fringe: new promo reveals a big plot “hole”
“We all get really good at pretending that the loneliness isn’t there, and then something comes along to remind us. I know what it’s like to have a hole in my life. It’s been there as long as I can remember.”
I am willing to follow any storyline these writers want to write, because this, Olivia? This is all I want. I want you to feel empty and not understand why. I want your life to feel unfulfilled. I want you to be like Goldilocks, where nothing is ever good enough for you, except that BABY BEAR NEVER EXISTED and everything is either too big or too small, and thus you are perpetually frustrated by life and men and your entire existence.
(Is it possible that my husband also got sucked into the machine or the crack in Amy Pond’s wall, as well?)
The question, in my mind, is now … what happens when he comes back? Will Olivia and Walter automatically feel like the hole is filled? Life goes on with Naked Tuesdays and the like? Or will it be the opposite–our heroes don’t recognize that this is the piece of their lives that has been missing for so long?
My bet is that it’ll be something of a hybrid. Our folks will be curious about him, but he won’t completely fill that gap at first. The love won’t just come pouring back–it’ll take some time. John Noble told E! Online:
“What’s happening is we’re going to bring Josh back in as Peter, but not in the same way. Not as a person that’s been there with us all the time, but as a person that comes in our lives at this stage. That’s very different, because the relationship that the audiences know won’t be there. Olivia won’t be in love with him, at least to start with. So we’ve started a whole possibility for relationship growth.”
And so THEN the question is … when Peter comes back, is he just some guy who pops into existence as a grown man, with no recollection of his life or his character or his personality? Or will he know everything? Will he know about 2026? Will he know enough to be devastated that Olivia doesn’t recognize him?
I imagine that if you sacrificed your existence for a person and then dragged yourself back into reality to be with them, you’d be pretty disappointed if you looked into that person’s eyes and were met only with confusion. I hope that, no matter how much Peter knows, there’s still a moment–whether it happens organically or by some machine-related intervention–when it all rushes back for Olivia and Walter. When this enigmatic stranger becomes Walter’s son, Olivia’s husband, the boy in the tulip field again.
Twenty seconds of new footage and I could go on for pages.
We’re 30 days away from the premiere … can you wait?
josh groban guests on the office! [so what now?]
For someone who has a reputation as your mom’s favorite singer, Josh Groban makes some pretty decent pop culture choices. He has a small-but-great role in Crazy Stupid Love, which you should totally go see, if you haven’t already. (It also has Ryan Gosling’s abs, in case you hadn’t heard.) He did that whole “Josh Groban Sings Kanye’s Tweets” thing on Jimmy Kimmel, which I appreciated. Oh, and he was on Glee back when it was cool, playing a hyperbolically douchey version of himself.
Yesterday, it was announced that he’ll be guest-starring on an episode of The Office this season as Andy Bernard’s younger brother, Walter. You may recall the following, from “The Delivery”:
Don’t get too hung up on baby names. I was named Walter Jr. after my father until I was about six or so, when my parents changed their minds. My brother was born, and my parents felt he better exemplified the Walter Jr. name, so they gave it to him. I was given Andrew, which they got out of a baby name book.
It’s so sick and weird, and obviously whoever grew up as Walter Jr., the chosen one, would end up being an insufferable human being, so it’ll be interesting to meet him. (I’m assuming that Groban’s character will be insufferable–do you think he’s being typecast as someone who is insufferable?) The plot is curious because we don’t yet know why we need to meet Andy’s family, which will also include Stephen Collins as Walter Sr. and Dee Wallace as Mom. Other family members have been introduced organically–it made sense to meet Pam’s family at her wedding, or Dwight’s family at his beet farm. I’m becoming increasingly concerned that Andy will, in fact, become the Scranton branch manager.
Talk about insufferable.
When you think back on the Office news since Carell’s departure, all anyone has to get excited about is new casting. Is anyone actually looking forward to the plot?
since when is the good wife the sexiest show in primetime?
