Season premiere review: 'Fringe' - 'Neither Here Nor There': It's the little things
Season 4 gets off to a bumpy start as the universe adjust to life without Peter
Walter (John Noble) has a sleepless night on "Fringe."
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A quick review of the "Fringe" season 4 premiere coming up just as soon as I need to erase someone from time...
As I've said before, "Fringe" is a tough show for me to write about regularly because it airs on Friday nights (weekends are family time) and I only get to see a handful of episodes in advance each season. Fortunately, Ryan McGee will be continuing his exhaustive episode reviews at our Monkeys as Critics blog, and his take on "Neither Here Nor There" is already up. I'll pop in when I can, sometimes maybe several days late, but Ryan does such a great job - and he and I are usually so in tune - that I'm comfortable leaving the show as his turf.
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(*) The worst of those was their initial appearance, where they began talking about how traces of Peter were still showing up in the timeline before we'd gotten any significant examples of that. Drop a few big clues first, fellas.
John Noble's great, as always, and Anna Torv did a good job of portraying what seems to be the 57th different version of Olivia so far, but this one was kind of a mess. If the producers didn't feel confident in their ability to sell this story and keep Joshua Jackson (mostly) off-screen for a few weeks, I'd rather they have just done something else altogether. This is likely the final season of the show, and I'd rather they not waste part of it on an idea no one's comfortable executing.
What did everybody else think?
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupSaren
September 23, 2011 at 10:16PM EST Reply to CommentAgree completely. What were they thinking?
Terriar
September 23, 2011 at 10:16PM EST Reply to Comment"This is likely the final season of the show"
What makes you say that?
sepinwall The ratings?
September 23, 2011 at 10:22PM ESTTERRIAR I just hope they can keep the ratings steady and get a final 5th season.
September 23, 2011 at 11:03PM ESTdead souls Steady ratings still most likely equal cancellation in this case.
September 23, 2011 at 11:33PM ESTlori
September 23, 2011 at 10:20PM EST Reply to CommentC'mon Alan. The premiere was great. Maybe I'm too much of a JJ/LOST fan but this is exactly the kind of rare creative TV we don't see enough of on any station. Good stuff.
Razorback As I said in my review of the episode on another site, there is a "The Constant" theme going on in this episode that I am sure some will have a problem with... I am just not one of those people.
September 24, 2011 at 12:59AM ESTwebdiva I'm NOT a Lost fan -- thought it absurd and dumped it halfway through the first season, without regret -- and I liked this opener, though I did think it weaker than many mid-season episodes ... but I don't mind story arcs building tension over a long time. You have to start somewhere, and if you're building tension, you can't start with a big whammy or there's nowhere to go from there. Happy to have the show back, definitely, and can't wait to see how they bring Peter back. I'm rooting for them to do it in a wonderful way that makes sense for the story.
September 30, 2011 at 1:39AM ESTDon
September 23, 2011 at 10:25PM EST Reply to CommentI completely disagree. Fringe's season openers have ALWAYS included bits of exposition, and that's all the Observers really did here this time as well. In fact, there was far LESS exposition in this one than in the other season premieres.
This show is aiming toward greatness, and I hope it has a chance to get there.
Don
September 23, 2011 at 10:26PM EST Reply to Comment"The ratings"? Give me a break, Alan. Everyone knows the ratings on this show aren't going up and wouldn't go up no matter what they did. What a cheap shot.
sepinwall It's not a cheap shot. It's reality. Though FOX hasn't come right out and said this is the final season, that's the impression I've gotten from every public statement that Kevin Reilly has made since the renewal was announced. If I turn out to be wrong, swell. I like this show, others like this show, it helps put the lie to the stupid "Fox only likes to kill sci-fi shows" theory, etc., etc. But my money's on this being the last year.
September 23, 2011 at 10:28PM ESTAmrit I agree with Alan, that was not a cheap shot. The show is trying to be vague and annoying like HIMYM but without the ratings to back it up. They deserve to be cancelled...the numbers are just not good enough even for fox, The WB probably gave it away for nearly free just so they could hit the perfect number for syndication 88. Say goodbye to Fringe!
September 23, 2011 at 10:57PM ESTRazorback I disagree with Alan's review but I agree with his assessment of the future of the show. This is going to be the final season.
September 24, 2011 at 1:00AM ESTGus Even Joshua Jackson sounded surprised that they got renewed for this season. Ratings will not be going up. I plan on enjoying this as the final season.
