Hey guys, it’s ATA veteran and favorite Michael J. Petty, and welcome to my new blog series on the ATA site entitled, “Michael’s Thoughts on Fringe”! Dan finally convinced me to watch Fringe after three years and now, coming up on it’s 5th and final season (much like Chuck last year), I am catching up. I have three more weeks to watch Seasons 1-4 of this show, and I finally watched Season 1. So now, here are my thoughts on this season over-all. Enjoy!
First of all, from the Pilot I was hooked on this show. As a kid, my dad would let me watch X-Files with him all the time, even if it freaked me out. I loved all the mystery, the FBI stuff, the drama, and of course, the alien and supernatural stuff. Then I went on to watch shows like Smallville, Supernatural, Heroes, V, Chuck, and Alphas and that obviously grew. Fringe was and is a little bit different. Created by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci. I really love Super 8 (a film that, along with Stephen Spielberg, Abrams wrote and directed), but I also really loved the 2009 Star Trek reboot which was done by all three of these guys (can’t wait for the sequel) and because of that film, I decided to go ahead and watch Fringe. Fringe is a different show to me than X-Files. Not just because it’s not about aliens, but because it’s so much more. Let me explain.
Like Dan & Nico thought in the early days of the series, I’m not to fond of Anna Torv as an actress, I am however very fond of Olivia Dunham. Her character is so unique in the fact that she’s the Fox Mulder of this show. She expects to see certain things in certain places and wants to find the truth! Peter Bishop is Fringe’s Dana Scully. He is always skeptical about whatever is going on, but unlike his X-Files counterpart, he ends up excepting and believing in these truths as well. Before I move onto story plots however, I have to talk about my favorite character on the series so far, and that is Walter Bishop. Walter is basically a “mad scientist”. One of my favorite Walterisms from Season 1 is in the episode “Safe” where Walter says, “I was in Baltimore. I remember a woman with particularly large breasts.” It was very funny! I also love that he cannot remember Astrid’s name (a character who I want to see a lot more out of in Season 2 as she was terribly under-used) and frequently called her “Astro”. I very much enjoy Walter, and I cannot wait to see him develop more.
Now, Season 1 to me reminds me a lot of X-Files Season 1. Not much happened, just routine cases involving supernatural abilities, blah blah blah. However, UNLIKE X-Files S1, Fringe S1 actually stays on track in regards to the over-arching story, in this case being William Bell (Lenard Nimoy!!!!!), David Robert Jones, The Watcher…. Err, I mean, The Observer, and of course John Scott. Let me just get this out of the way first, I HATED the John Scott arc. I think it lasted way to long. I believe the most common phrase spoken in Season 1 (if not the entire series) is, “Are you okay, Olivia?” or “Olivia, are you okay?” or something along those lines… Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Mark Valley!!! He is one great actor and I absolutely loved him as Christopher Chance on Human Target (one of my favorite shows that was ever on FOX), and he was even good as John Scott, but then it started to get creepy and annoying. I did not like how it ended because it basically says, “Hey, look I’m a terrorist and I’m on the wrong side, but I still love you and want to marry you”. Okay…, but you’re dead! Anyway, I also enjoyed the Observer being in every episode. I thought that was a nice touch and I look forward to getting into his character more. As for David Robert Jones, I do not believe he’s dead, and even if he really is, there’s always an Earth-2 Jones out there! I don’t have much to say about William Bell except that I don’t think he’s the bad guy here. I could be waaaayyyy wrong, but I don’t think so.
Onto my predictions. I was right in my predictions pretty early on that, from things Walter had said randomly, there was an Alternate Earth out there (or, in DC Comics terms (and the one I will refer it to as) “Earth-2″). I also knew from the beginning that there was something about Peter’s childhood that was off. Both would remember things that the other didn’t and both remembered the other as being a little bit different. I figured that Peter was really from Earth-2, especially in the finale where Walter said something about crossing over to replace what he had lost. It was also heart-breaking to see Walter at Peter’s grave, it was really hard for me to watch, especially since Peter doesn’t know. I also believe that Charlie will die. I don’t want him to, but at this point he would be the only on (besides Astrid) that you could get away with killing off (especially since John is already dead). I also think that there’s a lot going on between Boyles and Sharp… There’s a lot there that we don’t know about and I can’t wait to find out. As for Olivia, there’s something special about her, in almost like a Sam Winchester-special-children kind-of way (Supernatural fans will know what I’m talking about). It was very poetic for me to finish watching this season today (on 9/11) because the final shot of the season is of Earth-2′s New York City, and Olivia & Bell are in one of the Twin Towers aka the World Trade Center. I would just like to take this last bit to thank all the troops for their kind service (special thanks to James Hansson, Maurice Ant Simmons, and Matt Crowder) and give my condolences to those who lost loved ones. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed my thought’s on first watching Fringe and I hope you come back for my thoughts on Season 2, thanks!
SEASON RATING – 4/5, Solid season with a few bumps in the road.
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