Fringe

I now demand at least one "Whoa" from Pacey. Or at least some dipshitty Ray-Bans.

He knows kung fu.

You know, I get that the show was trying to make a statement and stuff, but of all the David Bowie songs, did they really need to pick the one that Nirvana kicked the shit out of him on?

I also like how the show is basically arguing in favor of lobotomizing the evil. It's like Nurse Ratchet's really a good guy. It's also just distressingly anti-intellectual, which makes it that much sadder that Fringe is running on the Science Channel.

The original "The man who sold the world" was the most appropriate,imo. I'd be lying if I didn't briefly think about downloading that album from Itunes. I thought it fit Walter perfectly. Nirvana did an excellent job on that song, but I'm not sure kicked the shit out of really applies.

You read a lot more into these shows than I believe the normal viewer does. I didn't get that they were arguing in favor of lobotomizing. It was more about the inner conflict Walter deals with. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of it in either case, perhaps the conclusion will shine some light on it?

Well, you've got Walter, who's only his smartest when he's evil and so he wants somebody to cut out parts of his brain before he turns back into the bad smart man. And then you've got Peter, who is starting to behave in distressingly evil fashion because he has, essentially, become super smart, and the implication here is that the very facility that makes The Observers who they are (smart ass bald dudes) also makes them evil. And then apparently not being trapped in the alternate universe or whatever it was that was different this time around made Leonard Nimoy a real son of a bitch, and he's apparently that way because he's just too damn smart to love and feel and whatever it is all you normal humans do. I mean, it's not an uncommon theme to land on, but still.....

And I realize the show couldn't substitute another song for that, because it's the only one that would make any sense. I just dramatically prefer the sound on the Nirvana version (and need to invent a font facing that represents facetiousness). The album cut from Bowie just sounds kind of empty to me, but it has the advantage of probably being easier to acquire at this point (who even owns Nirvana anymore?), being thematically consistent with Walter's prior musical tastes, and being enunciated in a manner that's, you know, even remotely comprehensible.

Walter wouldn't know who Nirvana is (was?) and besides, the original Bowie version is the perfect spacey version for what was going on.
No uplugged shite here, we're plugged in and science-y.

How many episodes left?

Alert: Fringe returns tomorrow night (Friday, Dec 7). Set DVRs accordingly.

Remaining episodes: Dec 7, Dec 14, Dec 21, Jan 11, and then the double-episode finale on Jan 18.

Sweet, we get to see Neo back in action! (I meant Peter, totally meant Peter)

Are we gonna get to seem him go full on Observer by the end? I mean, he's already losing his hair and he can do the teleporting and all, not to mention his attitude change.

edit:I also have a sneaking suspicion that the chip is slowly killing him, given his headaches in the last episode.

I think he's going to sell everyone out. The Observers are from the future, Maybe Peter is their future overlord. He does not know what he's done!

If we do, it'll be in the ninth episode. I think that's the one that somebody said was going to be the weird one. Though I'd still prefer that he took a trip to the future, if only because now I'm really curious as to why there aren't any lady Observers.

Nope, because LURVE. (gag)

I'm gonna finish this show, because I there are now only 4 eps left and I want to see how it ends. But when I look back on this show, I will remember the Anna Torv-ness of it and forget this season ever existed.

They're trying to steal off some of the Once Upon A Time audience.
True love can break any magical curse.
True love can break any futuristic, personality-destroying, brain-transforming technology.

The whole emotion-repression aspect of the technology, even for the observers, is problematic. Peter's entire motivation should diminish as his emotions do. Same for the observers. The observers motivation is survival right? But for their society, not just individually. I think that means they have an emotion-driven agenda (or they're just ants).

I think of Olivia as Batman and Peter as Robin. When the story starts focusing on Robin too much, it suffers. Their best moments have been when the show was about Fauxlivia and Walternate. Hopefully with this turn the story is going to shift back to Olivia. I keep waiting for her powers to kick in. I wonder if they will.

