Fringe: Immortality
Feb. 12th, 2011 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaMy four word non-spoilery review: "Oh Fringe, honey, no."
Eh, but I'm not eating my last post just yet. And I'm still kinda worried that the ratings dropped so much this week - and am oddly gutted at the prospect of not having it around for season four. There's just...no other show I watch really. WHAT WOULD I DO? I'm kind of hoping that it was a temporary dip considering everything dipped about the same amount that night, but I have no idea if for the amount of advertising Fox are expecting it to actually like, idk, completely astound all common wisdom on the nature of Friday night programming and/or actually beat CSI: NY instead of coming within .1 of it in the demos.
Right, okay, enough ratings chatter. Let's get on to my four gabillion word spoilery review:
All right, let's get straight to it shall we? PETERSPAWN.
I shall confess, I heard rumours that this was gonna happen a little while ago, and was honestly hoping it was some kind of crazy rumour but I guess not. So. Generically speaking, baby plots aren't the dealbreaker for me that they are for many people. I honestly don't care as long as it's not (a) icky or (b) responsible for a show becoming ass. Cus like, I think a lot of the time, shows throw pregnancies and babies into final seasons when they're running out of steam and it's just...the end of the line there. And they get a bad rap because of that.
But I gotta admit, the pitfalls of "shit we got no ideas, let's make someone have a baby for DRAMA!" and gender issues means that there are probably more of these storylines that fail than succeed. So right off the bat I'm worried about it specifically because I'm worried about this freaking love triangle.
Until 4.5, for instance, BSG was a show I thought handled the issue quite well. Partly I think that was because Hera (and Nicky and even Liam) were all children of second or third tier characters, but the same could be said of Fauxlivia. BSG had some legitimate and interesting material to deal with that was about reproduction, though, and I'm not entirely sure the same could be said of Fringe. Though I think it could tie in with the themes of parents and children and loss of children and use for children quite well, all told.
Farscape is probably another example of a show where I didn't like how Aeryn's pregnancy ended up getting handled in its entirety (oh god, torture chair from Prayer get out of my head), but I didn't have a problem with the decision to introduce it into the narrative or, really , how it ultimately impacted the trajectories of either John or Aeryn as characters.
So, let's see. Using those two shows, we have two OTHER scifi babies that are the result of love triangles where one person is torn between two copies of/a hallucinatory substitute of the same person. I suppose the question is, are we headed for John/Aeryn/John or Caprica/Tigh/Ellen. Because for real, there's a broad spectrum of fail available in that choice.
DEAR FRINGEBABY, I HEREBY DUB YOU FLIPPER AND HOPE THAT DOESN'T LEAD TO ME GETTING IRRATIONALLY ATTACHED TO YOU.
I suppose my point here is there are a bunch of ways they can play this. I'm not really thrilled with the development because honestly, it's a bit soapy and because if they're using it to legitimise Peter/Fauxlivia, I think it would be braver to do that without a baby as an "excuse". It would also tread near the boundary of babies=love, but to continue my paralleling jag, so did Helo/Athena and I think they managed to mostly make that compelling rather than creepy so I'd hope Fringe would manage the same.
If they're not using it to legitimise Peter/Fauxlivia then I hope they're at least using it to kill Peter/Olivia because frankly this does not work as a melodramatic obstacle to their love. I get that I never saw their love in the first place so I'm biased here, but even had I, I think I would feel this way. People stay with people who are having kids with third parties all the time. People even stay with people who are having those kids as the results of an affair. And yes, I get that there are magic mitigating circumstances here.
But narratively, this is too much for me to ask Olivia to deal with. The relief she was so obviously expressing when she told Peter they could overcome the weirdness between them, was so rooted in the fact that "she's gone". It's...so messy. And if I believed that Peter and Olivia had some massive, epic love that kept me glued to the screen, perhaps that would be enough to make me want to root for them to overcome it. But instead all of my observations, and indeed, all of the textual discussion in the show itself, is instead focused on the fact that Peter didn't see her. That however much he may love her (or think he does), part of him likes Fauxlivia more.
He may only have been happy she was happy, or wanted to believe he was bringing that out in her, but that doesn't matter - he thought the change was good, and it's change that Olivia would not have made.
A human being is a remarkable, forgiving, resilient being. But I don't know how much more Olivia can sublimate. I don't know how many more times she can be the one who gets gutpunched and just...takes it and keeps breathing and keeps moving.
The traits that Fauxlivia has that Olivia lacks are things that were taken from her by Walter and her stepfather and her life. I genuinely believe the show's perspective on this has been complex and ambiguous. To show Olivia mourning those parts of herself is not the same as suggesting she should develop them. To acknowledge her loss is not the same as saying she needs fixing before she is a valid being.
Whatever Olivia's ultimate goals for herself - even if she does want to catch some of that smile from her other self, even if she's rather pull the cortexiphan from her neurons and become an Olympic crackshot - she cannot do that under the pressure of a man who loved her better (or whom she suspects loved her better) in that life.
Olivia needs someone who loves her. Olivia needs someone who loves her. Olivia needs someone who loves her because she is haunted and lonely and strong, not in spite of it.
And even if I was interrogating the show from the wrong perspective and Peter was supposed to be that guy, before he came home with the wrong girl, I don't think he ever can be now. It pertains to a part of Olivia that is too vulnerable and too private to withstand his mistake. It belongs to the child in the corner of the burned room.
