Fringe: Cus it's about to start again...
Jan. 17th, 2011 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaSO! Fringe is coming back soon and I kind of fell out of habit of posting about it during the latter part of the first half of the season and mostly responded in others' posts. But since we're about to take the plunge back into the show again, I thoughts I would...catalogue my thoughts.
They mostly relate to Olivia and her character development and her arc and her romantic arc with Peter because I'm not really in a place of speculation about the metaplot except inasmuch as it intersects with those aspects because (1) it's crack (this is not a criticism), and (2) I'm not really that fussed about figuring it out ahead of time. It's fun not knowing, even though I still think people from before the times of dinosaurs is the most ridiculously dumb shit I've heard in a long time. Unless there's timetravel involved. Which there might be. Damn, there I go, speculating on the metaplot when this was supposed to be all about OLIVIA and why I don't ship her with people and stuff.
Here's the thing about me and Fringe. I really, really like it most of the time. Olivia Dunham and Walter Bishop are spectacular characters. I feel the metaplot is actually kind of interesting and succeeds in surprising me quite a bit. But I can never quite bring myself to trust it. It keeps doing things that if they go one way, will be amazing, and if they go another, will be fail central. And they always keep veering towards amazing at the last second, while also setting up another fail/amazing fork in the road.
I want to have enough faith to enjoy the ride, but I just...don't quite. Some of that, I'm sure, is due to recent disappointment in unrelated television that I trusted but I can't help it - it's how I feel.
For every awesome thing Olivia does, there's the part of it that's kind of "because she's in ~love~ with Peter". For every time I think she's gonna start a fire with her mind because her powers are tied to fear and the experience of being a child, helpless in Walter's "lab", she instead gets brainwashed. For every time I get pissed that she's brainwashed, she remembers herself and then rescues herself. And then apparently it was because she was in ~love~. But then she dumps Peter's ass in an amazing fashion for reasons so clearly articulated I want to kiss her myself.
IT IS VERY STRESSFUL.
Anyway, the point is, I'm super concerned about how they'll handle the ongoing Altlivia/Peter/Olivia love triangle thingy since (a) I hate love triangles and (b) I think this one has particularly potential to become extraordinarily skeezy. I'm assuming that Altlivia will be back at some point, given the way she was sent off and the picture strip Peter found. That's what they call FORESHADOWING, kids! :p
But even if she never comes back, I basically feel I have the same dilemma which is this:
I feel the show has pretty irrevocably told us that Peter explained away Altlivia's differences because he liked her better that way. Because she was easier to love. Because somewhere, deep down, he thought that if he started dating Olivia she'd turn into that girl for him. He'd discover of course she had a happy side that liked dancing and U2. I don't doubt that he loved Olivia and to an extent Astrid's comments about his feelings being about Olivia not Altlivia are true - that's where they started.
But are we supposed to take Astrid's words as the show's view? Or are we supposed to look more closely at Peter's own words and actions? The fact that regardless of how much he loved Olivia, he liked all the changes, he liked that she was less intense and quicker to smile. Bluntly, that he did fall in love with Altlivia. Their entire relationship wasn't based on him ignoring those changes or tolerating them. It wasn't false on his part, or even, it seems, entirely on hers. And to suggest so is disingenuous. I think even to assume that he mostly loved the parts of them that were the same is somewhat disingenuous.
And that's a tragic story that is compelling to me. I'm not sure how it ends, and it's painful, but it's also narratively rich. Olivia is damaged. I suppose the best I have is an explanation sourced from the ever-intelligent![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaila43 - a comparison to Sarah Connor. Charley Dixon loved Sarah Reese unreservedly, but loving Sarah Connor was scary, and difficult, and he never exactly stopped, but he didn't exactly want to either and in the end it killed him. Loving Olivia Dunham isn't easy. Not when you know all of who she is and what she does and what she needs to do.
The comparison isn't exact but there's something there. Something about the price Olivia pays for what happened to her. And...not that I never want anyone to find her and love her; indeed, I want desperately for someone to just hug her already. I would love for someone to find and love her for who she is. But perhaps that's it. I wonder if this storyline has kind of shot Peter being that guy in the heart already. And if I'm buying that because I never felt he really understood her in the first place because I always saw their faux-siblings chemistry far more strongly than their romantic chemistry?
So to bring it back to the dilemma - I want them to really explore the fact that Peter never really knew her, that maybe they were never going to work because he didn't see her. To explore the tragedy and cost of that and to have it not work out.
