Considering starting Fringe

[Violet.Phoenix]

I absolutely love this show. It does start off slow in season 1, but it is totally worth it once you get into seasons 2 and 3. I feel like seasons 1-3 are their own seperate arc from seasons 4 and 5, and I do agree with others that season 4 was weaker. Don't get me wrong, it had some great episodes, but not nearly as good as the build-up that season 3 had.

I will not say much about season 5, only that the set-up that we got at the end of season 4 already seems to be paying off!

I would say give it a shot, and be patient. There is a definite pay-off with this show.

 

[bigdaddy]

So, did the season 5 premiere offer enough inspiration to make you guys optimistic about the home stretch for the series?

No.

I still don't get how the first three seasons, even most of the 4th, fits into what is going on now is season 5. To me it's not a mystery waiting to be answered, it's if the writers are just fucking with us and got lucky for 3 seasons of the show that were good.

 

[Elemental]

Finished the premiere this morning. Not bad. I liked the twist at the end with the male agent double-crossing. The characters show some promise. I'm not totally sold on Joshua Jackson's character. I've never really bought into the predictable Hollywood archetype these supposed genius characters are given. Kind of the same thing with his dad. The whole "I'm just so friggen smart that my behaviour is off the wall crazy" bit has been done too often. I'm sure that his acting ability will make it enjoyable enough in the end though.

 

[Brikar99]

Finished the premiere this morning. Not bad. I liked the twist at the end with the male agent double-crossing. The characters show some promise. I'm not totally sold on Joshua Jackson's character. I've never really bought into the predictable Hollywood archetype these supposed genius characters are given. Kind of the same thing with his dad. The whole "I'm just so friggen smart that my behaviour is off the wall crazy" bit has been done too often. I'm sure that his acting ability will make it enjoyable enough in the end though.

They do explain later why Walter is crazy.

 

[stj]

My advice is, no. John Noble's performance is great but even the Walter character is replaced by different Walters. But the show is always centered on Olivia as a wish fulfilment character, almost always to the point of hurting the show. Anna Torv makes her not repulsive enough to throw small objects at your TV screen, but not even she can make it good. Also, as a glance at just a few posts shows, you've been warned that the serialized story is awful. This series is an excellent illustration of the thesis that open-ended serialization will destroy itself.

 

[Elemental]

My advice is, no. John Noble's performance is great but even the Walter character is replaced by different Walters. But the show is always centered on Olivia as a wish fulfilment character, almost always to the point of hurting the show. Anna Torv makes her not repulsive enough to throw small objects at your TV screen, but not even she can make it good. Also, as a glance at just a few posts shows, you've been warned that the serialized story is awful. This series is an excellent illustration of the thesis that open-ended serialization will destroy itself.

In doing some "research", I had read that the producers had pre-plotted out the major events of the series early on. Is this not the case?

 

[stj]

^^^They did it on purpose?

There were so many dangly scenes and plot points, and so much bafflement over what was supposed to happen this is really hard to believe that they planned all this. Lay out a season, sure. If this was all intentional, the writers are complete morons. It seems unlikely, Walter was a delight until about the third version.

 

[JD]

My advice is, no. John Noble's performance is great but even the Walter character is replaced by different Walters. But the show is always centered on Olivia as a wish fulfilment character, almost always to the point of hurting the show. Anna Torv makes her not repulsive enough to throw small objects at your TV screen, but not even she can make it good. Also, as a glance at just a few posts shows, you've been warned that the serialized story is awful. This series is an excellent illustration of the thesis that open-ended serialization will destroy itself.

I have to disagree. I like Olivia's character, and I've loved the arc.

 

[stj]

^^^Obviously tastes differ. Personally I like my plots to make as much sense as possible. But if you liked Olivia (instead of Anna Torv,) it would certainly go far to improve the viewing experience.

The OP might observe that the ratings strongly suggest that far more people dislike the arc than like.

 

[Takeru]

In doing some "research", I had read that the producers had pre-plotted out the major events of the series early on. Is this not the case?

I don't know but I don't believe it for a second.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I really don't follow the behind the scenes stuff on Fringe all that much so I'm not aware of how much pre-planning went into it or how much they claimed went into it. I do remember that the introduction of the parallel universe was something they had planned ahead of time. Originally it was going to be introduced later on towards the end of season 2 but they moved it up to season one.

 

[Elemental]

^^^Obviously tastes differ. Personally I like my plots to make as much sense as possible. But if you liked Olivia (instead of Anna Torv,) it would certainly go far to improve the viewing experience.

The OP might observe that the ratings strongly suggest that far more people dislike the arc than like.

I did notice that. However, it appears the ratings have been generally declining from the first season downward so I wasn't sure what to make of it other than the general progressive fatigue that happens with all shows.

 

[Elemental]

In doing some "research", I had read that the producers had pre-plotted out the major events of the series early on. Is this not the case?

I don't know but I don't believe it for a second.

And it wouldn't be the first time where a producer would try to claim there being greater fore-thought go into plotting than there actually was. That's good to know as another show that this happened to was Prison Break which was remarkable at the beginning but to where things ended up in season 4, you have to ask "how the hell did we ever get here???"

I don't mind a show having some significant growth and change in focus if it is believable and shows a clear progression (i.e. Lost, Babylon 5). But if it seems like something totally out of right-field that appears to have just gradually meandered far from its intended focus, as in Prison Break, that can be a bit disappointing.

 

[Dream]

In doing some "research", I had read that the producers had pre-plotted out the major events of the series early on. Is this not the case?

I don't know but I don't believe it for a second.

Fringe has been criticized by some for having too many monster of the week episodes that don't move the plot forward.

I believe the original plan from the writers was to introduce all the stuff from the season one finale in season five or something. Obviously, the audience would have lost interest very quickly by then so they had to push the plot forward.

 

[JD]

I haven't read the full interview in the link, but Blastr does have part of an interview with Fringe's showrunner where he discussed how things changed over the course of the series.

 

[degra]

A very mediocre sff show--the characters arent really that compelling(they certainly are no Mulder & Scully), the MOTW standalones are the absolute worse and are recycled and stale and they unfortunately litter the first 3 seasons pretty heavily, the science even for a sff is awful. The mythology is its most compelling aspect the only prolem being that a lot of it goes nowhere and the stuff that actually does comes together in a very ho-hum way. I stopped watching it after season 4 and have no desire to see how it ends.I'm mad at myself for staying with it as long as I did thinking it would all be pulled together in some great satisfying manner.

And for an idea of my tastes I loved TNG, DS9(esp its arcs involving the Dominion War), the Xindi arc on ENT and most of S4, The X-Files S1-5, Heroes S1, Supernatural S1/2/4, BSG S1, VD S1/2. I couldn't stand Heroes S2-4, BSG S2.5-4, Caprica, The Event, Invasion, Surface, The River, Stargate Sg1, SGA, SGU, Buffy, Angel, Hercules, Xena, No Ordinary Family,Flash Forward, Alcatraz, Terra Nova, The Secret Circle, VD S3, True Blood, Game of Thrones