People heads explode, there’s a grotesque monster every now and again, the central trio are all brilliant in their roles, John Noble especially as the brilliant but mental Walter Bishop. It’s fairly disgusting most of the time and there’s even a character whose function is somewhat of a Where’s Wally game (The Observer*; if you watch the show, you’ll know what I’m on about).
* The Observer not only appears on Fringe itself, but has been sighted at certain real life events (only in the US, natch) like football games and in the audience of American Idol. Now that’s viral marketing. Also, I’m fairly certain I saw him one night as I was heading home from Donaghadee but that’s another story entirely.
The first season was mainly monster of the week fare, as most fantasy shows are when they first start out (Smallville, Supernatural, Buffy, even Lost to an extent; you know the type of show I mean, one where in every pre-title sequence somebody gets killed or something weird happens). But towards the end of its inaugural year, Fringe started to delve into the idea of alternate universes. The main character, Olivia, travelled to an alternate universe where the Twin Towers are still standing to meet the elusive William Bell, played by Leonard Nimoy who’s been doing his fair bit of universe hopping, between this and Star Trek. And from the two episodes I’ve watched of the second season, it appears as if most of this season will be dedicated to this type of story.
And I can’t wait.
I love the notion of the multiverse. It’s such an interesting concept; that there are an infinite number of universes in which things are drastically or minutely different to the universe we currently inhabit. Who wouldn’t love that? Lost dabbled in this alternate universe thing in its final season (unfortunately, although it did provide emotional closure to the series, it dropped the ball in terms of offering answers, and looking back was a real cop out in any episode but the finale) but Fringe embraces it with all it’s geek heart.
So far, we’ve only seen one alternate universe in Fringe, and I think that’s all we’re going to, as I imagine any more than that would get a little confusing (see DC Comics many different “Earth’s” if you want proof. Don’t even think about starting 52 or Infinite Crisis. It’s freaking impenetrable; I tried reading it once and had no clue about what was going on. I asked a big DC fan, and when he mentioned that there were many different variations of Earth, and that characters who may been dead in the core universe may not be dead in another but are somehow affected by events in the origi….oh no, I’ve gone cross eyed.), but it got me thinking about which other universes I’d like to visit.
The universe where there are actual superheroes; the universe where everyone is a Gerry Anderson puppet; the universe where dogs are humans and humans are dogs; the universe where people walk on their hands; the booblehead universe [note: that was a typo, but I like booblehead better than bobblehead so it’s staying]; the universe without shrimp; the universe with nothing but shrimp; the universe where that fucking Go Compare advert, Two and a Half Men and The X Factor don’t exist; the universe where the word ‘universe’ doesn’t exist (which would have made this blog really hard). Personally I’d like a universe where hay fever didn’t exist, that would be awesome.
Oh, and obviously there’s the Rosario Dawson universe.
I freaking love the multiverse, you may have noticed. I mean, I watched Sliders FFS. And it was terrible.
So, what do you all think?
JC
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