Sometimes I see Julianna Margulies in those L’Oreal commercials, and I almost can’t believe she’s the same woman who owns The Good Wife every week. Alicia Florrick, she of power suits and dour looks, always looks ready to kick some legal ass (and some cheating-husband ass), but rarely does she look patently sexy.
That sounds so wrong. Julianna Margulies is gorgeous, and that much is always obvious, but they definitely make her look very severe on the show. They straighten and spray her hair, they put her in those lawyerly outfits, and they rarely give her a good reason to smile. It’s what makes this much-discussed key art so jarring:
Hot diggity, Mrs. Florrick! For comparison, here are some promo images from seasons one and two:
The only recognizable similarity is the font.
Then there’s this fun, sexy promo:
Not only is Alicia leaving her husband, sleeping with her boss, and being an all around BAMF, but she also GOT A HAIRCUT. This is huge. In all seriousness, I am incredibly excited to see this season of The Good Wife. Not just because Alicia’s finally getting some, but because this show thrives on fallout. The entire series is predicated on the fallout of Peter’s scandal. Since that initial reveal, there have been more thrilling developments–the campaign, Kalinda’s betrayal, etc.–but the best part is dealing with the aftermath. With everything related to Will and Alicia, it’s been all build-up for two seasons, and now we’re going to deal with the dirty, messy aftermath.
I doubt it’ll be all rainbows and black lingerie, though, but that’s kind of the fun part, right? The fun part will be watching Alicia and Kalinda try to salvage a friendship–or battle each other. It’ll be watching Eli Gold and Peter and Diane find out about Will and Alicia. It’ll be seeing how Alicia reacts to newcomer Celeste Serrano (Lisa Edelstein) supposedly has a bit of a past with Mr. Gardner.
My money’s on Celeste being someone who’s had sex with Will in a LOT of different positions. (Her last name is the same as a kind of chili pepper–you know she knows how to get busy.) And that will make Alicia feel uncomfortable, because she didn’t know there was more than one way. But she is willing to learn! And she doesn’t want Will to give up on her just because she has to get divorced and catch up on her Cosmos, while Celeste Jalapeno is putting her cleavage in his face and reminding him of all their good naked times.
fringe: new (romantic!) news and speculation on season four
There have been three little tidbits about Fringe‘s fourth season in the last week that have made my Peter/Olivia-loving heart skip beats. We’ll get to the new footage (!) in a minute, but first …
Since May, I have voiced but one demand for season four, and it is that Walter and Olivia’s hearts must ache for Peter, even if they cannot identify or explain this pain. I want them to try to dismiss it. I want them to try to gauge if the other is feeling it, too. I want Olivia to drink a glass of whisky or hear “For Once In My Life” on the radio and have to choke back unexplainable tears. I want Walter to be lost, with very little to hold onto. AND I WANT IT TO HURT. In io9′s tease-tastic feature on season four, Blair Brown drops a hint that sent me reeling:
“Particularly for Olivia and Walter, there’s a chunk missing, and they don’t know what it is.”
Yessssssssss! Yes. Yes yes. Yes. Do they listen to my demands after all? (If so, more Nina! More Lincoln! Maybe a Nina and Lincoln spin-off!)
After the finale, the season three scenes about Olivia “holding on” to Peter became extremely relevant once more. While being brainwashed into believing she’s Fauxlivia on the other side, she’s visited by a hallucination of Peter, who challenges her to hold onto her identity and (so romantic) to him and their fledgling romance. Later, after coming back to our world to discover that Peter has not done the same, Olivia has that amazing “Marionette” speech about how irrational it was that she held onto him, this “figment of my imagination.” As I said in my Season in Review, “It kills me now, thinking about the implications it might have for Olivia going into next season, now that the expectation of remembering is solely on her shoulders. She claimed she’s a holding-on pro, but now those skills will really be put to the test.”
