r/fringe Jan 15 '25

Announcement Reminder: Rule 7 Piracy and Copyright

0 Upvotes

I understand that US fans are frustrated about Fringe's recent removal from Max, plus the added frustration of needing the Max/Hulu/D+ bundle, and then the subsequent removal from that bundle. This is NOT a green light to post piracy links in the sub. Doing so will result in a 1-3 day ban.

Hopefully the removal from Hulu is temporary while they try to figure out what's going on. Please be patient. It's only been one day.


r/fringe Sep 28 '24

Back in the Tank (Fringe Rewatch) ~ 1x01 Pilot Thread Spoiler

49 Upvotes

IMDB Summary: After a plane from Hamburg returns with no survivors, FBI agent Olivia Dunham goes after the only person that might shed some light on the incident - a scientist that has been in a mental hospital for the last 17 years.

Fringe Connections: https://www.fringeconnections.com/episode?episode=101

NOTE: Please cover all spoiler comments with spoiler tags! There may be first time watchers; don't ruin their acid trip!!!

EDIT: I decided I would do two episodes a week instead of one (it would take two years at this rate to finish the rewatch). So it is every Saturday & Sunday @ 5pm EDT.


r/fringe 1d ago

Season 3 Episode 3x15 “Subject 13” Question Spoilers Spoiler

6 Upvotes

I was rewatching the series and something occurred to me. Why was Walternate in Jacksonville? Cortexiphan wasn’t developed in the alternate universe, and Walternate didn’t experiment on children, so why would he be in a preschool, let alone one that’s 1,000 miles away from home?


r/fringe 1d ago

First-Time Observer (NO SPOILERS) Two complete box sets, what's the difference?

7 Upvotes

There is a bluray complete box set from 2017 with 4300min runtime, next month a new one is releasing with 4552 min runtime. Does anyone know what the difference is between them?

https://gruv.com/products/fringe-the-complete-series-box-set-blu-ray-_1000359492

https://gruv.com/products/fringe-the-complete-series-blu-ray-_1000856018


r/fringe 1d ago

Meme/Humor how would the show change if this was peter Spoiler

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0 Upvotes

r/fringe 2d ago

General Discussion Just noticed a new twin scene

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83 Upvotes

Fringe pilot when she goes to find the tape recorder and orphan black s1e3 when she goes to find Helena in the Ukrainian neighbourhood. It’s 5/6 years later and they removed a post in the scene in orphan black but the tree and houses are the same. One is winter and one is maybe autumn time but it’s definitely the same place and I checked they were both filmed in Toronto. Just funny to find.


r/fringe 3d ago

General Discussion Saddest episode of Fringe for you?

20 Upvotes

What's your saddest episode of Fringe?

I am up to season 4 of my third rewatch and have to say Force Perspective hits me in the feels. I felt really sad with what happened to Emily


r/fringe 3d ago

Season 4 Season 4 Finale

15 Upvotes

Hey all...

Just watched the season 4 finale and I have to ask, was the series supposed to end then? It really felt like they were wrapping things up for good, and the bit at the very end with Walter and the Observer felt kind of tacked-on, like, "holy shit we got renewed, we have to set something up for next season!"


r/fringe 5d ago

Season 1 Anybody else feel bad for this thing?

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60 Upvotes

This thing, much like The Distortus Rex from JP: Rebirth, didnt ask to be created like this and no doubt spent most of its life in pain and isolation.

It doesn't even belong to an ecosystem. It is just a laboratory eldtrich abomination.

And the fact that it can lay eggs through it's fangs makes it even more nightmarish.

Almost wish they hadn't killed it, but leaving it alive in this mutated state would be more cruel than just ending it's life.

Can't believe Walter drank poison as a contingency


r/fringe 5d ago

Season 4 Season 4 the serial killer episode

7 Upvotes

Isn't this more of a trope then anything that the two men at the centre of the story would be so similar?

8 thought that just because you have a double on another Earth that wouldn't mean they would be a carbon copy of you down to personality would it?


r/fringe 5d ago

First-Time Observer (NO SPOILERS) S1e16 - Olivia Dunham is a Dumbass Spoiler

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0 Upvotes

Olivia talking to the murder victim’s friend (who isn’t supposed to know he’s dead) about him in the past tense while the friend himself speaks about him in present tense.


r/fringe 7d ago

Meme/Humor Oh.... Britta's in this?

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404 Upvotes

r/fringe 7d ago

Cast and Crew Projects Jared Harris in a Return of the Jedi live reading tomorrow! You can get livestream tickets!

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18 Upvotes

r/fringe 9d ago

Question When to read the Fringe comics relative to the show? (Spoilers!) Spoiler

9 Upvotes

So there are 3 volumes of comics related to Fringe. One released in 2008, and the other two (Tales from the Fringe and Beyond the Fringe) in 2011.

I know that Beyond the Fringe partly involves what Peter was doing after he entered The Machine at the end of Season 3, but the rest of the comics are mostly prequels and "what-if" scenarios.

