Chuck, Fringe, and Haven: Story arc similarities

I noticed a pattern.

Chuck, Fringe, and Haven all follow a similar story arc with their male and female lead characters.

The story arc goes like this: a female government agent arrives in town for a specific case. She teams up with a man who has secrets (some he knows about; some he isn't aware of). They start off in a professional relationship. Later it turns romantic. Then, things change:

• Man loses woman
• Woman takes on a new identity
• Woman returns (but is she still the same person?)

This cycle happens at least twice in each show, but despite these similarities, each show explores this story arc differently.

Let's take a look, show by show. (Spoilers ahead. And for simplicity, I'm leaving out most of the sci-fi inner workings in these shows.)

The characters

Chuck and Sarah, Chuck (x)

The female government agent: Sarah (CIA) comes to Burbank to secure the Intersect.
The man with secrets: Chuck inadvertently uploads government intelligence into his brain, via secret technology called the Intersect. That's the secret he knows about. The ones he doesn't know about: His parents worked for the CIA, and his dad was part of the team that developed the Intersect.

Olivia and Peter, Fringe (x)

The female government agent: Olivia (FBI) goes to Boston to investigate deaths on a commercial flight.
The man with secrets: No one knows much about what Peter was doing right before he started working with the FBI. Those are his secrets. The secret he doesn't know about: he was born in the Red Universe.

Nathan and Audrey, Haven (x)

The female government agent: Audrey (FBI) follows a federal prison escapee to Haven.
The man with secrets: Nathan can't feel any physical sensation because of the Troubles. The secret he doesn't know about: he is adopted.

The cycles

In Chuck, the first time Chuck loses Sarah is to a mission—she goes undercover at Volkoff Industries and pretends to turn against the CIA (new identity). After they capture Volkoff, Sarah returns to her life in Burbank. The second time, Chuck loses Sarah to a faulty Intersect she uploaded into her brain. In the aftermath, she loses her memories of him (new identity). The series ends with Sarah asking Chuck to tell her about everything they've been through together, so that implies that they'll try to build their relationship again. So, woman returns but she's not the same as before she left, and the relationship is different.

In Fringe, Peter loses Olivia the first time when she gets trapped in the Red Universe. But there's a twist—Olivia's double (let's call her Altlivia) comes over to the Blue Universe and poses as Olivia. Peter doesn't realize they switched, so he doesn't know that he lost his Olivia. Meanwhile, Olivia pretends to be Altlivia in the Red Universe (new identity) but then she blows her cover and fights her way back to the Blue Universe. Olivia comes back safely but the dynamic between her and Peter is different because of the relationship he had with Altlivia in Olivia's absence. The second time, William Bell's consciousness takes over Olivia (new identity), and Peter loses her temporarily until the team can bring her back. Peter loses Olivia again briefly in season 5, because they are separated and then trapped in amber. But he finds her and frees her. (No new identity in this cycle.) So, woman returns as herself but the relationship changes a little each time.

In Haven, Nathan loses Audrey when she enters the Barn to stop a meteor shower that is destroying the town. Audrey comes back as Lexi (new identity), with a different personality and (seemingly) no memories of Nathan. Audrey is back to herself but later, Mara takes overs (loss #2 and another identity). And then Audrey returns but is ill; seemingly dies (loss #3, no new identity), but then Mara's mother brings Audrey back. At the mid-break of season 5, Audrey seems to be back to herself. So, the woman returns and we're not sure if anything is different.

Even though the lead characters in Chuck, Fringe, and Haven follow similar story arcs, the stories, their developments, and the outcomes are all different.

Fringe Season 5: All of my posts in one place

Below are the links to:
- all of my season 5 reaction posts. These are my thoughts I wrote on Tumblr after watching each episode.
- pieces on this blog after season 4 and during season 5
- an article I wrote for Hypable.com

Needless to say, each post has spoilers.

Reaction posts on Tumblr:
5.01: Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11
5.02: In Absentia
5.03: The Recordist
5.04: The Bullet That Saved the World
5.05: An Origin Story
5.06: Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There
5.07: Five-Twenty-Ten
5.08: The Human Kind
5.09: Black Blotter
5.10: Anomaly XB-6783746
5.11: The Boy Must Live (and a second post)
5.12 Liberty and 5.13 An Enemy of Fate (and a second post)

Blog posts here:
Becoming Human Through Rebellion: September’s Character Development - Spoilers through the end of season 4
Pushing Boundaries: Morality and Justified Science in Fringe - Spoilers through the end of season 4
Fringe theory: the Observers already had the red universe
Basic Reset TV in a Seralized Show

On Hypable: 
Five reasons you should watch ‘Fringe’ now that the show has ended

On Hypable: Five reasons you should watch ‘Fringe’ now that the show has ended

I wrote a piece for Hypable.com and you can read it here.

