A Short Thought About AUs

[sprocket]

There are problems with the fork in the road AU, branching off 1985, as written. Canon tells us there's significant early divergences: the Cortexiphan trials were cut short, Olivia kills her stepfather. And there's later changes, notably the S1 / 2008-2009 David Robert Jones arc. The easy branch-point would be, "Peter wasn't there, so no one was in position to kill Jones when he tried to cross over." But the show didn't go that route. It dropped Jones out of sight until his theatrical entrance in S4 (2011/2012). He doesn't try to activate Olivia in 2008-ish. He doesn't come to Fringe's attention. Does that mean the S1 ZFT thread evaporated, in this timeline? That would tie into the change in John Scott's death.

But when you start really thinking about that, it means that everything in S1 - S3 has been destabilized, from a viewer perspective. At which point, if events in '85 and events in the last three years are destabilized, timeline-wise, you've basically imploded three seasons of worldbuilding. Peter was not so wrong to think he had been pulled into a completely separate third universe.

And that's a problem: it means the writers need to re-establish the characters and reframe three years of viewer experience... in two universes. Fringe dropped the ball on that, which is one reason the back half of S4 is such a mess.

Now, what I'm wondering is, who in this brave new timeline is aware Olivia can cross universes? We've got Peter, and... anyone? Bueller?

Comments

[sprocket]

Okay, I remember the chicken soup scene... how much of the end of the cortexiphan trials was explictly invoked in S4? There's a bit in "Subject 9", but was there anything else?

(I am not thinking about information shell games at all. Cough.)

[wendelah1]

There's a bit in "Subject 9", but was there anything else?

I don't remember anything else but it's been awhile since I watched the entire season.