Fringe - "Neither Here Nor There"

Season 4, Episode 1

Trying to return to “normal”

“There’s still a few kinks to work out, to start.”

-Walter

When Fringe finally showed us the alternate universe it had been hinting at, both the show and its fan base quickly embraced new terms to help them quickly differentiate between the two. “Over Here”/”Over There” and “Earth-1”/”Earth 2” may feel like complete gibberish to those people outside of the show, but they’re part of a second language for Fringe Fans. In that vein, I would like to submit a new phrase to the lexicon to describe the current reality in which both Fringe Divisions find themselves: Earth Without Peter, or EWOP. It’s this strange alternate reality within the world of Fringe that depends not on a physical location, but rather on the timeline that it’s connected to.

While a phrase like EWOP isn’t likely to be used again once Peter returns, it’s important to note that there are some differences caused by his absence from the show’s current history. Walter is afraid to venture outside of the lab, and though he seems to be functioning at a higher level scientifically, his lowered frequency of outbursts is made up for by their increased intensity. Astrid seems to get a larger role on the team, while Broyles is more removed from the day-to-day activities of the team. It’s a world where Lincoln’s more of a badass, and Olivia seems to not gotten over the trust issues caused by John Scott.

It’s also a world where people seem to say a lot of obvious and weirdly pointed things about how they feel as if someone or something is missing. Starting at the end of the second season, Fringe, which had been willing to be open and accommodating to all viewers by having a more procedural, became more and more serialized. It decided that it was done holding viewers hands throughout the show, that it was their job to keep up. Thus it feels weird for the show to so blatantly point out how it is that things have changed, to keep reminding us that Peter is not currently part of their world.

The problems here are the same as they were back in the season three finale: A) we know that Peter is going to comeback eventually and B) the show still has yet to give us an actual reason for why he had to disappear in the first place – both in terms of the Observers’ plan and that narrative necessity. So that means that as of now, those cheesy bits of dialogue A) are as perfunctory as they are obvious and B) make me think that the show just might have Peter willed back into existence by those people that he loves. It might have worked for Doctor Who, but that’s a far sillier show. Such thinking doesn’t belong on Fringe.

But in all seriousness, how is Peter going to get back? The fact that he interferes with the connection to Astrid’s Bluetooth device and appears in reflections to Walter would seem to indicate that somewhere, in some pocket of space-time, he is still a living, breathing consciousness. So is the fact that the Observers want him completely erased from time, as opposed to, I guess, the currently state of incomplete erasure that he’s in know. It’s a request that September, for whatever reason, can’t seem to follow through with. This is all well and good, and I’ll admit it piques my interest a bit, but how long is all of this going to last? Since we know that Peter is going to come back (the fact that Joshua Jackson’s name in the opening credits gives that away), what is the Fringe team going to over what seems to be several episodes (at least that’s what the teaser made it seem like) that Peter is temporally AWOL? What’s going to hold our interest until he comes back?

As of now, the best thing that I can think to say of Peter’s disappearance is that it has finally brought the two worlds together, at least in one small piece of the physical plane. This more intimate relationship that has seemed to form between the two Fringe Divisions allows a more intimate sense of paranoia, a sort of “their in our backyard” sense of dread, levels of which have yet to appear on the show. Where this is actually going to lead is not yet certain, but I did like how this sense of paranoia connected to the case-of-the-week, even if it unfortunately was at the tail end.

The other major consequence of Peter’s disappearance is that Lincoln Lee (and first and last name pairing that must  always accompany one another) and his alter ego, Seth Gabel, now join the show full time – but I wouldn’t exactly call this an improvement. Though I enjoy Lincoln Lee, and I’m glad that they made his Earth-1 persona a little more badass since the last time we saw him, I can’t get over the metafictional construct of his existence within EWOP. It’s fairly clear that they only real reason Gabel has the position that he has now is so that there can be some male actor in a “lead” position until Jackson returns to take the reins.

And now that I think about it, EWOP on the whole seems to be the poor man’s substitute for the Fringe that we once knew, the Fringe before last season’s finale. I want to be clear on something: I have a rule that even if I don’t like a certain twist a show gives me, I will still treat the episodes that follow on their own terms, not based on however I feel about the original twist. And right now, these episodes on their own terms don’t live up to the excitement of Fringe’s heyday.

Quotes, Etc:

Another mark for my theory that we should treat these episodes as if they belonged to another world: The credits sequence is now done in an orange hue.

Okay, now that Anna Torv finally gets to play two separate people in the same scene, she has to get an Emmy nod next year, right? Emmy voters love that kind of shit.

So apparently the sky can be cloudy in one universe, and clear in the other. Walternate’s advances over there must have really messed with the weather patterns.

“If you really want a story, look under the dome. I’m growing an ear.”

“I’m going to, uh…I’m going to have to check her anus.”

Man, John Noble’s arms are much thinner than I would have imagine

“Not from here? You mean, like, China?”

“Goodnight, Donny.” “My name is Tim.” “Goodnight, Timmy.”