Here's The Problem With Fringe
Fringe has a few problems, actually. For one, it's completely devoid of any emotional impact. That's not completely unexpected in a show that deals primarily in the paranormal, but even X-Files, Fringe's closest reference point in recent history, had the relationship between Mulder and Scully. What does Fringe have? The troubled father-son dynamic between Walter and Peter? Agent Scott? Who cares. Care FAIL. The show also suffers from too many indeterminate accents. Both Walter Bishop and Agent Olivia Dunham are played by Australian actors who can't fully affect an American accent, so they just have this kind of auditory esperanto going on that creates what Brecht would call a verfremdungseffekt if he wasn't so busy rolling in his grave at my having brought him into this. Add to that the fact that the show definitely feels like it's treading old territory (cough X-Files cough, wink wink, hint) and the fact that it all centers around Massachusetts (no offense, Massachusetts, it's just that you are not what anyone thinks of as the centerpiece of a global conspiracy) and the seams on this show really start to show.
But I think there is one over-arching problem that is way more serious.
Take, for example, this moment in last night's episode. Walter Bishop is chasing after another one of his elaborate and wild-eyed theories in the hopes of solving some incredible mystery.
HEY, FRINGE, ENOUGH WITH THE KNOWING, SELF-REFERENTIAL, INCREDULOUS SARCASM.
This is the show's greatest failure. I know it's the '90s and everything, and that we all have to be super jaded and cynical all the time (I am!), but it just doesn't work in a show that demands so much willful (and sometimes unwilfull) suspension of SO MUCH disbelief. What makes science fiction so enjoyable is its earnestness. I promise you, J.J. Abrams, that very single person watching this show last night thought that the idea of ripping someone's personal electro-magnetic pulse signature off of an REO Speedwagon cassette tape (because in Fringe's stainless steel world of near future science, people still use WALKMEN?), imprinting that signature into the magnetite in homing pigeons' beaks and then using those pigeons as a tracking device to find a man who can control heavy machinery using the magnetic force field of his brain was ridiculous. No one needed the characters on the show to remind them of that. The same goes with Walter's shared dream state experiment, as well as the time that he extracted electrical impulses from a dead person's retina and turned them into JPEGs. Leave the scoffing incredulity to us, YOU'LL FIND WE CAN GIVE YOU PLENTY. But if even your own characters find the world you've built for them ridiculous and impossible to believe, then what are we supposed to do? HUH, J.J. ABRAMS?
Posted by Gabe at 11:15 AM in Everyone's A Critic
Tags: Fringe | JJ Abrams
I was fine with the unresolved mysteries and unfinished thoughts for the first few episodes, but yesterday was really just a bust. It was hard to care about anyone in the episode, including the guy with the super-electro brain. You think maybe they would be able to set up an interesting story without creating so many boring tangents.
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i think the thing that's craziest is that after the first episode when she took LSD or whatever happpened, and then found the guy after going into John's brain because she saw his face there, that he still doesn't give the mad doctor any credit when he says the next crazy thing he'll do. If Mulder had actually showed Scully an alien, she would've been like, ok you're right. done.
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um, nerd alert. actually mulder DID show scully aliens, many times. she was just never convinced that they really were aliens. key repeated dialogue from the x-files "after all you've seen...after all we've been through" and still she never fully bought in.
just saying.
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I think the even bigger problem--for me at least--is that the science is SO FREAKING BAD. For a fringe science show, I expect the science to be rock solid. Science is insane enough at the edges without the writers needing to shoehorn in so many stupid ideas.
If you want to see Fringe done much, much better go watch Re:Genesis season 1. It even co-stars Ellen Page.
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yeah but they actually found and rightfully arrested (or killed? can't remember) the dude that she saw while in john's consciousness. That's the equivalent to in the first season of X-files if Scully walked down to Mulder's office and he was sitting there with an alien and was all "see? I'm not crazy".
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maybe that's what makes the show so frustrating. They keep catching people and "solving" the immediate mystery, but it makes no difference. And even with the people and all the info, none of their questions are answered!
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I mean, there's just no comparing this show to X-files, the plots are ripped directly from x files episodes, like this weeks episode with "harnessing" electricity and the elevator falling, honestly every episode i've watched, the plot is directly linked to the x files, the difference is that on Fringe, theyre given everything, Mulder worked so fucking hard on the x files and what's her face, Olivia is just a little baby bitch about everything, expecting "Walter" to miraculously come up with some kooky solution. This show is just wrong. Also, why shoot in Brooklyn and say it's Massachusetts, c'mon give me a break. The fact I can't remember any of the characters names, like that useless character Astrid or whatever, is sad. Sorry, I'm done. Fringe will return in 60 seconds.<---Lame
"That's the equivalent to in the first season of X-files if Scully walked down.."
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no i meant it's like it gives away all the mystery immediately. most of mulder and scully's cases were seemingly unrelated for so many seasons, or at least only linked by the fact that they fall into the "unexplained" or "supernatural" phenomena. But on fringe apparently everything that's bad that happens happened because the crazy doctor invented it through his crazy experiments, so he essentially has all the answers already, and is never wrong. there's no reason for her to doubt him so much because he's solved every case they've had so far, because it was always stemming from his original experiment. it's like if i was a olivia on Law and Order and I killed someone, and Elliot knew, and so did Ice-T, but then we all still went through the whole episode anyway and just wasted everyone's time.
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EXACTLY! They solve the mystery less than 20 minutes in, and by that point, there's no reason to keep watching! They're never wrong! It's so boring, and I had such high hopes...
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i like this show. i know its basically x-files, but i was 7-14 years old when x-files was on.... i have never even seen an episode. so kill me lol.
that said, it's a bit repetitive.
something CUH-RAZY happens.
olivia, the fbi, walter and peter go to the scene and are confused.
walter has seen this before.
walter comes up with a theory.
peter says the theory is CUH-RAZY.
olivia believes walter and comes up with her own theories.
walter says something ridiculous and provides the show's only comic relief.
olivia's boss gives her some info about past cases that relate to the current one.
walter proves his theory.
everyone goes looking for SOMEONE or SOMETHING.
they find that SOMEONE OR SOMETHING.
Wlater treats someone in the unsanitary conditions of his lab.
end of episode.
yea.
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I totally agree. That pigeon thing was one hell of a stupid idea and it actually made me very, very angry. Maybe because it's...you know...just stupid or maybe because I watched the new episode of Heroes before and listened to the WORST dialogue I've heard in recent time: "When I touched your hand, I felt your pain." Oh, crap!
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Just bring back Massive Dynamics and the bionic arm lady. What happened to that whole plot line? Bionic arm lady was the only interesting thing about the show because she's obviously being set up to be the villain, and because she was the only real mystery that hadn't been deciphered and referenced and explained to death yet.
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