Posts Tagged ‘ Fringe ’

Fringe‘s fourth season that at one point seemed unlikely (given the ratings, not the quality of the show) is gearing up for its premiere on September 23 with the release of a bunch of publicity shots and episode promo shots, in addition to the previously released ‘Where is Peter Bishop?’ teasers that culminated in this -

Missing from all but three of the shots is Joshua Jackson, whose character Peter pulled a Keyser Soze at the end of the last season. He’s confirmed that he will be in fewer episodes this season, and during this past summer’s Comic Con video (embedded below) he showed up at the end with a familiar and not-creepy-at-all look.

It’s a shame, then, that the individual character posters feel pretty uninspired, with the core three characters on some silly looking tesseract-style blocks, and the single characters showing up in front of a big dome that I assume is some sort of protection for the cross-world meeting room under the Statue of Liberty.

Anna Torv and John Noble get double the promo, with them both showing up as both the regular ‘blue’ universe and opposing ‘red’ universe versions of their characters –

- and Lincoln (Seth Gabel) joins the regular cast – and it looks like ‘blue’ Linc will be working with Fringe Division now just as ‘red’ Linc does. it’s established that ‘red’ Linc loves ‘red’ Olivia, but I hope they avoid something similar in the main universe now that Peter was never in the picture – it feels a little too soapy and is bound to make some people’s heads explode.

All in all, I’m optimistic about the new season as it never fails to entertain but I do find myself slightly frustrated at a few plot lines that have been dropped along the way. Whatever happened to the people who were after Peter when they found out he was back in Boston in season one? Or the female FBI agent who showed up for an episode after Charlie died and appeared to be collecting information on Fringe cases in season two? I’m sure there’s others that I can’t think of right now. Sometimes it feels like the writers have become so enamored of the mirror universe aspect and love story of the show that all other things have been dropped by the wayside.

I also feel that some of the supporting cast are underutilized – like Jasika Nicole’s Astrid and Blair Brown’s Nina, who it feels barely appeared last season.

Regardless, Fringe is my most anticipated return of the season and even though I won’t be able to watch it on the 23rd, I’m looking forward to it.

See? Creepy.

Once again the Emmy noms are out, and once again the deserving got the shaft (well, at least in my opinion – but granted, I have very little interest in anything HBO puts out).

The biggest casualty this year – Fringe. I didn’t expect the show to get any nods on the basis that the split-universe season divided some viewers and, you know, science fiction. But I did hope that Anna Torv and John Noble would get some respect.

Torv’s performance this year was a revelation. While I’d grown accustomed to her collected and calm Olivia, seeing her cut loose as Olivia, alternate Olivia, Olivia thinking she was alternate Olivia, alternate Olivia pretending to be Olivia, future Olivia and, oh yes, Olivia possessed by the spirit of Walter Bell really showcased her range.

And speaking of range, can we just give John Noble some kind of Emmy and bypass all the voting nonsense? As Walter or the Walternate, he owns every scene he’s in and can bring drama, humor and heartbreak within the same scene. The final episode of the season alone showcased his range – not to mention the past-set episode this year.

As for Joshua Jackson…Peter’s the least showy role of the three leads, and if I’m honest – although I like him – I don’t think that he’d be nominated for it. But at least he got to read the nominations.

Anyway, there you have it: snubbed once again. I really do feel that it’s the stigma which still seems to be associated with science fiction in the eyes of the voters.

Hmm. How do I get into the Academy again?

On Fringe

In spite of my worries, the Fringe finale actually kind of rocked.

That said, I’m still a little confused with Peter never having existed. Why did Walter cross worlds and start the whole mess if not to save him? How did Olivia end up getting Walter out of the mental institution to help her way back when? Did Fauxlivia still have a baby? Who was it’s father? If Peter didn’t exist, how could the machine be turned on in the first place? And exactly who are the WatchersObservers that they apparently exist outside of regular time?

And, wait, if Walter created the machine in the future and sent it back into the past, why did he create it in the first place? How did it end up with parts in both worlds? And if he only created it so he could send it back so it could be used in a different manner than it was used the first time, didn’t he just create a massive paradox?

Oh, and good on Seth Gabel for getting promoted to series regular next year. No return for Kirk Acevedo to the regular cast, though – mainly because of the hat.

I’m not saying that the show’s perfect, and it has more dangling plotlines than Claremont’s X-Men, but still – pretty good.

