In a recent poll, our partners at Fringe Bloggers surveyed which episodes Fringe fans found to be the most meaningful in 2010. The results were pretty interesting.
Of the 21 episodes that aired, the following made the top four:
- “Peter“
- “White Tulip“
- “Entrada”
- “Jacksonville“
Three of these episodes share a common theme – time. Whether it’s the flashback of Peter, time-travel in White Tulip, or revisiting the past in Jacksonville, fans have responded to these episodes.
This got me thinking about what it is about time that makes Fringe so meaningful, that causes fans to respond to the themes, situations and storytelling of episodes that deal with the nature of time?
Is it the blending of eras? The relevance of those stories? The humanity?
Perhaps we’ll explore it in great detail at some point. For now, I wanted to put this out there as something for us to perhaps think about. It might be interesting to see whether future time-related episodes hold as much weight. For what it’s worth, I’d bet that “The Firefly” would make the top five if we did that poll today.
Time is supposed to be immutable. That unchanging river that flows in one direction. Once your dancing days are over you can only look back but never return.
But what if you could? Especially, if you could forestall the way to dusty death and stay life’s brief candle wouldn’t we all like a second chance?
Therein lies the fascination.
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Great point, Dave. It does seem to stem from RL fascination with time, along with the method of delivery in the story itself.
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It’s a really intereseting thing i hadn’t thought about! I would add to the list Firefly (like you said) and The Plateau, that was a bit relative to time with Milo and his calculations about what was going to happen. I don’t know why but i love theese Fringe episodes!!
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Good call on “The Plateau”.
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