Fringe - A Great TV Series!

After putting it off for a long time, last week I finally finished watching the fifth and final season of the TV series Fringe. I didn't put it off because I had come to dislike the show - indeed, it had maintained its quality and my interest from the beginning -but because i didn't want to see it end. I started watching Fringe when it premiered back in 2008 and watched it religiously until i screwed up and miss a few episodes at the beginning of the fourth season. I waited until those episodes were issued on DVD and rented them through NetFlix to catch up. But I as still behind when season five came around so I waited still longer and now, through the joy of streaming, have completed seeing all 100 episodes.

From the start I called Fringe an alternate version of the X-Files - but would then say "But this one is done well". By that I didn't mean to insult the X-Files too much- I was a fan of the show in the 1990's myself- but Fringe seemed to have learned from that show's massive mistakes. Chris Carter's show teased us for years about some huge alien conspiracy, constantly adding elements that just confused and complicated matters until even the most hopeful fans had to conclude that there was no planned story that was ever going to be able to resolve the mess they had created. Fringe seems to have had an end point in mind from the start with built in stopping places just in case the show was cancelled. The very important Observers are glimpsed in the first season numerous times before we are even told that they are something to which we should be paying attention. By the start of season five the mystery behind these nearly emotionless bald men takes center stage - we are told who they are, what they are doing and that there is a chance that the Fringe team can defeat them. For thirteen final episodes the show plays out brilliantly bringing back elements of previous stories and folding them into things in inventive ways. It is wonderfully done! Somehow the creators managed to fulfilled nearly every promise they made to their audience over the course of five years. All the way to its triumphant endpoint they remained true to the series' core values - the importance of family, the necessity of trust in humanity, the joy of intellectual inquiry, the beauty of a bit of humor at the right time and the awesome power of love. Fringe wasn't just a great, exciting science fiction show- it was about the bonding of a ragtag group of people into a family that fought to make the world a better, safer place for everyone. I loved every minute and recommend that if you haven't watched Fringe before that you give it a try. It is a great one hundred episode ride!