Fringe season 4

It makes sense after that finale. We're all going to need some clues on WTF Peter actually did, so new viewers could benefit as well.

At least I can see Observers!  Fridays again though, balls.

 

http://www.spoilersguide.com/fringe/season-4-promo/

 

http://www.ology.com/tv/stare-new-fringe-season-4-teaser-poster

Eagerly looking forward to the Premiere. Fringe is about the only show i am following religiously these days.

 

I am not a big fan of timeline reboots though. So everything that happened in the first 3 seasons is gone now (in a different form)? Kinda invalidates the impact of the earlier episodes.

 

Let's hope the ratings remain steady.

While how the 2 Fringe universes got to the point where they are is still a bit confusing, with Peter non-existant.. it's cool throwing Lincoln Lee in the mix.  I love how Altlivia was looking Lincoln Lee down like she knew him and didn't want to tell Olivia about him.

 

Plus we get Michelle Krusiec! Let's hope she gets a couple of episodes.

I wonder if Alt Broyles is around in this timeline? 

Yeah, I'm curious as to what exactly has changed beyond just Peter disappearing.  For example, Fauxlivia mentions spending time over here undercover, which probably means that Olivia's whole brainwashed adventure on the other side still happened, yet she doesn't recognize Lincoln at all here.  I guess she no longer encountered our universe's Lincoln in this timeline, but wouldn't she at least have some recollection of his counterpart?  I'd imagine he's still an agent with Fringe division on the other side, based on Fauxlivia's reaction, just perhaps not looped into the whole magic nexus room yet.

I like that you feel Peter's absence in how lost Olivia and Walter. A lot of nice character work helped with all the newness of this season's rewritten rules.

That was a good start. So do you think Ghost Peter sightings will replace the Observer ones for a while or are they going to resolve this early on?

 

I doubt they'll keep a major cast member sidelined long-term. After a couple episodes, it's going to feel like wheel-spinning if we're still so far ahead of the characters story-wise. Also, there's a good chance that this is the final season, so if they have an endgame in mind, they'd better not take too long getting it. Also, the most interesting part of the story will be after he reappears. 

 

The whole swapped-Olivias storyline would've had to have played out completely differently, as it centered entirely around Peter. Then again, so did the experimentation on Olivia, and based on her clothes and demeanor, that still took place, so who knows.

 

The saddest part of the episode for me was seeing Astrid no longer acting as Walter's caretaker. The underrated highlight was the "Conflicted Observer" - that guy has done a great job of selling his character despite near-zero backstory on him or his 'race'.

What do you think of the chances this will reach a Season 5? The Ratings seem on par with last Season's finale.

If this hits Season 5 I will be amazed.

Really? I actually feel the complete opposite. I will be shocked if they dont sign for a 5th season within the first 3 episodes of this season.

Shitty opener with way too much exposition.

Great opener with excellent beats all around.

Liking the crossover stuff.   Liking it alot.   Great ep tonight.

at first I didn't know why Walter was covering everything.. I thought he was doing laundry.  Love that everyone is getting alt universe time. But having Alt-Broyles back, kind of lessens the impact of his previous death and chopped up body parts.

Off to a good start, I feel. Though Torv is kind of hamming it up a bit with Fauxlivia. 

 

It just means that they can kill him again!

 

It makes sense since he died due to Olivia breaking free, which was due to her connection to Peter. It sounds like this time around, the kidnapping/swap went according to plan.

Fauxlivia enjoys her job, and apparently also love torturing her alternate self. I honestly wondered briefly if Torv had a sister at one point (like the twin brother episode last season), as I thought she/they handled the twin scenes rather effortlessly.

 

I'm kinda shocked that Olivia didn't ask, "What the hell is up with your Astrid?!?"

 

I wonder if Walternate is also hearing from Peter...

I don't know, If you were forced to work with a more uptight version of yourself, wouldn't you get some sense of glee from messing with their head a bit?

I loved the whole dynamic of the two worlds having to work together. I hope we get a lot more of it, and I look forward to everyone else meeting their doubles, Lincoln and Astrid in particular. Also, if alt-Broyles is still alive, I wonder if original recipe Charlie will be showing up as well?

Loving how this season is unfolding, the stepfather discussion between the Olivias was good.  I don't recall, did we know Olivia killed her stepfather?

 

The two world stuff is definitely a cool evolution of the show's setup.

In the original timeline she didn't.  She shot him three times, but he survived.  And he sends her a card every year on her birthday, to remind her that he's still out there. 

 

And presumably Fauxlivia's step dad wasn't abusive at all, since she didn't believe that Olivia's was.

Ah, gotcha, that explains it.  You could almost see a shift in Fauxlivia's demeanor towards Olivia when she found out about the stepfather thing.  I'm liking how the alternates are positioned as somewhat antagonistic towards our guys (understandably), but still fully fleshed out people in their own right.

The Ratings this week are still down though.

 

Nice to see that Alt-Broyles is still alive in this timeline.

As much as I love this show, it's always had shitty ratings, kinda surprised it made it this far.  The Friday night wasteland spot certainly doesn't help.  I wonder if they're going to push through to a fifth season just to hit the magic 100 episodes for syndication.  Almost seems silly not to at this point.

Actually, if it maintained its ratings when it moved to Fridays, then the lowered expectations for Friday night works to its favor.

I am not a big fan of the current storyline. Let's not kid ourselves, Peter is going to come back eventually and we'll probably go back to our original timeline in some form. All these alternate timelines are interesting but i can't help but feel that they degrade the importance of previous seasons. After all, they don't really "exist" right now.

Is William Bell alive in this timeline?

Considering that Nimoy has retired, I'd assume they'll leave Bell dead.

