Fringe

[on:]

So it didn't suck.  I'm not entirely sold, but I'm willing to give it until the first season is over before I decide whether or not I'll stick with it.

It was much less like Heroes than I was afraid it was going to be.

[Reply #1 on:]

I had it turned on, but I don't know how much I was paying attention.  I did notice that old man scientist who really wanted to synthesize lsd and mix it with special K so we can talk to dead people or something.... that made me smile.

What else was going on though?

[Reply #2 on:]

lol at Finge.

[Reply #3 on:]

Did anyone hear what John said at the end to Olivia?

Why do you think _____ sent you to get the briefcase?  I couldnt hear him.  I thought it was the black dude, but he also was the one that wanted her to join his team.. so... little confusing

[Reply #4 on:]

lol at Finge.

I reject your reality and substitute my own.  Because I can do that now.

[Reply #5 on:]

Science leads you to killing people. Some asshat said that.

[Reply #6 on:]

Oh I totally believe that.

[Reply #7 on:]

<3 Fringe. Will be watching.

<3 JJ Abrams.

<3 the other JJ too.

[Reply #8 on:]

...Jim J Bullock?

[Reply #9 on:]

I wonder if the LOST island is part of the Pattern? Same scary black guy...

[Reply #10 on:]

I'm right in thinking that i saw the redhaired lady from Maga-whats-its at the meeting at the beginning with big black guy right?

[Reply #11 on:]

Thats what I thought too.  Also, at the end of the show, he asks main character blondie what the red head said about the pattern

[Reply #12 on:]

Maybe this is how the monster started in Cloverfield!

[Reply #13 on:]

Did Ep 4 end with her dropping the bowl of cereal?

[Reply #14 on:]

yes

[Reply #15 on:]

I like this show at first, and then get bored and like, read a magazine or something, then fall asleep before the end. Then I try to watch it on DVR, but it's even more boring and I feel like it has potential, but the actors don't really have the chemistry that we all know they are supposed to have when they hook up, get pregnant, and then decided to leave the show for all but and handful of episodes where they just stand at the edge of cliff, or hide in a storage closet.

x files!

[Reply #16 on:]

I agree, Joshua J and that girl have no chemistry

[Reply #17 on:]

I hated this series.. watched the pilot and had enought.. in fact i had enought with the gory start.. is all the same again and they love to tease to go nowhere and write cool stuff that they have not think yet but want to make us believe they have actually..

i can stand Lost.. but not this.. i usually like to watch TV to have a good time.. no to have an unpleasant and "oh..look they want me to believe the series is going to evolve in some huge puzzle mystery... AGAIN" toughts..

dont make me wrong.. i love mysteries and thrillers but this one went far enought and knowing where it comes its complete no no..
i also couldnt stand Alias and couldnt stand anymore X-Files from a point .. and this looks like Lost+Alias+X-Files

[Reply #18 on:]

I missed the last episode

[Reply #19 on:]

I only just saw the pilot episode of this on the new channel they've added to our HD TV..thing. I don't know, it came up when I set up my new telly the other week.

First I recognised that guy out of Boston Legal and it said 'with Mark Valley' so I knew his character would die by the end of the episode. They had me for a while when he survived the whole transparent skin fiasco. Then he got hit by a car. That poor woman just got naked in a tub and had something shoved into the back of her head, for this? Just like real life.

Then I saw that guy who was Alvarez in Oz. He was kind of handsome in Oz but now he has a gruff Mafia-like voice and he seemed a lot older. Then there was that guy who was in Oz and Lost. I wasn't paying enough attention to remember what his role is. Then Josh Jackson came in. He doesn't seem to have aged that much. I still don't know exactly what the show is meant to be about. Are they going to investigate murders by connecting to those who have been dead less than 6 hours? What...

[Reply #20 on:]

I'm almost up to date with this show. (Just in time for a cancellation it seems?)

Really liked the season one finale, was then annoyed that they faffed about for 12 episodes of Season 2 before getting to the multiverse stuff. The start of the season 2 finale was crazy and awesome that they just plunged in after teasing it for so long. The ending was awesome, knew that a switch was about to take place was then tense for the last 5 minutes. Really enjoying season 3, even though they are still doing Monster of the Week episodes (in the alt-verse at least) they are interesting cause it's a different world. Plus Bolivia is hotter I think.

