Fringe: When Bad is Good

When is bad good?  When it creates suspense.  When it sparks action.  When it changes characters in drastic yet believable ways.  When it leads to dramatic irony.  In other words, when good writers know how to milk a plot where the bad guys are winning.  When it's happening on Fringe!

As Fringe opens this season, Olivia is a prisoner in the alternate dimension, reprogrammed to believe she is her own double.  The double is working against Peter, Walter, and the FBI in our dimension.  Oh, no!  Except, oh, yes!  Fringe has never been as exciting, as fast-paced, and as fun as it is this season.  Usually, the mood of a show plummets when the bad guys outwit the good guys at the end of successive episodes.  On Fringe this year, each defeat only increases the tension.

How do they do it?  Well, car chases help.  The first episode of the season, which involved Olivia running away from a mental facility on the other side, was the most dynamic I've seen on Fringe.  Even more importantly, the bad guys of Fringe, especially Olivia's double, are very engaging.  In fact, Olivia's double, though ruthless and much too unquestioningly loyal to the evil Walternate, is much more fun than our always melancholy, sometimes flat Olivia.  I'm hoping that after "being" her double for a while, our Olivia (who we are rooting for despite her woodenness) will retain some of that vivacity.  Dramatic irony -- the classical trick where the audience knows something the characters don't -- also helps.  We're too busy yelling angrily at Peter, "Can't you tell she's not your Olivia?" to feel depressed about the situation.

The episodes that take place in our dimension (and please understand that I am an episode behind, writing this) have not been quite as thrilling as the episodes taking place on the other side.  They have relied too much on the same old plot we've seen again and again in previous seasons: strange science kills people in a gruesome way, the team investigates, yadda yadda.  The episodes in the alternate universe, however, have broken free of this formula and provided twists and turns.  The mystery pulls us on:  What is Walternate's plan? 

To sum up: I began watching Fringe, though I sometimes found it boring, because my husband was watching it.  Now I'm asking him, "When are you going to have time to watch TV?  There's a Fringe in the DVR!"