Fringe: Basic Reset TV in a Seralized Show

Even though Fringe is the most complicated TV show I've watched, I think the series finale will resolve with a basic reset–solve the current problem by going back to the beginning.

It's strange because the Fringe writers don't take the easy way out (and I'm not saying the finale will be easy), but resetting is a basic device in television. Think of all the sitcoms with no forward motion, where past events have no effect on the characters. Joss Whedon called it "reset TV" in a 2009 interview with Green Cine:

The thing is, I've never been able to make reset TV. I've never understood it and I've never liked it. I cannot just have people get kidnapped and then next week be all chipper so they can have their next adventure. I find that offensive and bizarre and as a kid it would frighten me, it would confuse me. "But he was engaged in the last episode, why isn't he talking about his dead girlfriend?" It's just not the way I operate. That doesn't mean I need to tell some serpentine tale, it just means that if something happens to somebody, they're going to be a different person. That's just how it is. People evolve, and that's the only kind of storytelling that interests me.

Fringe has always been a serialized show that moves forward and evolves its characters. We saw glimpses of a larger story, but how we saw those glimpses constantly changed. First it was case by case and then universe by universe.

We got our first reset in season 4. Peter bridged the universes and inadvertently erased himself from existence. When he returned, everyone he knew was living without having known him. By the end of the season, the reset broke down.

Season 5 fast-forwards to the future and the fringe team is losing the fight against the Observers. The trailers for the final episodes hint that Peter, Olivia, Astrid, and Walter are going to reset time. But how far back? If it's enough that the characters undo the experiences they've had over the series, then what does that mean for them?

The writers continue to surprise, entertain, and challenge the fans, and so I'm not worried about how the show will end because I know it will satisfying. But I keep wondering, what will this reset do? We can guess the next steps but not the conclusion.

Welcome to Fringe.

Fringe theory: the Observers already had the red universe

Spoilers for season 5.

What if in seasons 2 and 3 when we saw the red universe, the Observers had already invaded and were in charge? We've always watched the show from the fringe team's perspective, so what if we simply weren't shown the Observers' control? A few things make me think more was going on than what we saw.

1. Walter's portal - When Walter crossed over to save Peter, he disrupted the balance between the universes. Why was the red universe decaying faster than ours? The show gives us one explanation: time moves differently over there, so the rate of decay is faster. But what if the Observers were contributing to the destruction of the red universe and that's why it was faster? In season 5, we see that the Observers installed machines to change the chemical composition of the atmosphere. They could have made similar changes that hurt the red universe.

2. Advanced technology - People are mostly the same but with minor differences in each universe, so what allowed people in the red universe to rapidly advance technology? Maybe the Observers traded their tech for the humans' submission.

3. Show Me - Everyone in the red universe has to carry ID at all times and show it for everything, even boarding a public bus. Why are the people in the red universe under such strict control? The Observers insist on it. It's not far from requiring Loyalists to have an official stamp on their cheek.

4. Cold-hearted Walternate - Maybe Walternate's hardened personality is a result of reporting to the Observers. If he is a liaison between humans and Observers, he will act cold and calculating to match how the Observers act. Think of how Broyles is in "Letters of Transit."

5. The fringe division as clean-up crew - In the red universe, the fringe division's main responsibility is to respond to fringe events. Amber locations when necessary. Figure out how to patch their deteriorating world. They do investigate situations, but more often than not, it feels like they're an extension of the government sent out to keep the peace. Foot soldiers but not leaders.

So if the Observers were in control of the red universe, what happened to them in season four? I think the Machine interferes with their influence. When the machine was not put together, the Observers could take over the red universe. Why didn't they invade our universe too? Peter and Olivia are together on this side, and together they are capable of stopping the Observers. Follow the path of least resistance.

At the end of season 3, Peter activated the Machine and bridged the two universes. The Observers can't be in power while the Machine is running, so their influence unraveled and the red universe began to heal. Observers could still visit but they couldn't invade and take over any more.

We can take the "fixed point in time" idea from Doctor Who and apply it here. Peter was supposed to connect the two universes to save them from the Observers. That's why September kept showing up to help. He wanted to keep the timeline in tact.

So what went wrong? William Bell wanted to create a new universe and destroy the others. Peter had to turn off the Machine to stop him, and that made both universes susceptible to an Observer invasion. At the end of season 4, September appeared to Walter and warned that the Observers are coming. And here we are in season 5.

