Fringe - Season 2 (US) [**Spoilers**]

J-blk

Thursdays are becoming pretty crowded on US TV from now on and along with a bunch of NBC comedies, Fringe returns on FOX tonight (so we should expect it around here by tomorrow ). This started as a kind-of-interesting but not must-watch show for me last year but went from strength to strength, having one of the best season finales IMO. I'll be following the show more closely this year and hope it can improve on its' solid 1st season. As a few people will have probably watched new episodes on Friday, please be prepared for spoilers if you come wandering into this thread - they will not be spoiler tagged. I'd still ask anyone sharing info about future episodes to please spoiler tag those, in order to not ruin things for people who want to be completely spoiler-free going into a new episode... Feel free to share any crazy theories about where things are going though or where in the episode you spotted the Observer .

* Shameless plug: new episodes of Supernatural also air on Thursdays .

Basq

Yeah, I kinda drifted in and out of Fringe last year.

John Noble (Walter) being the absolute star of the show.. and I reckon the show would not be nearly as popular or successful without his character.

The last few episodes of the season were very good though alright.

petes

I really enjoyed it. Some episodes were a bit 'meh' but I thought it got stronger as it went on. As basquille said the last few episodes were very good.

Also agree with basq, withouth John Noble in it I don't even think even Pacey could save it!!

J-blk

And a bump for Fringe since the premiere is now out... Won't get to watch this until much later though, Supernatural is on anyway so has to be watched first .

Tristram

Glad Fringe is back

The Black Oil

<SNIP>

MOD EDIT: It's not necessary that we know that!

Meh, it was OK, not great, tbh. The whole

shapeshifter and 'we're being shutdown' angle has been done before. The little bit at the end with Charlie or should that be 'Charlie'?, was fairly obvious from the previous bit when Peter and the new female agent caught up with him.

Felt that Walter was underused and the whole thing was a bit on the dull side and flat.

Best line of the episode?

Go get that bitch!

J-blk

Thread is spoiler tagged in the title, no reason to use spoiler tags when discussing the current episode. People have been warned in the first post that on a Friday, most people posting here will most likely be discussing the current episode anyway...

The Black Oil

I think spoiler tags were used in the series 1 thread just in case, but I can't remember.

Oh, and there was a little

X Files reference in there as well, the series 6 episode Dreamland, I think.

J-blk

The Black Oil wrote: »

I think spoiler tags were used in the series 1 thread just in case, but I can't remember.

This isn't the season 1 thread so it doesn't matter . Like I said, it's spoiler tagged in the title and outlined in the first post. Feel free to clarify with a mod if you think you have to. The only exception is when discussing future episodes and sharing facts (rather than just theories). Spoiler tags everywhere in the thread get old fast...

Aaahhh. I should be going to class at 11. But, but, but there's new Fringe. Decisions, decisions.

sutty

The Black Oil wrote: »

Oh, and there was a little

X Files reference in there as well, the series 6 episode Dreamland, I think.

More than just that.

There was a direct ref to the "X" in the hearing

Good ep over all.

_JOE_

Good episode, not too revealing but i'm sure the story will develop fast...not sure if i like the new girl yet though...

Oh why do most television shows feel like they need to add new character which each new season. The worst offender is Lost with those two characters that only lasted maybe 5 episodes.

Loved the bit at the beginning when Olivia went flying through the windscreen. Very cool. However it was a bit hit and miss for me. Hopefully like last season, it will get stronger each episode.

No more Charlie as we know him though. This is not good. Plus Astrid is still underused.

tvnutz

I thought it was really good,the start with Olivia coming through the front window was brilliant,didn't expect anything like that to happen. I guess a good few episodes will be her trying to remember what happened when she met Bell.

I also thought the shapeshifting super soldier was cool. Ye shapeshifting has been done before but so what,it was done well here I think,and the soldier was bad-ass jumping out of that window and surviving being shot several times.

The new agent is really hot and it seems she can act,so no problem for me there.

I saw the Charlie thing coming,but it could be really cool. Reminded me of Alias where

Francie was 'doubled' and the real Francie was killed.

.

Solid opening for me,really enjoyed it.

J-blk

Solid overall and a pretty clever way to "reset" what Olivia learned about the alternate universe at the end of last season, without wiping everything out - like Tvnutz said, the next few episodes will probably be about her regaining those memories and figure out what she was supposed to do.

Charlie . Though TBH, is anyone on this show really ever dead/gone for good with all the alternate possibilities?

