Fringe has been renewed for a fifth and final season

"Hey, this newspaper says we've been renewed for a 5th season!"

It was about time! Warner studios and Fox took their time to reach an agreement, but they finally made it: Fringe has been renewed for a fifth and final season of 13 episodes.

The good news have been announced by showrunner J.H. Wyman through his Twitter account, and made official later by Fox via press release by Kevin Reilly, President of Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company.

I'm not going to post the whole press release, you can find it right here at Fringe Bloggers.

The Fringe altverse: Walter, Peter, and... Walter

I recently watched episode 2x16, "Peter", which sheds some light into the dark Fringe past. We get to see how Peter died, and how Walter managed to open a gate between both universes.

One thing I've been thinking about since we get to see Peter's tomb in episode 1x20 is, what happened in the alternate universe after Peter was kidnapped? You know, Walter from this side walks into Walternate's house, and the wife thinks he's her Walter, but... what happened later, when the actual Walternate returns home and his wife thinks he took Peter to the lab, but he didn't? And what happened, or better yet, didn't happen during all those years since Peter disappeared from the other side?

We see that Walter, his wife and their son Peter, all of them exist on both sides; they live in the same house; Walter works in the same lab; both Peters have got the same deadly medical condition; both Walters are trying to find a cure. But... looks like only the Walter Bishop from this side has been involved in the discovery of an alternate universe. If everything else seems to be the same way except for little details, why isn't the "Walternate" also on the same track, being this not a "little detail" but a big one?

Well, we don't see what was he doing beyond trying to find a cure for his son; but as Peter is now an adult and looks like the alternate Walter didn't make any attempts to get his son back, it is safe to assume he has nothing to do with alternate universes. Or it isn't?

Or maybe I am going too fast, and Walternate is the bad guy who's trying to get into this side to make justice on his own hands because our Walter took his son away?

Fringe - A New Day in the Old Town

On this episode, Fringe is back, and it's back with a bang. Events from last season finale, the Fringe Division being shut down... and Olivia almost dead?

OK, let's start again, but this time let's make it slowly.

Last time we saw Olivia Dunham before this episode, she was on an alternate reality face to face with William Bell. Next scene, now, her SUV is involved in a car crash, but she isn't driving; she isn't there at all. Until the guys show up and Dr. Bishop does who-knows-what, and suddenly Olivia is thrown through the windshield out of nowhere.

(Looks like Walter does have magic fingers - because later in the episode, with gloves and through clothes, he can feel with his left hand how a dead body's anus is soaking wet. Ugh.)

At the hospital, doctors say Olivia's brain damage is irreversible, but looks like she won't take that, as later she wakes up speaking in Greek.

A new enemy is introduced on this episode: a shapeshifter. He is sent there to kill Olivia to prevent a meeting, but whith whom? As he doesn't succeed on the first try, he is sent again to get some information. He fails again, but manages to escape and take a new shape: agent Charlie Francis.
Meanwhile, Broyles is in Washington trying to prevent the Fringe Division of being shut down by a Senate committee.

A New Day in the Old Town seems to settle down what the next several episodes will be all about. A spy, a meeting and a hidden thing Olvivia seems to know about but doesn't remember, a one man fight to keep the Fringe Division alive, and as usal, a lot more questions but not a single answer.

There are a couple nice details on this episode.
One of them is the way the shapeshifter communicates with his people: through a typewriter and a mirror. The authors could have chosen an uber-technified device from another universe, or even a regular cellphone, but they didn't. Instead, they went the old fashioned way.
The other is the double reference to The X-files. Sweet.

Oh, by the way, The Observer was there. :)



(Observer image credit: http://eastereggs.fringetelevision.com/2009/09/fringe-easter-eggs-observer-in-new-day.html)