I don't know how plausible this theory is, but it's fun to play around with the ideas in Fringe.

Pushing Boundaries: Morality and Justified Science in Fringe

I co-wrote this piece with a friend over the summer. Spoilers for season 4 of Fringe. Enjoy, and please feel free to leave comments below.


We noticed a marked difference in Future!Walter in “Letters of Transit.” He was much more like Secretary of Defense Walternate than he was the Walter that we are familiar with. However, this difference only comes after the Future!Fringe team has regenerated his brain using the tissues from the brain sample that we now know contained the plans to create the New World.

Now that we know that the “man he didn’t like that he was becoming” was related to a concentrated series of ideas as opposed to a holistic character trait, might we see a Future!Walter next season who tries to recapture that idea and escapes from the world overtaken by the Observers by creating an alternative universe?

It would be an interesting symmetry and move for the character—to go from being responsible for the near destruction of an alternate universe to the creation of a new one.

And we, the audience, will be okay with Walter’s work to create a new universe because he will do it to save mankind. Fringe has always played with ideas of moral and immoral science, and in season 5, we will see this boundary bend and shift.

Originally, we were asked to believe that crossing universes was a bad thing. Walter upset the balance and both worlds suffered because of his actions. But in the past four years, we have also seen positive outcomes from crossing over: Peter and Lincoln found their “homes” in the universe where each man was not born. The dopplegangers worked together and shared experiences. Both Fringe divisions were better for it. Walter and Walternate found forgiveness and reconciliation for their past actions.

We’re okay with the outcomes of crossing universes, but we’re having a hard time sympathizing with Bell’s attempt to destroy the universe and make a new one. And we know why: he didn’t have a reason for what he was doing, except that he could. (Bell said so in Brave New World, Part 2: “God made us in His image. If that is so, if we are capable of being gods, then it is our destiny to do so.”)

So along with the moral/immoral boundary, we have this question of “If you can achieve something through science, should you?”

This is where the push comes in and we’ll bend that boundary between moral and immoral. We’ll be okay with Future!Walter if he creates a new universe in order to defeat the Observers and save everyone because he will be pushing the boundary for the sake of something good—not only because he can. We might be concerned with what the other characters will think and if they’ll allow Walter to carry out his ideas. But we’ve seen that Olivia will do whatever it takes to save the world, and so will Peter, Astrid, and Broyles.

We wind up having to reassess the situation and change our position on its morality when it becomes re-contextualized. Everything must be considered in its context, and new situations each have their own context (sometimes as a result of past events or decisions, sometimes entirely new). The writers complicated (and then made irrelevant) the morality issue when they re-contextualized it within an argument on survival: should the Fringe team work to preserve the established world or create a new one? One issue collapses, and then we get tangled into new ideas.

So what we’re really saying in the end is, “science for the sake of science” is immoral, but science for the sake of humanity is justified. That’s interesting since the premise of the show is based on experimental science. The Fringe Division started out fighting the outcomes of experimental science, and in season 5, experimental science will become their weapon to fight the Observers (we hope).

Becoming Human Through Rebellion: September’s Character Development

I wrote this article for a Fringe fanzine but since I don't know when the zine will be published or if this piece made the cut AND we're allowed to share our articles on our own sites anyway, I'm posting it here. I'll update this post with a link to the zine if/when it's published. Here's a look at September's development over four years of the show. Spoilers for season 4.

"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made." 

- Oscar Wilde

Walter violated laws of the universe when he crossed over to save Peter. David Robert Jones crossed ethical lines with his real-world-as-a-laboratory experiments. Nina Sharp withheld information that could have helped the fringe division. Altlivia deceived everyone on our side.

But the character whose prohibited actions have had the most impact is September. He broke the rules when he visited Walternate in 1985 and distracted him from curing Peter. September’s interruption set off a string of events (and alternate events) that have unfolded over the past four years on Fringe. September’s initial interference led to continued disobedience of the Observers and ended in season four with him siding with the humans.

But he didn’t switch sides over night. Let’s take a look at September’s development.

The Observer: When we first meet September, he seems exactly like all the other Observers. He dresses like them and speaks like them. Most of the time, he stays in the background, simply watching.

The Interrupter: September wanted to witness the moment when Walternate cured Peter, but he accidentally distracted Walternate. When Walternate failed to cure Peter, September had to interfere to save Walter and Peter from drowning in Reiden Lake. Peter was safe, but he was in the wrong universe. Even worse, Walter’s crossing upset the balance between the universes. All because of September.