The new agent: what's with the Bible angle right at the end? I think she might turn out to be some kind of adversary/nut near the end of the season, rather than an ally. I don't think they'd go with two strong female FBI agents on the team so there's definitely more to her. And who supplied her with the password to access the confidential Fringe division files in the first place? She had it scribbled down on a piece of paper...

The only part that kind of seemed wrong to me is why would the committee reviewing Fringe division be persuaded to not shut them down solely because of an odd piece of broken technology? That thing could be anything and there's no real way to prove that it really works.

stevenmu

J-blk wrote: »

The new agent: what's with the Bible angle right at the end?

It looked like she was finding correlations between the fringe division cases and passages in the bible. Could be an interesting angle if the bible 'predicts' what will happen to some degree.

Redisle

Loved this show last season, but this first episode was a bit too predictable..

Second I saw that guy wandering into an apartment and pinning the guy up to the wall I thought "shapeshifter..". It's been done before, too many times.

I also knew straight away that the guy had turned into Charlie.. he ran to a specific place, obviously where the nurses body was hidden + why would a few extra bullets take down the shapeshifter when he/she was already hit twice through the chest by the new officer.

Maybe not giving her a chance but I don't like the new character. Charlie worked better.

Thought it was strange the episode starting with no sign of Charlie nor an explanation of his whereabouts and the Fringe division getting shut down.. don't remember mention of either of these things in the last few ep's of Season 1. This episode just didn't have the same sense of mystery/suspense as previous ones.

chamlis

I think it will be revealed that Broils gave the new agent the password when he gave her the statement to sign on the steps. That or we just don't know yet/she's actually a villain..

pixelburp

The new character was bland and uninteresting, not to mention a clichéd early season new addition, "Quick, we need new blood; throw in the enthusiastic newbie who forces her way into the team". Granted there may be some mystery with her -

where did she get the password from exactly? Though that could have been bad plotting

- but I felt nothing for her person. Doubly so when we already had two characters from season1 that suffered from consistent underuse; Astrid & Charlie. Why bring in new people when other cast members barely got any screentime?

As for the actual story itself, well it was real first-episode-of-a-new-season, to a fault.

First we get the finale of season 1 effectively dropped with all to convenient bout of amnesia. Oh joy. Then the aforementioned new character shoe-horned in. The new "threat" introduced out of thin air (our shape-shifter and his employers. Then finally the last scene with Charlie revealed to be the shifter's new identity.

Very lacklustre episode overall.

ixoy

I enjoyed it mostly but I agree with the comments on the shape-shifter. Indeed for all the nods to the X-Files, this was straight out of that show with the Bounty Hunter and other shifters that the show used to kill people. Oh and I was also reminded of that 'Alias' moment that J.J. also wrote. Interesting way of changing though.

New agent is fairly bland but then so is Dunham! It's a bit early to judge yet.

Dunham forgetting is a bit convenient - I'm guessing Nimoy was hard to book? I hope they don't stretch it out too long because the ZFT/alternate-worlds arc is the main reason I watch the show. I find the MOTW bits tend a little bit too much towards the derivative. Still watching her ro

Shutting down Fringe again reminded me of the X-Files Season 2-ender. Not sure what's really the point if it's open 45 minutes later, even if it's with a new, fresh direction.

Still I quite quite enjoyed it overall, just not too enthused yet - much like during most of Season 1.

lostexpectation

always wear your seat belt, even in other dimensions...

missingtime

I love this show.

Didn't spot the observer myself but I did spot The X-Files on the tv at the start

Glad its back, I wont miss True Blood now I have something to watch on a Monday.

evil_seed

missingtime wrote: »

Didn't spot the observer myself

me either. did any1? and where? like the new agent, more eye candy

Basq

Think I read somewhere that you can see The Observer after the car crash..

EDIT: Yep, watch him walking past at the bottom of the screen here.. you'd need to be fairly eagle eyed to see that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61aN94OhAXA

basquille

basquille wrote: »

Think I read somewhere that you can see The Observer after the car crash..

EDIT: Yep, watch him walking past at the bottom of the screen here.. you'd need to be fairly eagle eyed to see that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61aN94OhAXA

Brilliant. Good to see him back.

The Black Oil

Episode 2 (spoilers)

Hmm, looks like we are back to the dynamic of a bad episode followed by a good one. Thought it was fairly solid this week. Always great to see Walter in the field, but his time there was very, very brief which is a shame. Thought Astrid would also be stealing a little more screen time, but this turned out not to be the case, either. Good to see Olivia back on her feet although there are clear risks with this and she seems to have developed some sort of heightened sense of hearing or is hearing things a fraction of a second before they occur, something like that? Good little scene when she almost shot Peter! The underground monster/weird DNA/mutant thing wasn't particularly original, but I guess this was almost an Olivia-centric episode, really, or the monster story was just a backdrop for character development. I think there's always a danger of shoehorning in some sort of PTSD type stuff in situations like this, but going with sensory glitches might be more in keeping with the show's brief. On the whole I enjoyed the set up of the episode and its execution. I thought Charlie would have been coming after Olivia more immediately, but perhaps it's no harm that they might be drawing this out a bit. Nice little scene with Walter and Peter towards the end.

