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Almost done with season 4. I just watched the episode...you know the one...where they do that crazy thing that upends the entire show. Not sure how I feel about it yet. I dislike it in a general sense, but given the situation they wrote themselves into, it might be the best of a series of bad choices. Still doesn't make it good, though.

I think the bulk of season 4 has been a big, big mistake. Spoilers follow...



...writing Peter out of existence was a mistake. But even so, salvageable in any number of ways. Bringing him back only to have no one remember him? That compounded the mistake. They wasted half a season treading water and basically resetting all the characters we'd come to care about. By having all of them but Olivia (and her, only after a dozen episodes) not remember Peter, they're either a) saying the first three seasons of the show don't "count" any more or b) they're just going to all get their memories back, in which case the whole thing was just running in circles. Big error.

It looks even bigger now that we're further along, too, because the last handful of episodes, which have been about the way the two universes are slowly learning about each other, has proven to be a rich vein. This stuff should've been all of season 4, because it's worked tremendously well. The war between the universe is over, so season 4 is about the diplomacy and the peace, presumably while some new threat to the both of them begins to take form. Instead, we don't start getting to that stuff for a dozen episodes. Just a big ol' unforced error.

Anyway, the jump forward in season 4 (which is the last episode we've seen) is gutsy as all get-out. It'd be gutsy even at the very end of the very beginning of a season, but with a few episodes to go? That's downright bizarre. We'll see where they go with it, though. Does feel a little sharky-jumpy, though. We shall see.



The Adventure Starts Here!
Just finished the series about two minutes ago.

Yoda knows all my concerns (through incessant emails throughout the weekend as I watched most of seasons 4 and 5)... but let me say I'll miss Walter Bishop quite a bit. What a totally amazing character he was, and he carried the entire show from beginning to end.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
aw, crap, i wish i didn't read austruck's post!!
My own fault, should of been more careful since i'm barely into season 3 right now

but regardless, i had loved this series from the get go, and then stared working nights and couldn't watch seasons 2 and on, then recently SCI channel did back to back, though my DVR would mess with the times and on occasion, i'd miss the last minute of a show and you KNOW all the important stuff that they throw in during the final few minutes.
Frustrating, but worth it!



The Adventure Starts Here!
aw, crap, i wish i didn't read austruck's post!!
My own fault, should of been more careful since i'm barely into season 3 right now

but regardless, i had loved this series from the get go, and then stared working nights and couldn't watch seasons 2 and on, then recently SCI channel did back to back, though my DVR would mess with the times and on occasion, i'd miss the last minute of a show and you KNOW all the important stuff that they throw in during the final few minutes.
Frustrating, but worth it!
Bummer about missing the last minutes of a show! Fringe and Lost are about the WORST shows for that to happen!

As for my comment above yours, all I meant about missing Walter Bishop is that I'm done watching the series, and I don't have any more episodes of Walter to look forward to. I do miss him. I loved watching new episodes and hearing the crazy sh*t that came outta his mouth!



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Bummer about missing the last minutes of a show! Fringe and Lost are about the WORST shows for that to happen!

As for my comment above yours, all I meant about missing Walter Bishop is that I'm done watching the series, and I don't have any more episodes of Walter to look forward to. I do miss him. I loved watching new episodes and hearing the crazy sh*t that came outta his mouth!
thank god! I thought they killed him!!
thanks, and i agree, watching Walter, self-medicated, or just being Walter is one of the very many highlights of this series




As soon as I saw that episode I thought "I need to turn this into a clip." I've wanted to for like a year; the pause on either side of the line makes it perfect for being taken out of context.

It's the cut back to him tearing up that makes it art.



A system of cells interlinked
I am two episodes from the end of the series. What a great show! Sure, it borrows liberally from other shows and films, but I still found myself enjoying it thoroughly. Great cast, including all the side characters, especially this guy...