It's a long way of getting to the point, but my point is, this whole storyline has two options, near as I can tell:
1) to push Peter and Fauxlivia together. In this guise, I'm still not super happy about the cliche of it all, but it's a general narrative direction I respect.
2) to prolong the angst of Peter/Olivia and treat it ultimately as an obstacle to their romance. Which is just awful. For all the reasons I've said, I just don't get how Olivia would ever agree to that, and for a whole bunch more based around the fact they don't need to be manufacturing more obstacles for those two right now, so it's narratively redundant. I've yet to find another narrative need for it. As a motivation to go back to the Other Side, well, there's the stolen piece of the machine to start with. As a way to up the stakes to something personal...you've already got two collapsing universes, the death of a major character in a doomsday device, and his dueling fathers.
Please, Fringe Writers, choose option 1. It's the less sucky one.
Also, just to exorcise my fears, do NOT be killing off Fauxlivia and leave Olivia holding her baby. Just don't. Or rather, I wouldn't so much have an issue with that if it were Frank or Lincoln or Scarlie or ANYONE ELSE'S baby, because then it's like...Aunt Liv, and okay, personally I do not want her to have any kids because dammit, she has ELLA and that's enough. But I could handle it as part of a storyline about the relationship between the two Olivias and stuff (because FOR REAL when are those two gonna get to talk again, especially since Olivia knows what it's like to BE Fauxlivia and after Firefly I definitely think her emotions towards her doppelganger are...angry but complicated), but to get back on point, it's not those dude's. It's Peter's. And "Hi, honey, I'm home, and I cloned us a KID!" is just...so skeezy I can't put it into words. Or like I could, but a comprehensive list of all the reasons it's a sucky idea to "fix" this situation by giving Olivia and Peter Fauxlivia's baby would take many, many words, and I'd rather just give a fullbody shudder.
So like, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here that you're not headed in that direction. BUT DO NOT BE HEADED IN THAT DIRECTION. Okay. Exorcism over. Moving on.
To speak about the actual episode, I did enjoy that we had an entire episode on the other side without the pretence of an anchoring Our Side POV character. I like that the writers feel they've earned that, and I like that they are obviously asking the viewer to consider the perspectives of both Fauxlivia and Walternate.
It's not quite Jesse Flores levels of perspective altering awesome, but it's attempting the same kind of thing and that's nice to see. I never had a problem with Fauxlivia but the amount of pure hatred of her on the interwebs is sadmaking. Srsly, "Holivia" and "Bitchlivia" are Not Cool, Random Internet People.
So, yeah. She's not going to replace Olivia as Queen of my Heart, but I don't think she's supposed to, and I do find her sympathetic. She made bad decisions and did horrible things while she was over here, but I never got the impression she wanted to or was comfortable. She was absolutely alone behind enemy lines with a lifetime of experience and training telling her she needed to complete her mission to save her universe. It's a tale I find compelling in her capacity as a reflection of Ourliv and I'm enjoying the way this whole season still seems clearly rooted in her split POV.
And also...she ain't never gonna beat Olivia in the manpain stakes because dudes, OLIVIA, but I do think it's interesting to see her life begin to fall apart.
While it totally screws up my desire for Peter to show up and be like FAUXLIVIA, I CHOOSE YOU and for Fauxlivia to be all, FUCK YOU, I CHOOSE FRANK, I really felt for her in that final scene on her own. There was a real honestly and fear in her during their conversation that struck me as authentic and very sad. She can't possibly explain to him what happened without breaking at least sixteen laws on national security, and she'd sound insane if she did. But she also won't lie to him. We could nitpick that super Altverse Fringe Scanners and Frank's mad medskillz would have known if she lied about the date of conception, but there were still options if she was, well, selfish enough to lie to keep him. She could have told him that it was some kind of assignment. She could have told him she'd had another mental breakdown while he was gone and didn't want to worry him and plead diminished capacity. She could have told him she wasn't in love with Peter. That last one would have been easy, and while it might not have saved her relationship, it's hard to know, since that seemed to be the answer Frank was waiting for and what made him leave (and in that respect I don't blame him; it's why I don't think Olivia should wait this out with Peter, afterall).
That she couldn't bring herself to lie was very...Olivia. I think Fauxlivia is about to learn how hard it is to be...herself.
And again, to fight back against the anonymous internet hordes who aren't actually going to be reading this, I don't think she was being cynical when she accepted Frank's proposal. I think she wanted to go back to normal. Her smile was too genuine. She loved him, and now she's lost him. And I find it difficult to know what, exactly, she should have done differently. What she did that was outside what we'd ask of any other spy behind enemy lines, trying to protect us and left living lies when she gets home again.
I think she's probably as confused about how she feels as Peter is. And I think she probably doesn't want this baby. Or at least she appears to be incredibly conflicted about it, from the limited footage, which is appropriate. And while I'm sure Walternate would be happy to take it off her hands after it's born, adoption and abortion aren't the same thing; choosing one doesn't mean you'd choose the other, and even if it's not what you would chose, losing the choice in the first place is a surefire way to make someone powerless.
If we're adding to the impossible Fringe wishlist, in addition to season four and option one, I'm going to go with addressing Fauxlivia's ambivalent feelings about this.
