Fringe: "The Day We Died" - Season finale 3/22 on FOX
- Thread starter Aragorn
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Thanks Quo, that's an image I didn't need in my head while I tried to figure all this out!
Don't mention it.
Whenever the logic seems too convoluted, just remember this axiom: Dinosaurs trump logic!
Hey, maybe Peter isn't gone, he's just going to spend some time over on that Fox Dinosaur show. Maybe they take place in the same universe? The crossover possibilities are endless!
Average--a few scant intriguing sit up and notice moments(what happened after the weapon was used, the final scene with the Observers outside the statue of liberty saying Peter never existed) mixed with a whole bunch of pedestrian well trodden staples.
This was pretty lacklustre even for a regular episode but for a season finale it was downright stale. This was by the book "What if..." reset button storytelling at its worst. That isn't to say that these sorts of stories can't be effective even if you know they will find a way to undo everything by the end--ENT's "Twilight" was outstanding but this was robotic, hollow, predictable, emotionally vacuous. Give Astrid a straight hair style, Peter some grey but Joshua Jackson is still a wooden actor, Broyles is as stiff as a board, Emily Meade was awful, pretty ho-hum stuff like Olivia/Peter considering having a family given the chaos around them, the funeral fell flat.
There was no urgency, no thrill. I knew five minutes in Peter would go back in time and avoid because there was no way that they would keep the other universe dead nor Olivia which was another frustrating aspect to the episode--the much hyped death on the season finale of Fringe which would be bold if Olivia stayed that way unfortunately it won't happen of course. I hated the cheap we are the First People paradox revelation but did like the doppelgangers coming together face to face. The Weapon was lame afterall.
What a weak ending to a weak season and the last two seasons were so promising.
This was pretty lacklustre even for a regular episode but for a season finale it was downright stale. This was by the book "What if..." reset button storytelling at its worst. That isn't to say that these sorts of stories can't be effective even if you know they will find a way to undo everything by the end--ENT's "Twilight" was outstanding but this was robotic, hollow, predictable, emotionally vacuous. Give Astrid a straight hair style, Peter some grey but Joshua Jackson is still a wooden actor, Broyles is as stiff as a board, Emily Meade was awful, pretty ho-hum stuff like Olivia/Peter considering having a family given the chaos around them, the funeral fell flat.
There was no urgency, no thrill. I knew five minutes in Peter would go back in time and avoid because there was no way that they would keep the other universe dead nor Olivia which was another frustrating aspect to the episode--the much hyped death on the season finale of Fringe which would be bold if Olivia stayed that way unfortunately it won't happen of course. I hated the cheap we are the First People paradox revelation but did like the doppelgangers coming together face to face. The Weapon was lame afterall.
What a weak ending to a weak season and the last two seasons were so promising.
It's stupid but no one created it it just always existed along with the drawing, the "crowbar" from last week--our folks find the buried pieces, assembled it, Future Walter sends it back via the wormhole, it is buried in time, our folks find the buried pieces--paradox closed.But who created the machine? Ah, brain hurt.
A weak Excellent... But mostly for the last 5 minutes. 
The rest was so-so. These kinds of "Days of Futures past" type plot lines are overused by these days. ("Heroes" did it like 4 times?) We don't care what happens to the future characters, because it will all be reset anyway. Unconvincing older age makeup doesn't help. I did like the young girl character - was she supposed to be Olivia's niece?
But the resolution saved the episode. Next season will be interesting. Perhaps we can have the our cake and eat it (the best of both worlds, literally). We'll see.
The rest was so-so. These kinds of "Days of Futures past" type plot lines are overused by these days. ("Heroes" did it like 4 times?) We don't care what happens to the future characters, because it will all be reset anyway. Unconvincing older age makeup doesn't help. I did like the young girl character - was she supposed to be Olivia's niece?
But the resolution saved the episode. Next season will be interesting. Perhaps we can have the our cake and eat it (the best of both worlds, literally). We'll see.
Great stuff again. The whole future thing did throw me on a loop. Then the ending came and that was... really out of left field.
If the Observers were playing for this fate for a long time, then what was the end goal? If it is just two universes that needed to be met - where did the Observers come from?
If the Observers were playing for this fate for a long time, then what was the end goal? If it is just two universes that needed to be met - where did the Observers come from?
Checkmate
Commodore
Meh.
I shouldn't have expected anything clever from these creators. They need to stay the fuck away from time travel stories, let alone building an entire series around it. They couldn't do it with Lost, they can't do it with Fringe, and what they did in Star Trek regarding time travel was every bit as asinine.
That said, aside from everything dealing with time travel (including Walter being the "First Person" and all the other bullshit), it wasn't a bad episode. Was nice seeing Olivia as a relatively normal human being for a change, and I'm glad to see Astrid stayed normal, too, rather than becoming a living computer.
I shouldn't have expected anything clever from these creators. They need to stay the fuck away from time travel stories, let alone building an entire series around it. They couldn't do it with Lost, they can't do it with Fringe, and what they did in Star Trek regarding time travel was every bit as asinine.
