mariness

So Fringe and its parallel universes, grubs jumping out of chests (like THANKS FOR REMINDING ME OF THAT, SHOW!), absolutely terrible science, epic love affair, "We'll DESTROY THE UNIVERSE -- TWO UNIVERSES ! -- if that's what it takes TO RESTORE THIS FAMILY!" AND a cow in the lab finally came to a triumphant end this evening.

I have not enjoyed this past season at all, largely because I thought Fringe came to a decent end last season, and this season, set in a future I couldn't bring myself to care about since I was sure, this show being Fringe and its showrunners coming from Lost, that it was a future that would just be retconned anyway. So I was prepared for disappointment. And maybe a nice dog on the beach and a camera zoom into an eye.

But, Fringe delivered: a nice epic two part episode that tied up loose ends, made some nice references to past episodes, gave each actor a moment to shine, and, alas, brought back the damn cow. Sure, the episode as a whole makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and sure, much of the dialogue seemed to a meta statement from the show's writers of "SEE! Yes, all of our wacky, nonsensical plot lines and out of character moments and objectionable science DID HAVE A POINT and we are NOT APOLOGIZING FOR ANY OF IT," as again and again characters assured one another that they would make the exact same choices all over again given the same plot. And it contained all the things that makes Fringe Fringe: kick ass Olivia moments, supportive Peter moments, Astrid getting underused moments, Walter's questionable science moments ("Anti gravity bullets -- because it's COOL!") and yes, the inevitable gross out moments.

And that damn cow.

Bye, show. Thanks for five seasons of generally solid entertainment. Well, three, at least, and good episodes in the other two seasons.

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Sidenote: This was the first time I've watched Fringe on the new, large HD LED TV, and....what the (*&^(*&)(*() was going on with the Observers' makeup? That was scarier than the Observers.

Ah, Fringe.

I haven't been writing regularly about Fringe this season because I was usually watching most episodes a week or so late on Hulu, although I made an exception for the last couple of episodes – which in turn reminded me of just why I rarely bother to watch TV live these days. The constant, constant commercials, where you never know just how long a commercial break will be. Oh, you get the commercial breaks on Hulu.com as well, but you can pause the commercials and go do something else if need be, and they are neither so frequent nor so long. But I digress. Anyway.

( Spoilery for season four and the finale. )

To answer a few questions sent in by email, the reason you haven't been getting any snarky comments from me on Stargate as it careens to its conclusion tonight is that the Syfy channel in its infinite wisdom has decided not to put up episodes of an already cancelled show/franchise on its site or Hulu until a month after initial broadcast, and while I in my little wisdom have decided that Game of Thrones is absolutely worth a trip to a nearby apartment especially because pizza is included, Stargate: Universe is most definitely not. If more recent episodes do pop up on Hulu after tonight, or if I allow myself to get Neflix in June/July (I'm saving it as a reward) then I might try to finish out the season, since I've invested this much time and am vaguely interested in how the show will fail to wrap itself up. Otherwise, eh.

Which – after a small digression to note that yes, I'm planning to write something up about that enjoyable popcorn flick, Thor – brings us to Fringe, which greatly cheered me up by providing an entire finale episode WITHOUT THE COW, and then proceeded to ruin that moment by further polluting an entirely innocent river. Oh, show. Sniffle. ( Cut for slightly more specific spoilers about the ending and other non-cow talk, and spoilers for Buffy: Season 5 )

Been zonked today, so instead of lovely intellectual ponderings about scattered ideas in my head and a few things mentioned at IAFA, you get my scattered thought (just one) on the most recent episode of Fringe:

I think I have finally found a use for that damned cow!!!!!!

( Spoilery for the last couple of episodes. )

Fringe

I gotta say: after the sheer silliness, implausibility, bad science and you have got to be kidding me seriously bad science of a first season, in this third season, Fringe has finally become a pretty decent show. (One helpful factor: we are seeing far, far less of that cow.)

( Spoilery yet riveting non-science. )

Fringe decided to open the season with something different: instead of, "how can we make our viewers toss their dinners this week," they went with…a taxi ride.