Because I think, at this point, if it DOES work out, if they sort things out and give it a go, I'll always wonder...what changed? When did he learn to see her? When did he decide he preferred the haunted intensity to the easy smile (when everything I know about Peter says he'd prefer the easy smile, because he's damaged too - the conartist master of the instant connection, but uncertain what to do or how to recognise something deeper).
I suppose a big character arc for Peter where he realises these things about himself could help. But I dunno. Emotionally I'm still at the point where I don't think I'll ever buy it.
However narratively I'm at the point where I think that ultimately they probably will try to reconcile them.
And there's my dilemma. The more they mine the story of how Peter fell in love with an Olivia and it was the wrong one, the more amazing it will be in the present, but the more stressed I'll get that they'll try to reconcile them in the future, where the deeper they've gone into that story, the skeezier that eventual reconciliation will eventually be.
I don't think I'll ever actively ship them but this might well push it from "Eh, whatever, a part of the story that doesn't interest me greatly," to active dislike and pissed-offness.
So, like, what are your thoughts? Where do you think they'll go from here?
CUS I R NERVOUS, PPL.
They mostly relate to Olivia and her character development and her arc and her romantic arc with Peter because I'm not really in a place of speculation about the metaplot except inasmuch as it intersects with those aspects because (1) it's crack (this is not a criticism), and (2) I'm not really that fussed about figuring it out ahead of time. It's fun not knowing, even though I still think people from before the times of dinosaurs is the most ridiculously dumb shit I've heard in a long time. Unless there's timetravel involved. Which there might be. Damn, there I go, speculating on the metaplot when this was supposed to be all about OLIVIA and why I don't ship her with people and stuff.
Here's the thing about me and Fringe. I really, really like it most of the time. Olivia Dunham and Walter Bishop are spectacular characters. I feel the metaplot is actually kind of interesting and succeeds in surprising me quite a bit. But I can never quite bring myself to trust it. It keeps doing things that if they go one way, will be amazing, and if they go another, will be fail central. And they always keep veering towards amazing at the last second, while also setting up another fail/amazing fork in the road.
I want to have enough faith to enjoy the ride, but I just...don't quite. Some of that, I'm sure, is due to recent disappointment in unrelated television that I trusted but I can't help it - it's how I feel.
For every awesome thing Olivia does, there's the part of it that's kind of "because she's in ~love~ with Peter". For every time I think she's gonna start a fire with her mind because her powers are tied to fear and the experience of being a child, helpless in Walter's "lab", she instead gets brainwashed. For every time I get pissed that she's brainwashed, she remembers herself and then rescues herself. And then apparently it was because she was in ~love~. But then she dumps Peter's ass in an amazing fashion for reasons so clearly articulated I want to kiss her myself.
IT IS VERY STRESSFUL.
Anyway, the point is, I'm super concerned about how they'll handle the ongoing Altlivia/Peter/Olivia love triangle thingy since (a) I hate love triangles and (b) I think this one has particularly potential to become extraordinarily skeezy. I'm assuming that Altlivia will be back at some point, given the way she was sent off and the picture strip Peter found. That's what they call FORESHADOWING, kids! :p
But even if she never comes back, I basically feel I have the same dilemma which is this:
I feel the show has pretty irrevocably told us that Peter explained away Altlivia's differences because he liked her better that way. Because she was easier to love. Because somewhere, deep down, he thought that if he started dating Olivia she'd turn into that girl for him. He'd discover of course she had a happy side that liked dancing and U2. I don't doubt that he loved Olivia and to an extent Astrid's comments about his feelings being about Olivia not Altlivia are true - that's where they started.
But are we supposed to take Astrid's words as the show's view? Or are we supposed to look more closely at Peter's own words and actions? The fact that regardless of how much he loved Olivia, he liked all the changes, he liked that she was less intense and quicker to smile. Bluntly, that he did fall in love with Altlivia. Their entire relationship wasn't based on him ignoring those changes or tolerating them. It wasn't false on his part, or even, it seems, entirely on hers. And to suggest so is disingenuous. I think even to assume that he mostly loved the parts of them that were the same is somewhat disingenuous.
