The only thing that originally got me hooked on Fringe was a terrible cold over Christmas when all my flatmates were out of town. Unable to do very much, I managed to stick the show out long enough that now I honestly delight in it. I’m a sucker for absurd tv science, what can I say? What I’m going to talk about involves the third season, so if you feel like you’re coming down with something and want to watch the show unspoiled you should stop reading here. [Although I should note I'm a few weeks behind on episodes so maybe they've fixed all the things I'm going to point out, but I sort of doubt it].
As I’ve said, I really do enjoy Fringe. This doesn’t mean there aren’t things about it I find really disappointing, and I’m not talking about the usual JJ Abrams trademark mystery-plot holes that exist never to be filled. This show essentially focuses on straight white people, as they imperil the world (Past Walter, Walternate) and save the world (Present Everybody). At the show’s start, the only actors of color were Phillip Broyles [Lance Reddick], Astrid Farnsworth [Jasika Nicole], and Charlie Francis [Kirk Acevedo]. Charlie gets shot in the head, dumped in a furnace, and replaced with a shape-shifting jerk. Later, said jerk is also shot in the head.
As for Broyles, initially Broyles is super antagonistic to Dunham because she put a friend of his behind bars on sexual assault charges, and is generally a dick. Good gravy I’m glad they left that thread dangling and moved on to their current relationship. I love seeing how much Broyles’ cares about Olivia now, particularly a scene when he and Peter [Joshua Jackson] go get their drink on because they think Olivia is going to die at the start of season two.
Astrid’s presence as part of the team is never really explained very well. She stays in the lab looking after Walter [John Noble] but her main function in the show is to provide weirdly specific knowledge when the plot demands it. Is there a difficult code? Phew, Astrid is great at codes. Are the bad guys saying something no one understands? Phew, Astrid speaks Latin. She pops up when needed and fades out other than that. We know nothing about any relationships she might have or any real back-story at all. If Fringe has time to create a wacky film noire episode for shits and giggles, it can dedicate a little time and attention to Astrid. Walter isn’t the only one taking her for granted.
That is how the show starts. By the current season, they have created an entire alternate universe with whole episodes dedicated to this other world of characters. Each character there is similar in many ways to the original universe but has definite differences. Here is an amazing opportunity for Fringe to improve their casting diversity and character development. So how do they do? POORLY.
Astrid has lost any minimal scraps of personality and humanity she had. Now she appears only in military garb at headquarters and is exclusively focused on robot-like recitations of numbers and statistics. Maybe I would be interested if the show seemed invested in portraying a character that was autistic or differently-abled, but they’re not doing that. They’re frankly being lazy and I guess more honest about the fact that Astrid just functions to forward the plot with facts and isn’t really valued as a character.
Holy nuggets, what happens to Broyles is even worse. Firstly we learn that his son has been abducted and abused. And Broyles’ own story ends with him being murdered, mutilated, and having his corpse shipped out of his universe. Yikes, Fringe. Yikes.
We do get one more actor of color on the show. The taxi driver Henry [Andre Royo] is there for a few episodes to be threatened by Dunham and ultimately help her escape. Much as I think Lincoln is a charming new character and I can’t begin to express my joy that gravel-voiced Charlie is back, why couldn’t there be a better role for Royo?
C'mon writers, I'm awesome.
In a universe where even the Statue of Liberty can be a new color, why can’t we get any more diversity in main characters? It’s a whole new world out there but it looks like a lot of the problems are pretty much the same.
[EDIT: Bowling alley guy is played by Sam Weiss, who is also an actor of color. Sorry, that plot thread completely slipped my mind. Nothing terrible has happened to him yet, so I guess points for that.]
Consider that Fringe, unlike Lost, is really about a very small main cast: the dysfunctional “family” of Olivia, Peter, and Walter. Maybe some of them should have been cast as minorities, but that ship has long since sailed. I prefer to think that the best actors were cast, but casting is also done by type to fit the role. Walter, for instance, almost has to be white because he was a scientist in the 1970s. I’m sure there were some black scientists then, but I’m at the American Physical Society meeting *right now* and there are almost no black people. There are people of color, but a lot are foreign-born. It’s just realistic.
