Series/Fringe

Wow, that's a whole lot of questions. I'll answer a couple that I know.

First, the images they show before and after the commercial breaks are a cipher. Each symbol corresponds to a letter in the alphabet, depending on the symbol and the placement of the little dot of light. Every episode has a unique word clue that matches the theme of the episode.

Also, every episode (as far as I know) has an Easter Egg hidden in it that gives a clue to the next episode. Watch for those.

As for the Observers, their mental capabilities and emotional state are due to genetic modification. Their ability to teleport and exhibit other superhuman physical abilities is because of their technology. As "Donald" said, by excising "unnecessary" brain functions, such as emotion and the ability to taste and feel environmental extremes, they were able to vastly increase their brain power. I think it's too bad that Peter only used the brain chip once or twice. They could have done much more with that.

A lot of people figured out where Peter came from partway through the first season. There's a deleted scene from The Arrival where they explicitly state that the Cylinder (or probe) was from a parallel reality. I'm pretty sure that the Cylinder was sent by Walternate.

edited 18th Jul '14 7:54:53 AM by Lawyerdude

Well, I just wonder about that because Peter exhibited their emotional and mental state as well.

That cypher thing is very cool. There's so much detail going on! My goodness.

He did, sort of. I suppose that shoving a strange piece of technology into you brain would probably result in unusual side effects. He did experience nosebleeds, but he didn't go bald.

I did love how they stormed the Invaders' building with all those nightmarish "experiments", especially the suffocation powder and the throat slugs.

I just recalled another of my favorite Walter/Peter bits:

edited 18th Jul '14 8:22:30 AM by Lawyerdude

Not yet. There's a scene at the very end of S 5 E 7 when he scratches his head and a chunk of hair falls out.

They're very silly together.

Uh, still haven't started Season 3...

It started to click in the episode about the Ghost Network. I already knew the show involved "parallel universes" somehow, and when that episode came up, I was in doubt over which character was affected.

I'm still confused about Peter's nightmare. As a kid, he was kidnapped by an alternate Walter, our Walter. But... why does he remember it the way he did? It was a very menacing moment in that episode, but Peter remembers a shadowy figure snatching him up in the middle of the night. Brain damage from the ice incident maybe?

Well, it was a dream, not a bona fide memory. He seems to have blocked out the incident entirely, anyway, so anything he does remember would be very stylized, especially since he's just dreaming it.

I think I may be more of a fan of the series than many other Tropers. Anyway, I think what would be great would be for people at Cons to dress up as Observers and get themselves noticed or even photographed, just like September was.

I remember in the earlier season when the viral marketing involved September randomly showing up in a variety of programs. That was pretty great.

Fringe was a great series, though Season 5 bugged me. The general plot wasn't so bad (though if the Observers are so intelligent, why did they destroy their world?)

Lot of headscratchers in Season 5, like why vehicles that are now between 20 and 50 years old look like new, or almost new, and no futuristic cars are shown. Could probably be explained by a technology embargo placed by the Observers I guess, but vans from the 70's that are totally rust free? I dunno.

Biggest headscratcher for me is using the Harvard lab as their base. Despite being in the middle of an Observer/Loyalist base, the observers never catch on. This in spite of:

Restoring power to the lab

Walter playing music there

Using cell phones and GPS equipment there

And the Observers knowing that Walter is one of the fugitives, and knowing his fondness for his old lab. They check on it once, and never bother to do so again until Broyles is interrogated.

Also how did Etta and Broyles learn to shield their thoughts from the Observers? Wouldn't they have needed an Observer to practice on? Practicing that out in the field wouldn't be exactly feasible. Did Nina help them learn how by studying the Observer's technology?

I guess a lot of these headscratchers could be due to having only 13 episodes to work with, and probably a very low budget by then. Still I think some things could have been done better given what they had.

edited 20th Sep '14 1:11:33 PM by Xplasma

The use of the lab bugged me a lot, too; the other concerns can be handwaved away, but that one pushes suspension of disbelief a lot. Even aside from the emotional attachment that the characters have to the lab, there's also a lot of equipment there that's really valuable to the rebels. That alone would be worth monitoring the lab for, if for no other reason than that they're really likely to come back at least once for some object of value.

Though on the point about the Observer's intelligence, it is a recurring theme of the fifth season that the Observers are very clever in technology crafting, but that they can be real idiots when it comes to emotions, the whole Evil Cannot Comprehend Good going on with Windmark and The Commander.