On Smallville

Ten years? Damn.

I haven’t watched a full season of Smallville as it airs since…what, season four? Whichever one Jensen Ackles was crap in. I do, however, have a bunch of seasons on DVD that I’m very slowly watching (veeeery slowly), and I tried to watch this season but somehow dropped away. It’s an enjoyable show a lot of the time, but it’s not always – or even often – a very good show.

In any case, I’ll watch the finale tonight. And I’ll probably enjoy it.

Ten years. Wow.

(Oh, and if you haven’t been keeping up with Chris Sims’ and David Uzumeri’s Smallville Recaps over at Comics Alliance, you really should go and read them. It’s more fun than watching the show half the time.)

On Human Target

Damnation.

While not surprised at the cancellation of Human Target, I am saddened. The show was one of the few that I made a point of watching every week, and the chemistry between the three leads – Mark Valley, Chi McBride and Jackie Earl Haley – was great fun to watch. The addition of two female cast members – Indira Varma and Janet Montgomery – felt forced in the second season, I actually grew to like them both more than I thought I would (especially Montgomery’s Ames, who sparked off Haley’s Guerrero).

Ah well. If there’s any justice in the world, Valley will get another good action show, because that guy is good.

On Wonder Woman

Well, bugger.

I know a lot (a lot) of people derided the costume, but I wasn’t one of them. Well, I don’t think I was. It’s been a while.

Anyway, while I don’t think David E Kelley is anyone’s idea of a good showrunner for a superhero show, I was looking forward to Adrienne Palicki as Diana. Hopefully the pilot will get leakedreleased at some point so we can all see what might have been.

And laughed at the costume.

On Flashpoint

And finally, on a comic that actually came out this week that I actually read – not bad, although for a story that’s now 20% completed (not counting spin-offs, obviously) it certainly felt like 15% set-up and 85% exposition. I’m not sure anything actually happened in the issue.

Even so, I think I liked it more than when it was called House of M.

I love Fringe, I do, and I think that Anna Torv may be the most underrated actress on network television (she’s played, what, five different takes on her character in this season alone? Olivia, Fauxlivia, Fauxlivia pretending to be Olivia, Olivia thinking she was Fauxlivia but coming into herself, and Bellivia?) but I’m ready to admit I’m a little concerned about the season finale tonight.

First up there’s the prophecy. Now I don’t know how much input JJ Abrams has in the show’s direction these days, but the minute that the Peter-prophecy showed up earlier this season, I had a little bit of deja vu.

Another favorite show of mine – also an Abrams creation – featured a similar prophecy regarding it’s main character. The show, of course, was Alias.

Every time the Peter-prophecy got referenced, I got an itchy feeling that we were just seeing a magician trying to do the same trick twice (and in Alias‘ case, the show went off the rails somewhat). Then, last week, a missing page of the prophecy came to light:

Let’s just say that this worries me a little. Being derivative is one thing; being derivative of your own work is something else.

Then there’s what appears to be the premise of this finale; at the end of last episode, Peter stepped into the machine that was going to destroy his world and got shunted fifteen years into the future, where it would appear the world has gone to hell. From the movie-style trailer released for the episode, it looks like Peter is the anchor of this episode.

This gives me pause for two reasons; first off, as much as I like him, Joshua Jackson is by far the weakest link in the show’s cast (and unfortunately he will always be the guy doing this dance move to me).

The second is far more fundamental: I hate time travel when it’s used to show a future that must be avoided. I know, I’m just assuming that’s what’s happening here and I’m pre-judging the episode but if there’s one thing that Heroes taught me it’s that no good comes of this kind of plot.

Like I said, I still love Fringe but by introducing time travel to the mix I can’t help but feel it’s moving further away from the show that it once was. Some might say that the introduction of a parallel world already did that, but for me that made sense in that it’s existence was what was causing so many of the Fringe events that the team investigated. Time travel, though, is a difficult thing to put back in the box.

Then again, if Peter’s time-jump is permanent and we’re now set for an entire fourth season (or at least a big arc) set in the future, that could be interesting…

Fringe is back in a timeslot which is definitely not death for it, honest, and Fox have released a music video recapping the season so far to a song called Echoes by a band called Klaxon. I think they released it a few weeks ago, but whatever.

The first Friday episode, oh-so-wittily entitled ‘Firefly’ airs tonight on Fox.

