I’ve heard people say that Hollywood TV production is an industry that cannot arrive at good endings to the stories it starts. That’s painting it with a broad brush. Even if this statement is partially true, there has to be a few reasons ‘Why’. Well, I think there are lots of reasons. Like, it’s hard to reach a satisfying conclusion after years of meandering story lines and changes of direction.

Because television series have to deal with so many variables…like, what cast members will still be around in five years? Will the show be cancelled in three years? Will we lose half our budget next year? Will the show runners get fired next year and replaced with new ones? Will the execs demand a new cast member to appeal to a faltering demographic? (I.E. Nikki & Paulo of ‘LOST’ fame). We get spoiled by books and movies, which have a single creative vision and take less time to make, and then we wonder why something with a gazillion more moving parts can’t do the same thing.

‘Fringe’ was not perfect, but the finale was. Let me break it down for you.

Season one plays as an X-Files clone for the most part, minus the mythology episodes. Season two has the same problem, but to a lesser extent as the characters and the mythos are both better shaped. Season three is where the show does its first MAJOR thematic shift away from X-Files one-offs to the ‘Alternate Universe’ storyline full time. This is also where the show hit its first rough patch, as the fans that preferred X-Files 2.0 didn’t appreciate the shift. Personally, IMO, Season three was the best season of the show. Season four the show shifts yet again, with the altered timeline changing a lot of stuff we’d experienced thus far. Season five… hmm, Season five. ANOTHER massive thematic shift! I expected to like it more than I did. The first half gets bogged down in “Go assemble the eight part macguffin needed to solve our problem” scavenger hunt episodes. But the character beats are so good you can ignore it. Mostly. Once they dispense with the VHS betamax hunt, the show quickly becomes fantastic again.

Really, the only flaw with Fringe was it’s pacing. Almost every season can be summed up with “a half season of stalling followed by a half-season of all out awesome.” Maybe, The first two seasons suffered from the lack of a clear villain/enemy, and pretty much stayed in the realm of “investigate unexplained phenomena, watch Walter going 3rd Rock From The Sun full Lithgow weird, Olivia being professional, and Peter as the midpoint between their two styles” Rinse and repeat, with roughly three to five mythology episodes a season teasing the idea that something much better was lurking in the shadows.

STILL…it didn’t entirely lose its way. Fringe’s ending was perfect and thematically resonating. While there are no stated questions left unanswered there are more than a few plot hiccups and things left with the explanation “because love and magic yay!”. Fringe didn’t try to give us a sweeping, mesmerizing end. They gave us a conventional ending with its share of sadness and happiness. Other creators of well known shows (cough cough BSG) became obsessed with tying everything together and that totally killed it, but the Fringe crew knew better: they knew that if we still watched it, we didn’t care about the pseudo dues ex machinas or the resets, we only cared about the characters and what they go through. And in that, the ending is perfect, because it gave us closure, and that is the stuff of great finale.

Oh, and how awesome was the ‘Cabin in the Woods-esque’ scene with Olivia and Peter deploying all the Fringe events? That was the HUGE highlight for me.

Goodbye Fringe, you flawed but magnificent opus. BTW, when you get a second take at look at J.J. Abrams goodbye note tweeted by @bad_robot, pretty dope. The ending of this show is a loss for television.

-Dagobot