Any other characters are ultimately only very secondary. They are not going to have huge development because of the focus on the core three. I do agree that Astrid should be given more to do…but that’s because she’s awesome and not because she’s black. I guess I just don’t think that way.
Red Astrid is a problem, too, because they haven’t explained why she is the way she is. But that’s a plot/characterization hole, not some indictment of minorities.
I disagree very strongly about Red Broyles. If anything, I think he was fleshed out much better than Blue Broyles, who is mainly the exposition fairy. That episode (you know, the one where his story played out) was amazing–and Broyles ended up a huge hero. He’s fared much better than any other alternate versions: Fauxlivia, Walternate, and Brandon, though sometimes depicted with shades of gray, are villains. (Fauxlivia may be coming around, of course.)
Henry has played a major role in Olivia and now Fauxlivia’s storylines. I’m not sure what a “better role” would be.
Again, maybe I tend to think of things differently, but this reminds me (on a small scale) of the old Buffy complaints when Tara was killed. According to some fans, instead of treating minority characters/actors with X-blindness (where X is color, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) and writing the best story, the writers should sit around the writers’ room trying to reach quotas and promote agendas. That sort of thinking led to the “Willow never really liked men” retcon and Kennedy in S7. Boo!
I’m not saying people should have been cast for being minorities, but I do think that the way minority characters have been dealt with on the show is disappointing. Also, saying that the casting is “realistic” about a show with alternate universes, magical water tanks, and soul magnets is kind of a flimsy argument.
I’m not at all saying that Red Broyles wasn’t a fascinating character, what I’m saying is they seem to only be killing off their characters of color – repeatedly (similar to the final season of Lost). This wasn’t about whether anyone was a hero or a villain or the morality of these characters. A better role for Henry would be something like Lincoln’s role who seems to becoming a major addition to the show. I just don’t think the show would have lost anything by casting an actor of color in that role so don’t feel like the choice they made can’t be open to critique.
You’re the one who mentioned quotas and agendas, not me. And that’s really not at all what I’m saying. For me, this isn’t about color-blind casting, it’s about a lack of a multi-colored cast and what the show loses by not pursuing that when they’ve created for themselves an entire new universe to experiment with. I think that in order for writers to “write the best story” they should be including stories that expand beyond the perspective of just straight white people. We already have a lot of those stories and we can do better.
They’ve killed off plenty of white characters too. The first main death on the show was John Scott. Then there was Mitchell Loeb, David Robert Jones, Sanford Harris, Thomas Jerome Newton, and William Bell. Meanwhile, thanks to the double universes, Broyles isn’t even dead. And neither is Charlie. Neither actor has been fired from the show*, and the characters (some version) are still important.
*Kirk Acevedo has been definitely demoted from regular to recurring/special guest, but I think the Charlie character, much like the John Scott character, had run its course in the new direction the show took after mid-season 1. They managed to tie his death into the overall plot and emotional threads, while keeping Red Charlie alive. Not a bad deal. (Also, to be fair, I never thought of Charlie as a minority…)
So I don’t think the evidence supports some grand killing of minority characters, since you only name two, both of whom are still alive in some form anyway. And again, I think it is silly to think that minority characters should somehow be protected from being killed because they are minorities.
I also don’t understand how a second universe is supposed to open up diversity. The second universe is the same as the first universe with slight changes. The main characters are the same (in name/appearance if not personality/experiences). The overall demographics are the same. Despite all the cool differences, many, many points of reference between the two histories are the same. I just fail to see how it opens up any possibilities for “different” storytelling. It’s not an anthology series. It’s a series about a very specific group of leads.
Again, the main story is: Walter is a scientist who has broken moral boundaries. Most importantly, he experimented on Olivia, leaving her somewhat damaged for life. He also kidnapped Peter from his real parents and started the destruction of one or both worlds. Peter and Olivia are learning to live with their dysfunctional backgrounds. Walter is atoning for his sins. The three are learning to live as a family unit. Nothing about this is really open to glorious new opportunities for storytelling. This is the story of Fringe. You’re not going to get any other “perspectives” besides those of these three characters (and potentially their alter-selves). I think you just want an entirely different show, and you’re not going to get it.