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| Back To Where You've Never Been |
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| Enemy Of My Enemy |
Owing to personal events and a sudden backlog, I've decided to turn the two latest episodes of Fringe over to you, dear readers. What did you make of them? Personally, I'm glad season 4 finally has a credible use for Peter (as the "variable" of two universes, neither of which he belongs in), and it was a fantastic idea to bring back David Robert Jones (Jared Harris) because he's probably the best recurring villain Fringe ever had. It also makes some sense that DRJ was the person behind the bio-mechanical shapeshifters, fulfilling my old theory that the two universes will unify over a common enemy. The decision to reveal that Walternate isn't such a terrible person, and that Nina's in cahoots with Jones also worked really well, giving me a good feeling about the rest of this season and its general direction.
My only concern, and it's a big one, is that getting Peter back to his own timeline will likely reset Fringe back to the end of season 3... and if that happens, this entire season will have been nothing but a diversion. And if the show is cancelled by Fox this summer (which is a very real possibility because it's now unprofitable on Friday nights), will the producers regret spending their final season on a storyline that's ultimately unrelated to most of the characters we were following until season 3's finale? I hope there's a twist I'm not seeing which will make me feel better soon, but I can't help feeling very uncertain week by week. In some ways this season reminds me of Lost's fifth—great fun at the time, but in hindsight fairly irrelevant to the story, and the bigger picture wouldn't suffer if it was removed.
So those are my brief thoughts on Fringe's past few episodes. I'd love to hear what you're all making of this season. Sound off below!
written by David Fury & Graham Roland (4.8) & Monica Owusu-Breen & Alison Shapker (4.9) / directed by Jeannot Szwarc (4.8) & Joe Chappelle (4.9) / 13 & 20 January 2012 / Fox