Oh, the newbie female agent, why they did bother to include her this week?

missingtime

Episode reminded me, as it always does, of two X-Files episodes. The Host (similar monster) and the episode with the invisible creatures under the woods.

I really like the series though and unless there are drastic changes I will be following it week in week out.

"We are all victims of our gene pool, someone must have peed in yours" Well done Walter.

J-blk

The Black Oil wrote: »

she seems to have developed some sort of heightened sense of hearing or is hearing things a fraction of a second before they occur, something like that?

Definitely heightened "super" hearing, she's not hearing things before they happen. She could hear the fly buzzing and scurrying about, the guy talking on the phone from a large distance, etc.

Though I've never watched most of the X-Files, the "monster of the week" definitely reminded me of ones used there too but freaky mutants who can borrow underground are always good and creepy .

New agent + Bible... again. Maybe she should consider a career change?...

I'm still wondering what the deal is with shape-shifter Charlie. When he first came to use the typewriter, he looked like crap. I'm assuming he can't hold the same form for too long without ill effects and now that he no longer has the device he uses to shift, he's stuck as Charlie which is killing him or something. But later on in the episode, he seems to be coping well - so I wonder what helped him cope?

madrab

Felt like i was watching a wierd mix of Xfiles and House :-)

Loved her walking around on a cane & it WAS lupus for a change

missingtime

madrab wrote: »

Felt like i was watching a wierd mix of Xfiles and House :-)

Loved her walking around on a cane & it WAS lupus for a change

I was thinking of House as well...

GSPfan

Whats with the flashlights in this show. There's always a big line of light vertically or horizontally. Is it a JJ Abrams thing. Star Trek made my eyes hurt with all the lighting effects.

I love this show. Its very easy to just switch off and enjoy it without thinking too much about it. It gives you just enough pay off each time to satisfy you.

Some body remind me something tho will ya...........

At the end of last year Olivia was in an elevator and somehow got to an alternate reality? Where she met Spock?
So Whats with the whole Car crash thing. She returned from the alternate reality via the car window? But who was driving the car in the first place?

I'm asking these questions cause It's like I've missed something. Are we certain we are watching the original reality or could it be the alternate? We haven't seen the New York skyline have we? Or we haven't seen the FBI offices were the offices were decorated different? Olivia was jumping from one to the other reality remember? I'm confused.

If this is all part of the plot then it doesn't matter but I still feel like I've missed something.

Gingervitis

Just before she goes for lunch in the finale, she "almost" has an accident. I'm pretty sure that's when she switches reality; the lift scene is a red herring. Or it's a terrible ret con. hmmm

J-blk

Like Gingervitis said, she switches realities when she is just about to have the accident - everything after that point is in the other reality. That's why she originally goes to meet Nina Sharp at the end of the episode, who never shows up and when Olivia calls looking for her, she is told that she is out of the country. Not sure what to make of the elevator scene though, as people clearly disappear in it so it makes for a pretty odd scene if that's not the point where she crosses realities...

The flashing lights in the camera are put there on purpose - I remember reading something on them but have to dig up the link... they usually show up in scenes when something related to "the pattern" is about to happen...

GSPfan

Thanks guys. I'm actually gonna re-watch that last episode cause I obviously forgot or wasn't paying attention.

Thats interesting about the flashlight thing. Gonna do some research on that.

On a side note.... I really like the new agent. She's good to look at and I like the portrayal of women in general in this show.
Too many shows try to make their lead females so strong and independent that it makes the male characters look inferior in every way. Olivia is a very likeable character for me.

The Black Oil

I've heard the house used in episode 2 was the same one used in The X Files episode called Home which is quite dark and involves incest. Don't know if this is true, though.

Basq

The Black Oil wrote: »

I've heard the house used in episode 2 was the same one used in The X Files episode called Home which is quite dark and involves incest. Don't know if this is true, though.

Christ, I love that episode...

Distrurbing as feck.. but The X-Files at it's best!

The Black Oil

Indeed!

Again a fairly solid episode this week, although perhaps wrapped up fairly neatly and as expected. Good to see that all parties got a reasonable amount of screen time.

missingtime

Yup another strong episode...I dont know if its the particular videos I watch of Fringe but this one seemed to have much more imagery.