To talk about Walternate for a while, I called the whole "he won't experiment on kids," thing way back when the episode blurb spoke about Walter discovering lines he won't cross. It's heavy-handed and honestly I think probably gives a more positive impression than is necessarily deserved, but it does serve to make an effective point about what Walter did, and I like that the show isn't just dropping that. The reason I say it's probably an overly positive reflection on Walternate is I think it stems from a very Walter one-way worldview. It's the same reason he demanded all kidnappings be treated as Fringe events in the wake of Peter's kidnapping. Not because it really merited it, but because it was personal. He lost a child, he won't experiment on children. In that arena he is Walter's moral superior. In other ways...I don't know. For all he ruined lives, he never - that we know of - intentionally set up test subjects to die for the greater good. And...which is more evil? Traumatising children or murdering adults?
As I said, heavy-handed, but as with Olivia(s), I like the way the show illustrates character in different circumstances. "Better" is subjective; do we mean "better than" or do we mean "healed"? Do we mean "better" or do we mean "heroic"?
Also: JOAN CHEN. HI JOAN CHEN. I suppose it makes sense that Walternate's marriage also collapsed and is a way to handle the relative difficulty of obtaining the guest actress in addition to the fact that her appearances not in flashback always make very obvious use of age make-up. But I can't help but feel that scene, serviceable as it was (AND JOAN CHEN! HI JOAN CHEN!), would have had a gabillion more layers if it was Walternate and Altlizabeth.
To address something I saw on the Wilds of the Internet that totally confused me - why are people now totally convinced that Walternate will experiment on his grandchild given that this episode went out of its way to express how he felt about child experimentation? There's wanting someone to be a villain and then there's silliness.
I continue to enjoy Over There, just for the look and feel and RIDICULOUS SCIENCE that gets dropped in. I mean that whole place is like a comic book world. No sheep? How does that even work without totally destablising ecosystems? But I don't care because it has Zepplins.
I also continue to love the Scarlie/Fauxlivia/Lincoln team vibe. I'm not usually about the Team Vibe, especially not when modeled after a kind of military style of taking the piss, but I really love theirs. It's all the cheesy jokes and none of the aggressive undertones. Watching Fauxlivia try to slide back into that - to brainwash herself into thinking it's all she'd ever been, was <\/3, just an eensy bit.
HAVING SAID THAT. I generally appreciate how reality bends to the will of the Fringe characters and presents them with a case that is ODDLY RELEVANT to their current personal situations? But in this case, dude, contrived. It was a bit like that last time, but the cortexiphan element made me buy into it. This time the whole thing felt like a massive exercise in "how can we make someone sonogram her at an inopportune moment?" And the storyline itself wasn't really that interesting. OH WELL. Fringe's standalone elements have always been the weakest for me, with a few unusual exceptions, like White Tulip.
I guess we just have to wait and see what next week brings, both ratings-wise and in terms of the Triangle of Doom. For the record, I'm not seriously expecting the show to go there because it would be narratively ridiculous given the last scene of the last Over Here episode, and a blatant grab for melodrama, but my sole request is that you not have Peter and Olivia decide they are both Over It and Get Together just in time for FLIPPER to show up. Because that is...the bad way you use dramatic irony, and I would head over to your writers room and kidnap you all and make you go back to the Sarah Connor School of Dramatic Irony on Shows Fox Will Cancel Prematurely.
In sum: Oh, Fringe, honey, no.
(Also eventually I will get around to my epic post about how I think the show has completely failed to give Peter a character, but another day. It will be better for all our sanity.)
Eh, but I'm not eating my last post just yet. And I'm still kinda worried that the ratings dropped so much this week - and am oddly gutted at the prospect of not having it around for season four. There's just...no other show I watch really. WHAT WOULD I DO? I'm kind of hoping that it was a temporary dip considering everything dipped about the same amount that night, but I have no idea if for the amount of advertising Fox are expecting it to actually like, idk, completely astound all common wisdom on the nature of Friday night programming and/or actually beat CSI: NY instead of coming within .1 of it in the demos.
Right, okay, enough ratings chatter. Let's get on to my four gabillion word spoilery review:
All right, let's get straight to it shall we? PETERSPAWN.
I shall confess, I heard rumours that this was gonna happen a little while ago, and was honestly hoping it was some kind of crazy rumour but I guess not. So. Generically speaking, baby plots aren't the dealbreaker for me that they are for many people. I honestly don't care as long as it's not (a) icky or (b) responsible for a show becoming ass. Cus like, I think a lot of the time, shows throw pregnancies and babies into final seasons when they're running out of steam and it's just...the end of the line there. And they get a bad rap because of that.
But I gotta admit, the pitfalls of "shit we got no ideas, let's make someone have a baby for DRAMA!" and gender issues means that there are probably more of these storylines that fail than succeed. So right off the bat I'm worried about it specifically because I'm worried about this freaking love triangle.
Until 4.5, for instance, BSG was a show I thought handled the issue quite well. Partly I think that was because Hera (and Nicky and even Liam) were all children of second or third tier characters, but the same could be said of Fauxlivia. BSG had some legitimate and interesting material to deal with that was about reproduction, though, and I'm not entirely sure the same could be said of Fringe. Though I think it could tie in with the themes of parents and children and loss of children and use for children quite well, all told.
