Daniel's TV Blog

This is the first in my series of season in review for the 2009-2010 season.
Last season fringe ended with Olivia in the parallel world and started the season with cliched amnesia. Eventually she remembered meeting mirror mirror Spock sans goatee. During the season we and all the characters discovered Peter was from the parallel world as real Peter died as a child. This season they also moved the production from NYC to Vancouver, where all sci-fi should be made. I'm embarrassed I didn't figure that out until the third to the last episode.

The season ended with an epic two parter where Walter and Olivia travel to the parallel world to get Peter back before he helps Walternate destroy the world.

The more I think about the finale, the less impressed I get about it. Here are my gripes.

1. The main thing is Olivia was altered by drugs as a child in order to be able to transit between worlds. How then did Olivia B make the jump?
2. Peter just seemed way to willing to go to World B and also to come back.
3. How did Olivia B escape? No one was looking for her and Olivia A tied her up well.
4. When did their goal change from capturing them to infiltration? That is a rather big mission to agree to with no time to consider. What about her hunky boyfriend? How long is his business trip because she might be gone a long, long time.
5. The characters from World B just seem way too evil. While it's true that alternate universe people are typically evil versions of the main universe characters, it's just too predictable.
6. If Olivia can transit universes, why can't she just escape her prison back to her world?
7. If Olivia B had studied Olivia A for a while she might be able to impersonate her. As it is now, she should have already be found out. There is no one I spend as much time with as Peter, Walter, or Astrid spend with her. But I would be able to spot an alternate Matt C or Jeff P or David O within a short time if I knew such alternates existed. She had no time to prepare for the impersonation. Also, when did she had time to change into Olivia A's clothes.

The writing at the end of the season was so poor I'm not sure I'll be watching next season.

Labels: Fringe

There is a common new device used this year on two shows, it's the I-saw-something-important-at-season-ending-cliffhanger-but-now-I-forgot-it thing. It happened with Olivia on Fringe and also with Lois Lane on Smallville. Yes I still watch Smallville, deal with it. Olivia went to Spock's universe and didn't remember her conversation until the fourth episode. Lois went into the future and saw some shocking important but she is only now starting to remember flashes of it. Whatever she saw the future seems to be bright yellow like it is on fire or something.

I've been trying to think of other cliffhanger amnesia. With two this season there have to be other instances. In the first season of Babylon 5, the security guy figured out the plot to kill the president but was shot and in a coma for the first few episodes of the next season. It's not quite the same but it did take a few episodes for the information to disseminate. Daniel Jackson died and ascended at the end of Season 5 of Stargate: SG1. He returned in Season 7 with no memory or the place he had gone in the intervening season or the advanced information he learned while there. It's sort of the same thing but not really since we weren't given the expectation of new information at the end of the previous season.

But this is such an easy device for drawing out a cliffhanger over several episodes I'm sure it has been used before.

Labels: Fringe, Smallville

It's that show about strange happening in your refrigerator. It's spooky. No, it's really Fringe on FOX tonight. Fringe is the new show by JJ Abrams and everyone loves comparing it to his previous projects like LOST, Alias, and Felicity. I don't think there were many melting faces on Felicity. The connection I'd like to draw between them is they are all one word/name titles.

Labels: Fringe