Fall Finales - Really?

The last episode of Fringe was promoted as a fall finale. Ringer airs its fall finale this Tuesday. Many shows have promoted their fall finales, promising surprises, thrills, and cliffhangers. I'm not a fan.

It seems that expectations for the final episode of a season are pretty high. A couple of years ago, Bones aired a season finale in which Bones either read a book or Booth dreamed that they were a couple who owned a nightclub. It was a fun episode, had all the squints and Zack in silly roles. It was a trifle, but it was entertaining, which is what a show should be. But oh! the lamentations in the blogosphere - this was no kind of finale.

What? A procedural needs a certain kind of an episode to air for the final episode of the season? That doesn't make sense to me.

Some shows require a finale to be an event. The finales of Buffy the Vampire Slayer always resolved a season-long arc in which the season's "big bad" was finally vanquished, killed, or otherwise neutralized. On the other hand, Lost's finales usually elicited more questions than resolution, but they were for sure events to be anticipated and savored. Lost, of course, produced cliffhangers so we'd return the next season to figure out what it all meant.

One of the best finales I've seen was The Best of Both Worlds of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The tension on board the Enterprise mounted as the Borg kidnapped Picard and turned him into a Borg. It was a bold move for a series that up til then hadn't been very bold.

But I don't require most of the shows I watch to have finales. If they do, so be it, but I won't think less of any show in that category that fails to produce one. Personally, I'd rather have a good episode than a mediocre attempt at a finale.

But now we're expecting shows to have "fall finales"? Are you kidding me?

One of the biggest complaints TV viewers have each year is the month and a half or so that TV turns off. It's the holiday season, and usually starts sometime around Thanksgiving and ends sometime after the New Year's Day. Television programmers have to face the fact that people are very busy during the holidays, going to parties, buying gifts, and mailing greeting cards. So television is placed on hiatus while people are distracted. It makes sense.

We viewers are a demanding lot - we're quite irritated by these breaks in our favorite shows. Some seem to take it quite personally. Finally, some shows like Lost and 24 just waited until the new year to air so that viewers could watch with few if any interruptions.

But now we're expecting shows that air on both sides of the New Year's to have "fall finales"? Please. Fringe's finale showed that Nina Sharp is leading scientists in extracting something from Olivia's body? Wow. Knock me over with a feather. Ringer has promised that they'll reveal something that will change everything.  Whatever.

I guess my primary objection to this is that it just seems like a trick, an illusion that forgets that good story telling is what every show should rely upon to keep viewers. Focus on that, and everything should fall into place. Viewers will come for the good stories, not for the cliffhangers. At least, unless you make them expect it.

Fringe - Peterless

Aw, Fringe, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

This has been a difficult season for a number of Fringe fans, following the traumatic finale when the Observers decided to wipe Peter off the face of the Earth. It turns out that Peter was not supposed to survive his dumping in the lake and the Observer was supposed to ... well...observe Peter down. So, what kind of a world is it that was Peterless?

For a number of people, it's a sad one. Fringe is trying to make up for it, however, by having Peter return, in the same lake in which he died, or didn't. Peter remembers everything, but no one else does.

He tried to reconnect with Walter, but Walter would have none of it. He decided that Peter's death was a just punishment for his hubris in taking Peter from his universe. We watched Walter completely ignore Peter in And Those We've Left Behind, and he's made no effort to talk with Peter. He acknowledges that Peter is his son (genetic tests don't lie), but he's stubborn. Peter notices: He didn't even look at me.

Peter is astounded to find that Olivia has had dreams about him, but when he presses her for the emotional content, she claims she can't have an emotional response - she doesn't know him. She figures out that he had a relationship with "the other Olivia", and is kind, but she clearly lacks any regard for him. Instead, Peter observes the burgeoning relationship between Olivia and Lincoln Lee, and gives Lincoln a pair of "readers" that will make his look less bookish.

Peter also has the discomfiting position of being considered a "fringe event". He has an agent "friend" who "escorts" him everywhere, and discovers that his "friend" is under orders to limit Peter's interactions with "civilians". He clearly doesn't belong and doesn't appear to be wanted.

These events have caused Peter to believe that he is misplaced - he is from another universe (the third we know of, if he's correct). He now refers to "the other Olivia", and spent his time in Wallflower looking at the schematics to build the time machine (or whatever) that placed him in this universe.

I'm certain Peter is wrong, and that it is this universe that he belongs in. The question is, how will that resolve? Will the Observer(s) somehow intervene? Will Peter's machine "fix" everything? What?

Ryan McGee, over at Hitfix, has been very vocal about his dissatisfaction with this season. He's not alone, if his comments are any indication. I'm not so negative. The show isn't as good as last season, but I'm enjoying seeing the differences brought upon our characters by the current situation. Ryan does have a good point, however; if this is the last season of Fringe (as appears likely), do we really want to see it without the core threesome in harmony?