I became a fan of ‘Fringe’ the first time I saw the show. It’s monster-of-the-week episodes combined with an ongoing mythology scratched my ‘X-Files’ itch. Also, the lead character was the smart and very capable FBI Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv). The mystery about her abilities, the villainous David Robert Jones, and the uneasy relationship between Peter (Joshua Jackson) and Walter Bishop (John Noble) kept me tuning in every week. And the science. Even though the science bordered on pseudoscience, ‘Fringe’ had more science than ‘The X-Files.’ Dr. Walter Bishop employed scientific reasoning and methods to deduce what was going on, and the show is one of the few pieces of entertainment that used “hypothesis” correctly.

Seasons 2 and 3 just got better. Olivia’s Cortexiphan powers came into play as did the Other Side, an alternate universe. Major events and decisions, Walter explained, created parallel worlds, and if we had the right equipment or someone had the right ability, traveling between them would be possible. Walter’s big secret was revealed; he had invaded the alternate universe to save a young Peter. In our world, Peter’s illness killed him, but in the other universe, Walternate (the other side’s Walter) did find a cure, but he didn’t realize this because an Observer interrupted him. Viewing Walternate’s work through the universe window viewing device, Walter vowed to get to the other side and save Peter. Walter meant to return Peter to the other side, but seeing how happy Peter made his grieving wife Elizabeth, Peter stayed on this side ignorant of the truth for years.

Walter brings young Peter to our universe.

The first three seasons did an excellent job of developing the team dynamic. Olivia, Peter, Walter forming the core of a team that was evolving into a family. Season 3 focused on Olivia and her alternate from the other side, Fauxlivia. Walter’s invasion of the other side caused anomalies, and Walternate was understandably furious when he learned his son was being raised in our universe. Walternate had Fauxlivia impersonate Olivia, but Olivia wasn’t over there for long; her love for Peter helped her to regain her memories, and she used her powers to go back home. The war between the universes was the bulk of Season 3, and the season ended with an odd twist: Peter disappeared and no one remembered he ever existed.

With the characters not remembering Peter, the first part of the fourth season felt cold and hollow. The exploration of the changes in the characters stalled the season. A lot had to be explained, and the exposition was lengthy and exhaustive. By the time the big reveal happened, the momentum built in Season 3 was gone. The dissolution of the Olivia-Peter-Walter foundation tore the heart out of the show, and when the writers tried to put the heart back, things just weren’t the same. The focus shifted away from Olivia to Peter and Walter. Torv always masterfully elevated what little she was given. Noble and Jackson got pages while she got lines, but during the fourth season she was pushed to the side, and the show suffered.

John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop (L) & Joshua Jackson as Peter Bishop (R)

I thought the fifth and final season would go back to roots of investigating fringe events with Olivia back in charge while answering the majority of the questions the mythology presented. Olivia Dunham was hand-picked by Broyles in the beginning to be the leader of the team, but in the fifth season, she was pushed into the background as the story was about Walter and his plan to defeat the Observers. Watching Peter and Walter’s father-son relationship grow started as an emotional subplot of the show, but placing Peter and Walter in the center disrupted its balance. Olivia had a few good moments this season; how she was able to construct a makeshift gun in “The Human Kind” is a good example, but there were episodes where she didn’t do much, and I wondered why she was in certain episodes at all.

Anna Torv as Olivia Dunham

‘Fringe’ started as a show with a female lead whose keen skills aided in all parts of the investigation, scientific or not, but it didn’t end that way. The decision to no longer have Olivia in the leadership role made the show very male. The message became “science is for men.” Walter and Peter were shown in the lab, taking charge of all of the scientific investigations with Olivia looking on and contributing little in the last two seasons. The stance of science being “for men only” was reinforced by the Observers. Observers are advanced humans from the year 2609. They have forced human evolution; humans value intellect over emotion, and Observers can move through time, studying important events. The Observers were the biggest mystery of the show. During the final season we learned they sent a scouting team in order to find the right period of time to invade. In 2015, the Observers invaded, taking over society. All of the Observers seen on ‘Fringe’ are male. And white.

Observers

Not only are they all male and white, the Observers reproduce without women, employing a cloning technique. They were able to engineer women out of the realm of science and possibly eradicating them from the species.

