TV #88 of 2021:
Fringe, season 3
This is my favorite era of Fringe, and I am so tempted to give it a full five stars. Picking up on the cliffhanger escape from the parallel world, this run starts with our Olivia Dunham trapped over there, being brainwashed to believe she’s her doppelgänger, while that other woman impersonates her on our side for intelligence and sabotage, including embarking on a new relationship with Peter (which has elements of both those aims, combined with the impostor’s unexpected development of real feelings). For a while each subsequent hour alternates between the one universe and its pair, developing these storylines and exploring the fun advanced-tech near-dystopia of the alternate dimension. There are cool cases that couldn’t be told with the familiar Fringe team yet slot in perfectly with their opposites. It’s so good it practically feels like the writers are showing off at this point.
Even once the agents return to their respective homes, the repercussions linger and contribute to further evocative character-driven storytelling, all in service to the program’s trademark ludicrous mad science. My favorite fringe event may be the discovery of “soul magnets” that cause the protagonist to be possessed by the spirit of William Bell, after original performer Leonard Nimoy announced his retirement from acting. Because, you know… why not? It’s another flex, and Anna Torv is certainly up to the challenge, given how she’s already constructed such distinctive ways of embodying the two Olivias. Witnessing her performance this season is almost like seeing a proto-Orphan Black, and constitutes a thorough rebuke to every critic who called her wooden at the start of the show.
On the downside, this year is also concerned with a complex piece of machinery left by the “first people” whose civilization predated humanity, and which Peter is apparently predestined to operate. It’s hokey and vague and boring, but it ends up playing a major role in the endgame here despite having the null appeal of a text-adventure fetch quest. (OLIVIA must break into a MUSEUM to find a KEY to open a BOX containing a CROWBAR, and so on — except the CROWBAR turns out to be an ancient DRAWING of her own FACE!) It reminds me of all the reasons I never watched Lost, to be honest, and the fact that it’s later retconned as a gift from the heroes in the future sent back via wormhole isn’t much better. I’m happier ignoring that nonsense and focusing on all the wicked smart things I genuinely love about this moment in the series, but unlike the occasional wobbly episode, this thread is pervasive enough that in fairness I really do have to temper my rating.
So it isn’t all top-notch, and it leaves on a weaker note than it arrives. Peak Fringe is probably something like the span from 2×15 “Jacksonville” through 3×15 “Subject 13” or thereabouts, with generally solid material before and after but only delivering an all-time great piece of serial science-fiction in that particular window. And although most of it overlaps with the duration of this third season, I just wish that absurd machine wasn’t around to foul everything up.
[Content warning for torture, gaslighting, biomedical experimentation, gun violence, suicide, domestic abuse, insect parasites, and gore.]
★★★★☆
Like this review?
–Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
–Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
–Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler
–Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 