TV GUIDE: Weekend TV in Review: Fringe, Fades, Napoleon and More
Jan 13, 2012
by Matt Roush
Nobody said loving a show this candid about its Fringe status would be easy. And Fox, probably to its credit, didn't give fans false hope when projecting about the show's shaky future during last weekend's TCA executive session. My advice: Enjoy it while it lasts, hang on for the ride, and hope for the future.
Fringe returns from hiatus with a strong and, as usual, emotionally charged episode (Friday, 9/8c) that was originally intended to be the midseason finale back in November — until World Series rescheduling messed up those plans. The upside is that we won't have quite so long a wait to digest the repercussions of the final scene, which involves another portentous pronouncement from one of those melancholy omniscient Observers. There's also some nifty cliffhanger action regarding Peter's trip to the Alt-World, where it's hardly a surprise when someone announces, "Not everything is as it seems." A line that pertains to the ongoing shape-shifter incursion, while also suggesting that the mysteries of the heart and soul are just as difficult to explain and reconcile.
There's a tangible Wizard of Oz element to the desperate quest of Peter (Joshua Jackson at his most compelling) to get back home, his Kansas being the timeline Walter's Doomsday Machine cast asunder. Peter even calls one of his cohorts "Scarecrow" in a throwaway gag as they traverse the worlds, with no handy cyclone to deliver them. Peter is a stranger in a strange land, with two sets of people in parallel universes who don't recognize him — although he does make an emotional connection with a significant character in his race to reach out to Walternate. By now, you may be asking: Is this a good Walternate or a bad Walternate? You'll have to tune in to find out, but it leads to another profoundly affecting scene between Jackson and John Noble, who excels whichever Walter he's playing in either world.
"No one knows more about the burden of difficult decisions than I," grumbles Walternate. If Fringe is about anything, it's difficult decisions — the consequences of which could affect the fate of at least two worlds. The decisions yet to made about the fate of Fringe aren't likely to be any easier, but who'd have thought we'd get four seasons of gripping entertainment out of this mind-teasing masterpiece of fantasy?
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