Fringe - Season 4 (massive S3 spoilers)

[Lucid]

Sweet Jesus, that was a hell of a finale.
Cringed, laughed, and teared up.

Spoiler

Ugh, so many needles-and-rods-getting-jabbed-into-heads-scenes this ep, I got woozy.
Otherwise this finale was the epitome of

.

When Olivia got shot and the look on Walter and Peter's face... ;(
Evil Bell was just amazing, a classic God complex evil genius whose only real purpose to doing all of this was just because he could.

Also, ****ing HELL that corpse interview was creepy as a son of a bitch, I am NOT sleeping tonight.
And in regards to Olivia being pregnant finally... well, that's going to have to be a damn fast pregnancy or we're only going to see the beginnings of the Observer occupation and then the series finale will probably go back to the future.

Is it time for Season 5 yet?

edit:
Well, now that my excitement has worn off and I thought about it for a bit, I can say that my only real huge gripe about this season is how the writers clearly had no clue what to do, since basically the first 3 seasons don't matter anymore... and the build up to the DRJ and Bell story led to nothing.

Still, great show but they weren't lying when they said they wanted S4 to be more accessible to new viewers.

 

[Yorick]

This episode was basically exactly what I expected it would be.

By which I mean it was bad.

Let's recap.

Spoiler

So Bell intends on destroying this entire universe, escaping with only himself and Walter in a matter of hours. Yet when his people shoot Astrid, they move her and call an ambulance, leaving a loose end that would only succeed in bringing Olivia and Peter to them. It didn't occur to him that Olivia, who apparently now has the power to collapse entire universes, could possibly find them.

Meanwhile Olivia's newfound power has been used by herself entirely instinctively. She saved the girl from LOST, saved Peter, and saved The Observer. Then teleported herself and Peter. And we're saying she has all this power, and maybe she doesn't know how to control it, but she can't make herself NOT destroy a universe?

The Walter and Bell scenes were great, even if Bell was leaning too heavily on the "I'm a God" stuff, because bad writing. I did like that he wanted his universe devoid of human life, and that he wasn't even going to live to see what it became, because that's a great angle, a true scientific pursuit.

The "Olivia dies and comes back to life" thing is exactly what I wasn't hoping for. She inexplicably loses her Cortexiphan powers simply because she died (even though they lasted long enough to bring her back). The thing is, so many of the elements of this season were good, but they were put together in such awful ways. Parting the universes had no significance at all.

In my rewrite of Season 4, Peter isn't gone for nearly so long, and his return is handled better. Olivia doesn't inexplicably get memories from absolutely nowhere. Jones isn't a pawn with no character depth. The Observers don't suddenly do a complete 360 in the most retarded way possible. And goddamnit, by the time the Observer tells Olivia that she has to die, the universes working together has lead to people being closer than just comrades with their others, and instead of Lincoln dying, Fauxlivia sacrifices herself to save Olivia. Because that has actual depth. Not "Oh, I sure do miss rainbows". "Well, they'll never come back because we're cutting you off, but you just keep looking at the sky anyway."

The only saving graces to this season were the actors who play Lincoln and Astrid. We've known since early on how great Walter is, but between the distinctly different personalities of the two Lincoln's, and Astrid's amazing portrayal of Autism, coupled with her emotional resonance in the finale, they both stole the season for me emotionally.

There were about five or six episodes this entire season that I actually thought were good, and two of those featured Astrid or Lincoln extensively.

 

[Lucid]

So, I was rewatching Season 2 and holy shit, the Observer takeover was pretty much planned from the beginning.

This is actually pretty reassuring for me personally as I always kind of felt that this whole thing came out of no where but it's probably been the writer's end game ever since S2 and maybe 1.

 

[Remus]

This is actually pretty reassuring for me personally as I always kind of felt that this whole thing came out of no where but it's probably been the writer's end game ever since S2 and maybe 1.

It's not reassuring at all. It's like someone coming along and saying "see the story was crap all along you just didn't realise it yet".

I always thought that there was a change in the writers, that would explain why the observers suddenly did a 180 in character.
If it was planned all along, then I fail to see why the writer/writers thought this was a good idea. Not to mention the excuse for why they went back in time to conquer an earlier version of Earth is well... silly.

I also don't like the William Bell story. Not only did they turn him from a good friend of Walter into the main villain, but a cliched villain to boot. He's no better than a Dr. Moreau wannabee. His plan to create a new universe populated by all the monstrosities we've been seeing throughout the series, is batshit crazy, and again SILLY.

In my opinion they should have ended the story the moment the whole "portal storm" problem was resolved, and the two universes made peace.

/rant

 

[Lucid]

The show has never been terribly original but I always felt it was immensely entertaining and had a strong cast.

But, I can't say that I agree with anything you've said at all.

 

[Remus]

But, I can't say that I agree with anything you've said at all.

To each their own. I can honestly say that I don't like what they've done with the show in the last season, and from the promo trailer it looks like next season will be pretty much more of the same.

 

[Lucid]

Don't care what anyone here says but this future stuff is going to be amazing.
Last night's ep was fantastic, they've clearly given up on wanting new viewers for sure.

This entire season will be set in the future so if you didn't like the future ep, might as well wait to watch the final season on dvd I guess?