__________________
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



One of my favorite shows. Even with that abysmal final season. Don't even get me started on the product placements. I can't remember if it was season 5 or not, but when they started being more aggressive with the product placements, especially the ones with the weird lingering close-ups of the car I was just turned off. But through it all the show still managed to hold a special place in my heart.



The Adventure Starts Here!
I am two episodes from the end of the series. What a great show! Sure, it borrows liberally from other shows and films, but I still found myself enjoying it thoroughly. Great cast, including all the side characters, especially this guy...

It's been so long now that I wonder if I should rewatch this series. When I saw the dates of our original banter about it, I was a bit amazed that it was that long ago!



A system of cells interlinked
One of my favorite shows. Even with that abysmal final season..
The final season was so good. How was it abysmal? The show only got stronger as it went along for me. Obviously, there are holes in the time travel stuff, but that is true for all time travel stories, really.

I loved the final season. It pulled all the observer stuff together into a really cool Orwellian nightmare theme, while also peppering call-backs to the all the other seasons and fringe events throughout. The idea of the Fringe team using many of the previous phenomena to fight against the observers was really fun. Sure, they borrow liberally from other films and shows, such as The Matrix, but they did it in a way that was creative enough to set it apart as its own take on those concepts. Except for the Peter stuff with the implanted tech, which was pretty much lifted wholesale from The Matrix. Luckily, they didn't focus on it for long, ad in the end, it didn't really play a part in the defeat of the observers.

My wife and I were both commenting on how so many shows don't end well...I'm looking at you GoT! Fringe, for the most part, ended in a satisfying way for us, focused mostly on the characters, including all the excellent side characters, like Lincoln and Fauxlivia. I would rank season 5 as my second favorite season, just behind the fantastic season 3. If I had to choose a least favorite season, it would be season 1, which sort of feels like an X-Files close. Not a bad thing, but the show isn't as interesting without the main overarching plot it eventually gets into with The Other Side, etc.

Overall, a great show, and I am glad we decided to give it a second chance. We had originally just sort of gotten away from it after missing a few season 3 episodes when it originally ran. Glad we got back to it!



Listen, it's been a while. Aside from all the great moments it had (and it had many) I can't shake the bitter taste of that finale. I just remember really hating it and all those crazy product placements. But it says a lot about the show if I can still say it's a favorite, surely.



A system of cells interlinked
Listen, it's been a while. Aside from all the great moments it had (and it had many) I can't shake the bitter taste of that finale. I just remember really hating it and all those crazy product placements. But it says a lot about the show if I can still say it's a favorite, surely.
I do recall some sort of pop-up car commercials in the 4th season, but I feel like that stuff was pretty absent from the final season. Same goes for the cell phone focus in some episodes. That type of product placement was fairly prevalent in the 2000's, and I especially remember 24 being really bad in that regard. That said, that stuff never really bothered me, I guess.



The Adventure Starts Here!
I do recall some sort of pop-up car commercials in the 4th season, but I feel like that stuff was pretty absent from the final season. Same goes for the cell phone focus in some episodes. That type of product placement was fairly prevalent in the 2000's, and I especially remember 24 being really bad in that regard. That said, that stuff never really bothered me, I guess.
Doesn't bother me, either. In fact, I'd almost rather see, for example, a real can of Diet Coke in a scene than a fake can of some fake-named Diet Colarama or whatever. I NOTICE things that look a LITTLE off a lot more than I'd notice something that is already part of daily life. Same with things like laptops. I'd rather see a Dell computer than some unbranded generic thing that NOBODY owns. (Although I take issue with 24 having used so many MACS when in reality they would have been using PCs.)



A system of cells interlinked
(Although I take issue with 24 having used so many MACS when in reality they would have been using PCs.)
I feel like they switched at one point, but I might be misremembering...



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
These planes are impossible to land!



The Adventure Starts Here!
I started a rewatch last night. I figured I'd just watch the pilot.

I watched five episodes in a row before I realized what I was doing. Today I have to catch up on all the work I didn't do last night while I was rewatching Fringe.