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Fringe - General Discussion


Jipijapa
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Anyone up for blissfully time-wasting, Fringe-related fun?! We start with a list of episodes and in future rounds can do characters, relationships, scenes, cases, or whatever else we feel like!) Once per 24 hour period, you'll just vote on which ones to eliminate. I tally the votes and update the list once a day. Needless to say, the game gets increasingly tough as it goes on, as it's harder and harder to decide which beloved episodes, scenes etc. you're willing to vote out.

 

Ready to kick things off with Season 1?!

 

Pilot

The Same Old Story

Ghost Network

The Arrival

Power Hungry

The Cure

In Which We Meet Mr. Jones

The Equation

The Dreamscape

Safe

Bound

The No-Brainer

The Transformation

Ability

Inner Child

Unleashed

Bad Dreams

Midnight

The Road Not Taken

There's More Than One of Everything

 

...Just vote for the three that you most want (or at least can most bear!) to eliminate :) 

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By the way, if picking 5-10 all-time favorites is too ridiculously hard, feel free to select your 2-3 favorites and least favorites from each season. Though even that is ridiculously difficult... 

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My favorite episodes:

 

1. The Firefly

2. One Night in October

3. Over There Part 1

4. The Plateau

5. Jacksonville

 

Five I could do without:

 

1. Midnight

2. Concentrate and Ask Again

3. Reciprocity

4. The Recordist

5. What Lies Below

  • Love 1
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I've been rewatching the episodes lately, from the start, and loving the hell out of them. 

 

The first time I watched the show, I felt like it filled an X-Files-shaped hole in my TV viewing life, and didn't really care whether it hung together on its own. I didn't even particularly care if it turned out to be good or bad, as long as it was sort of science-y and soaked in conspiracy, and doled out gross monsters. Both Olivia and Peter annoyed the hell out of me in the first season, for reasons I no longer really remember. But: gross monsters! A cold virus the size of a hoagie! I stuck with it, and ended up liking the show and the characters on their own merits. Plus, I got to recap it for TWoP a few times. Woohoo!

 

But this time, I love everything from the start. That part where Walter can't remember where his safe deposit box is, and Peter finesses the info out of him, and they're both so very pleased with his method? I just watched that bit and clapped and made ridiculous "AWW!" sounds.

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Yay---another voter! 

 

Pilot
The Same Old Story
Ghost Network
The Arrival
In Which We Meet Mr. Jones
The Equation
The Dreamscape
Safe
Bound
The No-Brainer
The Transformation
Ability
Inner Child
Unleashed
Bad Dreams
The Road Not Taken
There's More Than One of Everything

 

Midnight, Power Hungry and The Cure are our first casualties, and the next round is open :) We're still voting against three:

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Has anyone ever put together a list of songs used in Fringe?  It was quite an eclectic list, wasn't it?

 

I just rewatched "6B."  Can anyone tell me the song that Walter was playing on his record player when he fled the house so that Peter and Olivia could have their "romantic breakfast" (snerk)?

 

Also, watching "6B" I only just realized, that the sad theme that played a prominent role in Season 4 (which I thought was unique to Season 4) actually made its debut in this episode.  This is kind of like what happened earlier... where a random theme that was in "White Tulip" and having nothing to do with Peter and Olivia, later was turned into their love theme.  Sigh... Chris Tilton is so talented. 

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(edited)

Yes, "Bad Dreams" is a key episode...

 

Things you'll see less of going forward:

 

--Less John Scott

--Less gratuitous threatening of helpless female victims (something I never really liked about Season 1)

--Less obvious X-Files references, although a very famous X-Files location makes an appearance early in Season 2.

Edited by Jipijapa
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Yes, "Bad Dreams" is a key episode...

 

It's definitely one of my three favorite episodes of Season 1. 