Farscape is probably another example of a show where I didn't like how Aeryn's pregnancy ended up getting handled in its entirety (oh god, torture chair from Prayer get out of my head), but I didn't have a problem with the decision to introduce it into the narrative or, really , how it ultimately impacted the trajectories of either John or Aeryn as characters.
So, let's see. Using those two shows, we have two OTHER scifi babies that are the result of love triangles where one person is torn between two copies of/a hallucinatory substitute of the same person. I suppose the question is, are we headed for John/Aeryn/John or Caprica/Tigh/Ellen. Because for real, there's a broad spectrum of fail available in that choice.
DEAR FRINGEBABY, I HEREBY DUB YOU FLIPPER AND HOPE THAT DOESN'T LEAD TO ME GETTING IRRATIONALLY ATTACHED TO YOU.
I suppose my point here is there are a bunch of ways they can play this. I'm not really thrilled with the development because honestly, it's a bit soapy and because if they're using it to legitimise Peter/Fauxlivia, I think it would be braver to do that without a baby as an "excuse". It would also tread near the boundary of babies=love, but to continue my paralleling jag, so did Helo/Athena and I think they managed to mostly make that compelling rather than creepy so I'd hope Fringe would manage the same.
If they're not using it to legitimise Peter/Fauxlivia then I hope they're at least using it to kill Peter/Olivia because frankly this does not work as a melodramatic obstacle to their love. I get that I never saw their love in the first place so I'm biased here, but even had I, I think I would feel this way. People stay with people who are having kids with third parties all the time. People even stay with people who are having those kids as the results of an affair. And yes, I get that there are magic mitigating circumstances here.
But narratively, this is too much for me to ask Olivia to deal with. The relief she was so obviously expressing when she told Peter they could overcome the weirdness between them, was so rooted in the fact that "she's gone". It's...so messy. And if I believed that Peter and Olivia had some massive, epic love that kept me glued to the screen, perhaps that would be enough to make me want to root for them to overcome it. But instead all of my observations, and indeed, all of the textual discussion in the show itself, is instead focused on the fact that Peter didn't see her. That however much he may love her (or think he does), part of him likes Fauxlivia more.
He may only have been happy she was happy, or wanted to believe he was bringing that out in her, but that doesn't matter - he thought the change was good, and it's change that Olivia would not have made.
A human being is a remarkable, forgiving, resilient being. But I don't know how much more Olivia can sublimate. I don't know how many more times she can be the one who gets gutpunched and just...takes it and keeps breathing and keeps moving.
The traits that Fauxlivia has that Olivia lacks are things that were taken from her by Walter and her stepfather and her life. I genuinely believe the show's perspective on this has been complex and ambiguous. To show Olivia mourning those parts of herself is not the same as suggesting she should develop them. To acknowledge her loss is not the same as saying she needs fixing before she is a valid being.
Whatever Olivia's ultimate goals for herself - even if she does want to catch some of that smile from her other self, even if she's rather pull the cortexiphan from her neurons and become an Olympic crackshot - she cannot do that under the pressure of a man who loved her better (or whom she suspects loved her better) in that life.
Olivia needs someone who loves her. Olivia needs someone who loves her. Olivia needs someone who loves her because she is haunted and lonely and strong, not in spite of it.
And even if I was interrogating the show from the wrong perspective and Peter was supposed to be that guy, before he came home with the wrong girl, I don't think he ever can be now. It pertains to a part of Olivia that is too vulnerable and too private to withstand his mistake. It belongs to the child in the corner of the burned room.
It's a long way of getting to the point, but my point is, this whole storyline has two options, near as I can tell:
1) to push Peter and Fauxlivia together. In this guise, I'm still not super happy about the cliche of it all, but it's a general narrative direction I respect.
2) to prolong the angst of Peter/Olivia and treat it ultimately as an obstacle to their romance. Which is just awful. For all the reasons I've said, I just don't get how Olivia would ever agree to that, and for a whole bunch more based around the fact they don't need to be manufacturing more obstacles for those two right now, so it's narratively redundant. I've yet to find another narrative need for it. As a motivation to go back to the Other Side, well, there's the stolen piece of the machine to start with. As a way to up the stakes to something personal...you've already got two collapsing universes, the death of a major character in a doomsday device, and his dueling fathers.
Please, Fringe Writers, choose option 1. It's the less sucky one.
Also, just to exorcise my fears, do NOT be killing off Fauxlivia and leave Olivia holding her baby. Just don't. Or rather, I wouldn't so much have an issue with that if it were Frank or Lincoln or Scarlie or ANYONE ELSE'S baby, because then it's like...Aunt Liv, and okay, personally I do not want her to have any kids because dammit, she has ELLA and that's enough. But I could handle it as part of a storyline about the relationship between the two Olivias and stuff (because FOR REAL when are those two gonna get to talk again, especially since Olivia knows what it's like to BE Fauxlivia and after Firefly I definitely think her emotions towards her doppelganger are...angry but complicated), but to get back on point, it's not those dude's. It's Peter's. And "Hi, honey, I'm home, and I cloned us a KID!" is just...so skeezy I can't put it into words. Or like I could, but a comprehensive list of all the reasons it's a sucky idea to "fix" this situation by giving Olivia and Peter Fauxlivia's baby would take many, many words, and I'd rather just give a fullbody shudder.