So to know that, at least in some part, Olivia and Walter are–irrationally, illogically–holding on to Peter? It’s everything.
Meanwhile, Joshua Jackson has been championing the Peter/Olivia romance, something he has–admittedly–never done. Here’s an excerpt from TVLine’s interview with Jackson:
“I was never a real huge fan of the Peter/Olivia storyline,” he concedes. “All of Fringe is on this epic scale, and that seemed kind of banal to me at the center of it.”
But now, in the wake of Peter’s season-ending act and its dire ramifications, his connection to Olivia (played by Anna Torv) “is on an epic scale as well,” Jackson notes. “This guy sacrificed himself for the woman that he loves, which made that relationship more interesting and it launched us into the off-season with this ‘Holy s—t!’ moment.”
Even though I’ve been convinced of the cosmic, emotional scale of this relationship since “Subject 13,” he has a point. Those last few episodes of season three elevated Peter and Olivia’s story, from their co-controlling of the machine to the revelation of their future happy marriage to his sacrifice of his existence for the possibility of hers. And although the relevance of that flashforward to the rest of the series remains to be seen, the connection between Peter and Olivia is no longer deniable.
(Also, good use of the word epic, Mr. Jackson.)
So that brings us to today, when Fox releases a third “Where is Peter Bishop?” teaser trailer:
It calls attention to that same conversation (from “The Plateau”) between Olivia and her hallucination of Peter. “Real is just a matter of perception. I am here, and I’m a part of you that you have to hold on to. You can’t forget this,” he says. It’s so romantic I can barely stand it. Over a mixture of old and new footage–including a wet-haired Walter in the lab–Dr. Bishop voices a new line:
“I don’t think there’s anything sadder than when two people are meant to be together and something else intervenes.”
It’s not likely that this quote refers to Olivia and Peter, as I’m expecting the left-behinds to be in the dark about Peter for a while. What’s more likely is that this refers to someone involved in a case, someone who’s been separated from the person they love by fringe-y circumstances. I’ll speculate that this is from the second episode back, and that this will be one of those episodes where the particulars of the case align wonderfully with the goings-on of our characters at home. With the immediate logistics of the Bridge decided, it’ll be back to business for the team, who are starting to come to terms with I’M SO LONELY AND I DON’T KNOW WHY. Maybe that gripping angst could even lead Walter and Olivia (and, who knows, maybe even Fauxlivia–that nut really loved her nugget, after all) to investigate whether something (or someone) intervened in their destiny.
falling skies: what’s the verdict?
yay. or something. // tnt promotional photo
After ten episodes, the first season of Falling Skies has concluded. And although the series has been bringing in solid ratings for TNT, it never quite made the jump to watercooler-worthy. So what’s the verdict on this show?
I think it’s fine for fun, summer fare, but let’s face it: this show is no Lost. It’s no Walking Dead. It’s no Torchwood. Throughout the season, I waited for two things. I waited for a reason to really care about these people, and I waited for some risk-taking writing. Neither really came.
In the finale, I didn’t care when Rick sold out the 2nd Mass to the Skittery girl. I didn’t care when Tom kissed Anne. I didn’t even care when Tom let the aliens beam him up into their spaceship. The reason, I believe, has to do with stakes.
They relied on the fact that an alien apocalypse brought high stakes in and of itself. But where shows like The Walking Dead excel is by making the human stakes even higher than the zombie stakes. Falling Skies never sold the Tom/Anne relationship, or that the aliens were actually all that dangerous, considering all the characters of note survived. (Rick’s dad, Mike, is the only good guy whose death I can think of, and he was killed by a human.)
Sure, the whole kids-getting-harnessed thing was pretty scary, but Torchwood did the aliens and children storyline so much better with 2009′s Children of Earth. (Seriously, watch it. It’s on Netflix.) Lost did group dynamics better. Maybe it’s rude to compare, but when this aired two days after Torchwood (SPOILER ALERT!) set a likeable main character on fire, it’s hard not to think that Falling Skies could have taken more risks.
