Dude, it’s like Christmas on Fringe.
(Though did anybody else say “saw that coming” when the thing with Walter happened?)
NOTE: I’ve kept this post spoiler-free, but the comments are unlikely to stay that way.
Now that I’m once again using my TV for its original purpose — that is to say, watching broadcasts of shows, rather than treating the TV as simply an output device for the DVD player — I’m watching Fringe, Fox’s new X-Files-style show.
I suspect at least a couple of other people on my friends list are watching it, too, so I decided to toss my (non-spoilery) thoughts on the show up here.
First, and most major: the shadow-conspiracy. Fringe is in danger of falling into the same trap as its predecessor, namely, failing to make me care at all about the metaplot. In the case of The X-Files, it was a problem of concept as well as execution; at the end of the day, I just don’t care very much about UFOs and alien abductions. So when the execution was vague and muddy and confusing and pulled out of Chris Carter’s posterior, well, that didn’t help. In this case, I’m willing to invest more in caring — but they’re going to have to stop doing nothing but monster-of-the-week plots and start building up an actual pattern, with something that makes it hang together. So far, the only connecting element is that practically everything derives from some cracked-out experiment Walter did twenty years ago, thus giving the characters a way to solve the problem.
But I’m enjoying the characters, so I continue to watch. I like the way they have history; Walter and Peter are the most obvious and most enjoyable case, but also Dunham and her FBI boss whose name I can’t remember — not Broyles, the white guy. There’s a sense these people knew each other before the pilot episode started. And in general, I like that it’s a show about smart people being smart, where they have to bring all their mental capabilities to bear in order to figure out the puzzle. If that occasionally involves a dose of WTF, well, that’s kind of built into the premise of the show.
And I like Dunham. I like the fact that she’s a strong character who happens to be a woman, rather than a Strong Woman ™. Aside from that one time she blew up at Broyles, there’s been very little in the way of flashing neon gender signs, and more of her just being who she is, rather than a representative of her sex.
I fully expect a relationship between her and Peter someday, but I like that they’re not rushing into it. Peter himself is interesting, but like the metaplot, he needs more forward movement; he spends too much time being little more than Walter’s interpreter. I like it when he proactively contributes something to the puzzle, when his intelligence matters, too. (Not to mention the clue Walter dropped at one point, about Peter’s medical history. What kinds of experimentation was Dear Dad doing on him, anyway? More on that, kthxbye.)
Also, tonight’s episode made me notice something: if the plot calls for a main character to be strapped to a table or dentist’s chair and subjected to pain, that character has generally been Peter. Which makes sense on a structural level, but is also a refreshing change from media’s default victimization of women.
No overall thesis here; just scattered thoughts and reactions. Anybody else keeping up with this one?
It’s funny, realizing just how long it’s been since I had to remember to turn the TV on at a particular time, on a particular channel, because I wanted to watch something current.
I watch a lot of TV, but 99.9% of it is on DVD, after the season is over. Commercials annoy the snot out of me; I like being able to hit pause and wander off to get a drink; I like watching the show at my own pace (which is often “marathon”). But when my mother was here a few weeks ago, we watched So You Think You Can Dance, and — gasp — I’ve continued to watch it since then.
Here’s why I like the show. (The dance thing, obviously, but there’s more to it than that.)
For starters, they’re doing a pretty good job of being open to all kinds of styles, from ballroom to ballet to street. Not only can you potentially get on the show whether you’re swing or crunk, once you’re there, they’ll make you operate outside of your safety zone. So we get hip-hop guys doing the foxtrot, and ballerinas grunging it up, and some of them adapt spectacularly. (It also, as a corollary, means that the show has a higher degree of racial diversity than I’ve seen practically anywhere on TV. I predict that once this week’s cuts are made, there won’t be any white guys left — and the only one remaining is a Hawaiian guy who looks like he has more than just Europeans in his ancestry.)
Also, until they get down to the last 10, the cuts are made by both popular and judge decision. That is, viewers vote, and then the bottom slice of contestants solo before the judges boot one guy and one girl. This guarantees that when you get to the final stages of the show, everybody left is actually good. You may have preferred someone who got cut, but the remaining dancers are at least worthy.
Which means that the later stages of the show are really friendly instead of vicious and cut-throat, at least as seen on TV. Tonight’s episode was one big love-in, with the judges raving about what beautiful dancers all of them are; even when they criticize, they often do it apologetically, with references to all the other wonderful things the dancer is capable of, even if they failed at the current routine. And since the contestants have to dance in pairs, whatever sniping may go on backstage, you don’t see it out front; trying to undercut your partner is about the stupidest move you could make. The best way to look good is to make the person you’re with look good. There’s no Donald Trump being an asshole at the contestants, no fake conflict generated to boost ratings.
So what you’re left with is a lot of friendly people creating beautiful and diverse art.
For that, I remind myself to turn on the TV every Wednesday at 8 p.m. It’s worth the effort.
I like picking things apart and imagining how they could have been made stronger; it’s a useful mental exercise for me as a writer. So, with that in mind — and having finished my two-month DVD binge of the entire series — I’m going to discuss Buffy Season Seven: what they did right, what they did wrong, and what they could have done better.
Needless to say, but saying it anyway: spoilers like whoa. And also wordiness.
It occurs to me that there are probably any number of people in the world who are convinced I ripped Doppelganger off from the Buffy episode “Doppelgangland.”
Which I did not see until years after I had written the book.
(I mean, two red-haired girls who are alternate reality versions of each other? And one’s a witch? And the other wears black leather and kicks ass? Make Mirage a vampire, and you’re set.)
