Ramblings

[icepixie]

I rewatched the Fringe pilot (aka "the episode where everyone hates on Olivia") this week. Oh man, it is such a different experience after three seasons of the show!

I remember having a lot of respect for Olivia's sheer tenacity and brazenness in this episode, but also thinking something along the lines of, "eh, another badass genre woman who has trouble expressing her emotions; I'll probably end up liking her, especially after that one thing she did, but couldn't they do something else? Also, that actress isn't bad, but I wish she'd be a little less flat. It must be the stress of hiding her obvious non-American accent." And then they spent three years turning Olivia into one of my favorite characters EVER, with a depth of characterization that regularly astounds me. (Not to mention a plot-relevant explanation for why she's so closed-off!) Plus, I cannot imagine how I ever thought of Anna Torv as anything less than a subtle, heartbreaking GENIUS.

I like how, at least once she's told him she was bluffing about his FBI file ("the one thing she did" that I sat up and took notice of in the pilot), Olivia and Peter really seem to just naturally click here. In the little breather moments, they've got this instant rapport that's hard to describe, but feels very easy, like they'd known each other much longer than a couple days. I remember thinking something like this at the time, but it's only gotten more obvious now that I know the show didn't fool around with a will they/won't they plot between them, but let what was obviously there from the beginning progress at a believable pace until we got the EPIC, UNIVERSE-CROSSING romance by the end of S2. The dynamic always struck me as akin to "Olivia marries into the Bishop family business and learns exactly how odd her new family is" (even though she was really the one in charge), and it seems even more so now.

Speaking of both romance and things that carried through from the pilot, I just realized how significant it was that Olivia was the first to say "I love you" in her relationship with Peter, given that she couldn't bring herself to say it to John Scott even though she wanted to. (I watched all of S1 and S2 in under a month, okay? I missed some stuff. *g*) And...okay, I know this sounds a bit dumb, but it's true--after "The Day We Died," I was so obsessed with the intellectual ramifications of Peter's erasure, such as what would have changed in everyone else's life, why the war between the two universes would be going on, how the bridge came to exist without Peter there to make it, and most importantly how on Earth the writers planned to get him back, that I never really let the emotional consequences sink in. And now it just hit me that the three years Olivia had with Peter, and that "I love you," have all been ERASED. And my reaction is now basically, "God damn you, writers, you GIVE THAT BACK TO HER RIGHT NOW!" Just, you know, five months late.

Given the rest of the show, a line that struck me now but didn't back then was Nina's "I would say this to my own daughter: Be careful. And good luck." Coupled with her insistence in "Peter" that Blue!Peter was important to her, I wonder if there's more to be told in regards to her relationship with the Bishops and maybe even Olivia. One of the things that I think the show could do better, after giving Astrid more development, is incorporating Nina more thoroughly. I loved how subtly malevolent she was in S1. When I watched "Peter" for the first time, I apparently came up with the theory that because "in vitro fertilization" was one of the fringe sciences listed in the retro credits, perhaps Walter and Elizabeth were infertile, and Nina was an egg donor for them. I suppose this could still be true, but at this point, I doubt it. I do look forward to her eventual return in the Amberverse, though.

Shorter thoughts:

Charlie! Ohhhh, Charlie, I miss you. I still think the show's structure gelled better once he was gone, because you didn't have Peter basically made redundant both in the field and in the lab thanks to Charlie and Astrid, but he was such a good character. Scarlie is fun, but not quite the same.

Did we ever find out what John Scott and his cronies were up to? Fringepedia suggests no, but I truly don't remember. I suppose they could come back to it in the Amberverse, but it would probably be best if they didn't; that turned out to be kind of boring anyway.

DUUUUUDE, I just realized that the translucent shapeshifters from this season's opener look exactly like the translucentified people on the plane, and Scott! ...That was totally obvious to everyone but me, wasn't it? Anyway, that's deft. If it turns out to be an important plot point later on, that's deft on the same level as them finding the bus full of ambered people in 1x03 and then discovering amber comes from the other universe in season three.



Pssst, mine flisters who want a new sci-fi show (or just an AWESOME show), let me hook you on this one! You won't regret it. :D

Comments

[foursweatervests]

I'm up to 2x21. I am SO EXCITED by this show.

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Great thoughts! One of my favorite geeky things to do is watch an old episode of a show followed by a new episode, and marvel over how the universe has grown and changed, and the characters as well. It's been awhile since I watched the pilot, but I remember the last time I did - oh, four or five months ago, beginning of summer or thereabouts - thinking how amazing Olivia's journey has been. There's been a lot of reviews and essays calling Fringe "The X-Files Lite," but I think in this respect, Fringe is the far superior show. As much as I loved Mulder and Scully, in a lot of ways, they were essentially static characters, though Scully did loosen up toward the end. But Olivia? It's incredible, her story over just three seasons.

I have a friend who watched the pilot and HATED Anna Torv, hated her so much she refused to watch another episode. To this day I still can't figure out what bugged her so much, but I cannot convince her to give the show another shot.

that's deft on the same level as them finding the bus full of ambered people in 1x03 and then discovering amber comes from the other universe in season three.


I give a tremendous amount of credit to the new writing staff that came on at the beginning of S2, for going back into S1 and finding all these threads and being able to pull so many of them together into one cohesive mythology. They didn't manage everything - they just totally did drop John Scott, and it was kind of weird - but what they did manage was kind of incredible. Because you know the original writers had no intention of doing anything else with the amber.

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

I rewatched the pilot before giving it to my dad, and yeah, wow. It's like a totally different show!

"eh, another badass genre woman who has trouble expressing her emotions; I'll probably end up liking her, especially after that one thing she did, but couldn't they do something else? Also, that actress isn't bad, but I wish she'd be a little less flat. It must be the stress of hiding her obvious non-American accent."

THIS. EXACTLY THIS. WHAT FOOLS WE WERE.

"God damn you, writers, you GIVE THAT BACK TO HER RIGHT NOW!"

GIVE OUR EMOTIONALLY COMPLEXIFIED OLIVIA BACK TO US RIGHT NOW! Seriously, this is the one big problem I'm having with the Amberverse: they've gotta resolve this without killing off every consequence of three years of character development or IT WILL BE AWFUL.

And Charlie! Poor, redundant Charlie. I've kinda grown to love Scarlie even more, but Charlie and Olivia had such a great relationship.

Did we ever find out what John Scott and his cronies were up to?

NSA triple-agents? I... don't really care if that stays unresolved forever. Tv series' lives are short. We have better things to be watching.

...That was totally obvious to everyone but me, wasn't it?

Uhhhhhh Amber!livia kinda came right out and said as much to Nerd!Lincoln, in her exposition quick debrief to him at the beginning of the season. You can haz selective hearing? ;P But yeah, if they can tie the flight victims into the Red!verse/shapeshifters, that'd be pretty awesome. Even if it meant dredging up John Scott again.

let me hook you on this one! You won't regret it. :D

The crack!fairy strikes again! Have I mentioned thank you? THANK YOU!

[kurayaminokoe.livejournal.com]

I just hope they're not replacing Peter with What's His Name we first met in the Amberverse. He's a bit of a dork... or he looks like one.

But seriously, I was happy I had only 20 days inbetween finishing Season 3 and the start of season 4.