Reasons to Love Fringe Part 1: Characters
Preamble:
With less than a month to go, I've decided to make a series of posts on the things I find great about Fringe as a way of gearing up for season 3. Originally the idea was to encourage new people to watch, but as I went on I found that in order to do the series justice I ended up having to include rather a lot of major spoilers (for aired episodes), more than would be ideal for that kind of thing. Thus, it ended up being a kind of hybrid of several things. The whole set of posts contains spoilers for the whole series so far (two seasons). Individual sections may have less. If you've never watched before, you are still very welcome to read, but please be warned that it may tell you more about the major plot elements than you want to know.
With that said, off we go! (image-heavy)
Characters
Fringe is, in my opinion, at its heart a character show, and accordingly it has a wonderful set of characters. Their struggles and relationships with each other provide the emotional resonance that drives the show and makes it truly compelling television.
"I am emotional. I do bring it into my work. It’s what motivates me. It helps me to get into the headspace of our victims… See what they’ve seen. Even if I don’t want to, even if it horrifies me. And I think it makes me a better agent. If you have a problem with that, sorry. You can fire me. But I hope you don’t."
Olivia Dunham, The Cure
The obvious place to start. Among the main three, Olivia has the greatest claim to being the main character of Fringe, and a fantastic one she is too. She has all the elements of a great hero: she's haunted, yet strong and incredibly driven. Saving the world and protecting people matter far more to her than her own safety, and no matter how difficult, painful or personal a case may be, she picks herself up and does what it takes to finish the job. It's no secret that I love Olivia - I admire that passion and dedication to her job so much.
Even more than this, she is a triumph of a female character. While Olivia is extremely brave, determined and strong, she is not a stereotypical 'strong woman' character. Yes, she is hot and badass, but somehow Fringe never really plays the 'hot badass chick' card (despite some slightly gratuitous tank/underwear shots), letting it speak for itself instead. She's so broken inside that she keeps herself constantly guarded to avoid being vulnerable, so she's terrible at opening up and letting other people get close to her. She's occasionally snarky, but not excessively so. All in all, she is a well thought out, flawed but heroic, believable character.
PETER: It means 'be a better man than your father'. Walter was already gone. It was like a code between my mother and me. It meant keep your people close. Take care of the people you care about.
OLIVIA: Well you're good at that.
A New Day in the Old Town
The snarky bad boy genius with a dangerous past and a troubled relationship with his father (and it's not as cliché as it sounds). Beneath the hard exterior lies a man who cares deeply for the people he loves and will do anything to help them, a man who always wanted his father to love him and struggled to fit in anywhere. The amount of growth in Peter over the past two seasons has been stunning (at least until it all blew up in his face :( ).
And of course, all of this is not to overlook his general awesomeness: the magic tricks; the piano playing; the 190 IQ; the weird connections; the ability to fix anything mechanical etc etc etc
"So much. So much happened here. And so much is about to"
Walter Bishop, Pilot
"You robbed me of my memories of my wife, of my son, of my past!"
Walter Bishop, Over There Part II
Walter's character manages the difficult task of providing both comic relief and hard-hitting, gripping emotional hooks. Walter exemplifies the moral ambiguity present in so many Fringe characters and plots: we the audience like and sympathise with the broken Walter of the present, but yet we remain aware of the danger presented by the brilliant but arrogant Walter of the past and cannot forget the terrible things he has done in his pursuit of science. We may want to condemn him for experimenting on children and for stealing a child and then lying about it for over 20 years, but at the same time we are moved by his earnest struggle to regain his memories and undo the evil he has created.
"I am not brushing a cow's teeth Walter. You know I have real work to do, right?"
Astrid Farnsworth, Safe
Astrid is just plain awesome. Seriously. She majored in Linguistics and minored in Computer Science, knows about codebreaking, is really good at baking and looks after Walter. Yet she just doesn't get the credit she deserves. More Astrid please!
"Is that a cow?"
Charlie Francis, Pilot
"I wasn't gonna tell you this… but he said he loved me too. "
Charlie Francis, The Ghost Network
Ah, Charlie. Olivia's steadfast and loyal close friend and colleague, who just takes all the weirdness in his stride and looks out for Olivia constantly. He has the most adorable relationship with his wife, and there's something magnetic about him when he's being authoritative."It has arrived. "
September, The Arrival
The mysterious man in a suit who has no eyebrows, eats really spicy food and observes all the Fringe cases. As might be expected, Fringe takes a huge amount of inspiration from science, and we can see this in the Observer(s). We find mentions of observers in quantum mechanics, where the act of observing something, for instance taking measurements in an experiment, has an effect on the thing being observed. Fringe explores this idea by having characters actually named 'observers', who do (as we see later in s2) have an effect on the events they observe.
"You should know what you're getting into, Agent Dunham. I would say this to my own daughter: "Be careful and good luck." "
Nina Sharp, Pilot
Nina is...slippery. Sly. Devious. Cryptic. And so on. She is William Bell's second in command (with a robotic arm!) who seems to have mysterious connections to several of the Fringe team. Guess we'll just have to wait to see what's going on there...
"I understand you have operational authority here. But there are people in there that are like family to me. Another ten minutes. "
Philip Broyles, What Lies Below
Broyles may seem hard and authoritative, but underneath he cares deeply about his team. It's wonderful to see him come to respect Olivia and trust her judgement after initially appearing to dislike her.
"Hello, you"
David Robert Jones, Ability
One of the creepiest villains I have seen on television in a while.
"Energy will be dispersed, no one will die, and I will pull Arlette from that car and I will save her life. "
Alistair Peck, White Tulip
Alistair Peck was only in one episode, but yet his story really caught my attention (mostly because of that disgusting device embedded in his skin :P). In all seriousness, his was a moving, thought-provoking and all round excellent episode. Fantastic work by Peter Weller!
"She crossed my mind... Somehow. She never left it. I think... it's what they call... feelings. I think... I love her. Will she be safe now?"
August, August
Much like Alistair Peck, August's story sticks out, because it was touching, yes, but also because it posed interesting questions: who are the Observers? What are the Observers? What is their purpose? How do they know the things they know?
"You taught me there are as many atoms in the human body as there are stars in the sky."
William Bell, Over There, Part II
William Bell spent season one as the mysterious man behind the curtain, the enigmatic head of a (truly 'massive') multi billion dollar corporation...who, as it happens, enjoys red vines. The jury still seems to be out on whose side he's really on. Besides, Leonard freaking Nimoy!
"Look at these cows and remember that the greatest scientists in the world have never discovered how to make grass into milk"
Michael Pupin
*splat*
Mr Papaya, The Cure
"MOO!"
Gene, The Cure (and other episodes)
Before I go, let's spare a thought for our non-human characters. Now where's that Gene/Mr Papaya love letter from jjverse...