September 26, 2011 at 9:50AM ESTAmrit
September 23, 2011 at 10:38PM EST Reply to CommentThis is a disaster Alan, an absolute disaster. Just watched the premier and wow...they really have not learnt anything have they? The observers noting that lincoln and olivia used to know each other...lazy writing. The theme of having someone missing in your life or something missing...lazy writing. The case of the week was a snore.
They better get peter back really quickly because if they leave him out for more then 1 or 2 episodes then this shows ratings are going to dip below 1.0 in the key demo and they are going to be dead like half of nbc's shows.
This just felt like a giant reset had been pressed and now they are in continuous set up mode..maybe joshua jackson realised that this is a train wreck and decided to be in the show as little as possible. Get a little distance before it all goes to crap. Lincoln Lee is one heck of tone deaf actor and kinda one dimensional....this is what we gave up for peter?
I know Fringe likes to setup stories and then not finish them like the pattern, massive dynamic, peters journey into the other side at the end of season 2, the end of season 3...but this is so so so so poor. Man this is poor.
Some shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men and to a certain extent Chuck are serialised and they have two aspects...the characters and the worlds they inhabit. With Those three shows you rarely see the customer/drug dealers/cartel/etc or the clients at the ad agency or Chuck's enemies because they focus on the characters instead. Fringe tries to do both and they are doing a poor job at both...everything is tell but no show the characters are telegraphing the story...time to bail out before it gets any worse.
I am suprised that you are not calling them out for their laziness in the story telling throughout the show. I mean I loved lost, but I can admit that lost never really tied up the mysteries they set up at all, this happens when a tv show gets too ambitious and wants to have its cake and eat it at the same time. They want awesome characters that matter but also an awesome mythology, they keep trying to deliver both but when they cannot the whole story falls apart. Lost for all its wonder was really one giant long con (as sawyer would say). This is the exact same but they are not as smart as damon or carlton and the stories are the poorer for it, lol. I mean just starting up stories and then abandoning them is so trite and unfulfilling...whatever.
Grifter Usually when someone named "AMRIT" and any of it's variants shows up commenting, wherever, they are full of bile, overreacting and general alarmism.
September 24, 2011 at 3:58PM ESTThis one, is clearly not the exception to that rule.
Now, I will admit that the whole "absence" and "hole in your life" angle and exposition were boring and somewhat diminishing from a writers pov of what they perceive their audience to need to get through the understanding of the show.
However, I found myself mildly surprised that I didn't miss Peter at all. I enjoyed the show even without him, or just his "ghost ressonance" popping in every now and then.
Of course I am not saying that he shouldn't come back, just that the show, might just be able to live without him, were it actually a show with high ratings.
Now, I did sense this wasn't at all a "monster of the week" ep and more of a setup for things to come. So, from my perspective, you're mistaken on that "AMRIT".
As for not finishing storylines on Fringe...well they departed from all of that because it sucked and since then the show has been much, much, better. So kudos to them for having seen that. Frankly, until you mentioned them I didn't even remember them.
As for Lost...they did answer most of the mysteries and gave it a nice, somewhat satisfying conclusion.
Don't get some of the mysteries still "unsolved"? Do research on the properties, uses and theories of electromagnetism and the Casimir Effect ( actually mentioned on the show), start there and see where it leads. It was all there since the start. They treated the audience as a smart one, always...problem is that most aren't.
Except the raft. No idea on who was shooting there. :D
Amrit "As for not finishing storylines on Fringe...well they departed from all of that because it sucked and since then the show has been much, much, better. So kudos to them for having seen that. Frankly, until you mentioned them I didn't even remember them."
September 24, 2011 at 6:26PM ESTOh man...this is a serialised show! Bringing up all these stories are not meant to be forgotten like say a weekly case on a procedural like NCIS. Everything that happens on the show is supposed to matter. Basically what your saying is that the creative team likes to throw load of crap in the show and base their decisions on the narrative on what sticks and what does not...that is not a great way to navigate a serialised show. This is probably why the ratings are on the edge and they are most likely in the next few weeks going to dive and dive hard. Fringe's situation is their own doing and they deserve to have lost fans respect and also some percieved lost respect from critics like Alan and Ryan.
The general consensus is that fans and critics are losing confidence in this shows ability to tell a story and tell it with a satisfying resolution and that is so very dissappointing.