I hope the same thing, and I choose to believe that her conversation with the Magical, um, woman who gave her the magnet is foreshadowing that.

Yo, guys, we get it. You totally love The Matrix. The episode description with the listing services even said that the magical black lady was "an oracle-like character." Now do your own story. I really do hope that's on purpose. Because otherwise you're thieving from The Matrix entirely by accident, and that's kind of bad.

However, given the fact that Walter already wants somebody to open up his brains and take out a piece, I wonder why it never occurred to him to ride the head weasel for a little while. You already need brain surgery. Hell - if you can't take it out, you'd rather be dead anyway, because otherwise your genius will make you evil or something.

Ha! Now that was the Fringe I've been missing, all trippy and fucked up even if it didn't make a lick of sense.

Yay, I'm finally caught up to the present on Fringe watching. My wife and I picked this show up a couple months ago and we started with season 1 and have been catching up ever since.

Black Blotter is probably one of the best episodes this season - it has a vibe to it that I feel like the previous episodes have been missing.

One thing I was curious about that may well never be explained is how exactly did Peter survive his encounter with Windmark when they were have their time-read battle? I may have missed something, but I thought the entire point was that you set up a no-win situation for your opponent where you've eliminated all the possible outcomes that don't result in you winning. Did Peter do something unexpected, or does Windmark just suck at time-battle-dancing?

Also, any theories on who Donald actually is? The law of conservation of characters says he's someone we've seen before, because they aren't saving up a big reveal near the series finale on a brand new character, but I feel like we've accounted for many of the usual suspects already. I'm venturing a guess that it may be the human shapeshifter prototype guy who defected and came to our universe and then disappeared, especially since they could effectively cast anyone to play that role.

Lastly, do you think they're going to close out the "prophecy" from the end of S3 regarding the dream-vision "guy who is going to kill Olivia" or is that just a dead-end from a timeline that no longer exists? Or is that guy "Donald"?

I think Olivia may die in the series finale.

I feel like they've done that before, but you may be right. She just never catches a break.

Part of me is leaning towards the Black universe as having been, ironically, the happiest ending they could have achieved.

In the episode with the red rocks (The Recordist), they describe a man that was dark-haired and in his late 30s at the time of the invasion (in 2015). I'm thinking that may fit the description of Sam Weiss. We know from this latest episode that he's also in this timeline and appears to be an ally for the cause.

No, they find Sam's wallet in the trailer. Olivia knows what he looks like. Donald is going to be someone new.

In the season 2 episode "August" (2.08), the Observers contact some shlubby assassin-type guy named Donald to help them out. He has some Observer tech and is ultimately shot and killed by Peter, so he could still be alive in the rebooted timeline. His connection to the Observers makes him someone Walter might have enlisted in crafting his current plan, so I've been wondering for a while if that's who Donald is.

Loved seeing Carla again and all the crazy trip stuff. I wish I could have watched this in a theater full of Fringe fans just to see the reaction at the journey into Walter's head.

Neither Olivia nor anyone else on the Fringe team has seen what Donald looks like (except Walter and he can't remember). Why would finding his wallet preclude him from being Donald?

They found Sam's wallet in the pocket of the skeleton in the van who had just killed two Observers. I think we're intended to believe Sam was that skeleton.

I cannot fathom them introducing a brand new character with 4 episodes left to go in the series.

I want to marry that animated segment. It couldn't have been more perfect.

And here it is, for your unlimited viewing pleasure.

Here's what we know about Donald:

He has dark hair and is in his late 30s in 2015.
He's a trusted confidant of Walter (he assists with hiding Michael in the pocket universe and delivers the boy to the family 20 years ago).
He's also entrusted to seek out the red rocks (again 20 years ago) and is apprehended by the Observers.

Here's what we know about Sam Weiss:

He fits the age and description of Donald. (I'm having a hard time thinking of another reasonably well-known character who does.)
His ID is found close to where the boy is located in a setting that suggests he was fighting to keep the signal going so the Fringe team could find the boy.
He's been a confidant of the Fringe team in the original timeline and has a mysterious past where his name is handed down to each descendent in his family tree and that they have a mission to find the "First People".