So like, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here that you're not headed in that direction. BUT DO NOT BE HEADED IN THAT DIRECTION. Okay. Exorcism over. Moving on.
To speak about the actual episode, I did enjoy that we had an entire episode on the other side without the pretence of an anchoring Our Side POV character. I like that the writers feel they've earned that, and I like that they are obviously asking the viewer to consider the perspectives of both Fauxlivia and Walternate.
It's not quite Jesse Flores levels of perspective altering awesome, but it's attempting the same kind of thing and that's nice to see. I never had a problem with Fauxlivia but the amount of pure hatred of her on the interwebs is sadmaking. Srsly, "Holivia" and "Bitchlivia" are Not Cool, Random Internet People.
So, yeah. She's not going to replace Olivia as Queen of my Heart, but I don't think she's supposed to, and I do find her sympathetic. She made bad decisions and did horrible things while she was over here, but I never got the impression she wanted to or was comfortable. She was absolutely alone behind enemy lines with a lifetime of experience and training telling her she needed to complete her mission to save her universe. It's a tale I find compelling in her capacity as a reflection of Ourliv and I'm enjoying the way this whole season still seems clearly rooted in her split POV.
And also...she ain't never gonna beat Olivia in the manpain stakes because dudes, OLIVIA, but I do think it's interesting to see her life begin to fall apart.
While it totally screws up my desire for Peter to show up and be like FAUXLIVIA, I CHOOSE YOU and for Fauxlivia to be all, FUCK YOU, I CHOOSE FRANK, I really felt for her in that final scene on her own. There was a real honestly and fear in her during their conversation that struck me as authentic and very sad. She can't possibly explain to him what happened without breaking at least sixteen laws on national security, and she'd sound insane if she did. But she also won't lie to him. We could nitpick that super Altverse Fringe Scanners and Frank's mad medskillz would have known if she lied about the date of conception, but there were still options if she was, well, selfish enough to lie to keep him. She could have told him that it was some kind of assignment. She could have told him she'd had another mental breakdown while he was gone and didn't want to worry him and plead diminished capacity. She could have told him she wasn't in love with Peter. That last one would have been easy, and while it might not have saved her relationship, it's hard to know, since that seemed to be the answer Frank was waiting for and what made him leave (and in that respect I don't blame him; it's why I don't think Olivia should wait this out with Peter, afterall).
That she couldn't bring herself to lie was very...Olivia. I think Fauxlivia is about to learn how hard it is to be...herself.
And again, to fight back against the anonymous internet hordes who aren't actually going to be reading this, I don't think she was being cynical when she accepted Frank's proposal. I think she wanted to go back to normal. Her smile was too genuine. She loved him, and now she's lost him. And I find it difficult to know what, exactly, she should have done differently. What she did that was outside what we'd ask of any other spy behind enemy lines, trying to protect us and left living lies when she gets home again.
I think she's probably as confused about how she feels as Peter is. And I think she probably doesn't want this baby. Or at least she appears to be incredibly conflicted about it, from the limited footage, which is appropriate. And while I'm sure Walternate would be happy to take it off her hands after it's born, adoption and abortion aren't the same thing; choosing one doesn't mean you'd choose the other, and even if it's not what you would chose, losing the choice in the first place is a surefire way to make someone powerless.
If we're adding to the impossible Fringe wishlist, in addition to season four and option one, I'm going to go with addressing Fauxlivia's ambivalent feelings about this.
To talk about Walternate for a while, I called the whole "he won't experiment on kids," thing way back when the episode blurb spoke about Walter discovering lines he won't cross. It's heavy-handed and honestly I think probably gives a more positive impression than is necessarily deserved, but it does serve to make an effective point about what Walter did, and I like that the show isn't just dropping that. The reason I say it's probably an overly positive reflection on Walternate is I think it stems from a very Walter one-way worldview. It's the same reason he demanded all kidnappings be treated as Fringe events in the wake of Peter's kidnapping. Not because it really merited it, but because it was personal. He lost a child, he won't experiment on children. In that arena he is Walter's moral superior. In other ways...I don't know. For all he ruined lives, he never - that we know of - intentionally set up test subjects to die for the greater good. And...which is more evil? Traumatising children or murdering adults?
As I said, heavy-handed, but as with Olivia(s), I like the way the show illustrates character in different circumstances. "Better" is subjective; do we mean "better than" or do we mean "healed"? Do we mean "better" or do we mean "heroic"?
Also: JOAN CHEN. HI JOAN CHEN. I suppose it makes sense that Walternate's marriage also collapsed and is a way to handle the relative difficulty of obtaining the guest actress in addition to the fact that her appearances not in flashback always make very obvious use of age make-up. But I can't help but feel that scene, serviceable as it was (AND JOAN CHEN! HI JOAN CHEN!), would have had a gabillion more layers if it was Walternate and Altlizabeth.
To address something I saw on the Wilds of the Internet that totally confused me - why are people now totally convinced that Walternate will experiment on his grandchild given that this episode went out of its way to express how he felt about child experimentation? There's wanting someone to be a villain and then there's silliness.
I continue to enjoy Over There, just for the look and feel and RIDICULOUS SCIENCE that gets dropped in. I mean that whole place is like a comic book world. No sheep? How does that even work without totally destablising ecosystems? But I don't care because it has Zepplins.