 

I've been rewatching the series and am falling in love with the show far more deeply than I did when I first saw it. It's just such engaging, thought-provoking, emotion-evoking, imagination-stimulating awesomeness! The show has me dreaming of parallel universes and other fringe-y phenomena. I really love all three main characters beyond the telling of it and have placed Peter on my sadly short list of TV boyfriends. I'm sure he's profoundly honored ;) 

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I'd like to rearrange my "Episodes I Could Do Without" list.  I need to put "Concentrate and Ask Again" as #1 and give "Midnight" a bit of leniency and put it as #2.

 

The premise behind "Concentrate and Ask Again" was not terrible, but it was just such an aggressively dopey, boring episode (not something Fringe was known for).  And you could have switched it out with "Reciprocity" and would anyone have noticed the changed episode order?   What springs to mind with "CaAA" is a scene where Walter says something about military experiments and Olivia responds, "The U.S. military?"  (NO!  Obviously, the Serbian military....)  No excuse for dialogue that dumb, three seasons in.  Also, random road trip to Vermont.  Also, Walter peeing.  Also, terrible Olivia evening gown.  Also, not showing enough of Peter in a tux.

 

And oh!  I forgot "Stowaway."  Again, not because of that Thing That Happened to One of the Main Characters (I was OK with that because it didn't last long).  But because of the dopeyness of the Freak of the Week.  OK, replace "Reciprocity" with "Stowaway."

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I was excited to see Kirk Acevedo in the trailer for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, even though I've never seen a single movie in that franchise. Just happy he's working. Looks like he's also in that 12 Monkeys miniseries (?) on SyFy.

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I'm just so thrilled I'll be seeing Etta Bishop on my screen again. I'm sure like everything on Once, Elsa's storyline will start out interesting and end up muddled and frustrating but I expect Georgina will do an awesome job beyond the caliber of the material she'll be given.

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(edited)

That was definitely Peter's worst ever coat.  (Although the one he wore in 304 was pretty terrible also.)  It gets better, though. 

 

Fringe fans take coats VERY SERIOUSLY.  You'll see.

Edited by Jipijapa
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It is completely true that Olivia is super-bad-ass. Very fitting for the theme week. And if Tara stopped at Episode 37, she's coming right up on some eye opening stuff with "Olivia Dunham".

It's also outright criminal that Anna Torv hasn't been busting with work since this show went off the air. Heck, I won't even talk about the criminal lack of awards recognition (for both her AND Noble). Even before she gets the broader more overtly emotional stuff to play, you can see how much acting she does with body language and her eyes.

  • Love 2
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There's a version of Clue called "Clue - the Classic Mystery Game" that you can play with only 2 people. I hope that helps you enjoy the 1985 credits more, since they are delightful.

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I'm just so thrilled I'll be seeing Etta Bishop on my screen again. I'm sure like everything on Once, Elsa's storyline will start out interesting and end up muddled and frustrating but I expect Georgina will do an awesome job beyond the caliber of the material she'll be given.

She's on the CBS show Reckless right now, although it's pretty terrible.

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She's on the CBS show Reckless right now, although it's pretty terrible.

Just plain awful. I watched 2 episodes of it and I'm like, why...plus the last time I tried to watch it, they kept interrupting my affiliate with storm updates. The two storm updates WOULD come during Georgina's main 2 scenes, the whole reason I was you know watching.

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Hi, guys!  I can't remember if I've posted on these boards yet or not, but joined the boards at TWoP when I watched Fringe for the first time a couple of years ago.  I recognize a few of the names here.  *waving*

 

So......hubby and I started a Fringe rewatch last night.  It's going to be interesting watching again knowing the "big" plot points that are coming, while not remembering much at all about the minor stuff.

 

Have only rewatched the Pilot so far.  I'm glad that John Scott wasn't in the show for a long time.  I remember being upset that they started off with two Agents already in a relationship together, because if I'm going to watch something like that I want to feel like the characters earned the right to flaunt the rules.  I'm persnickety like that.

