Sunday 20 January 2013

Beyond the Fringe

So that's it. There shall be no more... unless there is a huge fan clamouring and they decide to for a movie or something... but short of that, there is no more Fringe.

It's had a spotted history. The first season, as these things run, was rather variable, and more than one comparison to X-Files. It was 'odd happening of the week', with occasional mythology developing. Some of the mythology episodes works, some of the plot fell apart once you actually need to explain what's going on (again, like X-Files). And more than once we have 'here's what's really going on / what we set this up for' in story explanation that goes from mad person who wanted to destroy universes to... another mad person who wanted to destroy the universes to... another bunch of people who wanted to wipe out our time lines...

The last season was completely different. No more 'odd event of the week', no, now we have 'here's a big event we need to fight against'. Can't say I liked it that much, I liked the odd events. I do wonder how much of this is 'okay you've now got half a season to wrap everything up', and might we have had a more relaxed story line with odd events, whereas now we get a 'fetch quest of the week' again with a hurried... no, wait, with no ultimate explanation of why we need these pieces and let's just ignore that we are missing pieces and/or hand-wave that away and say the magician did it.

Ultimately, I think the creators liked their plots more than... certainly more than I did, and with the low ratings the series got (which is why it got cancelled), I wasn't the only one. I can't say this was entirely original, but it was a decent enough series that at least got more wrap up than most series manage.

[END]

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