I also continue to love the Scarlie/Fauxlivia/Lincoln team vibe. I'm not usually about the Team Vibe, especially not when modeled after a kind of military style of taking the piss, but I really love theirs. It's all the cheesy jokes and none of the aggressive undertones. Watching Fauxlivia try to slide back into that - to brainwash herself into thinking it's all she'd ever been, was <\/3, just an eensy bit.
HAVING SAID THAT. I generally appreciate how reality bends to the will of the Fringe characters and presents them with a case that is ODDLY RELEVANT to their current personal situations? But in this case, dude, contrived. It was a bit like that last time, but the cortexiphan element made me buy into it. This time the whole thing felt like a massive exercise in "how can we make someone sonogram her at an inopportune moment?" And the storyline itself wasn't really that interesting. OH WELL. Fringe's standalone elements have always been the weakest for me, with a few unusual exceptions, like White Tulip.
I guess we just have to wait and see what next week brings, both ratings-wise and in terms of the Triangle of Doom. For the record, I'm not seriously expecting the show to go there because it would be narratively ridiculous given the last scene of the last Over Here episode, and a blatant grab for melodrama, but my sole request is that you not have Peter and Olivia decide they are both Over It and Get Together just in time for FLIPPER to show up. Because that is...the bad way you use dramatic irony, and I would head over to your writers room and kidnap you all and make you go back to the Sarah Connor School of Dramatic Irony on Shows Fox Will Cancel Prematurely.
In sum: Oh, Fringe, honey, no.
(Also eventually I will get around to my epic post about how I think the show has completely failed to give Peter a character, but another day. It will be better for all our sanity.)
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Date: 2011-02-12 07:41 pm (UTC)Peter essay! I can't wait for that one. :-)
ETA after watching:
To show Olivia mourning those parts of herself is not the same as suggesting she should develop them. To acknowledge her loss is not the same as saying she needs fixing before she is a valid being.
Becca your reading of the show is so made of win. You honestly get things from the show and see possibilities there I really don't see upon watching. I so hope the show writers see this too!
But I don't care because it has Zepplins.
This just made me giggle lots. It's how I feel about Walter. There is something about Fringe where you just have to let the science go and cling to the things you love about it. I love the Moon missions in alt!verse myself. :-)
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Date: 2011-02-16 10:41 am (UTC)Am I correct in assuming that there's an Olivia clone/split-self who is the more, um, nurturing part of her that she is somehow missing? I mostly fear this arc because X-men comics did this with Jean Grey back in the...oh, the 80s, I think. And I predictably got way too invested in the Clone and her Right to Exist, only to have canon MERGE them, fix Jean, and get rid of the clone's existence forever. There was also a baby, which Jean then got to raise.
But I may be a masochist because instead of totally turning me off, this kind of actually...makes me look forward to it in a "I'm really dreading this but SO curious" kind of way? Even knowing that I would probably HATE IT LIKE BURING. Yeah, I don't even know.
Anyway, I'll probably be spoiling myself thoroughly by reading your "Fringe" reviews until the end of this arc. :)
I think the show has completely failed to give Peter a character.
It's very disheartening to know that Peter *still* doesn't have a personality, three seasons in.
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Date: 2011-02-16 12:18 pm (UTC)Basically the reason there are two of everyone on the show is that the show's central mythology conceit (revealed in fairly stunning style at the end of the first season) is that there is a parallel universe, like ours, but not. There is only one version of Peter because our Walter's Peter died, and Walter crossed over to the alternate universe and stole the other one. This again, is revealed at the end of the first season, though PETER doesn't find out until much later. This first breach between worlds started The Pattern and now both universes are like, falling apart, but theirs is worse. Olivia, in turn, is MAGICAL because Walter did experiments on her as a child (revealed mid-to-late s1) and is the only person who can travel between worlds safely (revealed in later s2).
So, with that framework, it's a bit clearer to first of all explain the places they succeed with the gender and the story. Namely that it is very clearly about Olivia and rooted in her point of view. And kind of amazing considering she's quiet and professional and not emo or sarcastic. She is never eclipsed as the action hero. The child experimentation is also quite amazingly handled in that the show allows her to be furious with Walter (in her restrained way, but she expressed, verbally, on multiple occasions that he abused her and the other children and had no right and caused epic damage). And she's treated as rational and holding a valid and true viewpoint while doing so.
It also sets up a very interesting situation with the Altverse because they were, essentially, the victims, and their world is in much worse shape. Our Walter is, by NOW, rather horrifically, a much better person than his doppelganger, because he lost his mind and forgot half of the stuff that made him so arrogant and dangerous as a younger man, while Walternate (yes, that's what he's called) has been galvanised by the theft of his son and a devastating environmental disaster that's been eating his world for twenty-five years.
So on that count, there is positive news - both Olivias are definitely treated as having a "right" to exist. One is not a clone of the other, or a copy, etc.
However, as you've probably surmised, Fauxlivia is different to Olivia. Essentially she's less damaged, yes, but so far I've been impressed by how the show doesn't treat that as meaning she's a better person. Basically she never got experimented on as a kid and I think was also not raised with a violent stepfather around. So she's more carefree and more brash. She's definitely used as a vehicle for Olivia to have MANPAIN (why so annoying on boys yet so awesome on girls?) because Olivia also spends a brief amount of time brainwashed into thinking she's Fauxlivia, so there's this tragic element of knowing exactly what was taken from her - how happy she could have been.
