Reviews
Fringe The Complete Second Season DVD Review
Warner Home Video Entertainment / Region 1 / Released September 14, 2010
Wow! Incredible, hard to classify and completely enthralling, just a few of our initial reactions to the second season of Fringe; The show manages to mix in crime drama with scifi and alternate realities for something very definitely out of this world.
Season one started out straight forwardly enough as a show about a pair of FBI agents – Olivia Dunham and Peter Bishop and Peter’s scientific genius but imprisoned father Walter before very quickly moving us into stranger territory with an arcing storyline about sinister experiments known as “The Pattern” these are taking place all over the world and are linked to a mega corporation called Massive Dynamic as well as a terrorist group called Destruction.
As Olivia and Peter get involved in investigating the pattern we learn more about a tragedy in Peter’s background and a season one finale that sees Olivia meeting Walter’s former business partner William Bell in a parralel universe!
Of course season two significantly ups the ante, we quickly learn that the Peter of our reality died young and this Peter is from another dimension and that Walter Bishop in the other reality is secretary of defence working with a different Fringe group to close the breaches in the reality threshold. The main thrust of the season has Olivia having to deal with this threat and save the life of Peter in the process.
With Shape Shifters, Cryogenic heads, strange beasts and people disintegrating into ashes Fringe is dazzling stuff indeed, the kind of series you have to watch closely and one that stands up to repeated viewings. Strong playing from the leads and clever scripts help too. It’s safe to say there really isn’t another series on air like Fringe and catching up with it on DVD is a great way to go too, things becoming much clearer in the process.
Definitely recommended extras on the set include audio commentary on four episodes, unaired scenes, a gag reel, featurettes on the mythology of the show and the technical aspects of the series. The set also includes the episode Unearthed which should have aired during season one but was instead held over for the second season!