The issues of the shift away from Olivia as the lead to a more Peter-Walter centered show and the fact that all of the Observers are male will probably be discussed more as time passes. It has been a couple of weeks since the finale aired, and the emotions stirred by the ending of a loved showed can be strong. Perhaps distance and watching the show again will bring new perspectives on the gender issue, but there’s one matter that won’t change no matter how much time passes: the ‘Fringe’ finale erased the entire show.

The plan to save the world from the Observers was to reset time. One of the Observers, September, had a son, Michael, who is an anomaly. Those who eventually became the Observers can trace their origins to a moment when a group of scientists discover a way to increase humanity’s capacity for intelligence by sacrificing our emotions. Michael is both intelligent and possesses emotions, so sending him to that point in time when these scientists make their discovery will show them the error of their ways, and the path to the Observers will disappear. The main goal is to win by erasing the Observers’ existence.

The Observer September (L) and Michael (R)

The plan works. Walter escorts Michael to the future. Michael doesn’t talk, so Walter takes him so the scientists will understand how important Michael is. All during the last season, we got flashes to the point of the Observers’ invasion. Peter and Olivia are in the park with their daughter, Henrietta. When the Observers invaded, Olivia and Peter were separated from their daughter. The team tried to fight the Observers when they invaded, but the plan went wrong, and they had to encase themselves in amber for 21 years. They didn’t age for 21 years, so when Henrietta found her parents, they were the same age as when the Observers first invaded.

At the end of the finale, we go back to the blissful scene in the park with Olivia and Peter. This time Henrietta runs into her father’s arms. No Observers come.

This would be a satisfying ending if the Observers only started interfering with events at the start of the invasion, which is not the case. When Peter was sick, he died in this timeline, but Walter watched Walternate try to find a cure. While Walternate was working on a cure, he was distracted by an Observer, September. Because September prevented Walternate from seeing the results of a trial, Walter was spurred into action. After his Peter died, Walter wanted to stop all versions of Peter from dying, so he raced to find a way to travel to the other side. Walter got Peter and was able to recreate Walternate’s cure.

Walter sees September interrupt Walternate

To make up for his mistake, September made sure Walter was able to save Peter. After crossing back, the ice covering the lake cracked, and Walter and Peter fell into the water. September saved them because Peter was supposed to live in the other universe. September, an Observer, is responsible for Peter ending up alive in this universe.

Without September, Walternate would have succeeded in curing his son.

At the end of the finale, the team erased all of the Observers from existence.

No Observers means no September.

Instead of resetting time back to the family in the park, erasing all of the Observers actually resets the entire show. With Peter safe in the alternate universe, his home, there would be no reason for the war between the universes, there would be no need for Walter to develop technology to cross over, and there would be no need for the Cortexiphan trials. Peter and our Olivia would never have met, Walter would not have spent time in an asylum, and the need for a Fringe division would not exist. The foundation of the show vanishes by erasing the Observers.

The last scenes should not have been with Peter and Olivia. The last scene of the series should have been Walter watching Walternate find a cure and save Peter’s life. Walter would have smiled and turned off the universe window. The End.

Walter watches the other side using his universe window

I am disappointed in the writers for forgetting this essential part of the fiction they created. Basically, they should have known better. They should have remembered that by erasing the Observers, they reset the entire show.

I have other quibbles with the final season. I don’t understand why, when the Observers figured out the plan, they didn’t jump to either a different time period or another universe. Also, I still can’t believe the team was able to hide in Walter’s old lab at Harvard the entire season without being discovered. It wasn’t a secret that is where they used to work, so I’m surprised the Observers didn’t look there first or at least have the place under surveillance once they realized the core Fringe team had returned.

I’m going to have to come to terms with how Olivia was shoved out of the leadership role and the stance of science is the realm of men the show seemed to take in its last two seasons. And I’m not sure when I’ll forgive the writers for disregarding the rules of their own show. But the first three seasons of ‘Fringe’ gave audiences some of the most interesting (“Lysergic Acid Diethylamide”) and emotional (“White Tulip”) moments ever seen on television. When you love someone, you need to accept them completely, flaws and all. Although the final season disappointed me, ‘Fringe’ is still one of my favorite shows, flaws and all.