4x01: Neither Here Nor There

[wendelah1]

For the fourth season, the Fringe showrunners made the fateful decision to reboot the series. They've imagined an alternative universe where September didn't save Peter Bishop from drowning. As the season progresses, I'll be cataloging the resulting changes. This is what I've noticed so far. In this universe/timeline/whatever, Walter Bishop is more emotionally fragile, volatile, and fearful. After being released from the mental hospital to work for Fringe, Walter took up residence in his old lab at Harvard, working and even sleeping there. Instead of Peter and Walter, Astrid works closely with Olivia and takes a more active role in their investigations. This Olivia Dunham seems different, too. She's colder, more socially isolated, more analytic and less empathetic.



Writer: J.H. Wyman and Jeff Pinkner
Director: Joe Chapelle
Originally aired: September 23, 2011

Synopsis: Agent Lincoln Lee comes to work for Fringe division because in the course of an unrelated investigation, his FBI partner Robert is murdered by a new kind of shapeshifter. Peter Bishop may not be quite as absent from this timeline as the Observers had once thought.

Most Memorable Quote:
Lincoln: You understand what you're saying? Those families are going to spend the rest of their lives wondering what happened to their loved ones. Looking for answers. Can you imagine what that would be like? To have that -- that hole in your life.
Walter: People die. It happens. Sometimes they even die twice.

Links:
transcript

Reviews and Recaps:
The A.V. Club
Polite Dissent
Den of Geek
Entertainment Weekly
And then there's this: Why Is Olivia Such a Jerk? by Charlie Jane Anders on iO9.

Fanfiction:
I admit I had some issues with "Neither Here Nor There," too. As we re-watched the episode, my husband remarked, "Did they get Chris Carter (creator of The X-Files) to write this?" Suddenly it came to me. They're hiding the truth from the American people to avoid drawing attention to the Fringe division. They're telling lies to the families of the victims, while Walter gleefully harvests tissue for experimentation from the bodies of their loved ones. They believe anything they do can be justified: after all, they're saving the planet. The Fringe Division has been turned into the moral equivalent of The X-Files Consortium.

Title: Inspired by True Events.
Author: Wendelah1
Summary: For a top secret division, they were pretty easy to find once he had the camera feeds in hand. The fic goes AU somewhere around scene five.

Title: Both Here and There
Author: Kerithwyn
Summary: Olivia thinks about one Lincoln and encounters another.

Add your suggestions in the comments and I'll edit them into the post.

Comments

[sprocket]

S4: a variation of It's A Wonderful Life, starring Peter Bishop as George Bailey. Sort of.

I'm having some internet issues this week, but let's see what I can pull from trancripts and recent canon review.

First, hi Joe Flanaghan! ...oh, nice knowing you, JF. Thanks for the SGA flashback.

It's tempting to ponder the significance of Walter's experiments with reanimating the pigeon (it is a pigeon, right?), in the context of Fringe's extensive history with death and the uncanny.

The pigeon could also be a callback to Walter's tracking plan in "Power Hungry". On that note, it would be interesting to track S4 callbacks to S1. There's some outright retreads - I look forward to discussing "Nothing As it Seems" remixing "The Transformation" - as well as broader thematic and plot arc recalls.

Continuing Fringe's favorite theme - doubling, mirroring, doubles as foils - there's the Olivia at the crime scene, and Lincoln. The gateway into Fringe should not be the loss of a partner to a wacky Fringe event, and yet.

All thoughts on the shapeshifters I'm saving for "Novation".

This Olivia Dunham seems different, too. She's colder, more socially isolated, more analytic and less empathetic.

Is she? Is that an effect of the timeline changes, or is that how Olivia looks to the outside world? I'm thinking about S1 Olivia, when she is settling into her new relationships with Broyles, Walter, and Peter. I'm also thinking about how she acted when she was around Charlie and Rachel. And now I'm thinking about where this new S4 Olivia falls when interacting with Lincoln (an outsider), and Astrid (a colleague). I'm not particularly invested in the story of Peter's influence making Olivia a warmer fuizzer person, I'm here for Olivia finding answers, resolution, and happiness, not necessarily in that order.

By changing two variables (PoV and universes/timelines), the writers blurred their message, whether it's "Fringe division: not that great at playing by the rules" or "Fringe is negatively impacted by Peter's absense." In the first three seasons, how often did we see outsider PoV on our side's Fringe? There was the pilot, and - sort of - Northwest Passage. What do these episodes say about the appearance our side's Fringe presented to the wider world, pre-reboot?

[wendelah1]

Is she? Is that an effect of the timeline changes, or is that how Olivia looks to the outside world?

THAT is a good question. We're meeting her at a different point in her life, several years after the deaths of her FBI partner and lover John, not right before it happens.

I'm not invested in Peter's relationship with Olivia at all. I'm merely describing what I see. I'm here for Walter Bishop's story, I love all of these wonderful characters, and the Redverse is the best 'verse.

The other outsider POV came from Amy Jessup at the beginning of season two.