It’s been picked up for a second season, so maybe there’s hope that season two will be a little gutsier.
And, hey, at the very least, it’s better than Dance Moms. September can’t come quickly enough.
i still love you, peter. // @jwfringe
Joshua Jackson surprised Comic-Con by showing up in Observerwear at the Fringe panel, and by appearing as a full-on Observer in a mock “audition” video. The question now is … was this a real hint at the future of the show or just a fun joke for Comic-Con?
I have mixed feelings about ALL of it.
On the one hand, there’s no better way to learn about the Observers than to turn our Peter into one of them. The story of Peter becoming (and, God willing, unbecoming) an Observer would be crazy delicious. Would Observer Peter be drawn to watching Walter and Olivia’s lives? Could he have feelings for them? Could he love them? What would happen if Olivia saw Peter as an Observer? If they spoke? Would she know that, in different circumstances, that pasty man could have been her husband?
On the other hand, that’s my baby. He’s Walter’s son and Olivia’s future husband and just that one shot of him as an emotionless baldy was enough, thank you very much.
There was reference made at Comic-Con to the Observer outfit being a nod to speculation made by Damon Lindelof and others. So should we rule out the possibility of Peter actually hanging out with September and friends come fall? At this point, it might feel like old news by the time the show returns and Peter’s fate is revealed, but if it’s the right choice for the story, they should go for it. I’m also open to any and all alternatives, just as long as it is epic when he returns. (And I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.)
In other news, the premiere title is “A Sort of Homecoming.” This is likely a reference to a U2 song of the same name. (I guess Fauxlivia didn’t ruin U2 for everyone in this Peterless society.) The song contains the following lyrics:
Tonight we’ll build a bridge
Across the sea and land
See the sky, the burning rain
She will die and live again
Tonight
It’s been heavily suggested that Peter isn’t in the premiere, but I’d be surprised if he doesn’t make at least a last-minute appearance to remind us that he does, in fact, exist, and to give us a visual, in-canon hint about that existence. I doubt he will make contact with Walter and Olivia, who will probably be busy with fixing the universes and feeling inexplicably lonely. Good gracious, I can’t wait.
major spoiler! are booth & bones thinking pink or blue?
New spoilers for episode two of Bones‘s seventh season are out, and they contain a big hint about the sex of Booth and Bones’s baby. (Actually, it’s not so much a hint as it is they just plain tell us.) Is it a surprise? You can decide that for yourself. Big ol’ spoilers after the jump.
glee: the pros and cons of idina menzel’s return!
just please don't be gross. // fox promotional photo
By now you’ve likely heard the news that Idina Menzel is returning to Glee next season for a major story arc that will find her Shelby Corcoran joining the McKinley High faculty. I have mixed feelings about this, so let’s talk about it in terms of pros and cons, shall we?
Pro: She’s Idina. That’s never a bad thing. Mrs. Diggs is arguably the best singer Glee has managed to snag, and if this means more songs for my “Idina Belters” playlist, I’m on board.
Con: Ryan Murphy JUST SAID that there would be no major guest stars this season. This guy can’t even keep his story straight between an interview he gives and … the very next interview he gives.
Pro: She could bring a juicy storyline for Quinn. As the mom of Puck and Quinn’s biological daughter, Beth, Idina has some drama on her back. I’d love to see how Quinn and Shelby interact on a regular basis, or what a Quinn/Beth reunion looks like. Giving Dianna Agron anything more to work with than “Sam, Finn, or Puck?” gets my vote.
Con: If she recomplicates things between Will and Emma, I will stage a coup.
Pro: They want to bring her on for a STORYLINE. That means … this season … they want to have … STORYLINES. PRO PRO PRO PRO PRO.
Con: Why would she take a job at McKinley, knowing she has baggage there with Quinn, Will, and Rachel? It’s actually a little mean. If you were Quinn, would you want to see Shelby every day? Would you want to have to follow her directions? If you were Rachel?
