Fringe - Season 4 - Wilson's Midseason Review

Here's the first section of the returning shows subset of my mid-season reviews! Today I will cover Fringe!

UPDATE: just fixed the format of the post title. It was originally going to have more shows, but obviously that would've been a very longwinded post.

I've heard mixed opinions about this season. Some say it's better than ever, and some say it's completely gone off the rails. I've felt nothing but positive things about this season, but I've got a few things that I could nitpick at here and there. The reasons I tend to keep my mouth shut when watching Fringe, and reading here on SpoilerTV is a mystery even to me. You'd think the biggest mystery sci-fi show on television would have me blabbing for hours but it doesn't seem that way. It's strange to me, but I don't have many theories about what will happen very often. Sometimes I automatically try to figure out "What is going on here!" and sometimes I'm proven correct, but I hardly ever post my thoughts on where they will go because I just feel like it's not worth it. I feel like I would rather just cut myself off and not overthink things, and just quietly waste away until the next episode and hope for more answers as well as bigger questions. Fringe has had a strange effect on me! I also tend to ignore other people's theories for how things will turn out (a lot of them over the years have been awful, and make me thankful for the writers/producers we have on the actual team!) and they also seem like a waste of time. So what I'm saying is, Fringe makes me obsess about it in my head, and keep my thoughts to myself on what will happen! This is extremely unlike my tendencies with other shows, namely Supernatural, where I post ad nauseum about each and every little thing. Therefore, writing this review feels odd actually.

That was just a thought I had, when I started writing this review. We've seen the first 7 episodes of the 4th season, and so far it's been a very interesting ride. From what I understand, we've been collectively screwed over regarding the mid-season finale since 4x08 was supposed to be the finale and has been lauded by insiders of the show as "season finale material" if I remember correctly. However, back onto what we HAVE seen this season.

The strength of season 4 has been most undoubtedly the casting and acting, in my opinion. The scripts of course have been as strong as ever, but in lieu of a grand over-arching story like a pending war between worlds like we've had before, now we have a simple "where is Peter Bishop?" storyline. At first it was the job of the season to establish itself without Peter, and to establish a sense of longing in each of the main characters for what they lack in Peter's absence. They have brought out the best in Anna Torv and John Noble once again by shifting their characters around to be yet another version of themselves. Walter is absolutely tragic this season, as we know now that he's lost Peter not once, but twice, and at the same time he still caused the anguish that spans both universes, therefore ending the lives of hundreds of thousands without anything to show for it. It's no wonder that when he begins to see a man in reflections of everything around him that he's so quick to lobotomize himself. Olivia is cold, detached and sometimes downright frightening at the beginning of the season. We learn that she's not very emotional at all, and in the past she has successfully killed her step-father for his abusive tendencies. There are traces of our Olivia circa season 1, but her personality is more intensified by the lack of a good Peter Bishop to bring her out of her shell.

The differences of course don't stop there. The niches that each of the characters had before are all mixed up. Olivia trusts Nina, who in this world was a motherly influence on her. Astrid is a field agent and doesn't take Walter's antics as well as we know her to. Finally, we now have Lincoln Lee assuming the last remaining slot in the diminutive Fringe team.

The writers may have switched up a lot of things for this season, but they still take the opportunity to build on what they've established in the previous seasons. The two worlds are still in the process of mending each other's wounds, and now we get the occasional trans-dimensional case. This is a very satisfying twist to the freak-of-the-week formula, as we get to see each character bouncing off their counterparts and we're allowed to analyze cosmic "what ifs" and delve into all sorts of great dilemmas of metaphysics, definition of character, and the ramifications of cross-dimensional problem-solving.

The majority of the time spent in this season has been the classic mix of case-of-the-week that mirrors a current issue with one of the main characters. A couple have been just decent, with little nuggets of greatness tucked in here and there but no real "Wow" moments, while others have become some of the greatest standalone episodes in Fringe history. Episodes like "And Those We Left Behind" and "One Night in October" are just brimming with creativity and have moments that left me quite enthralled. I dare say that so far there have been no bad episodes, there have been some that were just good. The one that mainly disappoints is the season opener "Neither Here Nor There." It was entertaining, and paralleled nicely with the pilot, but it was so underwhelming outside of some great details that quietly made themselves known that it felt like the payoff of "The Day We Died" was nowhere in sight.

