Posted on 09/23/2011 10:51:16 AM PDT by Lucky9teen
Entering its fourth season on FOX, Fringe continues to reign as one of the most innovative, impressive and ingenious shows on television – and rightfully so. The character relationships, science stories and carefully woven mythology have made the show not just a hit among fans, but among critics as well.
In anticipation of the season premiere tonight, here is a compiled brief summary of what may be important for you to know – and remember – from last season.
We were always aware that due to Peter’s connection with the Doomsday device, there would be a consequence – but we never could have guessed how massive this consequence could be. After Walternate activated the machine in the parallel universe, Peter activated the prime universe’s own machine in order to try to stop it. He was sent 15 years into the future (which included a world run by Walternate and a stable a marriage with Olivia) and found that the universe was suffering from multiple wormholes, as a result of the prime and parallel universes being merged together.
Upon waking up again back in 2011, Peter eventually realized that the only way to truly destroy the machine was to merge the two universes by bringing the two machine rooms together, thus creating a bridge. After appearing to convince both universes that they need to work together to destroy the machine, Peter disappeared – having apparently never existed in the first place.
So, what is Peter’s “role” in the world’s master plan now that he doesn’t exist? Since cast and crew are keeping mum about his plot point, all we know is that Joshua Jackson is certainly returning to the show, which means we’ll hopefully get the answer to our question sooner rather than later.
Over here or over there?
Undoubtedly the biggest aspect of Fringe’s second season was the ongoing war between the two universes – the prime and the parallel. We began the season with prime universe Olivia being trapped in the parallel world after a deceptive switch that left Bolivia to take on infiltrating the prime world Fringe division. Until Olivia managed to find a way to cross back over, Bolivia set the season in motion in many ways – including taking charge of a budding romance with Peter. This left prime world Olivia in a lurch when she finally returned, as she found that Peter had started a real romantic relationship – just not exactly with her.
With the two universes now merged, even just for a little while, we can bet on seeing a lot of parallel universe characters mixed in with their prime ones. The big question is, how will this affect our characters and their interactions?
At the end of the first season, we were left with the following cliffhanger: even though we had been seeing Peter all season…he was actually dead. In the second season, we came to find out that Walter’s real son, the Peter in the prime universe, had died when he was a child. When Walter discovered the parallel universe (and parallel versions of himself, his wife and Peter) he became obsessed with watching them, using this obsession to cure his own sadness that his son’s death had caused. The final straw was when Walter watched Walternate miss the correct cure for Peter’s illness. Along with his Massive Dynamic colleague William Bell, Walter devised a way to cross over into the parallel universe where he took Peter and brought him over to the prime universe to replace the Peter who had died. And although he had every intention of returning him once he was cured, Walter became unable to do so once he grew to love Peter as his own.
To build on that history, we discovered that both Peter and Olivia had met before – as children in Jacksonville, where Walter was using young kids to experiment with Cortexiphan. Olivia (as a child) had found a way to cross over into the parallel universe, and Walter tried to use it as a way to understand his own work. Peter and Olivia took the time to bond with each other as children, giving each other the same kind of support and advice they would later come to rely on in the future.
In the parallel universe, we learned that Bolivia was pregnant with a child – by Peter, whom she started a relationship with during her time in the prime universe. When Walternate discovered this, he kidnapped her and used a procedure to speed up her pregnancy. Ultimately, Bolivia escaped and delivered her child normally (with a little help from parallel universe Lincoln Lee, who had a soft spot for Bolivia all season.)
It was later revealed that Walternate (who figured out Bolivia’s child was a result of her and Peter’s relationship in the prime universe) was using Bolivia in order to get a blood sample of her new son – believing that if he had enough, he could activate the doomsday machine.
It’s been a long summer…but we’ve almost reached the end. Are you ready for season 4? Fringe returns on Friday, September 23 at 9/8c on FOX.
Everything is now fresh in our minds and we are ready for Fringe!
Yehaw!
Of course, I cannot watch it the next day on FOX.com any longer, but I will figure some way to see it.
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I love the fringe. It is probably my favorite sci fi show. Falling Skies would be next on the list or tied.
Peter - never was. We have that on good authority from The Observers, who engineered the warping of the history of the parallel worlds, with the representatives of the two universes looking at each other with some trepidition and puzzlement, not remembering why they were even in the same room.
The possible postulate: that the parallel worlds already depicted were NOT the only two alternate universes, but a vast multitute of realities, and “our” Peter simply disappeared into one of these other dimensions.
Peter will be back, and The Observers shall be confounded yet one more time, as the transient Olivia/Bolivia proves to be an individual that exists in a number of different configurations, yet all interconnected at some existential level.
Curiouser and curiouser.
This show intrigues me but I’ve never watched it.
So help me out, is the only way to get into it to get the DVDs and start with the first season, or could one jump right in?
It is worth watching, and IMHO, the two-hour premiere (first episodes) was the best premiere of any t.v. show I have ever seen. It was spooky, eerie, scary, action-filled, interesting characters. It hooked me immediately.
Wonder what the cross-talk is like in Fringe’s writers room?
I wish Anna Torv lived in my universe just sayin
Has anyone been watching “Dark Matters” on the science channel hosted by John Noble? It is awesome, and i love how “Walter Bishop”/”Walternate” hosts it, LOL!
