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Despite the yuck factor of the toxin that suffocates (for me, this is the pantyhose over head episode), David Robert Jones and the special powers of Olivia were interesting.

 

Now, watching the Pilot, I am again in awe of how much of the future of the show was there.  I hadn't remembered that William Bell got name-checked so early, or that John Scott was gone so quickly (yay!).  The players were on the board right from the start.  I'm really looking forward to a rewatch.

I still don't really understand the John Scott part of the plot, though.  Wasn't he somehow mixed up with David Robert Jones?  Does someone feel like explaining it to me?

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An enigmatic mute child (Spencer List) is found living underground and begins to bond with Olivia when the Fringe Division is brought in to investigate. While the child adapts to his new environment, Olivia and the FBI hunt a bizarre serial killer known as "The Artist" (Jeremy Shamos), who has resurfaced to publicly display his work. The child leads Olivia to breaks in the case, using a strange ability to sense the emotions of the killer. Once the killer has been captured, Olivia arranges for the child to be secretly put in the care of a foster family, rather than turning him over to the CIA as ordered. As the boy is taken to his new home, he sees the Observer (who, like the child, is hairless and enigmatic) on the sidewalk staring at him.

 

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When animal rights activists ransack a laboratory, they accidentally release a man-made chimera with a ferocious appetite. Walter suspects that his research helped to create it. The creature leaves a trail of grotesquely mutilated bodies in its wake, some of which it injects with its larvae. Charlie survives such an encounter with the creature, and the Fringe Division must race to capture it for a sample of its blood before the larvae eat their way out of Charlie. Olivia discovers the source of the creature, and that it was created based on work by one of Walter's peers, not Walter himself. Walter risks his life to capture the creature and succeeds, allowing them to save Charlie.

 

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Here I am, innocently binge-watching Fringe for the first time ever, and I get to "Snakehead" (where Walter gets lost in Chinatown and then Astrid gets attacked at the lab), and John Noble just breaks my heart. Damn.

 

Also, his line reading of "wool socks" after he shocks Peter in one the first few episodes is fantastic.

Edited by morgankobi
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 I got tired of Brit murder mysteries, and am rewatching now via Netflix.  I'd forgotten how much I love(d) this show.  It's fun now, because I'm seeing new things.

OK, this is odd, as I was just watching Midsomer Murders, and thought I'd take break and switch to this for the first time.

 

Note to any first-watchers on Netflix (I learned this the hard, confusing way.) : The last episode Netflix has for Season 1, "Unearthed" isn't the finale. It was made for earlier in Season 1, but not shown during that season. Apparently it was burned off as an "extra" episode during Season 2 one night. It's a bit confusing when waiting all episode for any mention of the pretty big events from the previous episode!

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Olivia dreams of herself committing murders halfway across the country, and the team discovers that, while no one is actually causing the incidents, they are happening as Olivia has seen them. The team discovers that another person treated with the nootropic drug Cortexiphan, Olivia's "buddy" Nick Lane (David Call) in the drug trials, is unwittingly transmitting his intense emotions and causing others to act on them. While Olivia does not remember him, he remembers her, having nicknamed her "Olive." Olivia non-fatally wounds him so he does not commit suicide with a large group, and he is placed in a medically induced coma to contain his emotions. Walter watches a video of Olivia as a child, apparently taken during the time she was being administered the drug. Walter's voice is heard on the tape, as is William Bell's. Both are trying to calm Olivia down and there appears to be damage to the equipment in the room.

 

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I'm so glad to find this forum. I started a rewatch toward the end of the summer and am now about half-way through season 2.

 

I had the same experience with the pilot others have expressed. I wasn't blown away by it and found Anna Torv stiff and not very likable. But I noticed on rewatch how much more I liked Olivia and Anna Torv's take on her. Watching the pilot knowing so more more about Olivia and her background, I found I was much more sympathetic to the character.

 

What is the policy on spoilers? I guess I got here through the "Rewatch" thread, but not everyone is rewatching. So should I spoiler tag what's coming for those who are first watch?