The Sympathizer: Again and again, September shows up to help Olivia, Walter, and Peter. September isn’t supposed to make contact with present-time humans, but he keeps disobeying the Observers’ rules. At the end of season two, September appears to Olivia and, as a warning, leaves her a picture of Peter activating the Machine. In season three, September prepares Walter to sacrifice Peter (so that later Peter can bridge the universes and heal both worlds). The bridge doesn’t completely erase Peter from the timeline, though, and instead of finishing the job, September’s lack of action allows Peter to re-enter the timeline. September cares what happens to Olivia, Walter, and Peter, so he warns them about future events, prepares them for what’s coming, and deflects the other Observers’ attempts to reset the timeline. Which finally leads us to...

The Rebel: At the end of season 4, September explains to Walter that the Observers are going to invade Earth in 2015. This is September’s final act of disobedience: warning the fringe team about the coming invasion and in doing so, giving them time to prepare a defense.

September’s disobedience puts him back in touch with emotions—the essence of being human. His rebellion allows for progress, but not in favor of the Observers. Instead, September’s actions allow him to help the fringe team. We don’t know the primary reason for September’s disobedience, but fan theories suggest that he is the young boy in “Inner Child” (season 1, episode 15). If that’s true, maybe September is returning the favor: the fringe team helped him, so he helps them. Perhaps we’ll have a definite answer in season 5.

Fringe Season 4: All of my posts in one place

As I'm waiting for the final season of Fringe, I'm reviewing the things I've written about season 4. I like making lists, so below are the links to:
- all of my season 4 reaction posts. These are my thoughts I wrote on Tumblr after watching each episode.
- season 4 posts on this blog
- an article I wrote for Hypable.com

Needless to say, each post has spoilers.

Reaction posts on Tumblr:
4.01: Neither Here Nor There
4.05: And Those We Left Behind
4.08: Back to Where You've Never Been
4.09: Enemy of My Enemy
4.12: Welcome to Westfield (and a second post)
4.13: A Better Human Being
4.14: The End of All Things
4.16: Nothing As It Seems
4.21 and 4.22: Brave New World: Parts 1 and 2 (a back and forth discussion between my friend and me)

Blog posts here:
Fringe Season 4—A Paradox? - Pre-season 4 speculation
Fixing the Future - A discussion of how time travel operates in Fringe, Back to the Future, Doctor Who, and The Terminator
An Open Letter to FOX
Are Fringe and Community Breaking the Fourth Wall? (spoilers for Brave New World: Parts 1 and 2 and the season 3 finale of Community)

On Hypable:
Fixing Fringe's Universe(s) - season 4 speculation (winter hiatus, between episodes 7 and 8)

Are Fringe and Community breaking the fourth wall?

This is how Wikipedia defines the "fourth wall":

The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. [...] Speaking directly to or otherwise acknowledging the audience through the camera in a film or television program, or through this imaginary wall in a play, is referred to as "breaking the fourth wall" and is considered a technique of metafiction, as it deconstructs the boundaries normally set up by works of fiction. [source]

I noticed something related, but slightly different, going on in the Fringe and Community finales. Spoilers for both after the cut.

An open letter to FOX

Dear FOX, 

 

I’m writing this open letter to tell you that for the next three Fridays, I will be watching Grimm on NBC. I do this, however, with no ill intent. I am a firm supporter of genre television—it’s all I watch. Since Fringe is taking a break, I will watch another genre show in its place.

I might have continued watching FOX in March, but I see you scheduled Kitchen Nightmares specials for Friday nights. Dysfunctional restaurants do offer some drama, but they lack the imagination, surprises, and mind-blowing stories of Fringe. This replacement is not worth my time.

It’s a shame genre shows struggle with ratings and recognition, and so I’d rather spend an hour supporting Grimm, which is entertaining and finally finding its rhythm. The last few episodes have been great. I’m excited to see where Grimm goes in the coming weeks.

FOX, thank you for giving Fringe a home on your network. I wish more people watched this intelligent and well-written show, but I suspect most television viewers look for shallow distraction. Fringe is high above that caliber.

I will see you again on March 23. In the mean time, we part ways.

Best wishes,
Kali, a Fringiphile

Fixing the Future

I watched Back to the Future parts 1 and 2 earlier this week (for the thirty-fifth time, probably), and this is the first time I realized the problem with the part that takes place in 2015.

Marty can’t make changes in the future that will stay permanent and set, not if his timeline (and by extension, his family’s) is in flux.

There are two basic theories of time travel. One, everything is in flux all the time, so you can make changes anywhere on the timeline that will affect other parts of the timeline. Two, everything is fixed so no matter when you are and what you do, you cannot change what is supposed to happen.

The Back to the Future trilogy seems to follow the first theory, except for when Marty and Doc Brown go to 2015.

