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ravenOh my god, you guys, I have ALL THE FEELINGS about Fringe. ALL THE FEELINGS.
Okay. Here are my non-spoilery feelings about Fringe. I love you, Olivia Dunham, and I love Peter almost as much. (And Walter and Astrid and Broyles too!) All the feeeeelings. I still think it's a show that owes a lot to The X-Files, not quite a spiritual successor but, clearly, would never have been made if The X-Files hadn't been. But it's, oddly, less foreboding - because, as one of my friends I forget which wisely said, the characters have control over the world around them, and that makes all the difference. And, they are real characters: they have family dynamics, desires and wishes and wants and loyalties and backgrounds, and these play out in front of and behind the "main" plots in a way I really, really like and isn't common enough in television science fiction. Although, actually, I don't think Fringe actually is sci-fi - I think it's got the glass, the chrome, the bleeping machines and the explanations, but really, it's fantasy, complete with quests, feet of clay and lost children.
Also... this is so embarrasing, right, but I love Olivia and Peter and I ship them liek woah. I have not been this much of a drippy shipper since I was fifteen. But I looooove them and I want to squish them together and make them have many babies. Okay maybe not the last part. But so much loooooove. And part of it is for grown-up reasons, honest!
What I love is that Peter is, for many reasons, the central character of the show - the plot almost literally revolves around him - and yet, Olivia is the protagonist. This is Olivia's story. Olivia's character arc, in a lot of ways, rings horribly true to me: a woman fighting against the pressures of an unfair world, against internal currents and forces that all seem devoted to telling her she's rubbish - and against that, the people who love her and see her truly, telling her over and over again that she is extraordinary, she is beautiful, she is strong, she is more than just good enough.
And then she and Peter are together and... yes. That works for me. There is this little scene late in season three, where Olivia has woken up before Peter and gone for a small wander around the house, returned to Peter sleeping. She reaches out and strokes his hair, and goes back to what she was doing. It's a tiny thing, a casual gesture, but it's protective, and it struck me all at once that that's what I love - that they are equals. That she isn't a prize or a princess and this isn't a fairy tale - they've fought a battle towards each other. (And in so many shows, I've seen that scene - with the genders swapped.)
And then - they step towards the machine together. Yes. I love their future versions too, I love how they seem to have grown, both separately and with each other, I love how smooth and fluid their characterisations are over time, over alternate versions, over experience, over everything.
Oh, oh, show. And I love the steady stream of clever, witty grace notes. I love that the West Wing ran to more seasons in the alternate universe, I love how Henry Higgins oversaw a woman's transformation. I love how Peter, aged thirty, leaves the same note on his bed that he left aged nine: I am going home. (Speaking of which, oh my god - nine-year-old Peter trying to jump into the lake broke me, oh god oh god.) I love the Observers' inability to taste anything but chili sauce.
I don't think it's perfect - it makes odd missteps, I could do without its occasional violence against women, and, the whole plot with William Bell was a bit pointless if very entertaining (an animated episode! oh god, I love you, show - and for some reason it really got to me, Peter waking up and screaming for Olivia and being soothed by Walter, they're such a family) - but really, it's the most solidly endearing and fun TV I've watched in ages.
I am now on 4x01, "Neither Here Nor There". Please do not spoil me! Though there is not that much to spoil me on, now. Oh show.
Also! If I could vid, I would make a Fringe vid to "New York Minute" by the Eagles. Just sayin'.
Okay. Here are my non-spoilery feelings about Fringe. I love you, Olivia Dunham, and I love Peter almost as much. (And Walter and Astrid and Broyles too!) All the feeeeelings. I still think it's a show that owes a lot to The X-Files, not quite a spiritual successor but, clearly, would never have been made if The X-Files hadn't been. But it's, oddly, less foreboding - because, as one of my friends I forget which wisely said, the characters have control over the world around them, and that makes all the difference. And, they are real characters: they have family dynamics, desires and wishes and wants and loyalties and backgrounds, and these play out in front of and behind the "main" plots in a way I really, really like and isn't common enough in television science fiction. Although, actually, I don't think Fringe actually is sci-fi - I think it's got the glass, the chrome, the bleeping machines and the explanations, but really, it's fantasy, complete with quests, feet of clay and lost children.
Also... this is so embarrasing, right, but I love Olivia and Peter and I ship them liek woah. I have not been this much of a drippy shipper since I was fifteen. But I looooove them and I want to squish them together and make them have many babies. Okay maybe not the last part. But so much loooooove. And part of it is for grown-up reasons, honest!
