NB. Dave Owen and Ben Matern will be sharing reviewing duties on the fourth season of Fringe.
One of my favorite novels in high school was “Perfume”, a bestselling historical novel by Patrick Süskind about a French sociopath who is born with a perfect sense of smell. When he realizes he in fact does not possess an individual scent, he begins to murder young girls and tries to conserve their scent to create a perfect perfume, a scent he can call his, so he can become a part of the world.
When in the opening scene of this week’s “Fringe” a disfigured man assaults a woman, but due to a residue on his skin manages to make her attracted to him (if only for a few seconds), I felt awfully reminded of “Perfume” with a modern-day scientific gist. I don’t know if the writers were in any way inspired by that novel, but with the exception of a few unexpected twists the story was pretty linear and predictable. I also feel uneasy if TV shows try to convey basic human principles such as “love” as the moral message of the week. Were we supposed to feel sorry for the killer because he never experienced true love? Were we supposed to feel sorry for anyone who for some reason is unable to find true love? I don’t care if “Fringe” uses love as motivation for its killers, but please spare us the moral hammer.
Particularly painful: The Observer’s “I believe you call it … love!” Which brings us to the story arc and a (semi-)answer to what we were wondering about for the entire season: According to the Observer, orange Olivia is blue Olivia. We don’t know yet how that is possible, but the positive side is that the Ol
ivia that we were forced to get to know for fifteen episodes won’t simply be erased because of Peter’s return to the blue universe; rather she and blue Olivia seem to melt to one person (something I personally had hoped for). The price and the consequences are yet unknown. But did anyone else feel during the last scene, when Peter and Olivia are finally reunited, that this happiness will not last for very long?
I’m also happy that they did not completely dismiss Lincoln’s affection for Olivia which was omitted for a few episodes. The question remains if he’ll just have to find closure now or if his feelings will play a bigger role in episodes to come.
P.S. Did the weird metal pods ever reappear since Season 1? I honestly completely forgot about them and don’t even really remember in what context they appeared earlier.
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As one of the biggest champions of this show I can’t help but agree with you on most of these points Ben. It’s been a rough season after one of the best seasons of TV I’ve seen (the third season). I really really hope they get a fifth to sort all this out and try to end it with a super cool final group of episodes.