There’s nothing new about credits mash-ups – hell, I can’t count the number I’ve posted here before (with the Star Wars/Dallas one probably being my favorite). Even so, there’s something extra cool about this Fringe/Firefly mash-up.

It’s not that Fringe is moving to Fox’s fabled Friday deathslot, the one that killed Firefly, with an episode actually called Firefly.

It’s not that the creator of this managed to get poor ol’ Kirk Acevedo and Michael Cerveris on the credits (and also made me question how little we’ve seen of Blair Brown recently).

No, it’s the fact that they got Pansy the cow in there as Gene. Awesome.

Thanks, Adam. Via

You have to give the Fringe team credit (and Fox too, if this is actually a real trailer) – they’re not about to shy away from people’s reactions to the show’s new Friday scheduling…

Via

…and once again there’s another great trailer.

I’ll say this for Fringe: it may be getting low ratings, it may be consigned to the Friday death slot next year, it may be densely plotted and unfriendly to the casual viewer – but, damn, is it firing on all cylinders creatively this season.

And, you know, you could always catch up on previous seasons by buying something through an Amazon link (whistles innocently)…

via

I’m out and about today and unlikely (and, well, unable) to blog.

But Fringe was good, wasn’t it?

But you should watch it for these three simple reasons.

Double the Dunham.

The Walternate.

The Alternate World.

Oh, and just for the hell of it, here’s the retro 80s credits too…

I understand that for the first part of the season at least, episodes will alternate between the core Fringe reality and the ‘Over There’ reality – but the burning question is whether both Olivias will be sporting the red locks for a while…

Fringe returns September 23 on (sigh) Fox.

Remember two weeks when I posted ‘The greatest Fringe trailer you will ever see‘, then the episode turned out to be kind of crappy?

Well I’ve learned my lesson -which is why I’m not saying that this trailer is cut so well it could be for a movie or season finale; why I’m not saying that it feels like this is what Fringe has been building too for the past two years; why I’m not saying that this could provide a lot of closure and launch the show in a new direction; and why I’m not saying that alt-Broyles (the Broylternate doesn’t have quite the same ring to is as the Walternate, does it?) looks completely bad ass.

The only downside to this is that the two hour season finale is being spread over two weeks. Boo, Fox, boo.

Wonder if we’ll see alternate Charlie again?

io9 has a gallery of shots from the Fringe finale online including one of Mr Secretary, the Walternate himself -

- and one of Walter and Belly collaborating like old times…

I still don’t fully trust Bell as leaving your partner and friend in a mental institution while you build a mega-million dollar business and gallivant between universes seems rather cold.

On the other hand now that the Walternate has shown up, my theory that Bell was behind the incident that killed Walter’s lab assistant and resulted in him being locked away has now shifted somewhat to blame him.

Fringe has been pretty strong this season, and I’m glad it got an early renewal – even if a lot of unanswered questions and plot points from season one remain.

Also, as I said yesterday…

…but wasn’t this meant to be a musical ep?

via

For those with region issues:

I appear to be short a blog post this morning, unfortunately.

This is a shame as there’s a lot I want to blog about…

Lost, and how much I’m enjoying this season, where I think it’s going and what’s bugging me about the Man In Black. Oh, and that I’m maybe thinking about doing something kind of big and kind of cool when it’s all over.

Fringe, and (again) how much I’m enjoying this season, and what’s bugging me about all this alternate world stuff.

Supernatural, how much I love it and why I only watch it on DVD so I’m years behind.

Doctor Who, why I wasn’t sold on it when it relaunched, how I’ve come round to it slowly, and what I think of the new Doctor and the first episode of the new season.

Torchwood, now that I’ve watched it all.

And that’s just on the TV side, not even counting comics…

How the characters that returned in Blackest Night weren’t worth the characters that died.

Why I’ve bought the Fantastic Four through every crappy creative team in the past twenty-plus years, and yet the pretty-much universally acclaimed Jonathan Hickman’s run has it on the chopping block.

Which other ‘Forever‘ branded books I want in light of New Mutants Forever being announced.

What else I’m on the verge of cutting, but what trades I’ve got on preorder.

Why I loved Criminal, yet was disappointed in Incognito.

Then there’s books that I want to recommend, movies I want to recommend – and things that I really, deeply want to not recommend but warn people away from.

So there’s a lot around that I want to blog about, I just need to get around to it.

