Definitely an improvement on Season 1. It has its weak episodes (may I one day forget the mistake that is “Brown Betty”), but it certainly has less filler and more cohesion and momentum than its predecessor.
★★★★★★★★☆☆
I stopped watching Fringe a bit into season 2, and the only reason why I even got that far was the praise the show was getting, especially further on.
So, here’s a question: from what you’ve seen thus far, does the writing improve past about mid-season 2? For reference, up until that point I found the show to be a lobotomized X-Files knock-off, and a truly idiotic one at that, it being extremely high on explaining EVERYTHING to the cheap seats which infuriated me to no end. It’s as if they aimed for a cult show, but tailored it for the soap crowd. I liked the premise fine (love the X-Files etc), but that along with rote characters, lazy plotting etc. completely killed it for me. Couldn’t even force myself to skip through for Nimoy…
I’m thinking, if people stop enjoying it half-way through perhaps I’d like it past that point. I do want a decent X-Files knock-off…
For me, the show improved tremendously once it moved past the X-Files-lite “monster of the week” episodes and started focusing on the conflict with the alternate universe. That said, if you’ve already seen the episode “Peter” and still don’t like it, there’s no point continuing. Besides, with the 4th season undoing everything which came before, what’s the point? The best developments end up nullified, anyway.