Fox has posted a series of teaser videos for the upcoming fifth and final season of Fringe.
It started with ‘Native Edict 06/16: The Cerebral Scan Protocol’, and continues with two more videos in the same format and style: the new head of the Department of Defense – and thus the boss of Fringe Division – giving a notice to the populace about one of the many edicts that the Observer overlords have put in place to control the population.
Here is the first one, as a reminder:
This was followed up with ‘Native Edict 12/16: Travel Protocol’. In this clip we see something has gone a bit wrong with the transmission, as the video is corrupted in several places with what seems like messages or interference from a resistance force.
The third and newest one, ‘Native Edict 05/16: Residence Protocol’ is even more broken up, clearly giving messages of perseverance and freedom from oppression.
If you manage to freeze-frame at just the right moments, you can catch the phrases “Is this the American way” and “End the oppression” along with a Fringe Division ID card – assembled for you at the right. There is a QR code on there, which one could read with a mobile phone if it wasn’t missing the bottom two lines. Perhaps we’ll see it more clearly in a future promo. They still have over a week until the season premiere, so maybe this isn’t the end of the video campaign.
Fringe producer J.H. Wyman recently noted that the showrunners are approaching this final half-season more like a single long episode, rather than like a traditional season arc.
It will be interesting to see how the show runners pull everything together. I’ve been worried that the observer take-over would turn into one of those seemingly epic arcs that are resolved in only one or two episodes before determining how to bring everything back to ‘normal’ – if they find a way to travel back again to their own time, for example, I’ll be very disappointed with the writers.
Whatever happens, however, I’m glad that the writers are getting the chance to end the series properly – thereby avoiding a disappointing conclusion to the fourth season.
Despite some production delays due to health issues for co-star John Nobel, Fringe is still on track to premiere its final season on September 28th, 2012.