But given the way the show still hero worships Olivia, and specifically the quiet, introverted competence that we know is a hallmark of the differences in the characters, I've never felt this was an argument being made by the show.
Another storyline to talk about is that for the first half of s3, the Olivias swapped with each other with Our Olivia being brainwashed into thinking she was Fauxlivia, which initially made me VERY nervous, but she basically started breaking out of the brainwashing in the next episode and ended up rescuing herself in fairly amazing style with no help from anyone else cus they didn't even realise she was gone.
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Date: 2011-02-17 01:05 pm (UTC)I'm...about 7ish episodes in "Fringe?" And finding my brain sort of wandering because Peter has no personality, Walter annoys me, and Olivia's emotional arc is still revolving around the refrigerated guy (the refrigeration, I do appreciate, I'm ashamed to admit.) and the show is directing my focus to Peter/Walter, which I find tediously boring. Now, admittedly, I'm someone who takes a looooooog time to get into shows and sometimes, I have to watch entire seasons before my brain engages with the story. I've been told that the focus shifts to be more clearly on Olivia about mid-season, so I'm anxiously waiting for that.
But I'm intrigued by the parallel world mythology you're describing, and I think I can, at the very least, invest in the plot of that? Because that sounds like creepy fun, which is usually right up my alley.
I'm also relieved to know that there's no loss of self with the two Olivias arc, but possibly still worried about the baby plot between "Angel" and "Farscape." But I suspect that this arc will have resolved itself one way or the other before I ever get to season three, so there will be time to disengage/detach depending on how it unfolds.
To be honest, the Peter/Olivia romance felt HELLA CONTRIVED to me because Peter is an object, not a character, (that said, I do ship Olivia/Furniture more than I ship Olivia/Peter)
*dies* Heh. I have to admit that Peter's character occasionally causes me second-hand embarrassment just by existing. But the show's weird attempts to make me acknowledge his existence by having him say something that's supposed to be witty are kind of...well, embarrassing. And it mostly makes me go, "Yes, but why does he exist in the first place?!"
But, yes, Peter's two-fathers, two-worlds thing is right out of mythic heroic narratives, and I'm sad to know that they haven't done anything with it? I mean, one of the few things that will make me like a male character is Classical heroic narratives, so yeah.
But...they never show anything from Peter's POV, like almost ever. And occasionally they panic about the fact he essentially exists in the traditional female role of "quest object" for both Walter and Olivia and try to make him narratively significant. Like by introducing some universe destroying doomsday device that is genetically tied to him for some mysterious reason and then setting up BUT OMGS, WHICH WOMAN AND THUS UNIVERSE WILL HE CHOOOOOOSE?
I don't think the first bit is necessarily a bad thing? I mean, I think TSCC does this intentionally a bit with John and does it very well. But if they're doing it accidentally and actually want him to have a POV/subject position to some degree, then yeah, they're really failing at it. Like, at this point in the narrative, I'm almost half-amused by his uselessness? But that's not going to last.
What's worrying me about the Olivia/Peter/Olivia triangle is that when fiction does f/m/f triangles, it tends to have one of the women die for their ship. Which means that Alternate!Olivia is doomed, which I just know is going to make me over-invest in her.
I think what makes Man Pain interesting in women is that it ends up being somewhat of a subversion? Because the female narrative equivalent of Man Pain is to suffer in silence and solitude and use their pain to be PRODUCTIVE. So I think with female characters, Man Pain mixes with that a bit and actually ends up being...something useful instead of this constant "Woe is me" drama? Anyway! I'm looking forward to Olivia's Manpain. <3
Also, thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my question with so much detail and information. I really appreciate it! I have a much better idea of what to brace myself for and what to look forward to, which helps a lot.
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Date: 2011-02-17 07:17 pm (UTC)To indulge myself again, more rambling!
The John Scott storyline wraps in 1x13, so yes I think you'll enjoy that more (and I also loved that he was the one who got fridged!) But I also had the benefit of always having enjoyed Walter - I never found him irritating. But I hope that as they complexify his background and challenge the "adorable madness" aspect with scary stuff he's done, he'll get better for you?
I've never bought into the Peter/Walter relationship from Peter's side, but I have always thought that the true love story of Fringe is Walter's love for Peter. But I did start caring a bajillion times more when I realised what Walter had DONE to get Peter back in the first place.
Regarding Peter's character, I would agree with you if the show were doing it half as well or with as much self-awareness as TSCC did with John. But they're miles off of pulling off anything as interesting as subverting our expectations by revealing John knew about Riley, which managed to crystalise John's passive/patient/thoughtful nature in an interesting way that didn't undercut Sarah, and more importantly, we did always get emotional beats with John. We got to see how he was feeling, even if our perspective was more firmly with Sarah. We don't get to see how Peter's feeling. He nearly never gets those scenes that are about playing out intense emotional beats. Even in someone else's POV.