Marty poses as his son to save him from getting caught up in gang activity and going to jail. But just because Marty saved his son in one instance, that doesn’t mean his future is all right in every instance.

I understand when Marty meets his teenage parents in 1955 and his interaction with them changes who they are in 1985. The past affects the present. Makes sense.

But 1985 Marty can’t go to the future and make permanent changes. When Marty goes to 2015, he’s going to the future that results from the moment he left in 1985. The choices that he makes in his life will always be tweaking his future. If he chose to go to 2015 from a different point in his life, he would be going to a different 2015. So saving his son once doesn’t save him in every possible future.

If Doc Brown wanted to help Marty and his family avoid bad things in 2015 (one possible 2015), all he had to do was tell Marty what happens and when. Then Marty could take the appropriate action when the time came, instead of jumping to the future to make changes. And maybe all along, with Marty knowing what could happen to his son in 2015, he’s making changes to his life that bypass the problem Doc Brown saw in the first place.

That’s the flaw in Back to the Future’s plot: characters from the present make changes in the future that are supposed to take hold.

I was thinking about another character who interferes with his own timeline: John Connor in The Terminator. But his situation is different. Future John sends people and information back in time to help his younger self. Future John is making changes in the past, but we see the story from the younger John’s perspective. Even so, there’s a paradox here: if Future John is changing his past, he is changing himself. All the changes he makes to younger John’s life should result in a different life for and a different John in the future. If that’s true, then how was there the Future John who made those changes in the first place? The other option is, John’s timeline is fixed and The Terminator follows theory 2. But then Future John would realize that no matter what he changed in the past, the same events happened and he ends up in the same position. It would be pointless for him to keep interfering with his past if he knows he can’t make a difference. Paradoxes, time loops, alternate universes. These are themes in most of the stories I enjoy.

I’ve been watching a lot things that deal with time travel and alternate universes (or the things I’ve watched have had this common thread running through), and I find myself using theories from one show to explain events in another show.

Kyle Reese and John Connor’s birth never made sense to me until I watched “Blink,” an episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor explains that time is not a straight line but rather “more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.”

Peter Bishop (Fringe) linked two universe to avoid destroying both, but in the process, he deleted himself from existence. Or, nearly. But where was he in between his non-existence and his return? The Doctor rebooted the universe and now Amy has parents when she didn’t have them before. Or did she and she doesn’t remember? I’m still working those out, but I find myself thinking of all these characters and ideas together. I sort out which theory explains which situation.

But Amy has an interesting situation. Mad, Impossible Pond. When we first met her she was a young girl who lived in a big house with no parents and an aunt that was away. But she doesn’t know what happened to her parents--she just never had them. Did they abandon her? Were they erased from existence? Where did Amy come from? She’s been in two seasons of Doctor Who, and we still don’t know. Then, more confusion, the Doctor rebooted the universe, and now Amy has parents. Where did they come from? Or did they come back? Amy tells the Doctor she’s scared/worried/frustrated/concerned because she remembers both versions: her life when she didn’t have parents and her life when she does. Both feel true to her. Amy gains a set of parents, and that makes no sense to me even though it shouldn’t matter. Rebooting the universe has nothing to do with timelines. The Doctor didn’t change anything about Amy’s past or future. He pushed the universe’s reset button and some things came out differently. But because we’re watching the episodes sequentially, I feel like Amy’s parents came out of nowhere because we knew her without parents first. But that’s not the right way of thinking about it. New universe, so things can be different. There doesn’t have to be any continuity or progression.

But there’s still the question of existence and non-existence. Either Amy didn’t exist and then she did (and still does) or her parents did exist but then didn’t (and now do). And the Doctor knows Amy is impossible. He knows her life doesn’t make sense and that’s why he wanted to travel with her. But I wonder, is he trying to figure out why Amy doesn’t make sense? Or is he content with the nonsense (and should we be too)?

Fringe Season Four - A Paradox?

Hypable posted an interview from FEARnet with Anna Torv. She doesn't know much about season four of Fringe, so the interview is about what she'd like to see happen.

I haven't thought about the season three finale for a while, but this interview got me thinking again. Peter linked the two universes and erased himself from existence. Olivia, Walter, their alternate versions, and the rest of the characters have to find a way to patch up the universes and stop fringe events from happening.

But Peter didn't just go away--he made it so he was never born. So then, how did the initial tear in the universes happen if it wasn't Walter kidnapping Peter? Who linked the universes if Peter doesn't exist anymore? I'm most interested in seeing what the characters think of their situation. Do they simply accept that the universe is damaged without knowing the cause? Or did something else happen that had the same consequences?

Is it September yet?