Fringe S03E19 - Lysergic Acid Diethylamide [** Spoilers **]

Richard Dower

ALL kinds of awesome!!!...seriously, i thought that was the BEST episode of the entire 3 seasons, incrediable stuff!.

I got Matrix and A Scanner Darkly chills from the rotoscoping scenes, i couldn't belive how amazing it look. Must have taken ages!!...huge props to ZOIC studios.

Everything abou that ep. was class, utter class...hillarious moments!, Broyles tripping out on LSD was the funniest thing ever!

They way they used Olivia's mind to bring back Bell was fantastic, fair dues to Leonard Nimoy....he recorded alot of dialogue for that ep.

It was trippy and just incrediable tv, glued to the set i was....then......

BOMBSHELL ENDING! :eek:

Mr. X is gonna kill Olivia???????? :eek:

5/5 from me, gonna rewatch it tonight....bravo!

I thought the exact opposite. I hated the animation and the story. Just thought the whole thing was filler.

Mr E

A good buzz

Much as it pains me to say it, I'm on the same page as Mr. Dower with this one.

The animation was a wonderful surprise, and the whole episode was full of action and humour. Bloody brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant.

I'll rename the thread and add a poll now.

CivilServant

Just got the munchies and nothing else

Another boring episode. Fringe is going downhill fast. It was clear why the animation was added but why only start when they met Bell, why not from the beginning of the dream state. I didn't like the animation either. Seems like they are trying to stitch together stylistic elements to make it interesting, but it didn't work. The whole Belivia thing feels like filler.

Antar Bolaeisk

Didn't feel anything

So the whole Bell's Katra in Oliva storyline is essentially over now and did absolutely nothing other than provide filler for a few episodes. It would appear Bell is properly dead this time and won't be coming back as a cow within the near future but if they wanted to kill him off properly they could have just left him dead. As it stands his return didn't progress the story any at all, merely provided a bit of an amusing aside.

Olivia also seems to have forgotten Peter's little killing spree and that little bit at the end, the reveal that Mr X is going to kill her, was completely out of nowhere and felt like something from Lost.

The episode itself was quite good, especially near the end when only Bell is left to save Olivia and that sliver of doubt remains as to whether he will sacrifice her for his continued existence, plus it had cartoon zombies which automatically grants bonus points. The cgi was obviously required since Nimoy has given up the whole acting gig, again.

Anyone else think they missed a trick though when they didn't venture into Bell's mind while within Olivia's

Sad Professor

It gave me a headache

Voice acting is still acting, so Nimoy ain't retired anymore. I'll be very surprised if he doesn't show up physically in the finale.

Anyway, while this episode had its moments, overall I thought it was a crap resolution to a crap sub-plot. I'm not at all pleased with the show at the moment. It's taken a major dive the last few episodes imo.

I miss the standalone episodes. At least when they sucked you could just forget they ever happened. But the show has become (to its detriment) increasingly serialised this season. Which means we get stuck with the bad ideas for several episodes instead of one.

Redisle

Sad Professor wrote: »

Anyway, while this episode had its moments, overall I thought it was a crap resolution to a crap sub-plot. I'm not at all pleased with the show at the moment. It's taken a major dive the last few episodes imo.

Agreed. While the episode had some funny moments like Broyles tripping I have hated the "Soul Magnets" storyline since they introduced it. Completely and utterly pointless. They made a huge mistake in casting Nimoy for such an important role in the first place. While he was an absolutely perfect choice they knew damn well he wouldn't be available for long and have really stabbed themselves in the foot long term.

They didn't even have ANY story progression along with this stupid sub-plot. Im guessing about the only thing we will see out of this in the main arc is perhaps Peter finally decoding those shape shifter discs since Bell told him the locaiton of the keys.. other than that.. sfa else as far as I can see.

The ending about Mr.X was a bit meh too tbh. Really dosen't do anything for me and dosent tie into the main story arc at all.

Dempsey

What was the point of going animated??

