passed and it just made for a bad thematic reminder (my SA username is my real name, so this show resonated HARD with me on a lot of levels). It replaced the Duck Tales Moon Theme as the thing I wanted to hear most when I got a phone call for a VERY long stretch, though. Alhazred posted:Finished the show and one of the worst things about it is Astrid. Not that Astrid is bad, but that she's hardly a character. There's no depth or arc to her, she's just there to occasionally come up with an idea that helps the main characters come up with a solution. The alternate Astrid was much better in that regards, she got an entire episode where she dealt with her complex feelings about her father's death. I don't disagree at all, as I think I said when I was trying to summarize the show in the OP, but I'm really glad they at least used The B universe to let Jasika have some range. She really killed it in that episode. Oasx posted:John Noble was the best actor on tv for a good 4-5 years during this strech. Unquestionably the most committed, talented and nuanced actor on TV during the entire run. It's BONKERS to go back and see that he'd already sort of figured Walter's whole thing out and adjusted accordingly along the way from early days to losing/stealing Peter to incarceration to getting part of his brain back all while working out who Walternate had become. He should have walked away with SO many more awards. zer0spunk posted:ok, here's a positive post I wanted to save this one for last, but White Tulip is arguably one of the best single episodes of a show you can show someone sight-unseen ever made. It's entirely self-contained in the best possible way because all of the characters are explained enough for anyone new and anyone who already knows them gets more depth into them. It's beautifully acted and if you've been along for the ride for the whole show up until that moment, the letter reveal at the end is just a massive waterfall. It's INCREDIBLY beautiful and pays off even more in subsequent episodes and then of course in the final season. It's perfect TV.
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Apr 18, 2023 10:54
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SamBishop posted:This is never more evident in the decrease of episodes from the first couple of seasons, though that was more of television as a whole shortening ?? There were twenty two episodes produced for every season except the final one, which got a full half season. SamBishop posted:I don't disagree at all, as I think I said when I was trying to summarize the show in the OP, but I'm really glad they at least used The B universe to let Jasika have some range. She really killed it in that episode. Yeah it's a good ep. I remember the show had some pretty tight gore / production design at times, like the marionette design from the episode of the same name, or the effects they applied to Rebecca Mader's face in the season four finale. Nothing Hannibal level, but it almost certainly was pushing the watershed with what they were allowed to do.
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Apr 18, 2023 11:16
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I'm fairly deep into season 3 now, and while it's still solid fun I gotta say some of the decisions they made are kinda losing me a bit. The whole thing with people's emotions causing vortices and Peter and Olivia being star-crossed lovers since childhood whose relationship will determine the fate of the universe is probably intended to be poetic, but frankly just comes off as melodramatic. Sure, the show always leaned into the weird, but usually it at least tried to stay vaguely grounded in halfway feasible concepts. At this point they seem determined to just go with gently caress it people are energy and energy is magic. That said, I still do very much enjoy Olivia hamming it up as Bell's ghost 
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Apr 19, 2023 08:57
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Open Source Idiom posted:?? There were twenty two episodes produced for every season except the final one, which got a full half season. I legit have no idea what I was smoking (Brown Betty?) when I wrote that. I could have sworn it got cut WAY down as the show went on, but I literally binged it alongside all you guys and I distinctly remember being thrown that stuff I thought happened in later seasons was happening in earlier ones. They are meaty seasons, to be sure, so despite the show being sort of on the cliff's edge for most of its run, they at least got full season orders when they renewed save for that final one to finish things out because of fan outcry when the show was gonna get canned and then Fox recanted the decision. Open Source Idiom posted:I remember the show had some pretty tight gore / production design at times, like the marionette design from the episode of the same name, or the effects they applied to Rebecca Mader's face in the season four finale. Nothing Hannibal level, but it almost certainly was pushing the watershed with what they were allowed to do. I really wish we had a watershed here in the States, but it's barely a thing these days with "prime time" anymore. The old "NYPD Blue showed a butt!" stuff did indeed lead the way to them just relaxing what can be said/shown at night, but America has pretty much never had a gore issue because we have the most insane, ridiculous ideas of what passes as offensive. No titties, and god help you if you use a naughty word, but fill a dude full o' holes with every weapon you can imagine! It's comically out of whack. Perestroika posted:I'm fairly deep into season 3 now, and while it's still solid fun I gotta say some of the decisions they made are kinda losing me a bit. The whole thing with people's emotions causing vortices and Peter and Olivia being star-crossed lovers since childhood whose relationship will determine the fate of the universe is probably intended to be poetic, but frankly just comes off as melodramatic. Sure, the show always leaned into the weird, but usually it at least tried to stay vaguely grounded in halfway feasible concepts. At this point they seem determined to just go with gently caress it people are energy and energy is magic. I don't want to turn you off from the show, but I'll say none of that really gets any better. They lean into a lot of it, in fact, and you sorta either roll with it or understandably bounce off. I would say if anything the show got sappier as it went on, but that also allowed the Peter/Walter relationship to mature to a place where some of the sentimentality hits a lot better. Literally everything you mentioned, though, only gets thicker as the show goes on; conventions and such made it pretty plain that the heart of the show outweighed the science that they were trying to balance earlier on. I'm thankful that the series got to continue at all, but there was literally a time where they would repackage episodes for science teachers to show in school and provide explanations of the real-world basis for the stuff that was happening. It was a neat idea, but, uh, mostly untenable as it progressed. SamBishop fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Apr 19, 2023 10:06
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zer0spunk posted:I had a lot of trouble getting through that season personally. the pieces of the machine/weapon thing was straight out of bad anime...any post mortems on this show out there on what was happening in that writers room? That season overall was a bit silly, but I did like the episode where the one guy told Peter "You don't even know what you don't know."