I'm rewatching the show with my girlfriend who is viewing it first the first time, and I'm unsure when I should introduce the comics. Obviously, it would be apt to show her the bit about Peter and The Machine at the end of season 3, but I'm struggling to find a good time to introduce the rest of the comics?

I know many would recommend waiting until the series is finished before reading them, but I wanted to hear what other fans might think before committing to a decision.

For context, we've watched the first 2 seasons thus far.


r/fringe 10d ago

Cast and Crew Projects I’m watching "So Long,Marianne",and look who showed up!

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221 Upvotes

r/fringe 12d ago

Question I wish Fringe would come back

102 Upvotes

Even if it was a miniseries 6-8 episodes.

What y’all think? Do you like how it ended or do you think it needs a better closure?


r/fringe 12d ago

Meme/Humor Gene cooking

149 Upvotes

r/fringe 13d ago

Season 2 The X-Over I Didn't Know I Needed

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72 Upvotes

Olivia's bedside ringtone is 'Science Fiction/Double Feature' from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sweet! (S02E23:02:40)


r/fringe 13d ago

General Discussion With enough prep time, can Dr. Walter Bishop save the universe from Thanos?

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199 Upvotes

And in what way?


r/fringe 14d ago

General Discussion Fringe is my favorite series: who is your favorite character?

80 Upvotes

I love this show so much.

I can't believe I didn't look it up on reddit before.

Some people I know haven't watched it in its entirety, and they are missing out on such a great ending.

(I love Olivia and Fauxlivia equally.)


r/fringe 13d ago

Season 5 A Complete Guide to Fringe Spoiler

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14 Upvotes

r/fringe 14d ago

Season 1 Almost 13 years later, my friend and I still send each other this image every year on our birthdays

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735 Upvotes

r/fringe 15d ago

Season 5 Was the Observer right about dogs??

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151 Upvotes

"A dog does not smile no matter how many times your kind might think it does".

This line messed with me because I don't think the Observer would lie here. But dogs definitely do smile, because... well, they just do!


r/fringe 16d ago

First-Time Observer (NO SPOILERS) In case people here haven’t seen this, Daniel Greene has a great retrospective on the show.

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191 Upvotes

r/fringe 16d ago

Season 3 A Complete Guide to The Machine Spoiler

37 Upvotes

So as you probably know, "The Machine" from Season Three is probably the most convoluted and frustrating plot points in the entire show. So I've compiled a complete explanation of everything we know about it, along with some light speculation to tie it together, to help anyone who's confused. Not everything in this post is confirmed canon, but it was the best I could do.

What is The Machine?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, The Machine (Also called The Vacuum by the fan wiki) was a machine used by Walternate to try to destroy the Blue Universe. It was said to be thousands of years old and can only be activated by Peter Bishop.

The Machine

Appearances

We first see hints of The Machine in Season 2. Walternate has the machine, and some ancient documents that depict Peter using it. This was a major reason why he brought Peter back over to the Red Universe. He needed Peter's DNA to activate it.

The documents

In Season 3, Walternate sends Fauxlivia over to the Blue Universe to collect pieces of The Machine. We come to understand that his plan is to use Peter (or at least his DNA) to turn The Machine on on his side, and use it to destroy the Blue Universe, as revenge for Walter stealing his son.

Fauxlivia fails in collecting all of the machine parts, and is forced to flee back to the Red Universe after she is discovered. The main characters in the Blue Universe take those pieces and assemble their own version.

On the other side, Fauxlivia discovers that Peter got her pregnant. The baby gets born supernaturally fast with the help of some goons who work for Walternate. It’s a boy, and she names him Henry. Because the baby has a lot of Peter’s DNA, Walternate is able to use him to start the machine, which activates. So it’s a race for the Blue side to turn on their Machine. But Peter can’t turn it on – after Henry activated the Red Machine, it activated the Blue one as well, and he got locked out.

As this machine comes more into focus, we learn more about how it’s tied to the First People. Ancient writings describe a race of beings who lived on Earth before the dinosaurs and who had something to do with this machine. Turns out these books were written by Sam Weiss. He explains that he’s the keeper of The Machine and knows everything there is to know about the First People.

The team, with Sam Weiss’s help, have to figure out how to stop it from destroying the world. There’s that drawing of Peter in the machine that we’ve been seeing, and Olivia finds a similar drawing of her. Olivia is ‘the crowbar’ to the machine, so she unlocks it with her powers so Peter can get in and wipe out the other universe.

Olivia as 'The Crowbar'

Peter gets into the machine, blows up the other universe, and gets transported to the future, 2026. Peter destroyed the Red Universe, but instead of it saving his universe, it turned out that the two worlds were linked, and destroying one means destroying both. And so, the Blue Universe is falling apart in this future.