I'm doing a rewatch and I too realized that I didn't initially like Ana Torv as Olivia, but came to love her. I stumbled across the show when Fox did a few late Friday or maybe Saturday night repeats during Season 2. I was immediately drawn to Walter, Peter and most definitely Broyles because of The Wire. I caught up on the Season on Hulu, missing only the first two episodes that were no longer available. I got Season 1 as soon as I could and was in from that point on.

The three shows I loved and thought were cancelled before their time are Fringe, Leverage and Hannibal. I am always thrilled when I can turn people on to them and invariably get the response of, "How could I have not known about these shows when they were on?"

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I too loved Peter signing to Walter at the end. I think that was the first glimpse of Peter coming to terms with what Walter to,d him in the first episode when he begged Peter not to send him back to the hospital -- that being that whatever punishment Peter felt that Wlater should get, he had gotten that and more.

We got the first hint of what was to come with Peter -- won't spoiler for first time viewers.

If I recall, the Nina retcon was rooted in the decision to keep Blair Brown, I think I read somewhere that she was not supposed to be a long-term character at the actresses request but the show was able to convince her to stay, so some of her past had to be modified to make her connection what it would later be.

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So this episode gives us our first glimpse into the experiments that the government sanctioned Walter and Bellie to perform on children and the ways those tests would come back to haunt the lives of those children once they were adults.

Walter and Peter continue to try to find a way to successfully co-exist.

The Broyles and Nina connection deepens.

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The investigation into the deaths of people whose bodies are drained of their spinal fluid leads the Fringe Division to a scientist named Nicholas Boone (Jefferson Mays) with ties to the bioterrorist cell ZFT. Boone's wife Valerie (Trieste Dunn) is the killer, having been infected with an extinct syphilis strain that drives her to consume her victims' spinal fluid. Her first victim onscreen is a suave clubgoer, Bob Dunn (Richard Short). In exchange for information on ZFT, Walter aids Boone in creating an antidote to cure Valerie. Boone has to use some of his already low amount of spinal fluid to formulate the antidote, costing him his life. Olivia and Peter successfully capture Valerie and cure her. A video made by Boone prior his death reveals that William Bell has been funding ZFT.

 

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Dr. Sumner is Fringe's answer to Dr. Chilton from The Silence of the Lambs.

This episode is memorable because of the shift we get in Peter's relationship with his father. Up until this point we saw moments of Peter's growing fondness for Walter, this episode marks the moment where Peter comes to terms with loving his father and the impact his anger towards Walter had on them both.

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Aw man I'm sorry I just saw this! I just finished binge watching the entire series over the past two weeks and now I feel empty inside :/

I will say that it helped to watch the pilot and then skip to episode 7, I think. Some of those early ones...I still have no idea WTF they were doing. 

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Yet another episode with an interesting premise that didn't seem to go anywhere.  I can't remember if we ever got an explanation for how Olivia was able to dream these dreams.

 

In alternate universe, I think the entire first season of this show should be reshot so that it could build up more sensibly to what the show later became.

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The three shows I loved and thought were cancelled before their time are Fringe, Leverage and Hannibal.

I just started watching Luther, and I think it is going to be as great for me as some people thought Hannibal was for them.  All the intensity without so much of the visual creepiness.

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Despite the yuck factor of the toxin that suffocates (for me, this is the pantyhose over head episode), David Robert Jones and the special powers of Olivia were interesting.

 

I still don't really understand the John Scott part of the plot, though.  Wasn't he somehow mixed up with David Robert Jones?  Does someone feel like explaining it to me?

The John Scott part of the plot got cut short when the actor got another show. This is one of the reasons why shows now make actors series regulars, even if they will only play minor roles in the story. Mark Balley got another gig, so we got the quick semi-nonsensical wrap up to the story.

Yes. On rewatch, it amazes me that the seeds of all that was to come was right there in these early episodes. What seemed like a minor subplot, David Robert Jones, served as the Kickstarter for the entire mythos of the show, we just got little tastes here and there, but this really sets things in motion.