This may sound all very hyperbolic but the show has now failed on multiple times to get their sh*t together and how many times as fans do we let them off the hook? listen to the Ryan and Ryan podcast and even they feel the show is on tenous ground and to some extent Noel Murray from AV Club agrees with that assessment, fool me once shame on me...fool me 50 times with failed storylines and shame on you.
This is the last season of Fringe...lets hope they can at least get one storyline right, I hope, I really do. The sad truth is that these guys are just not smart enough, simple as that.
Mark U.
September 23, 2011 at 11:16PM EST Reply to CommentOf course we did see Peter before the Observers commented on his malingering in the timeline. Clearly the show can't have him popping up all over the place just yet, so I think this was handled about as well as it could be. As for some of Alan's other objections, I agree that some of the writing was a bit too on-the-nose. I don't see this as a lack of storytelling confidence, though, so much as a somewhat clumsy narrative shorthand born of necessity. The characters no longer have any awareness of Peter but essentially still know that he isn't there -- and it would take too long in narrative terms to show this than to just say it and move on. The result was a bit graceless but a minor flaw in an episode that sketched out some neat ideas for the season. I think Alan was too hard on the premiere, focusing more on the trees than the forest.
Ken Raining Yeah, there's a brief flash of Peter right when the two Olivias are leaving the communal area, right before the Observers talk about him. Easy to miss, though; my wife didn't see it either.
September 24, 2011 at 12:19AM ESTI thought it was an okay episode, but it felt like we were going back to the "threat of the week" formula, which seems like a mistake. I'm glad they're using Lincoln Lee on this side now, but I don't think we needed a whole episode introducing him, since we already did that last year. They could have just dropped him in as a member of Fringe division and it would have been fine.
marc
September 23, 2011 at 11:53PM EST Reply to Commenti'm really glad they toned down the crazyness from last season a bit for this premiere.
and also re: the expo talk. not every show can be the wire. i had no problems with it. and seth gabel seems like a good fit for the show.
Jay
September 23, 2011 at 11:54PM EST Reply to CommentI think this is way too harsh. I thought this episode was solid, and what I've read from others, they seem to agree. Yes..there were some issues..but I really do think the showrunners know what they're doing. From everything that I've read, they seem confident in how they will bring Peter back. Plus, they're very responsive to the fans of the show. But, that's just my thoughts.
ObservingObserver
September 24, 2011 at 12:34AM EST Reply to CommentMany seem to be finding fault with what is baggage that all season openers have - they're playing it safe and incorporating dialog and devices designed to remind people of what happened and where things stand, just in case the audience forgot. It may seem to the fans who religiously watch the series that they're being beaten over the head with the void that peter's absence has left, but remember that the show is also for people that need a refresher, and for the newcomers to the series, however few they may be.
Personally, I enjoyed the hell out of it and I thought it was a great episode. I found myself paying attention to details I normally would not. I'm excited the season has begun.
Razorback
September 24, 2011 at 12:54AM EST Reply to CommentThey have to explain things to the uninitiated... plus a majority of the audience is probably not bright enough to get what is happening. Episode 2 has a weaker case of the week but a stronger focus on the bigger arc. Will people still complain? Of course. But I also think they will find it easier to ignore the things they are complaining about now.
Kyle
September 24, 2011 at 1:06AM EST Reply to CommentI thought it was a great episode. Alan you're being too harsh, and Olivia and Lincoln in this universe barely knew each other anyway - if you missed that ONE episode last season you wouldn't realize it either. Hence the "They knew each other...." line by the observers. This is a season premiere with EXPOSITION.
Scott Rosenberg They worked together in an episode last season, but the erasure of Peter reset the timeline, and the events of that episode never happened.
September 24, 2011 at 12:43PM ESTed w
September 24, 2011 at 2:45AM EST Reply to CommentI hated the S3 finale and this episode got me back into the show. Whatever nitpicks one might have about the arc, the main thing is it felt like Fringe again in style, pacing, atmosphere. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It got back some of that season 2 texture before it went wildly over the top in late season 3.
JJ
September 24, 2011 at 5:44AM EST Reply to CommentI think Joshua Jackson is not even on a 10/13 contract. He might be on a half season contact. They came back in season 3 probably on a reduced budget and thought hey jos's character is expendable lets have Josh only be in half the show.....stupid, stupid, stupid! I hope they get cancelled, Josh Jackson is great on this show and they have really screwed up, lol. So, so, so badly. This show is done and let's hope Josh actually gets a series that respects him a lot more than cutting him from half the show, using him as a plot device, losing his agency, not following through on his characters plots, and a host of dumb things this show does. This show is a disgrace compared to the wire, mad men and breaking bad and chuck....just go away.....
