TV GUIDE: Weekend TV: Fringe Finale, Common Law Premiere, an SNL Comeback, Sunday Madness
May 11, 2012
by Matt Roush
How happy am I not to be preparing a eulogy for Fringe this weekend, instead celebrating another audacious year of emotionally compelling sci-fi thrills with a grand season, not series, finale (Friday at 9/8c, Fox). Titled "Brave New World" — because when hasn't this show introduced new worlds bravely? — it kicks off with an image that might make you think you're watching the defunct Terra Nova. What we're really imagining is the apocalyptic end-game vision of mad scientist William Bell, played by the great Leonard Nimoy, whose return at the end of last week's episode was truly chilling (and not only because poor Astrid was lying shot at Walter's side).
Fringe has always been at heart a cautionary fable about the perils of playing God with science, and that has never been more true than in this nail-biting showdown that involves the fate of two universes — while entwining a horrified Walter (John Noble, tremendously affecting as ever), his beloved son Peter (Joshua Jackson) and the mysteriously super-empowered Olivia (Anna Torv), whose destiny as foretold by the Observer comes into play in an OMG climax. This would have made a satisfying, if incomplete, end to the series, should Fox had so decreed. But thankfully, we end with a tease (as foreshadowed in the recent flash-forward "Letters of Transit" episode) at what we might expect in the fifth and final season.
This is a time of year when many shows officially get the ax — some understandably, some prematurely — and tempers tend to run high among unhappy fans. So I'll take my triumphs where I can find them, and Fringe surviving for so long so ambitiously certainly ranks high on my list of little shows that not only could but did achieve greatness never reflected in the ratings...
[NOTE: Leonard Nimoy also co-starred in the 1998 made-for-TV movie, Brave New World, starring Peter Gallagher and Tim Guinee, that aired on NBC.]
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