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I loved this episode. So much depth; so much emotion; and excellently subtle foreshadowing. The actor who played the little boy was simply amazing. I rembered the first time I saw this episode, I had to do a rewatch just to focus in on this kid and what he did with this role.

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Mark Balley got another gig, so we got the quick semi-nonsensical wrap up to the story.

Thanks for that explanation.  Since I didn't watch in real time, it just looked like a first season misfire.  I was also wondering if the actor wasn't cutting it... he didn't seem to fit in with the mood of the show at all.

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I agree - the child actor outshone everyone else.

 

The observers (especially that renegade one) became one of my favorite through plotlines of the series.  (The other being the two Walters and Peter's story.)

Edited by ToxicUnicorn
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I agree - the child actor outshone everyone else.

The observers (especially that renegade one) became one of my favorite through plotlines of the series. (The other being the two Walters and Peter's story.)

Not sure what the rules are for spoilers on a show that no longer airs, but Stuff might need to be spoilered. Edited by Happytobehere
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Yet another episode with an interesting premise that didn't seem to go anywhere. I can't remember if we ever got an explanation for how Olivia was able to dream these dreams.

ToxicUnicorn I have to strongly disagree. Not only does this episode go somewhere, it goes somewhere major in terms of the mythos of the story. With this episode, we get all the fragments of the story starting to come together and fall into place. This is one of the episodes where even though I liked it at first, I didn't grasp how important it was. Upon rewatch, I really got all of the gems the showrunners provided. Unlike other shows, because of its mythos (which many blame for its ultimate cancellation), the pieces of the whole work best when you have a sense of the whole. Fringe really was before its time and would have worked best and probably have lasted longer in the Netflix binging method.

I suggest you revisited the episode as you get further into the series watch. I think you will change your opinion and at least come to appreciate, if not outright love the Bad Dreams episode.

Sorry ToxicUnicorn I responded to he wrong episode. I am currently ahead of the episodes posted here. I kept the comment because I might not remember my exact thoughts about what I saw when the episodes posted.

Edited by Happytobehere
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Not sure what the rules are for spoilers on a show that no longer airs, but

the observers and the Walters

might need to be spoilered.

 

Oops!  sorry!  done!

 

Also, I happened to find this in another forum:

 

Previously.TV Rewatch and Netflix Shows Spoiler Policy:

Please don't spoil elements beyond the episode thread you are posting in. For example, don't put things about the last episode in the first episode and don't put stuff about episode 15 in the thread for episode 14 without spoiler tags. Also note that in character threads spoilers don't need to be tagged. Consider character and general threads open season on spoilers so read at your own risk. Thank you!

Edited by ToxicUnicorn
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Nina Sharp recovers from her attack and reveals to the Fringe Division that an energy cell was stolen from her mechanical arm by Jones, which he intends to use to open a doorway into a parallel universe to confront William Bell. Meanwhile, Peter finds Walter at a beach house where they retrieve a device that can seal such an opening. Walter explains to Peter that he once lost something very dear to him and that he had to go and bring it back from another reality, the device being meant to prevent something from following him. Olivia, Peter and Walter intercept Jones opening another window, and Peter triggers Walter's device, killing Jones by sealing the doorway while only half of him is through it. At the end of the episode, Walter goes alone to visit a graveyard in which he tearfully observes a gravestone marked "Peter Bishop 1978-1985", suggesting that Walter's legitimate son died. Nina Sharp later calls Olivia and implies to her that she can meet William Bell in Manhattan. Olivia is transported to the parallel universe and is directed to an office. After reading a newspaper headline indicating that President Obama was preparing to move into the "new" White House, she is greeted by William Bell (Leonard Nimoy) and inquires where she is. The final shot pans out the window revealing that they are standing inside the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

 