 

I was actually holding my breath a little bit, waiting for Walter to turn around and see Olivia for the first time.  Then I squealed "Walter!  Oh, Walter.  I've missed you."

 

It was a lot more fun this time seeing Walter start digressing about the butterscotch pudding, knowing how much he loves food and the role food plays in the show.  To Olivia he had just started wandering off into lala land, but food actually is that important to him.  Heh.

 

Astrid, Walter, and Peter sitting on the couch watching SpongeBob with Jean watching over Walter's shoulder just totally made my day.  So awesome.

 

Hubby and I were both snickering like mad over Broyles deliberately trying to rile Olivia up.  "Sweetheart" and "Honey" and all that.  You know she wanted to tear his bald head off.  Hee hee.

 

I had forgotten that they were building up to a big William Bell reveal/climax even this early on.  Interesting how they're kind of downplaying his relationship with Walter right now though.  "Shared a lab" almost makes it sound like they just happened to be in the same class at college or something, very subdued.

 

I miss the days when it felt like Peter really did have an IQ of 190.

 

Since I am also currently re-reading The Hunger Games, I noticed a lot of similarities between Walter's state of mind and Mrs. Everdeen's in the books.  Walter truly only remembers who he is when he's in his lab, just like Mrs. Everdeen when she's working on a patient.

 

There's more I could say but it all has to do with how things tie in with stuff that happens later in the show, so I don't want to spoil it for the ones that are watching for the first time. 

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I'm rewatching too, and another thing I'm grateful was dropped after Season 1 was Peter's shady past. Who cares? Also, Peter was a lot more shrill than I remembered, especially when it came to Walter. I love him, but he and his storylines just irritated me for most of S1.

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(edited)

I actually kind of like that S1 Peter is so sharp, snarky and prickly. I love Peter throughout the series and do think it made sense that he'd soften a bit, especially in relation to Walter, but he seemed to lose most of his edge, intelligence and uniqueness as the series went on IMO. 

Edited by mstaken
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Hi Taryn! (waves back)

 

I liked Peter's prickliness in S1, but agree that it was perhaps trotted out a little too often.  We will never know what the deal was with Big Eddie, and I don't care about that either.  (Although I would still like to know who this Tess chick was because she and Peter seemed pretty hot together.) 

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The Same Old Story and The Ghost Network -

 

I wish I could remember what Walter remembers about things that come up later at this point, because there are times I swear from his expression he knows exactly who Olivia is.  It's like he knows it's not going to be able to be kept secret forever, and once she knows then it's all going to change and she's never going to look at him the same way again and that makes him sad.  Oh, Walter.

 

Wow, they were dropping hints already about Peter's ....different.... childhood, huh?  Interesting.  There's so much I just didn't pick up on the first time watching, because I was trying to absorb too much information about all of the characters, never knowing who we could trust and who we couldn't.

 

Charlie:  I wasn't gonna tell you this, but....he said he loved me too.  *snicker*  I miss Charlie.

 

The hand in the jar!  Egads!  "Friend of yours?"  BOY. HOWDY.

 

So, Walter has been in an institution for the past 17 years, yet all of his worst experiments have obviously been carried on and improved upon, and it doesn't occur to anyone that maybe someone he worked with way back when is the one continuing them?  Okay.  I know they keep "investigating" Massive Dynamic and keep asking after William Bell, but you would think they'd be storming the place with warrants by now.

 

I liked Roy McComb (from Ghost Network).  I thought he was a very sympathetic character.

 

We've been having fun looking for the Observers.  Hubby usually spots them before I do.

 

I feel like I should have more to say about these episodes, they were both pretty good.

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The Arrival -

 

September!  I was giggling the whole time he was ordering and eating his freaky sandwich. 

 

When I was watching, I got too caught up in Walter's story about him and Peter falling thru the ice to notice, but that story was supposed to be in response to Peter wanting to know how he knew the cemetery was where Walter hid the capsule.  Um, huh?  There must be a connection from later that I'm not remembering at the moment.

