Fringe: "The Firefly" - Jan. 21 on FOX - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Aragorn
- Start date
Average... next week looks good though.
"It's bigger than I imagined!"
A definite improvement over the last few episodes that aired before the winter hiatus but for a mythology episode and an Observer episode to boot it was a tad underwhelming. Don't get me wrong it was interesting but instead of a Major Event feel it was rather ordinary.
And I have to ask why the Observer doesn't just travel back to the point in time when his presence caused Walternate to not see the cure for Peter and set all this in motion? I know the real world answer is it would be too easy but I'd like for the writers via the characters at least try to offer up a halfway plausible rationale if nothing else. But I guess we'll have to settle for the same explanation as to why the Observer went through the unnecessary complicated "experiment" tonight just to test whether Walter would let Peter die--because the Observers are not human--ehh and it makes for good tv because the writers can concoct this elaborate experiment to hold one's attention for the hour even if it doesn't really need to be that complex in-universe.
Still not the least bit interested in the Peter/Olivia romance but it was thankfully a small part of the overall episode. Christopher Lloyd was okay if a little underused.
I give it an Above Average--decent, good but not excellent which came as a surprise given mythology episodes track record with episodes like "August", "Grey Matters" etc.
At least next week is going to be a mytharc episode I feared we'd go a few episodes of pointless filler.
And I have to ask why the Observer doesn't just travel back to the point in time when his presence caused Walternate to not see the cure for Peter and set all this in motion? I know the real world answer is it would be too easy but I'd like for the writers via the characters at least try to offer up a halfway plausible rationale if nothing else. But I guess we'll have to settle for the same explanation as to why the Observer went through the unnecessary complicated "experiment" tonight just to test whether Walter would let Peter die--because the Observers are not human--ehh and it makes for good tv because the writers can concoct this elaborate experiment to hold one's attention for the hour even if it doesn't really need to be that complex in-universe.
Still not the least bit interested in the Peter/Olivia romance but it was thankfully a small part of the overall episode. Christopher Lloyd was okay if a little underused.
I give it an Above Average--decent, good but not excellent which came as a surprise given mythology episodes track record with episodes like "August", "Grey Matters" etc.
At least next week is going to be a mytharc episode I feared we'd go a few episodes of pointless filler.
I agree with much of startrekwatcher's comments. Above Average. Some poignant moment when Walter realizes more of his fallout with his idol's son's death. Some stage setting, I think, for upcoming events and all in all a reasonably decent episode.
Granted, if you weren't already a fan of the show this would not be a good place to try and climb aboard. However, I suspect that at this point people watching the show on Thursdays will by and large follow it to Fridays and for those people, this episode was a fine piece of the overall story.
Granted, if you weren't already a fan of the show this would not be a good place to try and climb aboard. However, I suspect that at this point people watching the show on Thursdays will by and large follow it to Fridays and for those people, this episode was a fine piece of the overall story.
An excellent episode. The Peter/Walter stuff was great and I liked Christopher Lloyd's guest turn.
By giving Peter the keys to the car.WTF?
Did I miss something? How was Walter willing to let him die?
Peter would be alive on the (possibly) "wrong" side.
I loved it. I was starved for some new sci-fi entertainment. 
I had not read about Christopher Lloyd's guest appearance and was practically floored when he showed up. For a show that isn't exactly a runaway hit they've been able to get some big names.
I had not read about Christopher Lloyd's guest appearance and was practically floored when he showed up. For a show that isn't exactly a runaway hit they've been able to get some big names.
This is great news!
No--this whole chain of events were triggered by the Observer distracting Walternate in seeing the cure but Walter did and that was what compelled him to cross over which caused the damage to the alternate universe. The Observer was trying to correct that slip up which has led to Walternate building the weapon and needing Peter in some capacity.
There has been no other suggestion that the Observers intervened altering history other than this and then later on with August. If the Observers can travel through time then go back and warn himself from doing this--end of problem. But the writers have obviously backed themselves into a corner because if that happened there wouldn't be an arc for the series--it is like with the TCW/Sphere Builders on ENT with the Xindi arc--they could have eliminated humanity at any point that they wanted but for dramatic reasons they set it in the 22nd century.
The allusion to the butterfly effect in the title rather misses the whole point: The butterfly effect is what makes the future unpredictable. There is practically infinite number of "butterflies" flapping their wings at each and every instant. Therefore there would be a practically infinite number of futures, which makes predicting the future impossible. And babbling about some futures is merely a writer fiat, to try to make the mythology consistent. A multiple choice test with an infinity of choices can't be passed!
The Observers are supposedly that, or August wasn't doing anything unusual. If they are instead independent agents in the plot, they need motivations for us to care about them.
Watching wise, there was mercifully little of Olivia. (Poor Lance Reddick should be put out of his misery. His character exists solely in relation to Olivia, who is a dead end.) But there was a lot of Walter, and of Walter and Peter, so it was still a good episode to watch.
If you meet the Buddha by the road, try to sell him a moronic self-help book. Trying to build up Olivia and Walter by continuing to write Peter as a semiliterate ass is not a wise decision.
The Observers are supposedly that, or August wasn't doing anything unusual. If they are instead independent agents in the plot, they need motivations for us to care about them.
Watching wise, there was mercifully little of Olivia. (Poor Lance Reddick should be put out of his misery. His character exists solely in relation to Olivia, who is a dead end.) But there was a lot of Walter, and of Walter and Peter, so it was still a good episode to watch.
If you meet the Buddha by the road, try to sell him a moronic self-help book. Trying to build up Olivia and Walter by continuing to write Peter as a semiliterate ass is not a wise decision.
Yeah!!!!
I'm pretty happy with those numbers. If we can keep those numbers above 1.6-1.7 for the rest of the season, we'll have Fringe Fridays for some years to go. I'd love it if the show got a nice 5-7 year run to really tell it's story well, especially since they seem to be improving every year they're on the air.