Fringe
So. Fringe. It’s really no exaggeration to say that more than half of its episodes are frustratingly mediocre. And yet. When the writers manage to wind up the action/emotion and let it all explode, it becomes amazing. To the extent that it turns me into a gibbering idiot who just wants to talk about parallel universes. (Sidebar: let’s talk about parallel universes! *chinhands*)
I am no scientist, which probably gives me an advantage over anyone with a scientific background who tries to get sense out of the show. But what I am is a Lit. graduate, and what first reeled me in is this: the show, more than just being sci-fi, is also gothic. Genetic freakery, The Double, das unheimliche = GOTHIC. Ohh, *seal claps, seal claps* I love it.
And while my 14-year-old self is hardly surprised that Joshua Jackson grew up to be a compelling leading man, this is a surprise to the non-fangirl in me. Paaaaacey. So attractive, such a nuanced performance. *mewls* (Is it 1998 again already?) In general, the casting is A+. Not only does Kirk Acevedo (Alvareeeez!) need to be on my screen a lot more, but there’s also Seth Gabel, who played my favourite sociopaths in both Nip/Tuck and Dirty Sexy Money. And I am not a member of The Wire cult, but Andre Royo (Bubbles!) put in a stellar guest performance.
I really hate to recommend a show that’s not good all the time, but ohhhh… if you ever passed over Fringe, I’d recommend giving it another look. I am Not Your Typical Sci-Fi Fan, but there’s enough family-, friendship- and romance-based drama to make me quivery even when I don’t care about the Monster of the Week.
Speaking of which: who ever suspected that the casefile-y show about the “weird science” department of the FBI would turn out to be the best family drama on TV? Seeeeriously. Peter and Walter’s relationship absolutely kills me. “The hero has daddy issues” has become such a tedious cliché, but there are so many layers to Bishop Jr and Sr that it’s continually compelling.
Their first introduction, as father and son whose roles as caretaker/child are reversed, resonates incredibly strongly with me. Knowing you’ll one day have to take care of your parents instead of vice versa is such a terrifying reality of modern medicine that it’s arresting to see it portrayed on TV, but there’s enough of a twist (Walter’s crazy, not senile) that the viewer isn’t forced to over-identify with the situation. I know there are a few comparable parent/child relationships on TV (Spencer and his mother in Criminal Minds springs to mind), but none that I know of where we see the relationship day in, day out. We see the good days, the bad days; the triumphs, the frustration. The balance between humour (maaad scientist Walter! :D!) and poignancy (maaad scientist Walter… :() is really very well done.
AND THEN. The revelation that Walter stole Peter is just horrifying in a way that never stops being horrifying. There is literally no one on the show whose motivations I don’t understand, which considering most shows thoroughly demonize their antagonists, is worth repeating: everyone who acts evilly has their reasons. Even when Walternate is at his most eeeevil, I still think: “well, damn, someone stole his son and parts of his world started collapsing as a result. I’d be pissed, too.”
The Walter/Peter relationship is the one part of the show I think is consistently outstanding. Elsewhere, my feelings get a little iffy…
Characterization and backstory: C-, could do better. Ironically, I think the show does a better-than-average job of humanizing the bit players in its cases of the week, making the audience care about characters that are only on screen for maybe 7 minutes total. But when it comes to the core cast… ehh.
Have we learned a single thing about Peter’s shady past that wasn’t basically a deus ex machina for the case of the week? He speaks Cantonese! …which allows them to solve the illegal-immigrants-with-bugs-inside-them case. He knows a dodgy book dealer! He has contacts in Iraq! He knows a tech whiz! …which allows them to solve x, y and z cases.
Astrid, of course, is even worse. If I worked on the show, I would genuinely be embarrassed that, at the midpoint of s3, there is a series regular about whom we know so little. I can list Astrid’s backstory on the fingers of one hand: she majored in Linguistics; she likes to take apart computers; she lives in Somerville… THAT’S IT. I still have two fingers left! (…one finger and a thumb.) Why don’t we know anything about her family, friends, hobbies, passions?
