I’ve just about had it with Fringe.
If it weren’t for the fact that this Thursday’s episode, “Jacksonville,” promises to shed major light on the series’ overall William Bell/dual dimension plotline, I think I’d be done with it completely.
What’s the bee in my bonnet? Two things about the show are driving me absolutely bananas:
First, there’s the fact that Dr. Walter Bishop was apparently intimately involved in every experimental research project ever conducted and is the world’s top expert in dozens of disparate scientific fields.
This is despite the fact that he’d spent the 17 years prior to the start of the show in a mental institution. In the real world, scientific knowledge reportedly doubles somewhere between every five and ten years. In the world of Fringe, not so much.
I understand how he would be privy to knowledge about the show’s central mystery, since he and William Bell were the one’s responsible for creating it. But does his previous research have to be the driving force behind virtually every mystery the show confronts? When did the man sleep?!
But mostly what’s driving me crazy about the show is that its science is just so unbelievably bad.
Here’s the thing: I am far from a science “purist.” I always tuned out the blowhards who criticized the science of Star Trek, since they clearly didn’t understand that, first and foremost, the show existed to entertain. Clearly, it also tried to provoke thought about issues both scientific and social, but I actually think it was (mostly) a good thing that they never let themselves get too bogged down in science, because it made the show accessible to a broad audience.
But in spite of all of Star Trek’s inaccuracies and inconsistencies, I believe they at least gave the science some thought. And the visionaries behind Star Trek clearly had a deep love of both science and the future — which is precisely why so many scientists claim to have been inspired by it.
By contrast, it’s clear that the producers of Fringe don’t give a f*** about science.
I understand that the gimmick of the show is that it deals with the paranormal which, by definition, stretches the boundaries of science. But they clearly want to highlight the simplest, most attention-getting (and most dumbed-down) “scientific” phenomena possible — and they don’t give a whit about actual science.
Consider:
- In “What Lies Below,” the January 21st episode, Walter confronts a preposterous “thinking” virus that infects his son, Peter, but in less than an hour, despite having no lab and very little equipment, he’s able to isolate the virus and concoct an antidote out of horseradish from a refrigerator — horseradish! — that immediately works on everyone infected.
In “Of Human Action,” the November 12th episode, a researcher is conducting an experiment that would allow pilots to control planes with their brains, and when his son takes the “enhancement” drugs, it gives him the ability to psychically control other people — because, you know, the human brain is just “another kind of computer.” Fortunately, Walter is able to prevent the mind-control by creating special headphones (!!!) for the FBI agents to wear.
- In “Unearthed,” the January 11th episode (an unaired episode from the first season), a dying girl is “possessed” by an evil man who just happens to be dying at the same time. His spiritual energy didn’t dissipate due to, um, previous “heavy radiation exposure” while in a Russian sub, and he “jumped ship” to the dying girl.
- Despite the fact that the structure of DNA wasn’t even identified until 1953, in “The Bishop Revival,” the January 28th episode, it turns out that the Nazis (and Walter Bishop’s father, working as a spy) had developed an air-born toxin that attacked specific genes and could immediately kill anyone who had them.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
It’s like their not even trying — not even bothering with the fig leaf of Star Trek’s techno-babble to cover the nakedness of their pseudo-science.
Basically, Gilligan’s Island took science more seriously when they had the Professor making a car out of bamboo and coconut shells!
Hey, whatever. So there’s no love or deep affection for science on Fringe. So they’re even cheapening it — cynically flashing science’s most attention-getting elements, like dancers flashing body parts in some bawdy burlesque show, acting without nuance or elegance. They’re not the first to do this, and they won’t be the last.
But Fringe is not Gilligan’s Island. It pretends to be serious speculative fiction.
Basically, they’re making it impossible for me to enjoy the show. My knowledge of science is limited at best — hey, I was a social sciences studies major! But increasingly, I find my eyes rolling out of my head by the stupid and sloppily-conceived premises of most of their episodes.
Thursday’s episode better be spectacular. Because if it isn’t, I am so outta here.
Oh well, look at that. Who’d have thought it would interpret it as tags and eat every other line of dialogue.
Perhaps it’s better like that! Half a dialogue for viewers with half a brain and who struggle with anything remotely technical (hell, remotely plausible) in their Sci-Fi.
Thank God for Greg Egan!
Gary
More drivel from braindead producers who figure “Hey, they lapped up ‘lost’ et al so we don’t even need script writers anymore”
TV for the lowest common denominator.
Like buffy… a bunch of adolescents get their prepubescent rocks off to a high-kicking teen girl and now, well, now we have teen vampires emerging all over the dial. And what worries them? Garlic? Stakes? Sunlight? … nah, partying, getting laid and their S.A.T’s
Even documentaries are dead these days, can’t find a damn thing on the box worth watching since BSG, and I’m even worried that the upcoming Caprica will cross the line towards this kind of typical teen wankfest - hey, maybe it will have cyber-vampires! Sexy ones…. That can kick real high.
Anyway, to help the Fringe writers out, here are some lines they can use in future episodes (no need to credit me)
> Oh no (listening with stethescope) her DNA is rearranging
Yes, I specialised in genetoaural diagnosis
Well, we need to check it in the lab but I’m guessing it must have something to do with us reversing the polarity of the sunspot cycle when we tried to replace the cracked screen on that ipod.
