Fringe: What's Right, and Wrong with Season 2?

As you know I'm quite an admirer of this series and will follow it until the very end, which may be sooner rather than later seeing as they've had quite a problem with ratings since their time slot change. I may have been giving it a little too much praise though. The episodes they put on are brilliantly executed, but leave so much more to be desired. One truly wishes they could be as inventive with their stand alone episodes as they are with their mythology episodes, but that doesn't seem to be coming any time soon. It's quite sad seeing as it was J.J. Abrams' intent to have the series thrive on stand alone installments to make it more accessable to new viewers.

So the only suggestion I can give on that front is more episodes dealing with the mythology. By this time last season they had nine out of fourteen episodes dealing with the mythology. This season they've only had five out of fourteen. While the other nine episodes have great character building moments they lack original storytelling devices. Fringe is starting to blend a little too much with the series it has been compared to most, The X-Files.

Other things the series could do better include pushing Olivia more into the foreground. She's the character who brought the team together, and largely considered the main character of the series. It'd be nice to give her a little more to chew on. Something that last season did on numerous occasions was give Olivia enemies who worked right with her, and penetrated Fringe decision from the inside. It'd be nice to have a few more of those people. Finally the biggest advice that I can give the series if it wants to survive: Get off thursday night! It's the factor that is more than anything killing the series.