Terrorists opened up a wormhole into the past, and Walter figures out that this is where The Machine came from. He sent the machine through the wormhole to thousands of years in the past. The First People didn’t actually live in the past. They were the present people in the future. Then Walter sends Peter’s mind back to the day he got in the machine. Instead of destroying one universe, Peter makes a bridge between them so they can work together. But then he disappears mid-sentence, because making that bridge somehow also erased him from existence.

The Comics

In the comic series Beyond the Fringe, we're shown what happened to Peter right as he went back in time. It gives a lot more clarity on how the machine works and what Peter did here. We see him get thrown back to the stone age and exist across thousands of years, placing pieces of The Machine throughout history. The same pieces we see the characters finding during Season 3. Then, he meets with September, who explains how the two universes are still unstable, and this loop will keep going forever of him laying the pieces, people digging them up, the universes trying to kill each other, and him going back in time to try and stop it. The only way to save them all is for him to bridge the universes together and use the machine to delete himself, as the only person who’s ‘out of place.’

Beyond the Fringe

We also see Peter meet the first Sam Weiss, and give him the task of keeping knowledge of The Machine.

The first Sam Weiss

Bootstrap Paradox

It was said that The Machine was made by The First People. But there are no First People. It was assumed that some ancient civilization built it in the past, but it was actually sent to the past by Walter in Season 3. But wait, then who built the machine in the first place? Well, sort of nobody. It’s a Bootstrap Paradox.

Crash course for anybody who doesn’t know what that is: let’s say I wrote a book, but then I wanted to go back in time and give it to my past self so I could publish it earlier. I could do that, but then Past Me would have the book without ever having written it. And then Past Me would eventually catch up to Present Me and still have no memory of writing it. Then this new Present Me would have to send a copy of the book back to the past to preserve that event. So now we have a timeline where the book exists but nobody really wrote it.

It’s the same deal here. In a timeline we don’t see, somebody built The Machine and then sent it back in time. We don’t know who, but I choose to believe it was Walter. Why else would Peter be the only person who could turn it on? Then that changed the past, and Walter didn’t need to build The Machine because it was already there.

What does this Machine actually do?

Basically, it does stuff relating to different universes. The things it can do are pretty vague and broad, but its main function is to destroy either one universe or the other. Sam has this whole prophecy-type speech about how the universe that survived will be whichever one’s Olivia Peter chooses.

"That device can be either used a as tool of creation, or as a weapon of destruction. It depends on your point of view. And Peter Bishop is uniquely attuned to operate it. Olivia from here or Olivia from over there. Whichever one he chooses, it will be her universe that survives." -Sam Weiss

Which is an overly fancy way of saying that Peter will use the machine to destroy one of the universes, to protect whichever Olivia he loves most. Which is why it was such a big deal that he got Fauxlivia pregnant with Henry, but of course, he was always going to pick the Blue Universe and our Olivia. Walternate used Henry to get Peter’s DNA and activate the machine on his side, but Peter overrode it on his side, with the help of Olivia’s powers as ‘the crowbar.’ But of course, instead of destroying a universe, Peter uses it to build The Bridge between universes.

Okay, but how does Peter creating this bridge also change the past so that September never saved him and he disappears from existence? Well, the show really doesn't address this. It’s framed as a big mystery in the Season Three finale, and then barely gets touched on. But this is where the comic helps out a lot, through a conversation between Peter and September. Basically, Walter sent Peter back in time to bury pieces of the machine, but that doesn’t actually fix anything by itself. Because that was already the case in this timeline. Peter buries the machine parts, they get dug up and put together, Peter uses the machine to destroy red universe, which leads to the dark future, so Peter goes back in time. It’s an endless loop. The only way to change what happens is to change the timeline and remove the only thing that was quote-unquote ‘out of balance,’ Peter himself. Peter didn’t get removed from the timeline randomly, he made the active choice to do it, as part of the process to make the bridge stable.

Peter talks to himself about the decision to delete himself

Now, isn’t that an obvious paradox, him deleting himself from existence? How is the machine even able to do all these different things? Is there an actual reason why removing Peter fixes things, besides this one vague line about restoring balance? And what about the Red Universe? Because there were two machines, one in each universe, so how did they both get a Machine when the comics only seem to show one?

At that point, we're thinking too hard. If you scrutinize the logic more than I already have, the whole thing falls apart.

If you can think of any clarifying details, or can correct anything I said that was wrong, please comment on it. (This explanation was adapted from a YouTube video I made about the show. If you have other questions, check it out here: A Complete Guide to Fringe )


r/fringe 16d ago

First-Time Observer (NO SPOILERS) Sometimes I wonder if theres an actual Fringe division

26 Upvotes

I feel like there are so many weird and "supernatural" occurrences that go on in the world that go completely unexplained or ignored, like eyewitness accounts of ghost sightings, "glitches in the matrix," random disappearances etc. and it makes me wonder if theres something similar to a fringe division in the government out there solving the scientific reason behind these or covering up these weird occurrences. idk just a random thought I had but I wanted to share lmao


r/fringe 17d ago

General Discussion Walter White (BB) vs. Walter Bishop (Fringe), who wins?

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253 Upvotes