Pro: CAN SHE STAY FOREVER? The fact that she has history (strong, painful, complicated history) with so many characters gives the writers a lot to work with. A lot more than they gave themselves in season two.
Con: Who’s she going to play? A second Glee coach? Or just a French teacher who backseat drives the Glee club?
Pro: It’ll be just like Rachel wanted, when she said, “You and Mr. Schuester could be co-directors. We’d be unstoppable. There’s so much that you can teach me—so much only you can teach me.” Actually, it’d be great to see someone a with a little bite challenge Schue’s direction. Somebody needs to turn these kittens into champions, and it’s either Shelby Corcoran or that woman from Dance Moms.
Con: I’m done with cons. I’m excited.
the office: baby #2 for jim and pam!
even jenna fischer believes jim and pam have become boring and sexless. // nbc promotional photo
Jenna Fischer told New York Magazine this week that her real-life pregnancy will be written in to The Office. I guess they heard all my griping about James Spader and figured they needed to find a way to keep me invested.
Said Fischer, “Pam will be pregnant when the season starts. Pam and Jim snuck away last season on Valentine’s Day, and they had sex. The story is that they conceived this baby at that time and were keeping it a secret until we come back from the summer.”
Couple thoughts:
- Does Jenna really believe that Pam and Jim have sex so infrequently that it’s a good thing the writers made such a blatant insinuation in “PDA”? That’s cold.
- There’s really no reason NOT to write in the pregnancy. Pam and Jim are happy, they’ve already done the first baby storyline (meaning #2 will be even LESS of a burden than Cece), and it’s the best excuse for sending Jenna on her real maternity leave. Also, BABIES!!!!!!!
- It actually could be pretty funny. Remember that the Cece news was big enough to merit taking The Office’s cliffhanger spot in 2009. #2 is the afterthought. Also, after how big of a deal the whole unplanned pregnancy thing was, it’s hilarious that Pam got pregnant less than a year after the first one was born. And likely accidentally, once more.
- Please don’t let Jenna name this one.
three flee glee! what’s next for rachel, finn, and kurt?
don't you see what this means, rachel? it means you get to go to college! // fox promotional photo
Consider me shocked. Glee executive producer Ryan Murphy told The Hollywood Reporter last night that New Directions stalwarts Rachel, Finn, and Kurt are not going to be back at all for Season 4.
Sure, he’s been saying they’ll graduate for weeks, but I was skeptical that this would mean cutting ties with the lead cast, particularly Lea Michele. When you’ve got those vocal cords under a seven-year contract, I’m sure your instinct is to hold on tight. The decision to cut these actors loose—lest you end up employing actors 30+ to play seventh-year seniors—is perhaps the riskiest plot move that Ryan Murphy has ever made on this show.
It underscores an early mistake that he made in creating Glee: writing an entire show about a group of sophomores. As it stands, Ryan Murphy is going to be relying heavily on new characters in season four. (Is this all just a ploy to make us care more about The Glee Project, perhaps?) He’s put himself in a huge bind for this year, as he takes on the task of introducing and endearing us to new kids, at the same time as he tries to successfully send off the seniors we know. Considering how season two went, I can’t say I’m optimistic. Thank Cheesus he bit the bullet and hired help.
This could mean good things for my favorite Glee character (Emma), who’ll be some of the only institutional memory left at McKinley after season three. For the departing seniors, it means that Rachel and Kurt will hopefully get to live out their Big Apple dreams. For Finn, well, I just figured he’d settle down in Lima and get a job at Sheets ‘n’ Things or Emerald Dreams.
It’s good news for Lea Michele, who will undoubtedly have many, many career opportunities post-Glee. Chris Colfer has probably been pigeonholed as Kurt, but his recent portfolio diversification (kids TV series, films, etc.) will help him stay relevant. Cory Monteith, it was nice knowing you.