There's always a sense of understatement, or a subdued subtlety with Fringe. I love that atmosphere, and I enjoy the poignant moments that it allows to cross through the medium of television, wrought with big moments and twists that truly stand out due to how well it was directed and written--there's room for the actors to breathe their own life into the parts, and there's room for the audience to take some of the ambiguity of certain situations, the dire circumstances in others, and the heartbreak of many instances suddenly hit the viewer without overselling it, and making it campy or overblown. It's an unbelievably underrated way to be about storytelling these days.

However, sometimes this wears on me as a viewer if I happen to be in an off mood, like in the opener, it's an active process to catch every line of a character, to be sure to see the little things like the glances characters make at each other, and the subtle actions that they make that could mean much more than meets the eye. But, I occasionally think that at the end of the episode I have missed something, and assume it's on me to know what I missed, so I will rewatch...and yet I will find that it wasn't really adequately handled like thought it would be upon rewatching. So sometimes I find that I give the show too much credit for this. "Neither Here Nor There" is a good episode and all, but it fell a bit flat--Not because I was unable to catch all the meaningful parts that weren't obvious, but because something was missing (namely Peter, but also the whole episode was fraught with cynicism and grief, not the usual atmosphere of this show).

The best(worst?) way this little issue has been shown this season is in the episode "Alone in the World." While I personally loved the episode for its effects, the acting, the story, etc. it was just never explained fully where this brain/fungus/whatever it was came from, and there wasn't enough of an explanation for me to think "what a brilliant fringe science story"... They've been skipping a few things here and there like that through the season that would be very helpful to keep the integrity of the pseudo-science of Fringe up to date. However, that's one of only very few issues I have with the season so far. Just explain things a little bit more, guys!

While we were waiting on the impending return of Peter, the theme of loss of a vital aspect of one's life was becoming a little overdone. Still, the point remained that there was something vital missing in this universe, and when Peter came back we all expected rainbows and unicorns, right? Of course not, because this is FRINGE, and nothing on Fringe ever ends with rainbows and unicorns! Instead, we were greeted by time loops and tragedy. I love the time loops that have become a main terror for this season so far. Peter's dropped into Lake Reiden, and suddenly time is out of sorts all over the area. We've got places reverting to 4 years ago, and even Peter himself is popping in and out of time, at least his awareness is, as he seems to be fading in and out at different points in time by the episode "And Those We Left Behind"...

The best thing about this storyline however to me, is Peter himself. He's such a sport when it comes to being rejected by the entire world, and all the people he thought knew and loved him. He's being proactive in figuring out what went wrong, and why he's stuck in a place that doesn't want him. He's also become just as important to this version of the Fringe team as the one he is used to (aside from the fact that he seems to be the cause of a lot of things this season himself). He's slowly winning over the characters with his wit, his comprehensive knowledge of the last 3 years of the Fringe division, and problem-solving ability. At this point in time, Peter is under the impression that he is no longer in his world at all, and that he needs to be picked up and dropped back into the blue universe so that this world can go back to equilibrium, and he can get back to his world and his Olivia.

I'm not sold on that possibility yet, because I know the Fringe writers always have something up their sleeves when things start to make sense. However, if that is the case, I'd love for Peter to do what he does best, and somehow help Walter, Olivia, Astrid, etc. all become happier, better-functioning individuals, and maybe Peter will leave this world a better place than he found it. That's just a thought I have on that possibility. He's good at cutting through the crap, and getting to the point of what is wrong and what needs to be fixed.

Overall, it's been very good to me, with strong standalone episodes that are slowly weaving in other mysteries, like the new shapeshifters, and where Peter should rightfully reside. I think that this season will probably escalate as time goes on because it feels too linear at the moment. I feel a left turn coming on that we won't see, much like the end of season 1. I believe that the pace will be like a slow burn that will end in a bang, at the end of the season, and by that time we'll have a much bigger mystery to figure out with much bigger payoffs than the ones we're getting now.

Rating: B

What do you think of this season? Please leave your thoughts below!

Stay tuned for more mid-season reviews of returning shows!