Richard Dower, you should spoiler your OP imo

Sad Professor

It gave me a headache

Dempsey wrote: »

Richard Dower, you should spoiler your OP imo

There's a spoiler warning in the thread title though.

don ramo

A good buzz

i think the whole soul magnets was more for olivia and walter to realise there full potential, walter has been doubthing every step he has made for the past 2 seasons, and olivia has always been trapped inside herself, that armoured shell she has around her has set up a lot of road blocks for her throughout her life, maybe she needs to be able to let go for something coming up,

i duoubth they came up with such an expansive sub-plot for no reason at all,

i thought the animation was ecellent, i dunno why theres any negativity, it worked cause it was a dream, the more casual viewers probably dont know the ins and outs if what actors are available to reprise there roles, but i think fringe has done well with reintroducing a caracater in an inventive way, espeacially this episode, anna torv seemed to be channeling william bell perfectly (right before she had him removed), you nearly forget she was olivia, i thought she done only ok when bell first took over olivas body, but she seems to have got better as it went along, natural i suppose

3 episodes left. and i just say the last episode is called "the day we died"

ratedR

It gave me a headache

Mixed feelings on this. I liked the annimation, and the humour. Peter fighting the zombies was brilliant Fair play to them for being a little bold and different. However, the episode felt like filler.

They were rescuing Olivia from her own mind... Hmmm.

With the ratings going the way they are, they should surely be concentrating on getting on with telling the story. Are they trying to win new fans ? To be honest it's a bit late to be getting into it now.
The only thing I guess is that they threw us the Mr. X t-shirt dude going to kill Olivia thing.

There have been a few eps this season where I've just felt "meh". That never happened before. I think the whole mystery of the show is kinda gone to be honest. The only card they have left is the machine.

opr

So glad this is renewed because I can see episodes like that completely alienating a large section of the viewers. I enjoyed it for the bit of fun that it was but it did feel very wtf are they doing watching it.

Edit - Actually thinking back it did make me laugh loads. "Astro are we ready?" Walters face when Astrid replied with the great line "Just about Wally"

Opr

KoolKid

Worst episode to date for me.
The animation didn't work, it just felt vey cheap & nothing new was learnt.

The Black Oil

After watching it I was scratching my heading trying to think of what to say on this one. I think it worked a bit better on the daftometer level say compared to the normal Fringeometer, I'm not sure. I thought it was a bit choppy early on (the science/soul magnets and pacing) and I wanted to give the animation a fair chance. The amination sort of pulled me out of the episode once Peter started killing the zombies before jumping on the Zeppelin, but it improved later on. The animation stuff is pretty risky and I think it's quite hard to carry an episode this way, when pretty much all you have is your leads, supporting characters and very few others. Trippy Broyles was a touch of brilliance, though.

ixoy

I wanted to like this.. but I couldn't. Like others I felt disconnected from them all once the animation started. I couldn't invest any emotional attachment in it.

Broyles was class though.

tvnutz

Just got the munchies and nothing else

Gah...I don't know,this episode just felt weird. I have to agree with one point that this whole Bell storyline seemed like just filler. What was the point? If u wanted to bring the character back,which there was no real need to,then bring him back if you have the actor to play him,which you don't, so instead u have to do this animated thing to get him back because u know he won't actually come back. It just felt so contrived in a way.

It just seems the last few episode with this storyline were pointless. Yes you can say it had some small character progression nonsense,but did it really? I think this season has been excellent until the last 3 or 4 episodes which has seen a very evident dip in form. Let's hope it picks up for the last few.

Richard Dower

A good buzz

^ quite surprised by the negative reactions.

expectationlost

Didn't feel anything

maybe olivia has some of bell's knowledge now?

expectationlost

Didn't feel anything

nevermind the animation what about the product placement, main characters friend has died would you like to use this product

note how ep 19 of the the last series was the musical one , is a tradition of querky ep 19's?

so is he an observer?