Anyone notice this?

Edit:

Seems to be lots and lots of Fringe viral sites about - must do some investigating when I have time

Here is a link to the Fringepedia symbol section. Interesting Read
http://fringepedia.net/wiki/Fringe_Symbols

stevenmu

I noticed that too, there seemed to be a symbol every ad break instead of just the one at the end. I'm not sure if that's the norm or something slightly new, but if it's new I hope it means there's a lot more of the main arc story coming soon. It kind of seemed that way from the ending of the episode anyway.

J-blk

I don't think the frequency of symbols is new but I'm not sure. Because they always appear at the ad break points, I just figured they mostly get edited out of the US airings we watch...

Enjoyable episode overall. Liked Olivia's line to the bowling alley guy to cut out all the Yoda crap . And I'm glad to see that they don't seem to be dragging on with her recovery too much - the cane is gone and she's already remembering snippets of her "trip".

Redisle

That was a pretty good episode. Im guessing we will be getting fragments of Olivia's memory back in the next few episodes with her "message" eventually getting told.
I was glad for a lack of that new "agent". Don't like her at all.

pixelburp

Strong enough episode, and the freaky event felt a bit more like Fringe, rather than the sub-par Xfiles episode of last week.

We also get a few more tidbits of info on the "war" and what side The Observer is potentially on. I had to laugh at the guest casting of Dexter's dad as the bad guy though. On the minus side, I'm not a fan of the bowling alley scenes, it's all too unoriginal; too cosy & way too much cod-psychology going on. Oh look, the apparent normal Joe's actually some kind of guru. Shock!

Oh an unrelated note, I'm not happy with Astrid's new hairdo, I preferred her old frizzy mop At least she's getting more than 2 lines per episode now though ...

JP Liz

Season 2 starts on 3e tonight - 3 must not be showing it anymore

ixoy

Pretty decent, although didn't Fringe have ticking human time bombs before?

Good to see a bit more of the Observer mythos as well as we start to get hints of what he's really after.

Favourite bit though was Dunham doing an anti-Lost and getting so pissed off with vague answers that she threatens to shoot someone. Why don't Jack & Co. just do that?

tvnutz

pixelburp wrote: »

Strong enough episode, and the freaky event felt a bit more like Fringe, rather than the sub-par Xfiles episode of last week.

We also get a few more tidbits of info on the "war" and what side The Observer is potentially on. I had to laugh at the guest casting of Dexter's dad as the bad guy though. On the minus side, I'm not a fan of the bowling alley scenes, it's all too unoriginal; too cosy & way too much cod-psychology going on. Oh look, the apparent normal Joe's actually some kind of guru. Shock!

Oh an unrelated note, I'm not happy with Astrid's new hairdo, I preferred her old frizzy mop At least she's getting more than 2 lines per episode now though ...

The bad guy was not the actor who plays Dexter's dad.

J-blk

tvnutz wrote: »

The bad guy was not the actor who plays Dexter's dad.

Yep, definitely not the same actor. Dexter's dad on "Dexter" is played by James Remar:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001664/

The Colonel in this episode was played by Stephen McHattie:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0570385/

pixelburp

J-blk wrote: »

Yep, definitely not the same actor. Dexter's dad on "Dexter" is played by James Remar:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001664/

The Colonel in this episode was played by Stephen McHattie:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0570385/

Hmmm, well to me there was a passing facial resemblance, to be fair

Though reading Stephen McHattie's acting list I now know where I saw him last - in Watchmen, as Hollis Mason

Oh oh. I loved the ending of this. Was really smart how they finally explained the briefcase that the Observer is always carrying. Do we think that the guy who is helping Olivia has also traveled to the alternate reality? Or is his experience solely on recovery after an accident

J-blk

He knew about the headaches before she even got them - so he obviously is more than just some sort of physical therapist...

The Black Oil

Going by Wiki, it seems to have slipped a little in the ratings. Maybe it's too early to judge if this pattern will continue.

L31mr0d

hmm... looks like the wikia is slipping. No info on where the observer was in episode 1 of Season 2 (did anyone see him?)

Supposedly the observer has very dull senses, which is why he puts so much pepper on his food to taste it.

Overall a good episode this week though. I really hope they flush the shapeshifter out of the story in the next episode or so. He's really adding nothing to it for me. Was kinda glad he didn't make an appearance in this episode.

What's the betting they will kill off the shapeshifter that looks like Charlie Francis, then replace him with a Charlie from another dimension :rolleyes: