Fringe is back for a fourth season, stoked with a full head of story telling steam. Thanks to the mind breaking removal of Peter from not just a timeline, but existence itself, at the climatic end of Season 3.  Fox fanned those flames even higher with an excellent off season promotional campaign that peaked just before the Season 4 premiere creating a buzz with the slogan, ‘Where is Peter Bishop?’

And the Fringe showrunners continue to demonstrate they are not afraid to break with convention. We are treated to our initial glimpse of a Captain Kirk – Tholian Webbing style, Peter Bishop in the very first scene.

Don’t You Forget About Me!

A Peter Bishop, who by all astonished Observer accounts, has managed the impossible. Peter should no longer exist but yet he lingers with some traces in the newly established time line.  How Peter has managed to do this tells me in my gut that this is at the crux of whom the Observers are and what their purpose is.  Equally intriguing is September’s decision to disobey orders to activate his Peter Time Eraser.  Is September seeing that the boy is important again or is he softening like his compatriot August did?  And will the TIme Eraser be modified to bring Peter back fully?

In Episode 4.01 we find much has changed.  Olivia, looking just at tad frayed at the edges, is near back to Season 1 guardedness, Walter is very fragile and refuses to leave his lab and, in the only good bit of news, Astrid is out in the field instead of babysitting Walter.  

Into this Peterless timeline steps Lincoln Lee.  While he met the main characters last season in the previous timeline, in this new post Season 3 setting, the audience sees the Fringe team through his freshly reset eyes.  Lincoln’s life parallels Olivia’s but he is three years behind her curve.  With his partner, Lincoln felt like he was part of a family but in a flash, at the hands of a new, and just as deadly shapeshifter, Lee’s partner is taken from him.  Much the same happened to Olivia three years ago with her partner, which harkens back to the pilot.  But in this timeline, without Peter to act as Walter’s intermediary, Olivia’s partner could not be saved.

‘Neither Here, Nor There,’ carries extra burdens that regular season premieres normally do not. Normally the premiere episode has to set up the season long arcs necessitating more expositional material than subsequent ones.  In Season Four of Fringe the first episode not only has to do but it also must set up the parameters of the new timeline.  A further piece of story overhead is because of the unique position the show is in from a story telling point of view, the Season 4 Premiere makes it an excellent leaping in point for new viewers.  With all this additional overhead this episode juggles them adroitly as possible but at times there are some rough edges because of these muliple purposes.  

The most noticeable sign of rough edges is the dialogue being much more on the nose than is characteristic for Fringe.  Statements about missing something in one’s life or lacking a tether or feeling a life long hole hammer the point of Peter’s absence much more clumsily than is expected from a show with its established pedigree.

Fortunately the cast knows their characters so well at this point that they take on these extra burdens and smooth the bumps out as much as possible.  Anna Torv shows how much her mastery of Olivia Dunham has grown from the first season by visibly doing a masterful nuanced and intriguing performance of an almost Season One Olivia.

John Noble also brings another iteration of Walter to us.  This Walter is more in his own world and yet he seems more lucid.  Is it possible that in this timeline he never had William Bell remove parts of his brain?  Most noticeably this is a sadder Walter, one who may have witnessd the death of his son not once, but twice.

Linlcon Lee is integrated fairly seamlessly, if perhaps a bit quickly.  His presence is welcome but it will be interesting to see how he plays off of Olivia in the long haul as Lee almost seems like a male version of Olivia.  And while Astrid gets to go out in the field she does not seem noticeably changed.

Episode ‘Patterns’: Add your own in the comments.

• wonderful opening scene with a hateful Olivia verbally jousting with her Redverse counterpart Fauxlivia, whom we learn still switched places with Olivia
• instead of Spot the Observers now we get to play Spot the Peter… er, make that Spot Peter
• ‘It is impossible.’  Tell Peter that.
• New amber-orange Title Credits = red + blue?
• NerdiLee has moves! Quickly puts down his suspect.
• NerdiLee’s partner killed by a new type of shapeshifter – Translucent Man
• Walter feels something is different in the lab the past week
• Gene! has made it to the new timeline intact!  Whew!
• Astrid’s got a gun! And a squelching blue tooth ear phone/camera piece to talk to Walter from the field
• Walter avoiding cracks in the floor and reanimating pidgeons
• Reanimating birds are nothing, Walter is growing an ear under the dome
• ‘I need to check her anus.’
• September on a shopping trip at a Mom & Pop electronics store
• ‘I need to erase someone from time.’
• Walter hiding from the Man In the Mirror in the Isolation Tank
• Olivia’s calming effect on Walter – a new power?
• ‘I’m not wearing pants.’
• Awesome translucent shots of the shape shifter injecting himself with the ever present Fringe Big Needle
• ‘People die. Sometimes twice.’
• Olivia references John Scott from the Season 1 pilot
• Anna Torv is noticeably better at playing Season 1 Olivia than she was back in Season 1
• Olivia letting shapeshifter get close?!?!! Boo!
• ‘Not from here. You mean, like, China?’
• NerdiLee gets to see the ‘Bridge’ and Fauxlivia and a Zeppelin too!
• Walter sleeps in his office
• September changes his mind about erasing Peter – hmmm
• Peter in the TV

Ah Yes, Fringe is back!

A lot of seeds laid in this episode.  September’s actions are sure to set off interesting story developments.  The new shape shifters look to be in for the long haul.  The Bridge between the two worlds now allows for easy story access to both sides.  Lots of interesting possibilities are waiting to be explored in Season Four. 

And hovering in the back ground.  Unable to directly interact but always a presence noticeable by his absence. 

Peter.

Will Season 4 Ignore Or Explore?

Season 3 Finale – ‘The Day We Died’*

* – all dialogue quotes are from this episode.

Walternate(2011): ‘You shattered my universe! Do you have any idea of how many deaths you caused?’

Walter(2011): ‘That was an accident! What you have tried to do, you have done on purpose!’

Season 4 starts out with the two universes still in peril but now with a chance for both sides to avert the impending disaster, thanks to Peter. But the price of creating that chance has removed Peter from the playing board. So much of what Walter and Olivia have become is intertwined with Peter’s presence. Without him in the mix how can this new opportunity in the form of the Universe Bridge between the two universes have a chance of success? How well will Olivia and Walter and by extension, Walternate and Fauxlivia, be equipped to deal with this new crisis?

Have the writers have written themselves into a corner?

It is clear from the SDCC Fringe press room interviews that the show runners mulled over using Peter’s nonexistence as a story point. Part of the examination must have been how it could be used within the constraints of a serialized TV show. How can a story be carried out without the involvement of one of the three prinicipals? While Fringe demonstrated last season that it is willing to sit out characters for entire episodes to tell a story, sitting one out for half a season is not doable. It must be concluded that the show runners were able to come up with a story that requires Peter’s return but in a manner that does not void the setup from the Season 3 Finale. What possible story could that be?

Walter(2026): ‘It’s a paradox. I can’t change what happens because it already has happened.’

My expectations for S4 are that, much like it was revealed in Season 3 that the two universes need each other to co-exist; so will it be found that Peter’s presence is also essential. The Observers are able to foresee cause and affect but what they cannot foresee is the human element. What Walter and Olivia are missing from the original timeline are those human qualities for love and compassion that Peter enabled in both of them. Without those qualities they will be unable to arrive at a solution to save the two universes. Something that the Observers seem incapable of comprehending.

Peter’s absence should manifest itself in ways that will make him ‘Important,’ to borrow an Observerism.

Once this Importance is realized by the Observers, they will have to find a way to reinsert Peter into the timeline to preserve all those growth moments the three principal characters have gone through. And that, I suspect, is where the drama will lie. How to do that AND preserve the Universe Bridge that Peter has built? The ripple affects of timeline changes are enormous as seen in last season’s ‘The Firefly’ episode.

How can a successful scenario play out without Peter in the mix? Try to imagine how The Lord Of The Rings would play out if there was no Samwise Gamgee! Or no Spock in The Wrath of Khan! The mind boggles! And, to me, in good and exciting ways.

Walter(2026): ‘But you can make a different choice within what happened. I simply need to find a way to bring your consciousness forward to now so that you can witness what will happen if you make the same choice.’

That does not mean that Peter’s re-integration into the Prime Timeline has to be without some changes to the previously established history of the first three seasons. There are several inter-related viewpoints by fans and TV critics that by introducing worm holes and time travel into the mix that the show is bypassing the main storyline. There is the belief that all the hard won character battles and growth will be lost. The side stepping of the main storyline has been addressed in Part 1. The two universes are still on a course of Existence Extinguishment. Nothing has been circumvented. Peter has given the two realities a chance for redemption. Nothing more.

As to the negation of all previous events for the main cast, that could happen, but I have faith in the show runners that they will not let that come to pass. If anything they will expand and deepen those previous moments. Especially if Peter has to be involved in them in some surreptitious manner. There are many hard won moments in the previous three seasons that the show runners are sure to want to preserve both for their impact and integrity in relation to the journey the characters have taken to this point.

Walter(2026): Don’t you see? We could fix everything! We could cheat the rules of time!’

Season 3 was very much about fleshing out Olivia’s character. She underwent a journey that allowed her to gain mastery of her inner doubts and make emotional connections with Peter. Season 4 seems poised to do the same for Peter. It could very well end up being a Fringian version of, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life.’

And like in the Season 3 Finale when Peter needed Olivia’s help in order to access the Machine, it would only be fitting that Olivia once again steps up and brings Peter from the ‘other’ side – whatever that ‘other’ existence/nonexistence may be – in Season 4 and back into the Prime Timeline we have been watching for the past three seasons.

It could very well come to pass that as Season 4 plays out, the events set in motion by the finale of Season 3 will be looked back at in a more appreciative light. The removal of Peter from the established story line should turn out to be the launching pad for some amazing and touching future episodes.

Peter (2026/2011?): ‘Imagine the repercussions.’

Walter (2026): ‘There’s no way of telling what the cost may be but it can’t be worse than this. Can’t be worse than this.’

The Season 3 Finale may have been more of an intellectual exercise, leaving viewers cold, but it could be the seed from which many emotional character moments spring up from. Much like the introduction of the alternate universe was used to show us more about the characters, it is almost a certainty the Fringe show runners will use the erasure of Peter to do the same thing again.

My prediction is that Season 4 will follow the structure of Season 3. The first handful of episodes will show the impact of Peter’s removal – some by revisiting past moments, others by showing conflict in the present with their counterparts ie Walternate & Fauxlivia – and demonstrating why Peter’s return is vital. The next bunch will deal with reintegrating Peter back in the timeline with minimal changes to the original one we know as the past 3 Seasons and keeping the Universe Bridge intact.

Peter (2026/2011?): ‘What would I need to do?’

Season 4 – will It ignore or Explore? Will it ignore or explore what has happened in the first 3 seasons and how it impacts events going forward? Even before the SanDiego ComicCon(SDCC) the answer seemed clear. Now after the SDCC it is a certainty.

The Question has been answered. Season 4 will explore.

Pass the Red Vines and color me excited.