And that's a tragic story that is compelling to me. I'm not sure how it ends, and it's painful, but it's also narratively rich. Olivia is damaged. I suppose the best I have is an explanation sourced from the ever-intelligent
chaila43 - a comparison to Sarah Connor. Charley Dixon loved Sarah Reese unreservedly, but loving Sarah Connor was scary, and difficult, and he never exactly stopped, but he didn't exactly want to either and in the end it killed him. Loving Olivia Dunham isn't easy. Not when you know all of who she is and what she does and what she needs to do. The comparison isn't exact but there's something there. Something about the price Olivia pays for what happened to her. And...not that I never want anyone to find her and love her; indeed, I want desperately for someone to just hug her already. I would love for someone to find and love her for who she is. But perhaps that's it. I wonder if this storyline has kind of shot Peter being that guy in the heart already. And if I'm buying that because I never felt he really understood her in the first place because I always saw their faux-siblings chemistry far more strongly than their romantic chemistry?
So to bring it back to the dilemma - I want them to really explore the fact that Peter never really knew her, that maybe they were never going to work because he didn't see her. To explore the tragedy and cost of that and to have it not work out.
Because I think, at this point, if it DOES work out, if they sort things out and give it a go, I'll always wonder...what changed? When did he learn to see her? When did he decide he preferred the haunted intensity to the easy smile (when everything I know about Peter says he'd prefer the easy smile, because he's damaged too - the conartist master of the instant connection, but uncertain what to do or how to recognise something deeper).
I suppose a big character arc for Peter where he realises these things about himself could help. But I dunno. Emotionally I'm still at the point where I don't think I'll ever buy it.
However narratively I'm at the point where I think that ultimately they probably will try to reconcile them.
And there's my dilemma. The more they mine the story of how Peter fell in love with an Olivia and it was the wrong one, the more amazing it will be in the present, but the more stressed I'll get that they'll try to reconcile them in the future, where the deeper they've gone into that story, the skeezier that eventual reconciliation will eventually be.
I don't think I'll ever actively ship them but this might well push it from "Eh, whatever, a part of the story that doesn't interest me greatly," to active dislike and pissed-offness.
So, like, what are your thoughts? Where do you think they'll go from here?
CUS I R NERVOUS, PPL.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 11:53 pm (UTC)Sometimes I want to watch it just to be able to discuss it in your journal. :-) But even behind-the-seasons me would be nervous too. :-)
Time of the dinosaurs! Heee! Maybe I need to just have a sense of humor about things and this show?
:-)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 12:05 am (UTC)Seriously, I haven't even watched the last episode yet, because I just can't deal with it anymore (the irony, of course, being that I ran directly into the arms of JACK THE FREAKING RIPPER). I'm just going to wait until the season's over and catch up then.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 08:32 pm (UTC)Waiting and catching up all at once if you feel like it is probably the best solution; it's what I did with Dexter most of the time, until I decided I couldn't be bothered to catch up anymore.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 01:09 am (UTC)How much did I love that scene in Marionette? SO MUCH, I CAN'T EVEN. OLIVIA.
Astrid. I really want Astrid to give her a hug, like yesterday. Or Ella, though it'd be nice if it was someone that would know. I'd also take Broyles being there the way he was when Charlie died.
Um, pretty much, I am with you, especially on how skeevy the triangle could potentially become. The Altlivia/Peter stuff always made me super uncomfortable where they were going, even as I can kind of see how easy it must have been to Peter to be in his comfort zone of breakfast in bed and charm. Which isn't going to be where Olivia is. I think they almost have to start Peter on some introspection for me to be comfortable watching scenes with them in the future. I have this giant question mark on how to react to him lately.
And I really hope they deal with all this well through the fail/awesome junctures to come. It's kind of the show's thing now.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 08:44 pm (UTC)I would have loved for Astrid to hug her. I thought it was very touching the way Astrid tried to stop Olivia from pretending to be okay, to let her know it was okay to not be okay, and then...the thing that I felt that I'm not sure I'm on the same page as fandom with, was the way she...doesn't get it right. Not for lack of trying - and I love her so much for trying - but she tries to make it better, to explain that it wasn't really like that, to make Olivia feel less crappy by giving her greater understanding of the situation, when I think that was...the wrong way to go. Olivia didn't need to be told, yet again, how Peter might or might not feel about her. She needed a hug, and for someone to tell her it was okay to be hurt and furious; for someone to give her permission not to consider what Peter might have felt or intended?
Anyway, yes. More Astrid. And honestly? More Broyles. I really love Broyles and he never gets to form relationships with people. I HAVE STILL NOT FORGOTTEN THAT TIME NINA SHARP SNOGGED HIM.