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Olivia's SUV is discovered after a car accident in Manhattan, however, Olivia is not inside. Minutes later, she suddenly ejects through the windshield having traveled to the parallel universe and is hospitalized with brain damage. FBI agent Amy Jessup (Meghan Markle) takes an interest in Fringe Division and begins to investigate deeper. The male driver of the car that crashed into Dunham's is revealed to be a shapeshifter 'soldier' from the parallel universe, and is ordered to question Olivia then kill her. When Olivia suddenly awakens from the coma she cannot remember any details and the shapeshifter (now in the form of a female nurse) tries to kill her. Agent Jessup interrupts this, and the shapeshifter escapes into the basement, where Francis appears to shoot the shapeshifter. Broyles travels to Washington, D.C. to defend the Fringe Division, where Peter hands him the shapeshifter's device so Broyles can justify the need for the Division. At the end, it is revealed the shapeshifter had killed Agent Francis and assumed his form.

 

Edited by SilverStormm
Season 2 rewatch never got any traction.
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On 3/8/2016 at 6:19 PM, Coop33 said:

Looks like she is going to be a psychologist and two guys I haven't heard of will be FBI detectives. Mixed feelings: I generally respect the quality of David Fincher's work, but the serial killer genre is played out and tired, to me. And it is too dark to want to watch a full season.

However, I would like to see Anna Torv in other roles, having not heard of her before Fringe and not seen her since. A good actor!

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This is my second time through the series. I do appreciate how the writers plant seeds -- they clearly have a plan, which is more rare than it should be.

Being spoiled that Nimoy was Bell took away the big reveal this time, of course. Knowing it was coming makes the conspiracy theorist who thought he was Spock funnier. A few episodes ago there was a recording of Bell's voice that sounded like Nimoy; I assume it was unless it was the power of suggestion. I wouldn't have guessed Nimoy from that recording without foreknowledge but I'm guessing some fans figured it out.

There was a moment in this episode where Peter drives up to the lake house, and we see the scene through a red pane of stained glass. It doesn't give anything away to note that's a great little detail. 

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This is why I miss the original forums on TWOP.  I'd love to read peoples reaction to the voices on the VHS tape.  Did anyone recognize William Bell's voice and geek out?

I thought Nick did give us a reason why Olivia was able to dream the dreams.  When he was so happy to see her, he said "you heard me!" or something like that.  Whether it was his ability or as Walter suggested, the buddy system helped them to bond, or both, but it seemed he was reaching out to her and she connected in the dreams.

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Ok, on season 3, Fauxlivia somehow went from learning that all her Fringe cases dealt with issues dealing with an alternate universe and in the course of a day or two, not only got clued into a plan to swap with Olivia to the blue universe, but also learned all about all the shapeshifters there, the network and how to communicate back to the red universe.  I know there's keeping secrets for the viewer to be surprised, but that's an awful lot of information she had to come to terms and go with in order to go undercover so fast.

 

Rewatch is fun!

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On 1/6/2015 at 11:54 AM, SilverStormm said:

Post your suggestions for other shows Fringe fans may enjoy.

 

12 Monkeys Premieres 16th Jan

I didn't start watching 12 Monkeys because of this suggestion (sorry!), but I would willingly offer help in advising people to check it out.

12M is a great series, IMO.  Not exactly Fringe, but if you like the idea & concept of time-travel scifi, 12M is a must-see.

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On 6/1/2017 at 4:39 PM, amensisterfriend said:

How would you guys rank the seasons from your favorite to least favorite? And have your opinions about any of the seasons/storylines/characters etc. changed with time and repeated rewatches?

To aswer your first question ,my ranking from favorite to least favorite would be :

Season 2>Season1>Season3>Season 5>Season 4 

And to answer your second question,i found myself realising that i didnt like Walter of season 4 and with rewatches i understood better how different he used to be and how bland he became later in the new timeline. I thought this was also one of the failures of the show. Because we literally had a main character,one of the core 3 characters,be turned into a different personality,with different memories and motivations. I hated it. And i couldnt feel much for his journey anymore because the show spent very little time exploring the new timeline characters' background. His dynamic with Peter changed for the worse too. I couldnt invest much in their dynamic anymore.

