The End of Fringe

January 23, 2013 | By More


Mrs. Nerd asked me the day after watching the last Fringe episode how I felt about it. We went on to talk about our various thoughts on the series and so forth. It was a quite enjoyable conversation.

Thinking about it, the conversation contained none of the usual questions about series finales. We didn’t discuss things we didn’t like about it. We didn’t talk about it being an unfitting end.

That thought has been with me this entire season. Armed with the knowledge that the series was ending, the folks behind the show crafted a fairly well done season to wrap the series up.

I strongly suspect they were prepared for the series to end last season. A small edit to season finale could have cut the lead into the final season. While it would have been a fitting end, they got the chance to go forward, and I don’t think they wasted it.

The entire season was almost entirely based on the mythology of the show, versus some of the monster of the week stuff we’d seen previously. While I normally enjoy the one off episodes, this season the story pulled me in.

It actually reminded me a bit of a watching a video game. The Fringe team was evading the Observers while trying to assemble the components needed for the season’s McGuffin. We didn’t know what they were building, but neither did they. Each episode revealed a little more, and even Walter’s videotapes reminded me of some game play.

The other thing I think they did well, especially in the last episode, was the call backs. There was plenty of stuff through the season, but the final episode was filled with Easter Eggs for the fans. The appearance of the Lincoln and Mirror Olivia didn’t seemed contrived and fit in the story. The cow even managed to make an appearance.

Overall, the final episodes of Fringe were a nice love letter to the fans. But unlike a number of other show, the amount of care and dedication put into was at least equal to the rest of the series. For that, I say well done.

 

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  1. Tom says:

    I watched it Saturday and even though I was a bit “sad” by the show ending it certainly didn’t seem contrived or like an event for an event’s sake, it seemed pretty natural. I was really pleased to hear that the show had been picked up for another season but really wasn’t sure what thge end game was going to be, expanding on the Observer mythos and spending time in the future with Etta was great and expanded on one of what I feel has been the central theme from the start, inter-generational relationships. I too loved all the call backs this year and even though some were a bit rushed in the finale it was cool to see them just the same. I hadn’t really thought about the video game analogy but you’re right, the twists were enough to keep it from getting stale or too formulaic Fringe was one of the shows I looked forward to so it will be missed.