As a result I get the impression that he's incredibly closed off, and is only really comfortable when grifting his way through socially scripted riffs and situations because he's a charmer, but he never stays anywhere long enough to form a human connection to the point I wonder if he doesn't actually know how. Which also explains why he connected so much better and more quickly with Fauxlivia whose more aggressive and carefree attitude (or at least surface attitude) falls much more squarely within his comfort zone. Except I can no longer believe this is intentional?
Seriously, watch out for an episode called Northwest Passage towards the end of S2. It ought to be the Emotional Peter-centric Episode to End Them All, but instead he gets amazingly upstaged by an fantastic Martha Plimpton in a freaking GUEST SPOT.
So I genuinely am torn between the fact I'm glad that for once the character the writers under-serve is the boy, and worrying about what it's starting to mean for parts of the story that require me to at least not be annoyed by him.
As to the mythic narrative, I agree, but also a part of me thinks that Peter is actually being set up not as a Classic Hero, but as the fairytale princess? I'm not the genius who first noted that Olivia has the Superhero's origin story while Peter has the fairytale (stolen away in the dead of night by a man who was his father, but not, to another world: a changeling child). But he also really is the male version of "The Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter" which might as well be the mad wizard or the mad king.
Even now, when they're trying to put the fate of two worlds in his hands, it's not being posited as a conscious choice on his part, he's being framed as part of a chemical reaction, in which his subconscious is a participant. And once again (like with the revelation that he is not his father's son) we are essentially completely cut out of his POV.
Which makes the F/M/F DEAD WOMAN LOOMING thing all the worse, since I don't even understand the guy Fauxlivia is in danger of dying for.
The main thing that gives me hope is that if they plan to continue the parallel universe thing into season four (and I think they have to?) then without Fauxlivia they don't really have an altverse protagonist, there'd just be Walternate, who I don't believe can function as an effective longterm protagonist because of his narrative role and in-universe the way he's the Big Picture guy, not the guy who Goes Investigating and Adventuring.
In conclusion: I subscribe to your theory of Manpain for Women and hope Fringe continues to provide it in the quantities I have become accustomed to. ;)
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Date: 2011-02-16 12:18 pm (UTC)When Olivia finds out, she basically gets to call out the fact that Peter didn't notice all the really obvious differences, and that "I thought I was bringing out a new side in you because of TEH HOT SEX" is insulting. And again, I think the show clearly invites us to side with her.
Something they haven't made quite as much of in the show as I'd like, but has been raised by both the actors, so I'm hopeful eventually it will be, is the fact that Peter liked the changes and how...kind of awful that is.
So...that's where we're at. Up until this VERY POINT IN FRINGE HISTORY, while it's had wobbles and hasn't always been 100% awesome and has occasionally forced the romance issue, I really would have been here telling you that there's no way I believe the show was trying to suggest that the best solution would be to merge the Olivias into their Ultimate Form and given them a communal baby.
But...in literally the last two episodes (and judging from the trailer for the next one), they're really starting to push the soap thing.
I still...basically have faith they're not going to try to foist a brand new "fixed" Olivia on us at the end, if only because where would the drama come from? It'd be like "fixing" Walter. If it were the season finale I might be worried about an RDM deus-ex-machina of crapness, but it's not (even if it gets cancelled, the writers aren't writing it as though it's their last season, apparently).
I think my issue is that I didn't want a Peter/Olivia romance plot at ALL and they TRICKED ME by making me think that perhaps they were only doing it to prove it wouldn't work, to like, have it be tragic and have Peter go of with Fauxlivia instead? And now I'm worried they're just going for a love triangle which is...so much more boring and kind of inherently faily even if they handle it as well as possible.
It also comes back to the weird way they handle Peter's character. As well as being this guy with two worlds, two fathers, and now, apparently, two loves, which is...I mean, if he were a better realised character, and setting aside the genderfail of choosing between two women for an instant, it's a fairytale situation, and a confusing one, and potentially a real goldmine for a character. But...they never show anything from Peter's POV, like almost ever. And occasionally they panic about the fact he essentially exists in the traditional female role of "quest object" for both Walter and Olivia and try to make him narratively significant. Like by introducing some universe destroying doomsday device that is genetically tied to him for some mysterious reason and then setting up BUT OMGS, WHICH WOMAN AND THUS UNIVERSE WILL HE CHOOOOOOSE?
And just like that we're back on the razor edge of fail.
So um, in sum...
There's a lot of really interesting stuff going on here, and Olivia's agency remains oddly intact even when either brainwashed or relegated to a love triangle, but Fringe also has an annoying, and series-long habit of appearing like it's going to Fail somehow and then never quite actually failing.
And we're on one of those precipices right now, and I don't know which way it'll fall.
Two weeks ago I would have thought the notion that they'd merge into an Ultimate Olivia with a shared baby was UNPOSSIBLE. But then two weeks before Islanded in a Stream of Stars I never believed they'd relegate Laura to being a love-interest-ship-parallel.
I suppose the best I can say is, it hasn't failed yet, I am still madly in love with Olivia, but I'm nervous.
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Date: 2011-02-16 12:21 pm (UTC)Regarding the "nurturing" aspect, actually, no. While "less damaged", Fauxlivia is definitely less nurturing and if anything even more swaggery and masculine than Olivia.
Olivia, on the other hand, is very clearly a defender and protector and has a kind of nurturing parental responsibility towards her niece at various points. She's kind of more characterised as being the a caretaker in various storylines and various revealed parts of her history.