Edited by theOAfc
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On 7/16/2014 at 10:31 AM, Carrie Ann said:

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.

Not to be tritely contrary, but I cared about Peter's past - especially during the first watch of the series.  The thing that bugged the most, however, was the total lack of any closure to the whole BigEddie/mob affair.  A passing mention somewhere, like "Now that the business with Big Eddie and his gang are behind me...", would have gone a long way.  Just as dropped, whatever happened to Tess?  After making the threat to 'Michael' to stop abusing her, Peter never checked in on her again??

There were other noticeable dropped/forgotten/ignored storylines over the course of the series' run,  but Peter's "blueverse!Boston-post Walter's incarceration" past is the most glaring of them.

Edited by iRarelyWatchTV36
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Damn, I started like my 10th re-watch and now I feel like I've missed the boat. We've been discussing "Fringe" in other forums and the Mod slapped our hands (a Fringe fan also) and cautioned us to not take over certain threads with Fringe talk. All of the Fringe talk got me going again and I just said, F' it, I can't keep the floodwaters back. My DVD's are in another state and I can't access them for another couple of months, so I just went ahead and bought the season passes from Amazon. (Thank you Amazon) So I've started my re-watch today. I understand this forum is barely on life support, but it's nice to be amongst Compadres.

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I finished rewatching the entire series last month and it just rekindled my love for the show all over again. There were a couple of interesting things that happened during this rewatch:

1) I was never a Peter/Olivia fan when the show was airing because it was just too damn predictable. I tolerated their relationship. During this rewatch, I was surprised at how much their story affected me and I slowly became a fan of their relationship. The writers did a very good job at not forcing the inevitable and allowed their relationship to develop organically and beautifully. I can only imagine how the shippers reacted whenever both of them would be torn apart right after they have a moment of happiness because it got pretty ridiculous every time something horrible happens when it looks like they'll finally be okay and be together.

2) I realized that I have blocked out 90% of what happened in season five because it just left a bad taste in my mouth in regards to how Olivia was pushed so far back into the background. Olivia is my favorite character so for her to be unjustly shoved in the back didn't sit right with me. After rewatching S5, it's still my least favorite season because of this fact, but the series finale was pretty close to a perfect ending for this show.

3) This rewatch just proved that Olivia Dunham is my favorite TV character EVER and that there needs to be more Olivias in the TV landscape. I watch a lot of television and I don't think I've come across another character that comes close to Olivia in terms of complexity, personality, demeanor, etc. This comment from The AV Club perfectly describes Olivia:  "Amberlivia suffers from having Ourlivia's flat affect, without Ourlivia's beautiful pathos." I love this. Olivia is such a beautifully tragic character and that just makes her super interesting, imo.

Anyway, my ranking of seasons would go something like:

1) Season 2 (the run of episodes from the last half of the season was the show at its quality peak)

2) Season 3 (the first two/thirds of the season is equal in terms of quality to S2's second half)

3) Season 1 (this season gets a lot of flak, but there are a lot of classic moments and topnotch episodes in this one)

4) Season 4 (I'm looking at my favorite episodes from this season during my rewatch and there are only four listed; compared to the first three seasons where I easily had eight favorite episodes listed per season)

5) Season 5 (my favorite episode count for this season is two: the last two episodes of the show)

Lastly, if anyone wants to rewatch or watch the show for the first time and you live in the US, you can watch the whole show (for free, no need to sign up) at the Go90 site. This is how I rewatched the show and good news, all the episodes are available in HD and you've never seen Fringe properly until you've seen Anna Torv in glorious HD.

I'll save my favorite episode list for another time because this post is long enough.