 

I'll be glad when they're done with the John Scott stuff altogether.  He's kind of getting on my nerves, popping up into the story all the time.  I don't even remember why he's significant.

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I liked Anna Torv best when she was on screen by herself.  Not damning her with faint praise or anything, but I honestly never felt she was comfortable acting alongside other people.  I'd have to see her in other things to make that sort of judgement.  But she just became more watchable to me when she was by herself.  I honestly thought the only time she seemed really comfortable in scenes with others was when she was with John Noble (or maybe also Kirk Acevedo).

 

And she and Joshua Jackson just had no chemistry together, which made it pretty amazing that I came to care about Peter and Olivia's relationship a lot.  It was all due to the characters and what they went through together, though.

Considering Anna was probably in more scenes than anyone in the series, I don't think the series would have worked if she didn't have chemistry with others.  I think she had more chemistry with the rest of the cast than she had with Josh.    One of the highlights of S3 was Olivia on the other side partnering with alt Lincoln and alt Charlie.   She also had a good chemistry with the actor who played Frank.  She was great with Lance. The kids she worked with too. 

 

Olivia and Peter became one of my favorite couples but I agree that Anna and Josh never really clicked as actors together.  The dialogue didn't seem to flow naturally between them. 

Here's a question for you guys: What would you say were your 5-10 favorite episodes of the whole series? And how would you rank all five seasons from favorite to least favorite?!

Favorite:

Marionette

Peter 

Over There

Subject 13

Jacksonville 

 

Seasons

S3

S2

S1

S4

S5

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Power Hungry - Decent ep, with again a sympathetic "baddie", but I'm already starting to get tired of the vague references to "The Pattern" in all of these completely unrelated incidents.  Since I have seen the show before, I know where they're going with it and I understand that they have to build up to it, but at this point in the show it just feels like they're trying to fit pieces of a puzzle together that really don't go together.

 

I'm also finding that it's a little bit irritating that Walter is the only comic relief in the show right now.  Not that what they're doing is all fun and laughs or anything, but it just feels like everyone is taking themselves a bit too seriously or something.  I don't know how to describe it.

 

Eh....even though this wasn't a bad ep, I really don't have that much to say about it.

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I'm running behind you a little on this rewatch. I was stuck in a hotel room, watching Netflix on autoplay, and the Nazi poisoner episode started. I realized that if I kept watching, I'd only get 5 hours of sleep and managed to turn it off. I've been spoiled on some of the basic plot points, so I'm not really watching for that. But I'm totally fascinated with Anna Torv. She seems plausible as an FBI agent in a way that only women who are truly beautiful without makeup can be on TV. I really love this show (so far) and I'm wracking my brains to remember why I didn't watch it when it first came out. Maybe parts of my hippocampus were removed by time travelling cyborgs or Leonard Nimoy.

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(edited)

Fringe...one of the. BEST. SCI-FI. SHOWS. EV-UH. Olivia, Peter, and Walter loomed large over the show as The Big Three, Whether taking us through our own wormhole to 1985 at Reiden Lake, or the Twin Towers in the Alternate Universe, or Peter going Over There with Walternate, only to come back Over Here with Olivia and Walter, or The Tank, or Gene, or Aspirin/Astro/Ostrich/Abner/Claire, or Brown Betty, or Monster of the Week, or Cortexiphan, or The Machine, or The Observers (when they were the good guys), or Leonard Nimoy, this show brought it every episode. Well, except for a couple of episodes in Season 4.

 

Man, I miss this show. Fringe hit its apex in the run from Mid-Season 2 to Mid-Season 3, then in the final few episodes of Season 3. But it was almost always interesting, which is more than could be said for TV generally.

Edited by DeepRunner
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Okay, that opening photo confirms Tara has reached the Fauxlivia stage.  Why no actual mention though?  Fauxlivia rocks (in a "here to screw things up for you" way, I mean)

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