On a side note, the Noir episode was fucking fantastic, I had a lot of fun watching it.

[Reply #21 on:]

(Just in time for a cancellation it seems?)

Do you know something I don't?

http://www.fanbolt.com/headline/10229/Fox_Mocks_Rumors_That_%27Fringe%27_Will_Be_Cancelled

Far as I can tell there's no plans to cancel it.

Thankfully - I love this show. John Noble is brilliant in it. Anna Torv too. Coincidentally they're both Aussies.

It could do with some more sci-fi concepts with a basis in reality though. Things from real-world conspiracy theories and such, rather than relying as heavily as it does on the 'fiction' part, making up fantastical things for the sake of plot and/or visual impact.

[Reply #22 on:]

I'm basing it in this. I don't fully trust them, but It seems to be a possibility.

[Reply #23 on:]

So I decided to give this show another try because I figured it had potential a few years ago.

I'm watching some episode on Hulu right now about a numbers station of sorts.... I'm not sure how it will turn out, but I'll let you know once I reach the otherside.

So far, the cinematography is very similar to X-Files... crisp and dark.... that's an aspect I enjoy.

Update:  I still can't figure out what department the characters work for.  The show seems to have the same strange logic to it about phenomena that the general public knows fractions about.  In this case, number stations could easily be an analogy to crop circles.  If the X-Files were still on, and still a good show, there would probably have been an episode on number stations.

Update: The episode is progressively getting more.... I don't know.... overly dramatic... but I feel less involved with the B story about the character interactions.  I'm aware that this could be because I'm not attached to the characters and a past has been established in the previous seasons.  I'm somewhat intrigued by the artifact that could be a nuclear weapon... but I'm also not intrigued by it.  Hmm...

Update: I still haven't finished watching this episode... which I started like 3 hours ago.

Update: Still watching this episode.  The show seems utterly ridiculous.  It also has shape shifters with mercury for blood.... kind of like the X-Files.

Update: This show is completely ridiculous.  Maybe I'll watch more of it at a later date.

[Reply #24 on:]

I'm basing it in this. I don't fully trust them, but It seems to be a possibility.

Well that's just educated guesswork. Nothing official. I hope it's not axed - it's good. There's not enough decent sci-fi on telly.

I still can't figure out what department the characters work for.

'Fringe Division' is, in theory, a multi-organisational taskforce being operated under the auspices of the Dept. of Homeland Security. In practice, it's mostly FBI. And for the viewer, it's really one FBI agent, and a civilian father/son pair of geniuses.

The show seems to have the same strange logic to it about phenomena that the general public knows fractions about.  In this case, number stations could easily be an analogy to crop circles.

Mysterious ham radio 'number stations' like the ones depicted in the episode have actually existed in the real world since the first world war, and continue to be heard today. They're a real thing. Most are quite obviously set up for deep-cover espionage. Others are stranger.

Update: Still watching this episode.  The show seems utterly ridiculous.  It also has shape shifters with mercury for blood.... kind of like the X-Files.

If you'd been watching how their presence was slowly developed, it would seem far less ridiculous.

[Reply #25 on:]

I figured some of that out from rewatching the pilot and another season 1 episode.  The black guy is G Man and the red head has a cgi arm.  Also... it seems in season 3 they stop discussing that massive corporation, but I only saw the one episode so who knows.

I was already well aware of numbers stations; sometimes I broadcast my own.  Using it as a storyline for an episode of a scifi tv series is kind of interesting, but in factual basis, it's akin to almost all of the computer related episodes in X-Files; they were pretty much completely wrong, but no one knew any better in the 1990s.  I'm not saying that that's something that can completely detract from a series, but eventually that episode totally veered off the numbers stations stuff anyways.  I think X-Files pre-season 7 would have done a better job with a numbers stations episode.... since I usually shoot for creepy, but I suppose the whole episode was alright.... plus I picked that one because it had a cool name.

I've noticed other discrepencies throughout the series from the 3 episodes I've watched as well.... Like how the good Dr. can synthesise lsd in hours apparently... how the boy, who can't be much older than his late 20s has already faked being a professor (not impossible, but I find it rather doubtful?), how a ghost network transmits signals via a phone that are received by a man with metal in his brain and projected into pictural descriptions of events that have yet to occur.  Seriously, who talks about how the victims will look after you plan out a terrorist attack?