(Compare Astrid with Garcia on Criminal Minds: both perform approximately the same role: non-field-based; exposition fairy. But Garcia is… GARCIA. Her personality shines out of every scene she’s in. You only need to watch one episode of CM to grasp that Garcia is funny and inappropriate and geeky and insecure and big-hearted. You can guess at what she does in her spare time; you can guess at what her family’s like and how she chooses her friends. I try to imagine Astrid’s life outside the lab and I just draw a huge blank.)
This, incidentally, is why I disagree with people who try too hard to call Fringe feminist or woman-centric. We have Olivia. Olivia’s great! But Olivia is the classic female protagonist who’s completely surrounded by men. (C/f. Sydney Bristow.) Sure, Olivia is leaps and bounds ahead of a lot of other female characters on TV. She wears sensible shoes and pulls her hair back in a ponytail and doesn’t trowel on the make-up*. In dicey situations, she saves her own damn self. This is all stuff that I love.
*Altlivia = bad eyeliner situation. ::shakes head::
But I still can’t help but feel they’ve given Olivia a lot of classically-masculine attributes (she’s stoic, emotionally closed-off, etc.) and all attempts to make her seem feminine feel pastede on yey. Rachel and Ella were parachuted in to give Olivia a chance to be soft and loving and yet it never quite clicked. Olivia and Rachel never felt like sisters to me - more like distant college roommates. (Also, geeeeez, now we learn that Rachel has moved to Chicago with her emotionally-abusive husband. WTF? Are we not going to get any more resolution to this stunted storyline?)
So, to be honest, I can’t help but feel it’s yet another show about the same unemotional male FBI agent archetype who, in this case, happens to be female.
Wow. That was a lot of wordage. After writing 1,000 words about Fringe, I should probably now go and write 1,000 words of my novel. *facepalm*
On a final note, I will say: I love that there are real, screwy emotional issues keeping the Golden Couple apart. (I ‘ship Peter/Olivia, but only in a vague sort of way.) I hope the show continues to not shy away from this, because Peter and Olivia’s scenes in Marionette were on an absolute emotional knife edge and I loved it.
(toastandtea wrote a great post about Peter/Olivia in this episode, so I’ll just link to that.)
I am no scientist, which probably gives me an advantage over anyone with a scientific background who tries to get sense out of the show. But what I am is a Lit. graduate, and what first reeled me in is this: the show, more than just being sci-fi, is also gothic. Genetic freakery, The Double, das unheimliche = GOTHIC. Ohh, *seal claps, seal claps* I love it.
And while my 14-year-old self is hardly surprised that Joshua Jackson grew up to be a compelling leading man, this is a surprise to the non-fangirl in me. Paaaaacey. So attractive, such a nuanced performance. *mewls* (Is it 1998 again already?) In general, the casting is A+. Not only does Kirk Acevedo (Alvareeeez!) need to be on my screen a lot more, but there’s also Seth Gabel, who played my favourite sociopaths in both Nip/Tuck and Dirty Sexy Money. And I am not a member of The Wire cult, but Andre Royo (Bubbles!) put in a stellar guest performance.
I really hate to recommend a show that’s not good all the time, but ohhhh… if you ever passed over Fringe, I’d recommend giving it another look. I am Not Your Typical Sci-Fi Fan, but there’s enough family-, friendship- and romance-based drama to make me quivery even when I don’t care about the Monster of the Week.
Speaking of which: who ever suspected that the casefile-y show about the “weird science” department of the FBI would turn out to be the best family drama on TV? Seeeeriously. Peter and Walter’s relationship absolutely kills me. “The hero has daddy issues” has become such a tedious cliché, but there are so many layers to Bishop Jr and Sr that it’s continually compelling.