William I think you may have a point about Josh being on a shortened contract. He does mention as does his partner that having to travel so much does take a toll on their lives and so maybe he told the fringe people that hey I will do this crappy series that is going to be cancelled at any moment but I will do it only part time so that I can have a life. So that is fair enough and whatever....erm...it is amazing how many critics are now being very conservative around this seasons prospects, Fringe has definately set itself a tall task that they have, have, have to nail 100% perfectly or they will be a laughing stock, lol. This show could be a killing in the making....they have already abandoned a bunch of storylines..the pattern, peters journey to get back to where he is from only to return within one episode, the potential of the coming was between two worlds at the end of season 3...they are on tenous ground. I think soon critics are going to abandon this series...be careful.
September 25, 2011 at 2:11AM ESTtim
September 24, 2011 at 6:03AM EST Reply to CommentThey did show a hint at what was going on with Peter before that line. Peter kind of flickered in the background. Did you miss that Alan?
tim
September 24, 2011 at 6:04AM EST Reply to CommentThey did show a hint at what was going on with Peter before that line. Peter kind of flickered in the background. Did you miss that?
DougMac
September 24, 2011 at 9:22AM EST Reply to CommentI was disappointed in it too
OldDarth
September 24, 2011 at 9:49AM EST Reply to CommentAlan, I swear you have a thing against the Observers. ;)
In the S3 finale you knocked them for stating the obvious. This time you knock them for doing the opposite thing.
Your comments about the dialogue being too on the nose is right on the mark even taking into account this was episode was clearly constructed as a welcome wagon for the uninitiated.
Tidmore
September 24, 2011 at 10:21AM EST Reply to CommentWhat I didn't get, Olivia mentions that Fauxlivia took her place, but then she clearly doesn't recognize Lincoln. I know some things changed, but Peter's non-existence wouldn't have as big of an effect on the other side, so she would have known Lincoln from her time as Fauxlivia. That just didn't make sense to me.
Merve
September 24, 2011 at 12:37PM EST Reply to CommentIf you're like me and you like to forget that the disaster that was "Concentrate and Ask Again" ever happened, then this was probably the biggest misfire since early season 2. So much clunkiness, so much ham-fistedness, so much cliché. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when Olivia said, "Sometimes answers lead to more questions." Yeesh! And people complained about Charlie's Angels having bad dialogue.
Scott Rosenberg
September 24, 2011 at 12:37PM EST Reply to CommentI agree with Alan on the grating obviousness, though I didn't mind the observer scenes, and thought that the A-plot and how they brought Lincoln back into the fold still made the episode worth watching. One thing I would have liked to see, that seems critical in the context, is that there isn't much difference in Walter. We know part of Walter's psychotic break had to do with his unethical experimentations back in the day, but if Peter was never born, then he never lost a son, his wife didn't commit suicide over it, he didn't invent a machine to cross universes then have chunks of his brain removed to forget how he did it; in short, he should be a far more well-adjusted, confident person. The only difference we saw was Astrid getting out into the field a little, and that was more about Olivia needing a partner than anything else.
If they can ask us to believe there's a parallel universe where everything happens different but the exact same people end up being born and working together, they can ask us to believe we'd get to a similar place in Peter's absence. The latter seems more overtly ridiculous, but its not a departure from the premise. Walter should be different, though.
Alienware
September 24, 2011 at 8:43PM EST Reply to CommentDidn't really like this installment of Fringe. Since halfway through Season 3, and especially with the obnoxious Bellivia storyline, I haven't liked the direction into which they're taking the show, and I'm sad to say that I'm liking it even less now. This Peter stuff just seems pointless to me, in 4 or 5 episode is gonna be back anyway, so why even bother?
rockknj
September 24, 2011 at 11:33PM EST Reply to CommentI try to understand the alt-universe time line paradoxes in these type of story lines but this one has a big problem. The reason that the 2 universes are destroying each other is because Walter's son died, he saved the other Peter and then crosses the universes and kidnapped him. If Peter never existed, then there wouldn't be any cause for the destruction to start and having a room where the 2 universes converge didn't happen. I think too much. Anna Torv does look good in red hair, though.
Rob I know, and what was with that line, “They can never know the boy lived to be a man.”? Does that mean that both Peters were born but died as boys? If he never existed, why would an Observer say that?