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Apr 19, 2023 10:43
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The ballerina episode in season 3 has a scene that feels like Bryan Fuller took the production crew hostage so he could do a scene as a proof of concept for Hannibal  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcfz3zt2DDo Was NOT expecting anything like that out of Fringe, holy poo poo.
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Apr 29, 2023 08:55
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So what's the consensus on season 3? Because... it kinda sucked? There's a lot of good in the season, don't get me wrong, but so much of it just didn't work for me. Primarily the Peter/Olivia romance which I just didn't buy into at all - outside of I liked when Fauxlivia initially used the relationship as a way to smooth over the obvious differences between her and Olivia, but then the whole thing with it becoming genuine and even more so the way the relationship picked up again with the "real" Olivia later on was just.... I'm sorry, I simply didn't buy it. The chance to visit the alternate universe felt like another missed opportunity, and another instance of the show having a ton of promise they seemed to shy away from actually delivering on: this happens constantly, they seem scared to ever make or acknowledge the irredeemable actions of characters or institutions by always trying to soften it by showing the characters were conflicted or forced into action or it was an accident etc. While it's great to have nuance, they kind of just smooth every character into generic mush* where all the really hosed up actions that have happened throughout the series weren't REALLY anybody in particular's fault and everybody just seemed to have been swept along by events. But then they try to have their cake and eat it too by having characters despair over their despicable actions only for the victims of those actions to either forgive them or just forget about them - Walter, Walternate and Bell in particular have done some impossibly hosed up things but the show always seems to shy away from really exploring that, or attempts to move past it without ever really dealing with it. The reveal of Bell's post-death plans in particular were super hosed up, Jesus Christ. I guess part of that is in the writing, but Joshua Jackson in particular I have a real problem buying into his "emotional" reactions to things - he says he feels certain ways but I never really see it, and seeing him treating Bellivia with the same kind of amused exasperation he gives to Walter felt wildly inappropriate for the scenario and what was at stake. Then the big final resolution (for now I guess) of the Machine was just a wet fart, it did NOT feel like a season finale, more like the cliffhanger for the next episode which WOULD be the season finale. The show is certainly okay enough that I'm willing to keep watching, and off moments land really strongly - B-Royles was great - but the show still seems to be doing what it did in season one where it introduces plot elements/storybeats that then kind of just.... disappear? Spider Charlie and Co deciding to start investigating their suspicions about Fringe Division just... never came up again? Maybe it'll be in Season 4? Olivia and Peter seemed to have zero interest in the mystery man in her head that she said was going to kill her. Again, that might come up in season 4 but you'd think they'd at least explore a bizarre reaction like that somewhat? We got a flashback to Olivia's stepfather (Hated that we discovered she and Peter met when they were young) but has that whole thing with him still being alive and sending her taunting messages just been forgotten? It was great seeing Andre Royo in a show but his recurring character felt more like it was because the show thought it would be cool to have Andre Royo in it (they were right!). Bowling Guru being suggested as an immortal psychic or perhaps one of the 1st People only to just be... some dude whose family has been copying the same text for centuries.... doesn't really make any sense with prior appearances, including in episodes in season 3 where he's seemingly got crazy advanced tech at his disposal. Fringe is a really weird show. I can't tell if I like it or not, or I like the characters or not. John Noble is fantastic and Walter is a fun character, but also I feel like they're NEVER going to properly explore what a hosed up and horrible person he was before the brain operation and even our brief looks at him pre-operation seemed to indicate he was mostly just the same Walter with less memory problems so... what's the point? Anyways, I'm 3 seasons in so I guess I might as well finish up and see where it is all going! * But enough about the guy heading up the alternate reality Fringe Division, who they apparently kidnapped from the set of a CW show.
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Jun 10, 2023 03:04
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I would say that season 3 is probably the height of Fringe, season 4 is a bit more controversial, which could be good or bad for you since the story goes in a direction that many people don't like.
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Jun 10, 2023 05:51
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Well that has me curious about season 4 at least! Also, in the interests of positivity, while I disliked Olivia and Peter meeting as kids, I thought the reveal of how Walternate discovered there are alternate universes in the same episode was incredibly well done.