Their first introduction, as father and son whose roles as caretaker/child are reversed, resonates incredibly strongly with me. Knowing you’ll one day have to take care of your parents instead of vice versa is such a terrifying reality of modern medicine that it’s arresting to see it portrayed on TV, but there’s enough of a twist (Walter’s crazy, not senile) that the viewer isn’t forced to over-identify with the situation. I know there are a few comparable parent/child relationships on TV (Spencer and his mother in Criminal Minds springs to mind), but none that I know of where we see the relationship day in, day out. We see the good days, the bad days; the triumphs, the frustration. The balance between humour (maaad scientist Walter! :D!) and poignancy (maaad scientist Walter… :() is really very well done.
AND THEN. The revelation that Walter stole Peter is just horrifying in a way that never stops being horrifying. There is literally no one on the show whose motivations I don’t understand, which considering most shows thoroughly demonize their antagonists, is worth repeating: everyone who acts evilly has their reasons. Even when Walternate is at his most eeeevil, I still think: “well, damn, someone stole his son and parts of his world started collapsing as a result. I’d be pissed, too.”
The Walter/Peter relationship is the one part of the show I think is consistently outstanding. Elsewhere, my feelings get a little iffy…
Characterization and backstory: C-, could do better. Ironically, I think the show does a better-than-average job of humanizing the bit players in its cases of the week, making the audience care about characters that are only on screen for maybe 7 minutes total. But when it comes to the core cast… ehh.
Have we learned a single thing about Peter’s shady past that wasn’t basically a deus ex machina for the case of the week? He speaks Cantonese! …which allows them to solve the illegal-immigrants-with-bugs-inside-them case. He knows a dodgy book dealer! He has contacts in Iraq! He knows a tech whiz! …which allows them to solve x, y and z cases.
Astrid, of course, is even worse. If I worked on the show, I would genuinely be embarrassed that, at the midpoint of s3, there is a series regular about whom we know so little. I can list Astrid’s backstory on the fingers of one hand: she majored in Linguistics; she likes to take apart computers; she lives in Somerville… THAT’S IT. I still have two fingers left! (…one finger and a thumb.) Why don’t we know anything about her family, friends, hobbies, passions?
(Compare Astrid with Garcia on Criminal Minds: both perform approximately the same role: non-field-based; exposition fairy. But Garcia is… GARCIA. Her personality shines out of every scene she’s in. You only need to watch one episode of CM to grasp that Garcia is funny and inappropriate and geeky and insecure and big-hearted. You can guess at what she does in her spare time; you can guess at what her family’s like and how she chooses her friends. I try to imagine Astrid’s life outside the lab and I just draw a huge blank.)
This, incidentally, is why I disagree with people who try too hard to call Fringe feminist or woman-centric. We have Olivia. Olivia’s great! But Olivia is the classic female protagonist who’s completely surrounded by men. (C/f. Sydney Bristow.) Sure, Olivia is leaps and bounds ahead of a lot of other female characters on TV. She wears sensible shoes and pulls her hair back in a ponytail and doesn’t trowel on the make-up*. In dicey situations, she saves her own damn self. This is all stuff that I love.
*Altlivia = bad eyeliner situation. ::shakes head::
But I still can’t help but feel they’ve given Olivia a lot of classically-masculine attributes (she’s stoic, emotionally closed-off, etc.) and all attempts to make her seem feminine feel pastede on yey. Rachel and Ella were parachuted in to give Olivia a chance to be soft and loving and yet it never quite clicked. Olivia and Rachel never felt like sisters to me - more like distant college roommates. (Also, geeeeez, now we learn that Rachel has moved to Chicago with her emotionally-abusive husband. WTF? Are we not going to get any more resolution to this stunted storyline?)
So, to be honest, I can’t help but feel it’s yet another show about the same unemotional male FBI agent archetype who, in this case, happens to be female.
Wow. That was a lot of wordage. After writing 1,000 words about Fringe, I should probably now go and write 1,000 words of my novel. *facepalm*
On a final note, I will say: I love that there are real, screwy emotional issues keeping the Golden Couple apart. (I ‘ship Peter/Olivia, but only in a vague sort of way.) I hope the show continues to not shy away from this, because Peter and Olivia’s scenes in Marionette were on an absolute emotional knife edge and I loved it.
(toastandtea wrote a great post about Peter/Olivia in this episode, so I’ll just link to that.)