That said, aside from everything dealing with time travel (including Walter being the "First Person" and all the other bullshit), it wasn't a bad episode. Was nice seeing Olivia as a relatively normal human being for a change, and I'm glad to see Astrid stayed normal, too, rather than becoming a living computer.
Hmm. Well, it seems both universes need the other to remain in existence in order for both to survive the chaos that must be the cosmic quantum foam in which they reside. Of course, the "Many Worlds" school of thought posits that there are far more than two universes ...
That said, next season we might end up with a literal "war of the worlds." After all, nothing is keeping Earth 1 (us) from attacking Earth 2 (them) or vice versa; just make sure that if you do initiate hostilities, they're not universe-destroying ones. IOW, there's nothing keeping one from conquering the other Earth, or blasting it into nuclear ruin, so long as the universe in which it resides remains intact.
Interesting season finale for "Fringe," albeit a confusing one as well. Oh, and I'm sure Peter still exists — somewhere, in another universe that didn't become entangled in the affairs of neighboring reality.
Gatekeeper
That said, next season we might end up with a literal "war of the worlds." After all, nothing is keeping Earth 1 (us) from attacking Earth 2 (them) or vice versa; just make sure that if you do initiate hostilities, they're not universe-destroying ones. IOW, there's nothing keeping one from conquering the other Earth, or blasting it into nuclear ruin, so long as the universe in which it resides remains intact.
Interesting season finale for "Fringe," albeit a confusing one as well. Oh, and I'm sure Peter still exists — somewhere, in another universe that didn't become entangled in the affairs of neighboring reality.
Gatekeeper
I guess since Scarlie or Alt-Lincoln didn't get teleported over, their stories are done since the only other person still over there of any note is Alt-Astrid. Hell, even Alt-Brandon got to make the trip over.
Also, I had completely forgotten that I planned on asking everyone ahead of time what they thought the intro would have for fringe sciences and what color it would be, but no one probably would've guessed the stuff they ended up using:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqTuX7cIqDU[/yt]
Also, I had completely forgotten that I planned on asking everyone ahead of time what they thought the intro would have for fringe sciences and what color it would be, but no one probably would've guessed the stuff they ended up using:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqTuX7cIqDU[/yt]
Dude, don't pay too much attention to the Creator credit. Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman don't have too much to do with the show these days. They get CC'd on the scripts and that's about it. Jeff Pinkner and Joel Wyman run the show. Pinkner has some history with Lost but bailed before the point where most people have issues with the show.
Anyway, I rate this an Excellent. I dunno what's happening with the master-plot but all the little moments were pitch-perfect. For me, Fringe is more about its themes of responsibility and God Vs. Science and who's really in control and all that stuff than it is about "OMG what's gonna happen next?!"
But, on that front, I was following Joel Wyman on Twitter as he live-tweeted tonight's episode and he confirmed that Peter is indeed "somewhere." Given the ending, that's probably more than he needed to say on the subject.
I decided not to watch this season because the idea of the ultra-savvy Peter not noticing he was canoodling with a completely different woman was too ghastly to stomach. Judging from your comments on this episode, I think it was a sound decision. I did love this show, sad to say.
Yeah but she wasn't too ghastly to stomach. That was kind of the point. And to say she was a completely different woman is to miss the point entirely. It's okay if it isn't your thing, but it sounds like you're judging it based on a synopsis of some kind. When in fact, Fringe is at its most beautiful when it lives between the lines. The big plot is interesting but its characters are what count.
YMMV, but I never felt like Peter or anyone else was compromised this year. This was Fringe's best season and to give it a miss because you heard some shit is really doing it a disservice.
The last phrases in that intro? “Biosuspension” I can understand, but “Water” and “Hope”? Did I read that right? If I did,
I assume the “Dual Maternity” is Olivia and Fauxlivia, but if Peter never existed, is there a Henry for a dual maternity?
Wouldnt be a Fringe thread without a STW hate post.
I liked it, cant wait to see what happens next!
I wondered about that; on the show, they're treating it as if only two universes existed, mirrors of each other. As you point out, true multi-verse theory tells us that there are an infinite number of realities, layers upon layers of universes, stacked upon one another.
It's possible now that we're going to see some exploration of this notion in Season 4, moving beyond the idea of there only being two worlds or parallel existences in all of creation.
After all, Peter had to end up somewhere unless Josh Jackson's contract is up.
I really liked this episode, so I'm going with Exellent. I think this was their best season yet, and this was a great way to end it. I've always gotten a kick out of these kinds of possible future stories, and IMO this was a really good one. I definitely did not see the ending coming, and I did not expect all of the wormhole time travel stuff in the future. I cannot wait to see where they are going from here. I'm wondering if this will actually be the end of the conflicts between the universes, and next season will see the start of a new arc.
But the whole point of that was the fact that she was Olivia, just slightly different due to differences in universes.