What I love is that Peter is, for many reasons, the central character of the show - the plot almost literally revolves around him - and yet, Olivia is the protagonist. This is Olivia's story. Olivia's character arc, in a lot of ways, rings horribly true to me: a woman fighting against the pressures of an unfair world, against internal currents and forces that all seem devoted to telling her she's rubbish - and against that, the people who love her and see her truly, telling her over and over again that she is extraordinary, she is beautiful, she is strong, she is more than just good enough.
And then she and Peter are together and... yes. That works for me. There is this little scene late in season three, where Olivia has woken up before Peter and gone for a small wander around the house, returned to Peter sleeping. She reaches out and strokes his hair, and goes back to what she was doing. It's a tiny thing, a casual gesture, but it's protective, and it struck me all at once that that's what I love - that they are equals. That she isn't a prize or a princess and this isn't a fairy tale - they've fought a battle towards each other. (And in so many shows, I've seen that scene - with the genders swapped.)
And then - they step towards the machine together. Yes. I love their future versions too, I love how they seem to have grown, both separately and with each other, I love how smooth and fluid their characterisations are over time, over alternate versions, over experience, over everything.
Oh, oh, show. And I love the steady stream of clever, witty grace notes. I love that the West Wing ran to more seasons in the alternate universe, I love how Henry Higgins oversaw a woman's transformation. I love how Peter, aged thirty, leaves the same note on his bed that he left aged nine: I am going home. (Speaking of which, oh my god - nine-year-old Peter trying to jump into the lake broke me, oh god oh god.) I love the Observers' inability to taste anything but chili sauce.
I don't think it's perfect - it makes odd missteps, I could do without its occasional violence against women, and, the whole plot with William Bell was a bit pointless if very entertaining (an animated episode! oh god, I love you, show - and for some reason it really got to me, Peter waking up and screaming for Olivia and being soothed by Walter, they're such a family) - but really, it's the most solidly endearing and fun TV I've watched in ages.
I am now on 4x01, "Neither Here Nor There". Please do not spoil me! Though there is not that much to spoil me on, now. Oh show.
Also! If I could vid, I would make a Fringe vid to "New York Minute" by the Eagles. Just sayin'.
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no subject
on 2012-01-19 12:40 am (UTC)I love that Olivia gets the superhero backstory - experimented on and given strange powers to save the world - while Peter has the fairytale princess backstory - kidnapped as a child and raised by not-quite-his-parents and that he is the mad scientist's lovely daughter.
no subject
on 2012-01-19 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-19 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-19 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-18 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-23 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-18 11:01 pm (UTC)I am thrilled to bits that you love the show as much as I do. Also, Olivia/Peter YAY!
But I looooove them and I want to squish them together and make them have many babies. Okay maybe not the last part.
Whereas I am desperately hoping the show gives us a few minutes of the "little tribe of Bishops" Peter mentions in "The Day We Died," because they so obviously want them, and it just...sure, it's cliche, but I really want this for them.
We have similar favorite things about the show. I'm in love with the fact that while the story is about Peter, Olivia is the protagonist. Olivia is awesome, period. And this:
it struck me all at once that that's what I love - that they are equals.
YESSSSS. So much love for this. And perhaps my very favorite thing is how much their relationship relates to the mytharc. Like, Olivia is awesome on her own, of course, but Peter is basically her trigger to be even more awesome, such as when she types on the alternate typewriter or unlocks the machine with her mind. I love that the romantic angle is so integral to the rest of the story, that it grows from it and supports it at the same time.
Oh, the William Bell plot. Yes, I had issues with that as well, and they could basically be summed up with, "Ugh, we JUST GOT OLIVIA BACK from her brainwashing in Redverse, and now she's gone again? NOOOO!" That and I hated the animated episode. (I disagreed with its conclusion that Olivia's MO when she gets scared is to retreat, because the rest of the series shows her kicking ass in that state. Also I was confused about the whole "now I'm not scared to move forward" thing...move forward with what? What was she scared of? Ugh, that episode.)
no subject
on 2012-01-23 10:57 pm (UTC)I take all of your points about the animated episode. I think I saw it differently, though - I think I saw that Olivia, herself, does not think she's all that, and that's a fundamental difference between her and the other Olivia. I can see that episode as a step she makes towards that. But at the same time, yeah, retreat - no.
no subject
on 2012-01-18 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-23 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-19 07:14 am (UTC)The story being about Olivia despite Peter's centrality to the story is also one of the things that appeals to me -- that, and the whole "being a badass lady in a world that does not recognize her enough" aspect.
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on 2012-01-23 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-19 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-23 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-21 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-01-23 10:59 pm (UTC)