I am in such deep turmoil, you cannot possibly understand. I really love "Fringe", and I've enjoyed it a great deal for the past three seasons. I don't know what they're up to right now. It feels like they're going off on a random tangent. Remember the last time they referenced the fact that the two universes are still dying? It was at the end of last season. Has that suddenly stopped. Is the progression of the important stories halted to deal with this apparently terrifying new breed of shape-shifters? I'm sorry, but so much of this season has felt really stingy, and it's honestly left me kind of cold. What does it remind me of? It reminds me of the emotionless running about of "X-Men: First Class" and the last "Harry Potter".
If that doesn't seem so harsh, please go back to my reviews of those films. I remember taking the mickey out of both of them, especially the former. This week has brought back one of the more important elements of the show, that being Peter. He's back, but we don't know why. We're not sure why he's been erased from history, how he escaped his fate, or where any of this is going. I'm not even entirely sure if the writers have a plan for this, though I certainly hope they do. In any case, this episode should have felt a great deal more interesting than it was. But the moments when it felt most in tune with itself were naturally the silent moments.
Peter arriving at Fringe Headquarters and silently arriving at a holding cell. Him silently hacking into their mainframe to keep in the loop of things. The constant undercurrent between him and Broyles. That's what was so interesting. The problem is the dialogue, which has felt unnaturally ham-fisted this season. None of these characters are as close as we remember them, so they don't have that same way of communicating. There's hostility from all corners, but even that doesn't excuse the dialogue being as bad as it is. There aren't the same smooth nuances the show has perfected in its history. Yes, it feels foreign, but not in the right way.