He should take Olivia drinking. I would watch that.
As to the Altlivia/Peter stuff, I...don't even know how I feel. I feel like I can't decide until I know whether or not it'll be skeezy. I actually want to like it, if they go for it. I mean, obviously it's a poor comparison in many ways, because the interpersonal relationships are different, but it makes me think of Kara/Sam. Where Sam was, to my mind, obviously so much better suited to Kara than Lee, but I never really believed that they'd let it happen long-term. Except in that instance, I didn't feel like it'd be skeezy if Kara/Lee happened, just that it wouldn't work for me. And in that instance while, okay, there are perspectives from which Kara treated Lee poorly that are valid, it's not a patch on what Olivia is going through Peter never intended it.
But still, the principle of it - actually having Peter choose Altlivia, even though it's going to make him feel guilty as hell? INTRIGUING.
And stuff.
And you're right, it's so the show's thing now. And it's exhausting. It's like it's engaged in a constant game of chicken with FAIL. And keeps winning because, um, no one beats Olivia Dunham?
no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 05:34 am (UTC)AND WHY WOULD YOU, FOR IT WAS AWESOME.
I gave in to the temptation to come back because you brought up BSG, and my mind DOES compare Lee and Peter because of my near inability to understand either one! Though they aren't at all alike. I do think BSG did the better job so far with what made Lee tick, just not with consistency. ;) I'm a little confused in this example if Kara/Lee is with Altlivia or Olivia. I want to go with Olivia, since usually I'd just accidentally overlook Kara/Lee in a similar way to Peter/Olivia without it affecting anything else about the show for me. I missed the parts that made people ship them, apparently. Like the time after the show ended I discovered that the line everyone kept saying about the applecart wasn't a shipper in-joke, but an almost-funny Lee actually said. Hilarious!
That is how I feel about Peter/Olivia.
If Frank didn't exist (maybe he's kinda Dee in this?), I'd like to see where they might go with Peter/Altlivia. It wasn't that she did a good impression of Olivia, since she actually did a terrible impression of Olivia, but that he liked what they had. It was something he wanted.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 10:44 pm (UTC)And yes, I was comparing Kara/Lee to Peter/Olivia in that same way. I missed the stuff that was supposed to make me ship them and I'm left thinking it's just the ship because they're the two leads, not because it actually makes narrative sense. In fact, again like Kara/Lee, I feel Peter and Olivia have a better relationship as pseudo siblings who share a father-figure who treated both of them questionably as children.
So in this comparison, Kara/Sam is Peter/Altlivia because it's the "complication" to the ship who comes along to be a third wheel in the triangle and can't possibly really pose a threat to the endgame, obvious ship, except...said complication ends up actually suiting the ship much better? And that's like, where I'm at? I'd be really interested to see where they would go with Peter/Altlivia because as you say, he chose her even if he didn't mean to, even if he wishes he didn't. He liked what they had, and that's never going to be what he will have with Olivia. And then there's the question, is that what he wants with Olivia? I have a sneaking suspicion that even though he wouldn't want to admit it, Peter would be happier in the kind of relationship Altlivia could offer him than the kind of relationship Olivia could?
And yes, I think poor Frank is Dee in this equation. But I also don't think I'm going to get anything as surprising and Peter/Altlivia actually being where they go with this, or even if it was, how they could now go with Peter/Altlivia without it being weeeeeeird. But...idk. I still kinda ship it.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-24 03:17 pm (UTC)It keeps doing things that if they go one way, will be amazing, and if they go another, will be fail central.
Of course we are untrusting. Because we have watched other shows before which have betrayed us. But not just that. Fringe can be amazing or made of fail. There is absolutely no way to know which way it will go in a given episode.
IT IS VERY STRESSFUL.
Aww! This show so needs a support group for its fans. I'm not stressed because I'm not invested. I'm simply happy when Olivia is awesome at all. Like when she shoots a guy from miles away looking beautiful in an evening gown and saves hundreds of people. That was nothing but pure Olivia awesome right there. :-)
I never felt he really understood her in the first place because I always saw their faux-siblings chemistry far more strongly than their romantic chemistry?
Hell, I never understood her. And I was so liking their sibling vibe. But poor Peter then got the Olivia of his dreams to confuse him further. He never stood a chance.
Off to the rest of your Fringe posts now. My reward for getting through the series!