The best season yet. Anna Torv finally sports some flattering hairstyles (if only briefly), and there’s only a single episode I feel qualifies as a dud (“Os”). Those nice things said, I’m not pleased with the finale. It started off well, but the ending was rushed and sloppy; definitely a less than satisfying conclusion to the season’s arc, though I am interested in seeing where the show goes from here.

★★★★★★★★★☆

Twelve episodes in, and my journey with this show has come to an abrupt, unanticipated, and altogether unwelcome end.

SPOILERS

If the showrunners were going to overhaul the series — change the characters, their world, and start everything over from scratch — then they should’ve ended the third season with Peter merging the two universes. Going that direction, at least, could’ve allowed for new storytelling opportunities and interesting reinterpretations of existing characters. Instead, everyone and everything are reset to factory settings. Three seasons of character development and world-building — meaningless turds straight down the crapper. The only interesting development to come of this season is the reintroduction of David Robert Jones, but it’s not encouragement enough for me to sit through another slew of filler episodes featuring these neutered personalities.

Needless to say, I won’t be finishing the season and I won’t be watching Season 5. I’m going to pretend the ending of “The Day We Died” and everything thereafter never happened and that’ll be that.

And now, my overall ratings for all things Fringe:

SEASON 1

• “Pilot” – 8/10
• “The Same Old Story” – 6/10
• “The Ghost Network” – 8/10
• “The Arrival” – 8/10
• “Power Hungry” – 7/10
• “The Cure” – 7/10
• “In Which We Meet Mr. Jones” – 7/10
• “The Equation” – 8/10
• “The Dreamscape” – 8/10
• “Safe” – 8/10
• “Bound” – 5/10
• “The No-Brainer” – 6/10
• “The Transformation” – 7/10
• “Ability” – 7/10
• “Inner Child” – 8/10
• “Unleashed” – 6/10
• “Bad Dreams” – 8/10
• “Midnight” – 8/10
• “The Road Not Taken” – 8/10
• “There’s More Than One of Everything” – 8/10

SEASON’S RATING

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

SEASON 2

• “A New Day in the Old Town” – 8/10
• “Night of Desirable Objects” – 8/10
• “Fracture” – 8/10
• “Momentum Deferred” – 9/10
• “Dream Logic” – 7/10
• “Earthling” – 8/10
• “Of Human Action” – 6/10
• “August” – 8/10
• “Snakehead” – 8/10
• “Grey Matters” – 8/10
• “Unearthed” – 7/10
• “Johari Window” – 7/10
• “What Lies Below” – 7/10
• “The Bishop Revival” – 8/10
• “Jacksonville” – 8/10
• “Peter” – 9/10
• “Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver” – 8/10
• “White Tulip” – 9/10
• “The Man from the Other Side” – 8/10
• “Brown Betty” – 5/10
• “Northwest Passage” – 8/10
• “Over There” (Part 1) – 8/10
• “Over There” (Part 2) – 8/10

SEASON’S RATING

★★★★★★★★☆☆

SEASON 3

• “Olivia” – 8/10
• “The Box” – 8/10
• “The Plateau” – 8/10
• “Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?” – 8/10
• “Amber 31422” – 8/10
• “6955 kHz” – 8/10
• “The Abducted” – 8/10
• “Entrada” – 8/10
• “Marionette” – 9/10
• “The Firefly” – 8/10
• “Reciprocity” – 8/10
• “Concentrate and Ask Again” – 8/10
• “Immortality” – 8/10
• “6B” – 8/10
• “Subject 13” – 8/10
• “Os” – 5/10
• “Stowaway” – 7/10
• “Bloodline” – 8/10
• “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide” – 8/10
• “6:02 AM EST” – 9/10
• “The Last Sam Weiss” – 9/10
• “The Day We Died” - 7/10

SEASON’S RATING

★★★★★★★★★☆

SEASON 4

• “Neither Here Nor There” – 7/10
• “One Night in October” – 7/10
• “Alone in the World” – 7/10
• “Subject 9” – 7/10
• “Novation” – 8/10
• “And Those We Left Behind” – 7/10
• “Wallflower” – 7/10
• “Back to Where You’ve Never Been” – 9/10
• “Enemy of My Enemy” – 8/10
• “Forced Perspective” – 7/10
• “Making Angels” – 7/10
• “Welcome to Westfield” – 7/10

SEASON’S RATING

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

SERIES RATING

★★★★★★★★☆☆

DuracellEnergizer said:

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…

m_s0 said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

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.

