Misc

[opusculasedfera]

Finally got around to watching this week's Fringe, which says something about how this season has been going, even if I was busy-ish this weekend. Not bad? I'm still not that interested in Peter's superpowers, and worry that this means that the writers have gotten bored of Olivia's story again.

I am super interested in everything Olivia does. I loved that she has sane and practical coping methods at the beginning of the ep, even if they were mostly being used to set off Peter going increasingly off the rails. I love that she can take advantage of being pushed through a dimensional portal to shoot her assailant when he is off guard. I love that she actually looks for goddamn clues when things aren't going as planned, instead of going off to angst.

I would have particularly liked it if the end of the ep had focused on Olivia and Astrid's brainstorming session over the radio, instead of Walter being sad about his hubris. For that matter, I would have liked it if Astrid had been given anything at all to do except get punched by that one Observer (and c'mon writers, can we please at least try to remember that Astrid is also field-trained, even if she isn't the shot Olivia is?)

I do like Walter's character arc, I'm just tired of everything being sidelined in favour of it, and I don't actually think it's unreasonable for people to be too busy saving the world to deal with it completely. Also I have no idea why he felt especially responsible for Cecil's death. Does he mean because he didn't show Cecil the way out directly after he'd found him? Because that's not exactly something he could have foreseen. He was reacting like he'd pushed Cecil in front of the futuristic bullet-equivalent, did I miss something?

The tension level of this ep was at least up again, even if the plot seems to be conforming pretty closely to the predictions various people have made, so I'm not as excited about it.

I will continue to watch because dammit, the idea of this show is still good! I just want to get back to the glory days of the individual episodes being just as good.

I also finished Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch, which was good, but I think suffered because it's just not quite as good as her earlier books, despite being excellent. I would also guess that it's aimed a little younger and that's why the writing was so much more straightforward. I did enjoy the fact that Sunny, the protagonist, discovers a parallel community of magical users that actually has realistic structure that she has to enter into, and she is special, but not so special as to transcend society completely. I was also very impressed by the way that, after an awful lot of "protagonist and friends will defeat the bad guy! it's foretold and they're super special, etc., etc." the people sending them on their quest have to admit that actually, this is totally not the first team they've sent to do the quest, and all the other teams have died, which is much more practical and proactive than a lot of fantasy characters get. I do appreciate practicality. It's a cute book though, and certainly one of very few fantasy novels set in modern Nigeria, so highly recommended if you like that kind of thing.

Comments

[wendelah1]

Fringe has always been an ensemble show to me. I now think Olivia is a great character but I have not watched Fringe for her. I began watching the show at the beginning of season three, after watching the first two seasons on dvd in about two weeks. I kept watching the show because of Walter Bishop. To me, his character arc and his relationship with his son are what has driven the show almost from the end of season one. Their relationship is the least resolved, especially since Walter's memories have been taken. Plus this Walter is still Amberverse Walter. His Peter died in the lake. Right now, for better or worse, Olivia's individual arc is as resolved as it's going to get, unless she has to die again to save the world. Which you know she would if called upon. She's back to being heroic Blue Universe Olivia so I think the writers have something heroic planned for her to do. Peter has always been the character who is willing to take the crazy ass chances and interface himself willingly into the weird advanced tech. I don't think this is a very interesting or surprising direction to end the series but it's all very consistent. They are not using Astrid well at all--which is also consistent--but regardless of her training, she could not have anticipated and dodged the Observer who was moving at supersonic speeds.

[opusculasedfera]

It's consistent, I just think they could have done it better. And it's true that I am terribly biased because I was very much watching the show for Olivia, despite it being an ensemble.

I'm not sure Peter and Walter's relationship is the least resolved. It was at the end of last season, but there's supposed to have been a few years between that and when they go into Amber in which Walter was being the doting grandfather, so it doesn't make sense for them to still be completely awkward around each other. Like I said, I like Walter's arc, I just want the writers to do it better, and in a more balanced way.

It's not that I think Astrid could have done much, it's that it only increases the tension if Astrid is visibly prepping herself and checking her gun (surely she has a gun?) and then still can't do anything against them, while also giving her something more to do than wait.

[wendelah1]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy with how they're ending the series either. They had thirteen episodes to wrap up what I believe was supposed to be a seven season arc. Given how they've chosen to end this, there isn't much for her to do besides react to events, is there? At least Astrid gets to fiddle with the tapes (and who uses VCR tapes in 20-whatever? Walter must have had the last working model in his lab.) There are so many unanswered questions and I can tell there isn't time left to tell these stories well.