Season 3 of Fringe is probably the single most ambitious piece of network television ever attempted. Just by the scope and scale they were trying to attain, they were bound to fall short, as the show doesn’t have the budget to really do its bigger ideas justice on an episode-to-episode level. Also, as mentioned before, this is Fox, a major broadcast network. This isn’t Cable television or premium television where you have a little more leeway in your thematic material and how far you can stretch your characters without being worried about losing the audience. Fringe basically decided that it was through with growing its fan base, and that it had established its true followers who ended up following it to Friday nights, classically known as the “Friday Night Death Slot” where few serious shows on Fox have ever lasted more than a season. Should Fringe make it to Season 5, it’ll be a relative first for the network, and that speaks to the loyalty of those who are still keeping up with the show. The DVR numbers for the program are huge, as are the online views, demonstrating the series’ more technologically advanced audience and the fact that basic Neilson ratings are no longer a good barometer for how many people actually watch this kind of television.

The other issue you wind up with in network TV world is the threat of cancelation. That threat means that show creators are forced to keep their shows headed towards a possible endgame even without knowing if they’ll have to be able to continue beyond the season finale. This third season ends up falling victim to that, as they set up a terrific doomsday device, and spend a lot of time talking about what it could become and how it could work, without knowing if it will actually be the final nail in the show’s coffin. When they got renewed, they had to scramble to build something for another year, and for many, this season’s finale may be a deal-breaker. Unlike last season, which left us all hanging in a good way, this year’s game changer has been one of the most divisive episodes yet, and we’ll have to wait until next season to see if it’ll have a positive impact on the storytelling and the characters. You shouldn’t still be reinventing the wheel at this point in a show’s life cycle, but Fringe is never willing to rest on its laurels. That’s both a great strength, and a detriment, and it leaves this season the most scattershot of the bunch. Amazing episodes are followed by unimpressive treading water fare, and it’s hard to see what went wrong. It all comes down to the ambition level for the show, and whether the writers themselves can convince you that they know what they’re doing. I’m inclined to believe they

do, but check back next year around this time if you don’t feel like watching but you’re curious whether they pulled off the transition.

The first half of the season begins with a dilemma. How do you keep two disparate universes going in the bounds of an hour-long TV drama? Trading off episodes on each side is the riskiest choice made in the early going, as it handicaps both storylines from advancing faster than at half the speed of a normal TV show. However, if you can make it through, these are some of the most rewarding pieces of storytelling in the whole season, showing us a new side of our favorite characters, all the while putting them in potentially life-threatening or emotionally traumatizing situations. Once Olivia realizes she’s on the wrong side and the wheels start coming off the wagon, the threat level rises exponentially, and leads to a mini-finale in the center of the season, something the show struggles to reconcile for the rest of the year. Sure you can bring the characters back together, but you can’t do it without addressing the emotional damage that’s occurred during their separation. Combine that with the stress of finding out that they’ve all been betrayed, and you’ve taken what should be a happy ending and twisted it into something much darker. I struggle to see how it can all end up working out, but I guess that’s for the show runners to know and us viewers to find out.

The differences between the worlds become the most compelling narrative fabric of the show, and it’s the cast that really brings the sides to life. Anna Torv is once again terrific as Olivia Dunham… both Olivia Dunhams. Whether you want to call her Altlivia or Fauxlivia, there’s a lot of great stuff to play with in regards to her more freewheeling personality and the way she carries herself. The wig grew on me as the season wore on, and the red hair gives her a leg up on her costars in terms of truly redefining her look. Poor Astrid and Broyles just have their demeanor and smaller character tics to work with, while Walternate is probably the most drastic tonal difference in character. His impeccable suits, his military air, the tenor of his voice. It’s an extraordinary transformation, and it’s a shame that he keeps getting shut out of awards year after year. He’s literally playing two people on the same show, and both performances are light-years removed from the John Noble you can see in interviews. If anybody deserves an Emmy, it’d be him.

From a special features standpoint, this release is a little more bare bones than last year. Gone are the episode-specific behind the scenes reels, and the actual supplementary material feels a little less comprehensive. The commentaries are interesting for those looking to hear the

creative team’s input, and the Gag Reel is probably the funniest the show’s had yet (at least since the section of Season 1’s where Noble continues, without fail, to refer to the flashlight as a “torch” incorrectly) while the Making-Of for the animated episode tries to pick up the slack. It would’ve been awesome to have some sit-down interviews that were more than the brief soundbites in the featurettes, as it’d be cool to hear how the structure of the season was arrived at, and what sorts of story sacrifices they may have made from their original season plan in order to accommodate the twists they chose. It’s a slick package all together, and on par with other modern box sets, though it becomes clearer every year that streaming will soon replace the need for physical season storage altogether. I just hope they don’t throw away the supplemental materials in the process.

Overall, this is Fringe, and just when you think you’ve got a good grasp on the identity of the show, you get sent right back to square one. For the uninitiated, this is not a good place to jump in, but catching up on the past two years will leave you appreciating some of the show’s strongest episodes yet, all of which fall within this 22 episode order. As excited as I am to see where it’ll end up next, I worry that they may have exhausted their compelling character drama already, and with a new direction on the horizon, it remains to be seen if they can re-create the magic of an impending apocalypse.