September 25, 2011 at 12:21AM ESTed w I agree rocknf, and another logic problem is that the mistake the Observer made originally was distracting Walternate so that he didn't discover the cure for Peter. So fixing the problem should be about saving Peter without needing our Walter to cross over.
September 25, 2011 at 11:47AM ESTBut while that stuff didn't make sense, I appreciated the intangibles of look and feel were back to normal for the series. The episode had an overall style that I had missed.
Ace
September 25, 2011 at 9:19PM EST Reply to CommentI'm fine with this being the last season. I never thought we would get to 4, but I hope they know soon so they can start plotting out the endgame.
Dale I just saw an interview that Wyman and Pinkner did with Collider and.....like Veena Sud....they have no clue what they are doing or how terrible a show they are making!
September 26, 2011 at 4:27AM ESTThey start stories and never really finish them…the pattern? massive dynamic? peters journey to the other side at the end of season 2? peter only being in half the episodes in season 3? peter no being in the first half of the 4th season?…They start up all these ideas and say we want to give answer, we want to give answers and then never do….
By the way fans…when they say they do not want to spoil stuff…that means they do not know where they are going and they are making it up as they go along.
Why oh why does Joshua Jackson stay on a show that treats him, his character and his fans as second rate? These guys are idiots…and the fact that they insult us by saying crap like Peter is part of the DNA is insulting and trite…get an idea, ok? start a story and actually finish it. Give Joshua Jackson an actual season long storyline where he features thoughout and it is about his character and mostly his character and for once, just once…finsh that story arc with some reasonable resolution you hacks! you philastines! I hope you get cancelled. I really do.
Sir Ingenious I agree with above comment that Dale made. I mean, Fringe is notorious for not finishing subplots while they just skip to the next one.
September 26, 2011 at 8:43AM ESTAlso, season 4 could've been season 3 by having Peter STAYING in the other side for the half-season to full season. That way, we see how the characters over here do without the presence of Peter without really leaving the characters we know by going into yet another timeline. And we get to see if Peter belongs over here or over there or neither.
Lee
September 26, 2011 at 8:16AM EST Reply to CommentI loved it. But there is such little quality shows that even this isn't perfect, it is far better than most other show except those that are absurdly terrific like Justified and Mad Men.
I like these characters and John Noble is worth every second I watch. He never ceases to amaze me.
I find JJ to be kind of blah so I wasn't disappointed by Peter's absence...for now. He is crucial to the story they are telling but, for now, I loved having a Lincoln in the house. Love that character.
I do actually get surprised by this show; I like not knowing where they are taking it. I often wonder if the writers yet know.
Dan
September 26, 2011 at 9:30AM EST Reply to Comment"The worst of those was their initial appearance, where they began talking about how traces of Peter were still showing up in the timeline before we'd gotten any significant examples of that. Drop a few big clues first, fellas."
Alan, we'd already seen at least one incident of Peter briefly flashing behind Walter by the time the Observers had that conversation. We already knew something was up. Now, would it have been far more interesting if the writers had left us in the dark for a while about Walter's man in the mirror and had us wondering if he was less sane in a Peter-less world? Probably. But that's not your criticism. Your criticism is simply unsupported by the facts.
Gus
September 26, 2011 at 9:53AM EST Reply to CommentI expected the "look how different things are" inside jokes to be overdone. Compared to the pointed differences we were shown between our universe and the other side, I thought it was very subtle and well done, but maybe it was because of low expectations.
Michizzy82
September 26, 2011 at 12:56PM EST Reply to CommentI thought it was a good episode. Not the best, but it can't always be. And I loved the finale, so for me, there was no way it was going to be as good as that to me. I don't think this show has every really disappointed me, so I am going to trust that it will continue not to.
I know a few people mentioned the "forgotten" plot points that have come to pass in the show. Are we sure that they are really forgotten? Some of them have led us to the point we are now. And the show isn't over yet!
Finally, I didn't see anyone else mention this, so forgive me if I missed it (like I apparently missed the "Peter flashes" in the background). When Walter sat down at the bank of computer screens to follow Astrid into the field, was it just me, or did we get a flash of a Dharma Initiative screen on the computer? I think we did, and I loved it.
okayflint
September 28, 2011 at 12:06AM EST Reply to Commentyeah, besides the beating over my head about the loss of a partner, and a hole in ones life, i freaking love where they are going with this. I really wish people would start watching this, so it wouldn't have to be canceled at the end of this season