The alternate universe thing sounds cool in theory, but it seems the "the pattern" thing was probably more mysterious and replaced by this alternate universe.... which is exactly like our own universe and so not as interesting.

So far in my journey, it's not X-Files.... but it's not completely horrid either.  Also, I enjoy the Professor man and his affinity for psychotropic chemicals.... and how half the people in the show are geniuses and can switch between being fluent in all languages, perform brain surgeries, be chemical engineers, and figure out the mechanics of alien technologies buried in the earth millions of years ago.  Very farfetched, but interesting nonetheless.  I'll probably see about watching another episode or two in a few minutes, but I won't follow up with updates.... last night was rather paranoia induced to begin with... and that episode took me like 7 hours to watch.

[Reply #26 on:]

All the questions you are asking, are things that would make sense if you had been watching the whole show. You can't just pick a few episodes and random and expect to know everything.

[Reply #27 on:]

Yeah, what Chay said.

While it may not be as convoluted as Lost, it's still an ongoing story. Even the "stand-alone" episodes heavily reference and connect with the larger plot. It is, unfortunately for casual viewers, not a show you can just catch one or two episodes of and expect any of it to make sense.

The episode you're referring to is a continuation of an arc that's been going since halfway through season 2.

[Reply #28 on:]

Well, yeah, I realize that, and noted that that was probably the case in my posts.

I was really just fishing for reasons why this show is so cool.... since I started watching it again after reading you two guyses posts.

[Reply #29 on:]

I started watching it when it first started, then lost track. I couldn't get back into it until I rented the season 1 box-set and caught up with developments.

Show spoiler

Peter is actually from the alternate universe. When he was a kid, this universe's Peter died from an incurable disease. Walter had already developed a way to look into the other universe (to steal technological developments), but after the death of his son he realised what the cure was, and so he crossed over to cure the alternate Peter... however circumstances made it necessary for him to bring the boy back over here, where he and his wife ended up keeping him. Peter only found this out in season 2.
Apparently Walter's original method of crossing over caused irreparable damage to the other Universe, and Walternate has devoted his life to finding a way to destroy our universe in order to preserve his own (and get his son back).
William Bell (spock) meanwhile went over there to try to prevent the war, but his technological innovations were used by Walternate to create things like the shapeshifters (which are sort of cyborgs or robots) to infiltrate our universe.
And now there's some kind of ancient mechanism that's supposed to be able to destroy our universe, using Peter as the central component. The Observers seem to know something about this...[/small]

[Reply #30 on:]

Alright.  That sounds pretty cool, I'll be down next time I have access to watching tv.

Danke. ^_^

[Reply #31 on:]

Oh, and also,

Show spoiler

Walter and Bell experimented on Olivia when she was a child, as well as a bunch of other children who later developed destructive powers as adults, with a substance called Cortexiphan. The purpose was to create universe-jumping 'soldiers' who would be able to fight against the other Universe when the war started.
Consequently, Olivia is able to cross over under certain conditions.

[Reply #32 on:]

Also

Show spoiler

Alternate Olivia (Bolivia) took actual olivia's at the end of Season 2 to gather information and complete a few little tasks, whilst actual olivia was stuck in the other universe. Actual olivia was brainwashed into thinking she was Bolivia, but hallucinations of Peter made her remember who she actually was, and she and Bolivia managed to return the correct universes. Before switch places Olivia told peter she liked him, then Peter started a relationship with Bolivia cause he didn't know the difference, and now Olivia is all pissy about it...

Feel I needed to cover the emotional stuff :P

[Reply #33 on:]

Yeah, as if he could be blamed for not noticing when Anna Torv isn't the real Anna Torv when she's trying to jump his bones. He's a MAN.

[Reply #34 on:]

I gathered chay's post from the one episode I watched.  Had no idea that Walter created the alternate universe to save his son from cancer though.  Walter will probably become my favourite character.

[Reply #35 on:]

He didn't create it, he just discovered it and created a means to get there. Initially this was solely for the purpose of technological espionage for the military - with devices like the cellular phone and such being copied from technology developed in the other universe.

We've only seen one alternate universe in the show, but I think it's generally assumed that there are many, which opens up some interesting future possibilities.