 

I'd be surprised if they reset the timeline. I expect Peter will eventually be fully drawn into this timeline and the story will go from there. Funny thing is he'd then have two men who are both and neither his father. :)

So now we know where the timelines for both universes diverged from the previous, and why Walternate still hates Walter (though it's weird, because I thought the reason that time went wrong the first time around was The Observer distracting Walternate right when he found the cure for Peter, not saving Walter and Peter after they fell into the lake).  Presumably this also means that Olivia was never treated with cortexiphan as a child (unless of course the 'defense against the other side' logic was still at play). 

 

And holy shit Walter trying to give himself an ice pick lobotomy was remarkably fucked up.  I was expecting Olivia would get to him right before he started, but him actually getting it part way in, and begging Olivia not to stop him?

Loved the shot of the protective suits entering the mold covered autopsy room. Really cool.   Solid episode and glad to know Walter and Olivia will be searching for Peter.

Decent episodes but to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed that they've jumped right back into Monster-of-the-week stuff without further exploring the mythology and ramifications of the gate that Peter created. Feels a bit aimless now, like they've almost reverted back to season 1.

It's a network show with a 22-episode season. Other than 24, I can't think of any show in that category that went entirely serial.

 

They're dropping in the new backstory in pieces in each episode, which has worked pretty well for me. I also liked the reveal that Olivia was seeing him too, which I had wondered about earlier.

 

And Walter's relief that he was sane as blood oozed out of his self-lobotomy wound was priceless. Cringe.

As usual, the highlight was Walter. That attempted lobotomy was both sad and gross at the same time.

Very nice episode last night.   Loved the monster of the week and the last 5 minutes were gold.   One thing I didn't see mentioned about last week's episode that I thought was kind of funny was the shout out to the old Memorex commercials with Walter sitting in an arm chair facing a wall of speakers.   Great Easter Egg there,.

 

I don't expect them to go entirely serial but I'm used to the first episodes of a season moving the mythology forward and setting up new stakes. Apart from Walter seeing Peter (which, lets face it, you could see coming a mile away) they haven't really done much of that.

Why did they not wear the protective suits when they were in the lair of the fungus? Kind of stupid don't you think?

I asked the same question while watching

They had established that you were safe if you didn't touch it, and didn't know it could move... but yeah, it was a bit of a sloppy shortcut.

 

Personally, I'd have been wearing that suit day and night for about a week after the case -over-.

Why is this thread apparently dead. Don't be slacking you lazy jerks.

 

Kind of disappointed at the ending. I was hoping Peter would end up doing the full Doctor Manhattan.

Outside of that one episode where they teamed up with the alt universe, this season has felt somewhat flat and listless to me.  Maybe now that Peter's returned the show (and subsequently this thread) will get some life back.

I enjoyed this past episode because it showed Walter's and Olivia's relationship. Now that Peter is back things should get good.

I don't like Astrid being so short and impatient with Walter.

 

Thrilled to see Peter back, there's definitely been a void in the show without him.

 

So, this is the first time Olivia has met another Cortexiphan kid--so how will they explain how she crossed over to the red universe without the help of the other three kids?

 

Hi guy, first time posting in a Fringe thread here!

From the conversation between the Olivias in the premiere, I don't think Olivia and Walter went to the other side in this timeline (because why would they?  If both Peters died as children, they didn't need to rescue Peter), but rather Walternate actively kidnapped her and swapped Fauxlivia in purely to act as a spy.  How she got back is another question altogether, since Alt-Broyles is still alive.

 

Am I the only one that thinks Nina Sharp adopted Olivia in this timeline?  She was obviously much more involved with Olivia's life than she was in the old timeline.  And Massive Dynamic is apparently taking some moral lessons from Aperture Science. 

Yeah, they were telling us that this Olivia never unlocked her powers. She never crossed over on her own, and 'our' world was much more passive w/o Peter. It sounds like 'our' Fringe division never got beyond basic damage control.

 

From their description, it seems Walternate swapped Olivias, got the pieces of the doomsday machine, and activated it, without much opposition. There was no  betrayal by alt-Broyles, and Olivia was still there to swap back when the mission was over. That could also partially explain BOlivia's openly flippant attitude towards Olivia - her side has been dominant.

 

So now that we're caught up on the new world order, things should really get going next week...

Walter didn't seem to be very friendly with Nina Sharp did he? I'm assuming he told her to fuck off.. which was a major laugh out loud moment for the show.

I just don't care as much about the characters this season, and how can we as viewers?  Spend the previous seasons getting to know the characters and who they are, then change it slightly but enough so we don't really understand their backgrounds at all any more.  It almost feels like they've gone out of their way to make this too dense for new viewers and slightly antagonistic towards existing viewers.

The Synopsis of the Fall Finale has interesting connotations.

 

"In the Fall Finale, Olivia and Lincoln (Seth Gabel) take drastic measures to deal with the looming threat from the translucent shapeshifters, while helping Peter find his way home."

 

So Peter is from a third Alternate Reality now?

 

 

I can see that, but I find it both intellectually and emotionally interesting. Every version we have seen of these characters is "the real them", just filtered through different events. It's the kind of challenging scifi that is rarely attempted these days.

 

The episodes themselves were a bit heavy on the wheel-spinning, so didn't leave a lot to discuss. But I really enjoyed the last one, and am happily unsure of where the show is going from here.

It's unwise to read too much into synopses. Especially for shows that can be very difficult to sum up briefly. :)

You hit the nail on the head. I knew it was coming but Olivia's 'Who the fuck are you?' expression to Peter pissed me off a bit. After all the shit they and us went through, being set so far back seems kind of unfair. I'm still fully on board the show, though.