Finally watched Breaking Bad, only about a decade too late. Gonna drop a few spoilers, just so you know… Have a really weird opinion, which was that it more or less lost its way after Season 2. When Walt’s cancer went into remission, I more or less thought the show’s premise “man with cancer makes drugs to help his family” had run its course.

Crazy, right?

In a nutshell, I think my issue was that I thought Walter White’s transformation from “Mr. Chips” to “Scarface” was pretty much done by the end of Season 2. Him letting Jane die was pretty climactic. By the end of that season, his family had left him, and his cancer was no longer an issue… The fact that he stayed in the meth business pretty definitively concluded that he was now solely doing it for selfish, egotistical reasons. In other words, the central questions about Walter White’s motivations and morality were answered, essentially fulfilling the premise of the show to its inevitable end.

Season 3-Season 5 did have a lot of colorful supporting characters like the Terminator twins. But, to me, the show became less about engaging character arcs and more about shock imagery, from a parking lot shoot out to a man with his face completely blown off to a machine gun in a car to a pool of poisoned cartel leaders in Mexico to a supporting character getting shot in the face.

Now, don’t get me wrong: a lot of that imagery was genuinely memorable/cool/iconic/awesome, but the show lost that black comedic edge married with intricate character work, descending head first instead into its more violent aspects. That said, totally understand that pretty much everyone will disagree here: every best of Breaking Bad list that I can find seems to think that the finest episodes came in the last season, during which I was frankly pretty bored.

Still, Bryan Cranston, as Walter White, is one of the great performances, and he sells every second, even after Walter White has already concluded his transformation into Heisenberg. But, Skyler, I thought, was pretty insufferable, and I’m not the biggest Hank or Marie fan either. Now, don’t get me wrong: I really loved Gus, Mike, and Saul Goodman, but they don’t really change all that much. They’re put to much better use elsewhere, which leads me to…

Better Call Saul is a perfect show. Cinematography, directing, writing, acting, everything. No complaints.

Look forward to the remaining seasons.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

But, to me, the show became less about engaging character arcs and more about shock imagery, from a parking lot shoot out to a man with his face completely blown off

Come, now. His face was only partially blown off.

Each succeeding season has enthralled me less than the one preceding it, and I can’t say precisely why. I’ve liked the cast and characters* and direction in all three seasons, so the fault doesn’t lie there. Perhaps the pacing/tone just wear thin after a time. Whatever the answer, this season was good, not great, and has left me with no desire to revisit the series.

Also, as a final note, I’ve lost pretty much all interest in ever reading the books. Word of mouth is the series is very faithful to the source material. What’s the point, then, of reading them if they tell essentially the same exact story? Life’s too short to delve into redundancy.

SEASON’S RATING

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

SERIES RATING

★★★★★★★★☆☆

*Except for Lemony Snicket. He’s ceaselessly dour and condescending and I don’t like him very much.

^Sounds like a better written Fringe. Definitely adding to my watchlist.

Recently watched all 67 current episodes of Game of Thrones. Need extensive spoiler tags.

As mentioned in the Game of Thrones thread, I received the Season 1-7 UK Blu-ray disc boxset as an awesome Christmas present. Hadn’t watched any episode at all beforehand, watched all episodes from the discs, currently waiting for Season 8 (Final) this April and the spin-off series.

No idea if I want to play the GoT Telltale game. I’m not a fan of the company and I guess it’s set before Season Six.

Now I’m watching Humans Series 3 and then Westworld Season 2. Both on Blu-ray disc but borrowed from a friend.

Young Justice Seasons 1-3 is extremely awesome!! I can’t wait for the second half of season three.

Finished watching Westworld Season 2 and gave it back to my friend. Now to finish the last of Humans Series 3.

Been considering giving Altered Carbon another go, interested in Man in the High Castle, ought to complete Fargo Season 3, and own on Blu-ray disc original Twin Peaks. The latter imported from the UK. Figure on rewatching the show, been more than a decade, before watching the revival series. Might do a rewatch of Scrubs sometime.

oojason said:

Just finished the 2nd season of Peaky Blinders - a UK crime drama set in 1920s Birmingham, England in the aftermath of World War I. The series follows the exploits of the Shelby crime family, a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps (hence the title), under the guide of fierce boss Tommy Shelby.

Pretty decent tv with some welcome twists and surprises along the way - if you can get past the accents 😉
 

I should watch more Peaky Blinders. Only watched the first 6 episodes and I should watch more.

Has its charms, but the tone is too inconsistent and there’s too much filler. I’m not really interested in the next season.

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