( Mildly spoilery discussion of the season three opener and the finale of season two. )

Lost:

( Spoilers want to have a long and angry talk with the producers of this show. Grumble. (Extremely spoilery for this week's episode and a very mild cow-related Fringe spoiler not really spoilery for Fringe at all: you have been warned. )

....but I'm definitely thinking hate:

Fringe: the Musical.

If that cow sings, I am going to be very, very put out. I am just warning you all now.

Before the great event that is the season premiere of Lost descends upon us, I should perhaps say a few words about other television shows, which I haven't given up on, despite light blogging about it. I just haven't had much to say about White Collar, which I am watching only the extremely shallow basis that Matt Bomer is pretty (and yes, while I know the actor is gay, he is bisexual In My Head, which is the only place I'm likely to meet him anyway), or Leverage, which I am still adoring, despite not exactly feeling the love for Jeri Ryan's guest character, although she looks great if impractical in those short black skirts, but to make up for this, shirtless Hardison! I think I speak for many of us when I suggest that shirtless Hardison should be a strong, strong part of the future of Leverage. In fact if by some twist the Leverage team can only succeed in their stunts if Hardison strips, this is a plot twist I could live with. I'm just saying, Rogers.

(And if you haven't been watching Leverage, do yourself a favor and so do – it's a fun show.)

But, as said, I don't have much to say about these sorts of caper shows, or the romantic-mystery-comedy show Castle, another love of the season. I do have a lot of negative things to say about the horrific unevenness that was Dollhouse's second season, otherwise known as, when good concepts go wrong, and why suddenly attempting to squeeze ten years of plot development into ten minutes is likely to make me blink and go, er, what, but that possibly deserves a separate post of ranting.

Which leaves us with television's ongoing attempt to make us lose our dinners, Fringe.

( Spoilery for recent Fringe episodes. )

The general blogging silence over the past few days has been to spare you, my mostly innocent readers, from a stream of constant entries running more or less like this:

Ow, knee.

Knee, ow.

Oooooooooh! Look at all the pretty colors on my leg! Purple everywhere!

Apparently, my knee has decided to take up a second career as a balloon. I rather wish we'd chatted about this beforehand.

This riveting series of updates would then only be followed by yesterday's:

The water is off.

Why is the water off?

The water is still off.

AUUGH! THE WATER IS OFF!

Er. Is that a demon in the toilet?

Ok, either the toilet has taken up demon torture as a hobby or something damn strange is going on in the bathroom.

What would a water demon caught in a toilet look like, anyway?

Can I get a poem out of this?

Every drop you shake…
Every thirst you slake…
every earache you make every brain you break
I'll be watching you…

Do water demons actually slake thirst?

And so on.

I did, however, manage to catch FlashForward, which so far I have mixed feelings about. Lots of other people have already identified the two main issues: 1) the cool science-fictiony thing has already happened, leaving us knowing that nothing cool is going to happen again until April 29, not even remotely uncoincidentally the start of May sweeps (the show wins, hands down, for most blatant attempt to drive viewers to a chief sweeps episode seven months in advance ever) 2) the characters are, how to put this kindly, dull. Duller, I would say, than ditchwater, which actually has all kinds of awesomely cool critters living wildly dramatic lives inside it if you just take the time to look. The trouble with FlashForward is that it hasn't exactly convinced anyone to take the time to look. Not yet, anyway.

(Well, ok, I think many of us were looking at the cute babysitter and her decidedly fetching bra, but I mean, beyond a completely superficial look.)

I think part of the problem here was that the show had to focus on a lot – major worldwide disaster, bizarre and frankly not particularly credible partial explanation for worldwide disaster, without enjoying that time that most disaster movies have to introduce us to a nice set of Characters So Cliched We Already Know Or Can Guess Their Backstories, allowing us to Care For Them (or Not) in seconds. In theory Flashforward's characters are supposed to be a little less clichéd (the show hasn't shown any evidence of this one way or another) but regardless, we didn't see enough of them before the Great Disaster to know.

I did like the kangaroo, though. And the last 30 seconds or so.

Meanwhile, Fringe traded the cow for a lovely set of images gross even beyond Fringe's usual standards. Ugh. Sigh. Ugh.

More TV catchup later, although almost certainly sans Heroes; I had been watching it because my gaming group does, but I feel Fringe, cow or no cow, is enough of a sacrifice there, and so far, I haven't heard anything that's convincing me to give Heroes another try this season.