Either Sam Weiss and Donald are both working on behalf of the Fringe team mission or they are the same guy.

It was the second worst of their intentionally and deliberately weird episodes (nothing will ever clear the bar set by that godawful animated thing they did), but then the Monty Python animated bit happened and was hilarious, so it's forgiven. I could have easily done without the fairy effect (was that supposed to be somebody I would recognize? All I got was green - was that his wife?), but still - not the worst. Unfortunately, with only four more episodes to go at this point, I get the distinct impression that there's no chance this will build to a sort of satisfying, all the threads come together solution, which will be unfortunate, but I'll survive. The whole "my genius makes me evil" trip is irritating to me, but that's apparently just a me thing. Most important, though, this was the first episode this season that I think really justified picking up thirteen episodes of this Bad Robot show instead of the other alternative.

Sadly, no, it's not just you.

This whole rebooted premise is terrible, compared to most of seasons 2-4, and the premise still makes no sense. These (mysteriously male only, as noted by you Brian) time-travelers just had to arrive in 2015, a time when their more primitive human cousins have access to some actually dangerous tech (like guns). Why not go back in time to the middle ages? Central Park would still be there for them to build their atmospheric degradation machine, minus the pesky people who understand high level math and physics. And if you need to terraform the entire freaking planet to have higher concentrations of CO2, why not go back in time to a point when the levels were naturally high and show Terra Nova how to really do a Dino show. And why are these emotion-less beings so hateful and sadistic - if we're really ants or chimps to them, why even bother organizing the natives into some pseudo-Vichy France instead of simply using a few Neutron Bombs? And why are humans from circa 2600 running around with tech we'll have in 20-30 years (well not the time travel)? And, and ... gaaah, forget it, the more I think about it the more my head aches.

I'm just here out of a sense of duty, I guess, to see how this show ends. Well that and Anna Torv, who's been criminally wasted this season.

I think you missed the part where Olivia remarks that from the small amount of footage they have of Donald, he doesn't have the same hair color or build as Sam. As she's the only one who remembers Sam from the alternate timeline, I was going on her word.

She was uncredited (and strangely so was Caroline (Carolyn?), the doctor who died in a fire in this timeline), but yes, it's his wife.

My recording cut off briefly so it looks like I did miss something important. Good catch. So who roughly fits that description then? Charlie? Lincoln? Lincoln would seem more likely than Charlie.

If I had to choose, it's Lincoln. We still have no idea where he ended up in this timeline.

edit: same goes for Charlie I guess, but he does have dark hair and while his build isn't the same, specifically calling out the hair color makes me think of Lincoln.

Walter's dead assistant is named Carla, not Carolyn. She is played by Jenni Blong, and credited at the start of the episode.

The pixie was credited to Allie Bertram. She is not Walter's wife, and as far as I can tell, is not supposed to represent anyone we've met in the series to date.

No thoughts on my earlier comment? No one thinks the one guy we've met named Donald -- who has a clear link to the Observers -- might be a candidate for the guy Walter's been working with? Would that just be too easy?

Could be, but I tend to agree with Reldan that it's someone recognizable. It's also someone Walter trusts greatly with his secret plan.

Ah, my bad. I was going by IMDB. I didn't re-watch the opening credits to see if either was listed. I was pretty damn sure that the fairy was his wife, though.

As for Donald, maybe, I guess? But, then I think about all the misleading crap this show has done and I wonder if they're just fucking with us at this point. Agreed that it's probably going to be someone we recognize, though, and the writers are just going to pull an "Aw, snap!" moment.

I'd agree, if we ever get around to meeting Donald (I'm not even sure we need to now that they have the boy), I'm expecting some kind of fakeout or twist.

September as Donald was a pretty good twist, IMO. It was a surprise without feeling like a cheat.