I also need to get around to answering some Formspring questions – just as soon as I get a few more…

You may remember that I loved the close of last season’s Fringe.

Or that I posted what I wanted to see from the second season of the show.

Or that the show is basically the Fantastic Four by any other name.

Or that I don’t mind Charlie being replaced by a hot new agent because of that hat he wore last season.

Or perhaps you just think that Anna Torv (or Joshua Jackson, if that’s your preference) is pretty.

Or that John Noble is awesome. Which he is.

Whatever, Fringe is back tonight – so I know what I’m watching.

…but I approve of  Meghan Markle’s casting as Charlie’s replacement in Fringe.

Ok, I liked the Peter Milligan-penned Human Target book a lot, and though this obviously veers a lot from that (being as having Chance look different every episode would be TV suicide), it looks like a fun action show.

Mark Valley looks great in this – and having Chi McBride and Jackie Earl Haley doesn’t hurt. Nor does Tricia Helfer (even if it looks like it’s just for the pilot)…

Even though Fringe is over for the season, the high probability that it was going to get a renewal (which it did) meant that it was able to leave some questions unanswered.

Just for the record, here’s what I want to see – and not see – next year:

• Peter’s shady past revealed; a big deal was made about Peter not being able to come back to Boston because people were after him. He was followed a bit, he met up with an ex, beat up her current boyfriend (who was beating her), threats were made…and then that was it. Hello?

• Walter’s role in the experiments on little Olive; sure, Olivia had a bust up with Walter over his role in the cortexiphan treatments, but she still hasn’t seen the video, right?

• Olivia’s niece; the inclusion of Olivia’s sister and niece seemed to be designed to have Olivia get jealous over Peter and her sister – but I do think that there were hints that Olivia’s niece had some kind of power or ability. That, I think, is worth following up on.

• Olivia’s powers; I’d like a little more clarification on these please. She can turn off lights with her mind. She can see alternate worlds. She has really shiny hair. Oh, Olivia, is there anything you can’t do?

• ZTF; who exactly wrote it, William or Walter? My money is on Walter…

• The lab accident; …and I think William set him up to appropriate it for himself. In fact, I think William framed Walter specifically so he could use the ZTF manifesto – without that pesky ethics chapter.

• Astrid; poor old Astrid. We don’t know anything about her and she doesn’t really get too much to do except look puzzled, solve cryptography stuff and hang out with Gene. How about giving Jasika Nicole something to do?

• Gene; more, please. Much more. He’s Gene the cow. How can you not want more cow? *GASP* Cow…Bell!

• Olivia’s stepfather; Olivia’s abusive stepfather is still out there plotting his revenge. At NYCC, we were told that they would come back to that before season’s end. Maybe next season?

• Olivia and Peter; I get that a lot of people like sexual tension in their TV shows, but couldn’t we have the leads just being friends? I mean, really good friends, without the tension? That’s a hell of a lot more interesting, especially if they end up dating people who don’t quite ‘get’ their friendship. Getting romantic is just predictable and annoying.

• David Robert Jones; can the one that died be an alternate version of him trying to get home? Or can we at least get a Jones from a different world back? Because prior to last night, he was a great villain.

• Crazy-ass monsters; more, please.

• Broyles; the relationship between Broyles and Nina Sharp is an odd one. At first they seemed to know each other pretty well and be part of some kind of conspiracy. Now, not so much; in fact he’s very supportive of Olivia – but I still wonder if he has a hidden agenda. Clarification, please.

• William Bell; ah, William Bell. Founder of a cult like following (apparently). Founder of Massive Dynamic, that makes Microsoft and Apple look like start-ups. How did Olivia not recognise him? Just how long has William Bell really been sliding between parallel worlds again?

• And speaking of sliding as the show seems on the verge of becoming Sliders; please have Cryin’ Man Brown show up. Please, please, please. Please.

I mentioned earlier that Fringe‘s Observer reminds me of Marvel’s Watcher -

- and that got me thinking; the Observer seems to be happy breaking his vow of non-interference for someone that he considers his friend – Walter Bishop.

And I guess that makes Walter Reed Richards doesn’t it?

And if Walter’s Reed, then logically his old colleague, William Bell, would be Dr Doom, right?

And oddly enough, there was a lab accident in their past – although in this case it didn’t scar Bell/Doom, but it did scar Walter/Reed, at least mentally.

All these parallels do amuse me – I wonder if Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman are Fantastic Four fans?