I'd preferred this over the house dream ep, atleast with this we knew we were going into a drug induced dream, we got what was expected, again with the evil lab guy, zombies on the roof of wtc is upsetting some people, quite inception like with the people attacking them in a created world, but inception wasn't the first to do that.

Otacon

Didn't feel anything

I would have to disagree with the filler description for this 'soul magnets' plot. While it didn't propel the main plotline forward, it brought the main characters to where they needed to be. Walter will now trust himself more, which I think will tie into the finale, as will Olivia's new found strenght.

I liked the 'A Scanner Darkly' reference. I lol'ed hard when they first moved over to the animation and the think-bubble appeared over Walter, saying 'How wonderful.' Absolutely brilliant.

GSPfan

A good buzz

The word FILLER should be banned. People just throw it around when they don't get alternate universe episodes. The CHARACTERS are the main storyline. Any development of Olivia, Peter, Walter is essential to the show.

I thought it was fantastic. Just having the balls to do it scores massive points for me. I was expecting something completely different. Loved it.

p.s. The last line could have been lifted from a Lost episode.

Dempsey

Watched the episode again, anyone else notice that cartoon William Bell was pouring himself a glass of McCutcheon whiskey (the whiskey that was constantly referenced in Lost)?

Sad Professor

It gave me a headache

Dempsey wrote: »

Watched the episode again, anyone else notice that cartoon William Bell was pouring himself a glass of McCutcheon whiskey (the whiskey that was constantly referenced in Lost)?

Ha, good catch. I hadn't noticed that.

Richard Dower

A good buzz

GSPfan wrote: »

The word FILLER should be banned. People just throw it around when they don't get alternate universe episodes. The CHARACTERS are the main storyline. Any development of Olivia, Peter, Walter is essential to the show.

I thought it was fantastic. Just having the balls to do it scores massive points for me. I was expecting something completely different. Loved it.

p.s. The last line could have been lifted from a Lost episode.

^ that's my feeling....they did something different, also i'm a fan of rotoscoping thus i was thrilled to see it in Fringe, total surprise for me!

Johnmb

GSPfan wrote: »

The word FILLER should be banned. People just throw it around when they don't get alternate universe episodes. The CHARACTERS are the main storyline. Any development of Olivia, Peter, Walter is essential to the show.

I thought it was fantastic. Just having the balls to do it scores massive points for me. I was expecting something completely different. Loved it.

p.s. The last line could have been lifted from a Lost episode.

Fringe, much like Lost, has become very series arc driven. Episodes can't be taken on their own. While people may think that nothing important happened in a particular episode, it could take a few episodes before the importance of an event in a previous episode is realised. Maybe this episode was purely to help make some changes to Walter and Olivia's characters (which in itself is big enough to not be considered filler), but it's also possible that something else that has occurred during the last few episodes with Bell will become very important by the time of the finale. At the end of the series people can go back and pronounce episodes to be "filler" if they like, but they can't accurately do that during the series with this type of show because who knows what parts are going to be expanded in future episodes?

redt0m

There was no rotoscoping in that episode - it was all cell-shaded 3d animation.

Richard Dower

A good buzz

redt0m wrote: »

There was no rotoscoping in that episode - it was all cell-shaded 3d animation.

Not even the scenes in William Bell's office?....that scene seemed to be rotoscoped to me, the rest was as you say.

Richard Dower

A good buzz

Johnmb wrote: »

Fringe, much like Lost, has become very series arc driven. Episodes can't be taken on their own. While people may think that nothing important happened in a particular episode, it could take a few episodes before the importance of an event in a previous episode is realised. Maybe this episode was purely to help make some changes to Walter and Olivia's characters (which in itself is big enough to not be considered filler), but it's also possible that something else that has occurred during the last few episodes with Bell will become very important by the time of the finale. At the end of the series people can go back and pronounce episodes to be "filler" if they like, but they can't accurately do that during the series with this type of show because who knows what parts are going to be expanded in future episodes?

One hopes your observations are correct, but history shows us more often then not filler is just that.