Oh yeah, regarding Windmark...

When they captured the child observer, and Windmark tried to interrogate him, did anybody else think that Michael was going to end up making Windmark "see" like he did with Walter?

I think it would have been nice if afterwards, Windmark was so affected by making telepathic contact with Michael that he just quietly let them go about their plan.

Ugh, the last-minute Heel–Face Turn? No thanks :/

That actually sounds kind of cool.

edited 23rd Sep '14 2:09:48 PM by Psychobabble6

I would be fine with that not as a Heel–Face Turn per see, but as a sort of Villainous BSoD where Windmark is briefly affected but later regains control of himself, and is now even angrier that this child was able to outweight him.

edited 23rd Sep '14 1:29:23 PM by Gaon

Well, if not an all out Heel-Face Turn (Which yeah would be bad if it were executed poorly) but really Michael should have had more of an effect on him. As it was, for being the main antagonist of Season 5, Windmark came off as really one-dimensional... I mean even for an Observer. However there were hints of something human in there, like when he was playing with the Simon game. Michael affecting him in some deep manner would have given them the chance to do something else with the character before the end of the series.

Oh well, wishful thinking on my part. From what I've learned it's something of a miracle the show survived to Season 5.

edited 24th Sep '14 8:12:32 AM by Xplasma

I don't know, I really liked Windmark. I like how the show balances his stoicism with the shades of sadism and hatred bleeding through increasingly more. As the season proggresses is always amusing to see as Windmark comes ever closer to a breaking point, consumed by rage of the Fringe Team. It's a testament to the actor's skill that he can portray his dulled emotions so well.

I also liked how out of all the Fringe main antagonists (David Robert Jones, Thomas Newton, Walternate, William Bell and Windmark himself), Windmark's the only one to have Authority Equals Asskicking.

edited 24th Sep '14 3:23:45 PM by Gaon

Oh, something else I just remembered about the show. It seemed to be all over the map as far as age makeup quality goes. The episode that takes place in 2026, the characters don't really look any older. Yet 1985 Walter really does look 20 years younger, and 2036 Broyles really looks the part. His age makeup was awesome. And yet Altlivia in the penultimate episode barely looks like she's aged a day.

I actually thought Windmark was really human. He demonstrated anger, hatred, and pride in droves (pride in being something better). He was badly, deeply in denial about it, instead of assessing the situation objectively. Just because he wasn't demonstrating any of the good human emotions doesn't mean he wan't expressing any humanity at all. It's kind of interesting. Instead of opening himself up to the idea and enjoying the nice stuff like pleasure or happiness, he ended up being consumed by the basest and nastiest of emotions simply because they're the most powerful. He was a study in emotional stupidity.

Also, Michael did have an impact on him. He pissed him off more than usual.

The makeup they did for Walter was amazing. He really did look twenty years younger, which is a pretty damn hard thing to do.

Season 3 viewer.

I'm a bit confused. We saw that Red-Broyles had that "harmonic thingy" in his hand because he was too valuable to lose, but... why is it, when Olivia crossed over, he apparently went with her, and was killed as a result? And then Red-Olivia was drawn to the other side?

Now one side is off-balance again, due to Peter and Broyles only being on one side - and each has crossed over to the side where they don't belong.

What really bugged me was how easily the group was infiltrated by any random Evil Twin.

I mean, early on Charlie is dealing with an enemy that they know is a shapeshifter, then when everyone else is elsewhere anticlimactically kills the guy who was outfoxing them all. Then no one notices that he's acting weird... you'd think they'd have some sort of a Trust Password or... something. Be like "hey... what's my name?"

But it's their first time dealing with shapeshifters. Which makes Fauxlivia so much worse. I mean, they go to another dimension (which is the source of the shapeshifters AND full of duplicates of everyone) and then when she comes back she... just acts weird constantly and no one notices. Yes, she had intel on the original getting her the basics, but the number of slip-ups and OOC moments that we see should raise a flag when they've already been infiltrated by a shapeshifter once.

And now that I've finished Season 3.

What the fuck just happened?

So Peter activates the machine, which was sent back by Future-Walter to create a loop, only Future Walter and Peter sent Future Peter back - overriding Past Peter - who used the machine to merge the worlds, the effects of which erased him from existence?

What the flying fuck?

I've recently started watching Fringe on Netflix, and am most of the way through the first season.

Given how Olivia's sister and adorable niece keep turning up in episodes, something horrible is going to happen to them, isn't it?