Somewhere In Time And Space

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Season 4 Fringe Binge accomplished! We had to plow through it quickly on account of my sister is taking off to California tomorrow to live with my brother and find a job in a place that is not Utah. So we had to finish quickly.

I have yet to see anything from Season 5, though I've managed to osmosify a rough sense of what has happened so far. Still, having just come off the Season 4 finale, here's what I have to say:

-I was overall quite pleased with this season--far more than I expected, actually. I was rather dismayed at how Walter's character development got reset, but everything else came together a lot more easily than I was led to expect. It makes me more willing to trust the weirdness promised in the final season.

-Singing nothing, there needs to be more of Astrid Farnsworth, Action Hero. Her sudden martial arts and run-and-shoot sequence made me cheer, and it strikes me that Jasika Nicole would have had an excellent time filming it. I had an awesome time watching it, anyway.

-Sorry, Lincoln-lovers, I have to admit that I was pretty indifferent to Lincoln Lee. He was a necessary foil for Olivia when Peter was gone, but he did get redundant. And I admit, I love how sci-fi shows can come up with ridiculous solutions like "So he replaces his dead doppelganger in another universe."

-In other action hero news, Olivia Dunham continues to be an incredible badass. I don't know why she doesn't get more recognition for it. I especially love it when she bellows "FBI!" at bad guys like she's the very wrath of God come to smite them six ways from Sunday.

-So, female Observers--lack thereof. The simplest theory is that there are also no strictly male Observers, and they're all androgynous, either parthenogenetic, hermaprhoditic, some kind of weird Left-Hand-Of Darknessy coin flip, or straight-up asexual-with-clone-tanks. On the other hand, my personal favorite theory is that when it became obvious that Earth was about to hack, cough, and die, the female Observers patiently set about terraforming Mars and rolling their eyes at the complicated unnecessary bullshit involving time travel and totalitarianism and multiple universes the males came up with. They're all, "That's nice, boys. When you're done with your little dimension-spanning project, maybe you could come help us build this Martian ocean, hmm? Useless bastards."

-Can I just say that it's really nice to have a TV series that has at least started to pay off on some of the setting up it did? I'm used to being left hanging, but this one is giving a few actual answers--and while I have no idea if this was intentional, I really like how they're revisiting some of the Pattern stuff from Season 1 (werecupines, shapeshifters, the Beacon, David Robert Jones and his Hannibal crush on Olivia) and fitting it into the larger picture. It's clumsy sometimes, but way better than the usual fare.

-My GOD, Leonard Nimoy needs new dentures.

-And spoiler free: I know this isn't where the show is going, but I just want to put it out there that I would TOTALLY watch a version of the show in which September just abandoned all pretense and joined the Fringe team. It's a proven TV fact: when pale bald omniscient Observers team up with mad scientists, the winner is us, the viewing public.

Seriously, guys, you've already established alternate timelines. SPINOFF. MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Comments

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I just love how Olivia's quiet, competent, and apt to DESTROY you if you try anything stupid. Also, props to Anna Torv for the accent. She does it well.

I seem to recall that he's had bad dentures at LEAST since Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's just that in the last few years, they're REALLY denturey. I think his head is shrinking or something. Though my sister and I get a huge charge out of doing Leonard Nimoy With Dentures impressions. ("SHPASHE. THE FINAL FRONTSHIER.")

[nobleplatypus]

I'm not sure I have the energy to rehash all of my old WHAARGARBL feelings about season four, though I kind of wonder how watching the whole season in one chunk might have changed things. But I think the whole memory-reset subplot with all of its Twilight-esque overtones would have still pissed me off.

And I still love Lincoln. I would watch a spin-off about the altverse any day.

And I love your female Observer theory. That is totally what happened.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I remember reading your thoughts on it, and I can see where you were coming from. And I think an investment in Lincoln would definitely change things. (Though I'd say he and this-side Olivia both made some quick decisions for Twu Wuv.) I admit I partly imposed my own headcanon on Olivia's memory override stemming from one of my own stories--in my head, the two timelines she recalls coexist in a sort of quantum superposition state, so that you're never sure which one she'll remember until the instant she DOES remember it. Mostly because I really like that idea of quantum memory, and it allows her to sort of remember both universes--plus, it seems to be how she's doing it, anyway, despite what the writers intend.

My sister is against the female Observer theory because she argues that baldness in ladies is gross. I don't see her problem.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

Is that so? >_>

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* She's one of the first I thought of, too.