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Jun 10, 2023 07:12
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Jerusalem posted:The show is certainly okay enough that I'm willing to keep watching, and off moments land really strongly - B-Royles was great - but the show still seems to be doing what it did in season one where it introduces plot elements/storybeats that then kind of just.... disappear? Spider Charlie and Co deciding to start investigating their suspicions about Fringe Division just... never came up again? Maybe it'll be in Season 4? Olivia and Peter seemed to have zero interest in the mystery man in her head that she said was going to kill her. Again, that might come up in season 4 but you'd think they'd at least explore a bizarre reaction like that somewhat? We got a flashback to Olivia's stepfather (Hated that we discovered she and Peter met when they were young) but has that whole thing with him still being alive and sending her taunting messages just been forgotten? It was great seeing Andre Royo in a show but his recurring character felt more like it was because the show thought it would be cool to have Andre Royo in it (they were right!). Bowling Guru being suggested as an immortal psychic or perhaps one of the 1st People only to just be... some dude whose family has been copying the same text for centuries.... doesn't really make any sense with prior appearances, including in episodes in season 3 where he's seemingly got crazy advanced tech at his disposal. A lot of this is never resolved. Season Three was hit really badly by executives trying to make the show more marketable, it's why the show drops the alternating episode conceit partway through the season. The entire flashforward structure in the finale is a hail mary that never gets referenced again. Instead the show goes with a soft reboot for the fourth season and I suspect you won't like it tbh. Or perhaps I'm projecting, but going off what you've said I don't think you will.
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Jun 10, 2023 07:43
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Season 4 took me a few watches to really appreciate, and some people still hate the change. But at the very least it's different, so that might be enough.
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Jun 10, 2023 08:59
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Oasx posted:Season 4 took me a few watches to really appreciate, and some people still hate the change. But at the very least it's different, so that might be enough. I think overall I ended up linking Season 4 the best. Jasika Nicole got to do some decent character work, especially as "Alternate Astrid." In the previous seasons she felt like she was just Walter's babysitter and/or team gofer.
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Jun 10, 2023 13:17
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I was going through TV IV threads looking for new shows to watch. I've seen the entirety of Fringe but it was more than a decade ago. I should give it a re-watch I'll always remember Brown Betty 
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Jul 2, 2023 06:42
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Scrotum Modem posted:I was going through TV IV threads looking for new shows to watch. I've seen the entirety of Fringe but it was more than a decade ago. I should give it a re-watch You should, Fringe still stands strong as one of my favorite tv shows ever. And every single member of the main cast are just excellent.
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Jul 2, 2023 07:51
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Scrotum Modem posted:I'll always remember Brown Betty I was surprised to learn that it's apparently the show's most unpopular episode.
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Jul 2, 2023 13:37
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Jerusalem posted:So what's the consensus on season 3? Because... it kinda sucked? I'm a bit over halfway through this season and I have to say my interest in this show is really waning. The other universe is becoming tiresome, the whole romance thing is becoming tiresome. I'll push through because I'm curious what S4 holds.
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Jul 13, 2023 17:23
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I just rewatched this recently and loved it. One of the best multiverse things out there really. My only main gripe with the show is I feel that When they resolve all the multiverses and the original one we've been watching since the start gets kind of erased/merged and everyone kind of starts from scratch relationship wise. They kind of try to resolve it with memories bleeding through but it just made the first few seasons feel like a waste of time, especially the progression of Peter and Walter's relationship which I felt was one of the best parts of the show. I was surprised they never really went back on that and restored everything so you get a clearer progression of the 'heroes', but I think late in the show they wanted a fresher jump in point for new viewers and then suddenly had to wrap it up quickly.
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Jul 17, 2023 19:46
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amitlu posted:I just rewatched this recently and loved it. One of the best multiverse things out there really. I recently finished my rewatch, and I thought seasons 1-3 were great, while season 4 was a real slog to get through. What you mention is "restored" in season 5 when the boy touches Walter and his old brain stops trying to dominate him, and he regains the memories of seasons 1-3 Another thing that annoyed me was that the origins of The Machine, Sam Weiss, the First People and everything having to do with that was explained in just a throwaway sentence, and you might as well have missed it. Walter in 2026 uses the wormhole in Central Park to go millions of years into the past and plant the parts of the machine and set up everything else there. It's also fun that we have more advanced cell phones now than what the show envisioned for 2026. Also, buy a Ford. Or a Nissan Leaf.
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Jul 18, 2023 10:32
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I'm enjoying my rewatch but it's amazing anyone having drugs injected in this show is actually drugged, they seem to push the needle entirely through people's arms most of the time.
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Jul 19, 2023 00:14
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Oh God loving dammit it's (season 4) an alternate reality. This better not be a loving shaggy dog story with the main cast just being alternates who disappear after 6 episodes or something. Hopefully I end up being hilariously wrong on that, just got up to the first episode after Peter returned to reality.
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Aug 1, 2023 11:17
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Jerusalem posted:Oh God loving dammit it's (season 4) an alternate reality. This better not be a loving shaggy dog story with the main cast just being alternates who disappear after 6 episodes or something. Shaggy dog story?
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Aug 1, 2023 16:06
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Seeing this thread again just makes me sad because I miss Lance a ton. Normally celebrity deaths don't bother me but it's to the point where it's hard to watch his past work because he died so soon.
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Aug 1, 2023 20:08
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Nevermind, Jared Harris is back, show therefore great. I don't make the rules.
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Aug 22, 2023 09:30
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