'Fringe' Was Never Afraid to Take Big Risks

After seeing all the 'net fan chatter about Fringe, which never was even on my radar in it's initial broadcast run, I downloaded all 9 seasons, and started watching. Ana Torv is worth the price of admission all by her lonesone, what an absolutely stunning and talented specimen of the human race, but the rest I'm finding is a bit hard to chew, granted I've only made it 7 episodes into the first season, but find myself unmotivated to go back for more. Does it get markedly better?

It gets much better after season 1.

Season 1 is basically 'monster of the week'. Everything is disconnected, but it's a fun romp through sci-fi.

Season 2 starts the real plot. Things start to connect. They start to leave hints for future episodes, things tie back to previous episodes, and the characters get more complex. It's very well done.

The last season gets a little weird :-)
IMO, yes. Near the end of season 1 it starts to become apparent that all those "random" monster-of-the-week occurrences aren't really random, and the plot becomes increasingly more serialized as time goes on.
- can I skip season 1, or which episode of s1 that I should be watching that I can begin season 2?
And Lance Reddick is great too. Aren’t there only 5 seasons?
- Aren't there only 5 seasons?
  
  Yeah there's only 5 seasons. I assume their source must've split the first 4 seasons in half for some reason. That would result in 9 seasons of 10-13 episodes.
I grew to really like Walter. The actor did it so well
- John Noble is awesome as Walter and donator, not seen him much in anything else yet
There are only 5 seasons that I'm aware of. If you enjoy the idea of parallel dimensions and movement between them sparking a war, that's the basic premise for seasons 2-5. It can be a slog, but I'd argue if you liked Star Trek, LOST, or even Breaking Bad, there's a similar arc but each season can be a slog to get through.
- That's a pretty spoiler-y description of the show.
I gave up a couple of seasons in because it just seemed like a monster of the week show with no real impact after each episode.
- I think that's what it was for a few seasons until it changed, at least from what I remember reading about it.

The end of Fringe got fuckin' WEIRD. My wife and I watched a lot of Sci-fi and overall we liked this one. It definitely had its ups and downs.

Best ending to a series JJ has done. Has a great big picture ending. I really can't say more without ruining it for those that want to see it. But it ended when it should have. And you can't just watch the end to get it. You have to have seen almost every episode. That's what makes it so good.

I'm currently researching this. Such a great show. Had stood the test of time well. Dunham and Walter are great characters. Thoroughly enjoying it, and it's been long enough that I'm watching it for the first time again 😀

It started off kinda meh, like an edgier X-files, but then gradually starting hinting at bigger things happening that you could never quite make out, always towards the end of the last episode of the season. It kind of jumped the shark on the last season IMO, but it was overall a good show. The other thing I didn't like was how unceremoniously the different villains would get dropped. They'd be awesome for an entire season, and then just get killed off like nothing every happened.

spoiler

First season, Jared Harris' character, a sinister German guy, gets cut in half by a portal after they just shut it off while he's walking through, lame way to kill off such a great character. I think at one point they even had him drop his gun and instead try to attack Peter Bishop with a tire iron? It was something so sort of silly that I was like, "Why would he do that?"

spoiler

Newton, takes a suicide pill and is gone just like that in season 3 after having been the BBEG of season 2

I feel like there's others, but it's been years since I watched any of it.

Fringe said drugs were a good thing that smart people used to do smart people stuff. I approve.

Loved this show. Should rewatch it acutally, don't remember much of it.

This show didn't beat any odds. Anna Torv was related to the Fox programming director. I think she was his niece. The show was taken to EXACTLY 100 episodes to qualify it for residuals and syndication so she could be financially set. I read a whole analysis article on it from a guy who uses statistics to figure out which shows will be canceled or not and by the end of the run, he essentially wrote off the cancellation until it hit 100. The continuation never had anything to do with ratings, reception, or anything. It was nepotism, plain and simple. The show was at the bottom of Fox's ratings for all 5 seasons. It should have been canceled after season 1.

Don't get me wrong, I am happy it didn't. I loved the show and the nepotism led to steady jobs for hundreds of people for 5 years and finally allowed a really weird story to be told all the way through, but it did not get to do all of that on its own merit.

The show was great until the last season or two. Then they just started making shit up and it went to hell. I just remember the last season being some bullshit about love.

Yeah this.

I didn't like the William Bell plot ending, and gave up half way through the last season about the observers.

if the last season wouldnt exist this show would almost be perfect but my god, the last season was such garbage that it literally took me several attempts to even understand why they are suddenly where they are, its such a tonal whipslash too

It felt like someone swallowed the scripts with bad fanfic on accident.

i really kind of enjoyed the first seasons.. very x-files rebooty... but the last season or so was really hard to get through

Hands down one of my favourite sci-fi shows ever made, watched it again last year and it holds up brilliantly.

Don't forget the greatest guest actor ever, Eric Shawn Lynch. ACK ACK. https://youtu.be/gu5W91mP4V0?si=NWGcNdMlr__TPExD