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57 minutes ago, unicorn23 said:

1) I was never a Peter/Olivia fan when the show was airing because it was just too damn predictable. I tolerated their relationship. During this rewatch, I was surprised at how much their story affected me and I slowly became a fan of their relationship. The writers did a very good job at not forcing the inevitable and allowed their relationship to develop organically and beautifully. I can only imagine how the shippers reacted whenever both of them would be torn apart right after they have a moment of happiness because it got pretty ridiculous every time something horrible happens when it looks like they'll finally be okay and be together.

2) I realized that I have blocked out 90% of what happened in season five because it just left a bad taste in my mouth in regards to how Olivia was pushed so far back into the background. Olivia is my favorite character so for her to be unjustly shoved in the back didn't sit right with me. After rewatching S5, it's still my least favorite season because of this fact, but the series finale was pretty close to a perfect ending for this show.

Conversely, I was always an Olivia/Peter fan. (Except, of course, at the beginning when Olivia was with John Scott). For me, all the seasons progressed organically, as did their relationship. As difficult as it was to watch Faux-livia replace her, and to watch Olivia over there keep trying to get back. I enjoyed their struggles.  I even loved it when Faux-livia got pregnant with Henry and had to explain it to her boyfriend, Frank. I enjoyed the real emotions the cold Faux-livia felt for Peter and her reluctance to admit to Frank that she was indeed pregnant with Peter's baby. To me, it was sad that the Universe self-adjusted and removed Henry from existence. One of the best moments, and one that I love to rewatch, is when Olivia finally REMEMBERS Peter and her love for him. Peter, of course, is led to believe that her memories are false and a manifestation of his desire to return to his timeline. However, when September reveals that she's HIS Olvia and he rushes to meet with her, it was a very joyful reunion. I had no problems with season 5 EXCEPT for the death of Henrietta. Like everyone, I was shocked and saddened that the TPTB did that, but it DID make the ending more satisfying. I'll always remember when Olivia is freed from the Amber and meets Etta again and she calls Olivia, "Mama".

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On 9/22/2017 at 8:27 PM, unicorn23 said:

Lastly, if anyone wants to rewatch or watch the show for the first time and you live in the US, you can watch the whole show (for free, no need to sign up) at the Go90 site.

Thank you so much for this info! I love Fringe and have been putting off buying the DVDs since it was on Netflix, but once it left I was going to use my birthday money I saved from last year to get them. That is until one of my kiddos needed some school stuff that I had not budgeted for and shot my plan. I’ve started another rewatch and I’m so glad I can! Thank you @unicorn23. Farscape is usually my number one show but Fringe is a close second and sometimes challenges Farscape depending on my mood. :)

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I love this show so much, and it makes me so happy to see that a few other people out there still love it too! Olivia may be one of my three or four favorite heroines of all time. Peter and Olivia make me want to attempt to write fanfic. Walter is like no other character ever, and I mean that as a compliment. Levelheaded, warm, quietly competent was a much needed stabilizer for the group. 

I've been sad to realize that a lot of my old favorites haven't help up well for me over time, but somehow most of Fringe has gotten even better.

My weird, unpopular opinion: S4 is actually my favorite of the series.

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On 12/16/2017 at 2:39 PM, ramble said:

Farscape is usually my number one show but Fringe is a close second and sometimes challenges Farscape depending on my mood. :)

Same here. "Farscape" (Aeryn & Crichton [look at my Avatar]), Olivia & Peter. They are my #1 & #2 go to feel good binges.  I'll add one more, Delenn & Sheridan, from "Babylon 5".

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As promised, here is my quite delayed top 10 favorite Fringe episodes. No surprises here that there are no S4/S5 episodes on my list. Season 2 will forever be the show's best season, imo.

1) Subject 13 (S3)
2) Jacksonville (S2)
3) Peter (S2)
4) Olivia (S3)
5) Entrada (S3)
6) Over There (S2)
7) August (S2)
8) There's More Than One Of Everything (S1)
9) Bad Dreams (S1)
10) White Tulip (S2)

Honorable mentions:
The Plateau (S3)
Bloodline (S3)
One Night In October (S4)
An Enemy Of Fate (S5)

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