This is such a fundamental question, I was amazed that none of the "investigators" asked it right from the start. "Ummm...how does a baby put on a hundred pounds of meat in the cellar of a hospital?" These guys are supposed to be bright, aren't they?
The very idea was so utterly ludicrous and unscientific I tuned out and never came back.
This show does require one to suspend belief.
It does lay some interesting paranormal events...hence the title of the show, IMO.
Like you, I was a late to the show. I chose to get the DVDs to catch up. IMHO it was well worth it. I would describe the show as a combination of The X Files and Lost. So if you liked those you’d like Fringe.
Love the show, but I have to admit that keeping up with all its twists and turns is like being back in high school doing math homework every night.
I’ve been watching it religiously, though usually one day after on-line so I can take screenshots of the Observer. FOX’s new policy means I would have to wait for a week to watch the episodes.
Don’t you mean “Fauxlivia?”
I’ve watched it from the beginning and have never missed an episode. However, I have become lost in the storyline many times due to complicated plot development. I think one would be unable to understand what was going on without the previous seasons stories.
One episode a couple of seasons ago made the connection between Fringe and X-Files by noting that the Fringe Division sprang from the X-Files.
Wow, very cool, thanks. I’ll be working my way through the past episodes for sure.
Really, I must have missed the reference. Oh no! I’ll have to back and watch the entire series again, ha ha ha. Thanks for the tip
No joke. She’s kind of, well - plain - and yet has an aura of smoldering hot charisma all at the same time. She can say more with a look than most women can with a whole script. One of the few women that rivet my attention whenever she’s on screen.
If Peter "never existed", then why do we even know about the parallel universe? The destruction of the other side began when Walter stole Peter from the other side. If Peter never existed, then no degradation would be happening and there would be no "war" between the two universes.
What do you think?
[ If Peter “never existed”, then why do we even know about the parallel universe? The destruction of the other side began when Walter stole Peter from the other side. If Peter never existed, then no degradation would be happening and there would be no “war” between the two universes. ]
Peter existed as a child in both universes, he died from the illness in this universe, then when our walter stole the alternate one when they went through the machine the Observer didn’t rescue them from the water when they fell into the lake so Walternate still lost his son, only time he died from drowning in the lake. Walter somehow survived, maybe he was able to get out from the ice on his own.
If it wasn’t for the observer saving yound peter from the ice he wouldn’t exist as an adult in the timeline. Maybe the child peter was preserved, as evidenced by the altered timeline Walter working on somethign to revive that dead bird....
Mine bending stuff, grab another gin and tonic, enjoy the ride. This season is going to fantastic!
Anna Torv is a frickin Goddess
So, that is where my questions come from. The first episode of this current season indicates that none of the characters do remember Peter, so; as the Observers said, "he never existed". And, if he never existed, then there are problems with the whole last three seasons; or, with the first episode of this season.
Unless Bob and Emily Wake up and Bob says I just had the strangest dream
LOL! I said the same thing to my husband last week.
I think the Observers’ messing in the timeline goes back to when October saved altPeter on this side. That would mean that Walter had already taken altWalter’s son. That seems to be the way that memories are playing out. None of them remembers an adult Peter... yet.
Michael Cerveris plays "September", one of the bald-headed Observers, and appears once in every episode.
In case you are around — we need the October 7, 2011 PING!!
I almost forgot...thanx
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Pingaling! ;)
LOL...I’m such a dork. I went to ping you and forgot to paste your name in the TO: field...and ended up pinging myself. Errr... ;-P
watched for first time tonight.
please add me to ping list?
As a general rule I loath time travel stories, too much deus ex machina for my taste; but Fringe still has me hooked. The only other thing currently on that comes close is Haven. Thanks for doing the list.
“They don't remember him.” “How could they, he never existed.”
That was a big problem for me too, LibertarianLiz. Then in the first scene of the first episode of this season, two observers (October and December) meet in a diner. Here’s the transcript from: http://www.fringepedia.net
THE OBSERVER: (somberly) I received your message.
DECEMBER: Then you know we have a problem.
THE OBSERVER: (emphatic) It is impossible. The timeline has been rewritten. He was erased. And yet traces of him continue to bleed through.
DECEMBER: It is, as it has always been, our responsibility to insure events play out, as they were intended, before your intervention. This started with you. It must be you who ends it. (hands over a small metallic bar)
DECEMBER: They can never know the boy lived to be a man.
THE OBSERVER: I will take care of it.
That tells me the writers made a little “boo-boo” on the close of last season. October (The Observer) should not have said “he never existed” but more like - he never existed past childhood. Walter confirms this in the 3rd episode - last night.
http://www.fringepedia.net is awesome BTW. Helps me with this amazing program.
At least this is how I understand it in the universe I'm in currently.
As I said with my previous posts, you can just keep going on and on about how this negates WAY too much of the past storyline.
However, it also makes abudantly clear that Peter is the lynch pin of the entire tale.
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PING
Peter never existed as an adult. Last week, Walter said that he stole the alternate Peter but when they re-entered the real world, they fell through the ice and Peter drowned. So, in the current reality, Peter has died in childhood, rather than being rescued by the man in the big black hat.
For those who come to the thread for tonights episode...Fringe is not new tonight, so....
Catch an encore of the Season 4 Premiere episode, “Neither Here Nor There”, TONIGHT at 9/8c! - http://bit.ly/mVLIx7
It’ll be back next week with a new episode though, so I’ll ping ya’ll then. ;)
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