Fringe

[mariness]

Fringe, on the other hand, after some really shaky episodes and bad science that went beyond the show's premise of whacked out science to "oh, for the love of god, writers, try exploring that marvelous thing named the internet first, you know?" to "oh, gimmeabreak" did show some massive improvement over the last few episodes. Unlike Dollhouse, Fringe does take its increasingly silly ideas seriously, and shows us the consequences of at least some of those ideas, most of which are, in an interesting coincidence, fatal or entirely gross or both. It's interesting that the show that clearly takes itself a lot less seriously, and also is absolutely not set up to be a particularly strong feminist/racial breakthrough show, tends to be more feminist and racially diverse than the show that wants us to believe it's focusing on these ideas.

I was not exactly surprised, after Star Trek and Lost, to see J.J. Abrams deciding to play around with the alternative universe ideas in this show as well – heck, I predicted this about midway through the Star Trek movie. with the small hope that Fringe would have a lower death count and be slightly less confusing.

Incidentally, I was mildly amused to note that although in this alternative universe 9-11 did not happen as it happened here (I'm gathering that United 93 did crash into the White House, while the Twin Tower strikes were diverted), Obama is still president, which suggests that Abrams strongly believes that the power of Seven-of-Nine to completely derail Illinois senatorial races and propel Barack Obama to the top CANNOT BE HALTED IN ANY UNIVERSE! I approve of this.