Ich bin ja auch wirklich nicht Fringe-freundlich eingestellt, aber hier trifft wer endlich mal meine Probleme auf den Kopf:

I'm also disturbed that the show is establishing a template where they will solve the mystery, in every third or fourth act, by some science-fiction deus ex machina. In the pilot, Agent (should be Special Agent) Dunham goes into an isolation tank, drops LSD, has a spinal hookup to a guy in a coma, and comes out with a face. In this episode, it turns out you can take the images off a dead person's retina.

I wouldn't mind the latter in the first act; I'll accept most anything as a premise. But not in the third or fourth act, where it's helping the heroes. That's going to alienate the audience. Why get involved in the mystery? In act three or four, Dr. Goofyhead is going to explain how you can use Google Maps Beta to locate the characteristic heat signature of an empathic metamorph, and hey! There she is in Harvard Square!

I think there's a lot of bad, sloppy writing in FRINGE, and there's no excuse for it. It's all visual and cool, but I can't get involved, because the show is insulting my common sense.

Man beachte auch Wax Banks' Kommentar dazu:

Look, Abrams has been pulling this shit for years. He's the cocreator of one of the big TV-drama successes of the 21st century and years from now we'll look back and wonder what the hell people were thinking, praising that show. Expecting Fringe to be anything but splashy effects, pulp plotting, and low-rent 'philosophical' handwaving has transformed into the battered wife of Media Boulevard, the fanboy. Here's a long-time-horizon bet for you: someday we'll reach the consensus that Abrams is a talented huckster who doesn't have a great TV story in him, only half-formed ideas for sale at outlandish rates (remember, he's made the most expensive pilot in American TV history not once but twice now).

Ja, so fühl ich mich derzeit. Fringe gehört nämlich (wie Lost und Star Trek... die Gemeinsamkeiten reichen ja bis weit über Abrams hinaus) zu den Shows, die Charaktere haben, die dem Plot dienen. Das ist schon richtig oben mit den Acts: Ich akzeptier auch jeden SciFi-Scheiß im ersten Akt, weil er da die Möglichkeit hat, die Charakteren dazu zu bringen was zu tun. Ist jedoch das SciFi-Ding am Ende... dann ist es umgekehrt. Die Charaktere sind offenbar bei Fringe nur da, damit man dann nach 40 Minuten sagt "Oh, Shit, die gucken sich jetzt das Bild auf der Netzhaut des Toten an!".

Whedon, wir wissen, ist da immer schon die Antipode gewesen. Als einer der wenigen weiß er, dass Plot immer nur der Charakterentwicklung dienen darf, nie umgekehrt.