One thing that's curious about Fringe (as an X-Files-ish show) is that they've never even hinted at the subject of aliens in any of the episodes. Walter mentioned them once, in a humorous manner, but it seems like that's not a direction the show is planning on going. That's odd because while The X-Files tended more frequently (in the stand-alone episodes) toward purely supernatural cases, Fringe is firmly fixed in sci-fi, a genre where the humble Little Green Man is right at home. Seems like they're limiting themselves in an effort to not look too much like the X-Files. I wonder why. The X-Files was one of the defining pop culture phenomena of the '90s and is still beloved today. They also made an oblique reference to it in (I think) the first episode of Season 2, when Broyles references the FBI's old "X" department as being the precursor to the Fringe division.

[Reply #36 on:]

I was being facetious about the creation thing because everything was in spoilers.  I guessed some of the stuff you guys were talking about while skip watching the different episodes; I'm actually pretty decent at guessing what's going on.

But anyways, I can see why they've strayed away from trying to be like X-Files, and arguably this show is more dramatic than X-Files... as someone pointed out when the show came out in this thread, it's a little more like Alias or other similar shows, which isn't necessarily something that I'm quick on the uptake to enjoy.  For similar reasons I suppose, I never managed to get into Millenium either.

Since you pointed out the supernatural cases, I wanna suggest that some of those stand-alone episodes are easily my favorites, and whenever I rewatch X-Files, they're the episodes that feel more timeless than the episodes pertaining to the mythology of the show; although the premise of that show was worth piquing interest.  All in all, I think with the big what's going to happens and what's the mystery, eventually when everything is said and done, the answers that you get hardly hold up, and that's probably because you put so much into figuring out what it's about in the first place that no explanation could possibly be sufficient... eventually X-Files burned itself out on that one.  I'm also certain the Lost fans feel the same about their show at this point.... albeit more so, because they were being cheated the whole time.  The stand alone episodes can be enjoyed over and over again because there's no cost for watching them in the first place.... I almost wish the movies had taken a similar direction, but they were kind of disappointing to me.

[Reply #37 on:]

Well the second movie was stand-alone, and everybody hated it.

I agree with what you're saying about the stand-alone episodes though.
And the X-Files' mythology had basically all been explained by season 6 so there wasn't so much mystery left to it for the remaining three seasons - just a whole lot of sci-fi adventuring, which didn't really fit the vibe of the show. This is what happens when the writers don't plan ahead and decide what the over-reaching plot is going to be. The X-Files team made it up as they went along. 'Course, back in the early 90s, the concept of a show with a long-running story was fairly new, and they weren't really sure how long it would last. Fringe is different though - because those producers learned their lesson with Lost, they've actually stated that the story has already been fleshed out, at least to a degree, so there should be more coherence.

I don't know that it's 'more dramatic' than The X-Files though. Although that depends on how you define dramatic. The X-Files was (usually) more emotional and human, bearing more in common with a gritty police drama than anything else (with the exception of the occasional comedy episode). Fringe is more of a far-out sci-fi adventure, closer to Stargate SG:1, and when it tries to turn on the emotional drama it tends to lay it on too thick and clumsy.

I've been watching through The X-Files again of late, going from start to finish, and it's struck me just how grown up it was, really. When you strip away the fantastical supernatural themes and look at the interactions and the characters' development (at least prior to Season 8); it's really really well done.
Watch the two-parter Sein un zeit and Closure to see what I mean, or go back to Memento Mori, Irresistible or Milagro or any number of other brilliant human stories. The nuances of the character depictions were somewhat wasted on me when I was younger and just wanted to see aliens, but now that I'm a more mature person I can really appreciate that it was somewhat of a masterpiece, and nothing that's come since has ever quite hit the same mark.

[Reply #38 on:]

Yeah, it really was a good show... and that's probably the original problem I had with Fringe.  Unfortunately, X-Files ended itself, but I always wanted to fill that gap, and in truthfulness, there will never be another X-Files.  This Fringe show may be good.... I'm not big into SG:1 for some reason or another, but this one might be up my alley, and perhaps I'll get a chance to watch it in the next few years.

[Reply #39 on:]

SG:1 always annoyed me because every single alien in the universe speaks English. With an American accent, no less. No explanation like Trek's Universal Translator, or the Translator microbes in Farscape, or even the babelfish from Hitchhikers'... no, they just speak English. Against all logic.
That kind of thing really poisons a show for me.