One more for you…
> The moon ?
But that is a 127 miles away, even at the speed of light it would take a billion years
You think of everything : )
< That’s my job. I just hope we’ve seem the last of those pan-dimensional bikini-clad ninja vampire cheerleaders.
You get the idea.
Hey look - I found the bald guy! I guess the writers correctly deduced that the typical viewers for this slush still consider “where’s wally” both challenging and endlessly entertaining.
Tip: Rewind the episode and see if you can find him again. Woo, look! In the same place, hahaha, DAMN this is SO stimulating! See? Now I’m giggling like Chris Griffin on opiates.
Gary
Ok I have just watched three shows of Fringe due to a friends request, it is their favorite show, and I did not like it. Just on the point about the alternate universe drove me nuts. Walter’s son Peter is dying and he has to find a way to save him, but we are not as technologically as advance as the other universe. Ok that is fine, but what is not fine is that all the people are the same in both universes even though people have made different decisions. Hell even both Walters live in the same house, work in the same lab, and even have the same cabin. Really poorly thought out.
IT’S A TELEVISION SHOW!
SERIOUSLY GUYS! It’s not meant to be 100% accurate, if it were, then we would be watching ‘Reality’ based science programs on the Criminal Investigation networks/channels. This is a DRAMA, hence things in the show being ‘DRAMATIZED’ and not an exact or accurate science. Sure they try to get things as close as possible to the real world equivalent but those things that they can’t or things that do not exist in the real world, they DRAMATIZE, because it is a TV SHOW under the category of DRAMA/SCI-FI.
Stop trying to make mountains out of mole hills, and be happy that there are shows on tv that entertain us. Afterall, there is no LAW on earth that forces people to make tv shows, or to even watch them.
So in a nut shell, just let sleeping dogs lie and enjoy the show for what it is, rather than what it should be in your own opinion.
Have a nice day :)
I tend to agree with you Brent, some of their premises are a bit absurd and while it’s taken to the extreme, I like to see some dose of reality.
Are you even watching the show? Because if you were, you’d know it wasn’t Walter’s work in the last episode, it was his fathers. Walter’s IQ is 192, making him one of the smartest men on the planet (it’s 20 IQ points about Einstein) so yeah, his pre-St. Clare’s work is probably gonna be the catalyst for most of the Fringe science stuff.
Second, apparently you’re unaware that Popular Mechanics does a weekly “Fringe Science” recap. “The Bishop Revival” is actually the most accurate the science has been. Your DNA complaint? Not applicable since the “Nazi” in question didn’t get it to work until the family massacre in 2010.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/search/pm/do/relatedKeyword/?kw=Fringe&cat=%2Fscience%2Fresearch%2F
So one man who hasn’t conducted any research or kept up to date on anything in the last 17 years is responsible for basically ALL scientific advancements for the past 30 years? Um, yeah, I guess he DOES have a high IQ!
As I say in my article, I can buy Walter being an expert on everything related to William Bell. The problem is, he’s the world’s top expert in EVERYTHING, having been involved (17 years ago) in some project involving whatever the episode is about. As I said, when did the man SLEEP?
As for my Nazi complaint, the DNA research WAS done back in the 1940s — that’s how Walter’s father was able to embed his “signature” in the DNA. Yes, it wasn’t perfected until 2010, but it was all based on Walter’s father’s notes (and frankly, the idea that it was Walter’s father who was involved with the ONE project Walter didn’t invent is just as ludicrous as having him be involved. I thought that went without saying.)
Hey, if the science works for you, fine. It doesn’t for me.
First off, Walter’s not responsible for everything that goes on. He hasn’t been responsible for most of the episodes at all, including the 4 you’re complaining about in this post alone. Walter is, however, smart enough to figure things out after the fact. After all, he’s a biology and chemistry genius.
Second, if it’s either plausible, or written to be plausible, or even just plain entertaining, then no I really don’t have a problem with it. I doubt most people do. After all, I signed up for “Fringe” pretty much knowing what I’d get in terms of storylines. It’s not like I’ve been tricked in any way - and it’s also not like X-Files, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, or for that matter pretty much any other show, is all that 100% faithful to 100% science either.
I thought I said very clearly that I had two criticism of the show — Walter’s involvement in the non-William Bell experiments (and there have been at least four this season alone), and the show’s bad science.
I do appreciate your posting the PM link, which I found interesting. But I gotta say, it reads to me like they basically agree with me: some of the episodes are very loosely based on something “scientific” taken to a large extreme, and some are complete, outright fiction.
Anyway, I think we need to agree to disagree on this.
Brent I’m not saying you have no points but the show deals with “fringe science”, so I think that writing an episode based on “something scientific taken to a large extreme” is what we should expect from a show like Fringe.
But I also think the show could be better because the plot is really too simple.
I don’t watch Fringe, but I completely understand why you’re ready to throw your hands up about it. There’s suspension of disbelief and then there’s absurd theories and giant plot holes that insult your intelligence as a view.
That virus episode was sooooooooooooooooooo stupid, even by Fringe standards!