Fringe Catch-All - You Are My Favorite Thing, Fringe. My Very Favorite Thing.

It's not worth having the series if they're actively interfering with the plot to sell you stuff.

Is it worse than this?

The NFC phone plug was more egregious than the Nissan tech-package plug. Still, I'm in the camp of accepting this while hoping they learn to do it more gracefully. The problem with the NFC plug is that a sizable percentage of the audience won't have a context to understand what it is or that it is an actual product they are being marketed. I'd guess that more subtle attempts didn't test will w/ the grandpa and grandma market sectors.

If product placement is your only gripe with this show, I'll take it. FRINGE has been fantastic.

Remember seeing the Spring thingie now that someone mentions it. Paid zero attention whatsoever while actually watching the show. Was just enjoying Fringe.

Couldn't care any less if they have to do one scene like that per episode if it means I get more of this show.

Thin_J wrote:

Remember seeing the Spring thingie now that someone mentions it. Paid zero attention whatsoever while actually watching the show. Was just enjoying Fringe.

Couldn't care any less if they have to do one scene like that per episode if it means I get more of this show.

There's some form of this in almost every show made for TV (this is TV afterall). Always has been. Dont understand the uproar now.

ranalin wrote:

There's some form of this in almost every show made for TV (this is TV afterall). Always has been. Dont understand the uproar now.

The only times it tends to end up bothering me is when it goes on for too long or just happens too often. Burn Notice started to get to me because they'd pimp Hyundai like fifteen times per episode.

The only show that ever made that work for them was Chuck when they just made a giant joke out of it.

But two few second shots of a cell phone with a network logo on it? Meh.

Watch episode, expect thoughtful dialogue in the thread. Get product placement posts.

Weird mirror of the episode where I expected plot advancement and got a lot of foreshadowing, not much else.

I guess Jared Harris had a Mad Men episode to shoot that day? Seems like a pointless death for the big bad of the season. Bell's back though, I'm really surprised he didn't have a goatee. Hopefully the next episode is better.

i38warhawk wrote:

I guess Jared Harris had a Mad Men episode to shoot that day? Seems like a pointless death for the big bad of the season. Bell's back though, I'm really surprised he didn't have a goatee. Hopefully the next episode is better.

If it was the episode where he laid Pete Campbell the f*ck out, it was worth it.

I was making breakfast, so I missed the phone, but earlier this season there was a great, flagrant shot of Olivia unplugging the Nissan Leaf (I think), which was hilarious and awesome. With product placement, seems there are 4 paths.

Straight Up, like I've seen on Bones, where someone just flat out delivers a commercial to another character. I hate this one.

Ironic, like 30 Rock, where they do the placement, but "wink" about it, which is also pretty annoying to me, because it's disingenuous.

Subtle Straight Up, like Fringe apparently does, as in that clip above. Yeah, the show shows us Olivia taking phone calls with the steering column, but Peter doesn't say "Man, what a great feature on your new Nissan!" I chuckle at this.

And...there's whatever Chuck did, where it was somehow Ironic and Straight Up at the same time, just because it was so cartoonishly over the top. This was the best, but not a style Fringe could invoke.

The episode itself, we'll see where it goes, but for Part 1 of a 2 part Season 4 finale, it felt a bit low scale and stake so far, after the last string of episodes. Though seeing who was back was awesome, especially since I didn't see it in the credits.

And, I'm with Jayhawker. I love coming to the Fringe thread just so I can get SHOUTED AT!

NOT INSUFFERABLE AT ALL!

Malor wrote:

It's not worth having the series if they're actively interfering with the plot to sell you stuff.

I can see the wisdom in this, even if I don't agree. The economics of entertainment media is really screwed up these days. We simply don't have a model where we pay for entertainment directly. I give the advertising people and the producers some leeway to experiment with new revenue models, because the old ones are broken and there isn't yet a new model to replace the old, failed, one.

On the other hand, Fringe is fracking awesome and I'll forgive them almost anything if they'll continue to feed my addiciton.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

And...there's whatever Chuck did, where it was somehow Ironic and Straight Up at the same time, just because it was so cartoonishly over the top. This was the best, but not a style Fringe could invoke.

Community does that too. They had a whole episode about a student at the college who was the legal personification of Subway. This past week they all rioted because of the Subway.

I'm not saying shows should do away with product placement. Just that they should do a better job of incorporating into the narrative. The ones on Bones are really really bad. The one on Fringe was just jarring.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

And...there's whatever Chuck did, where it was somehow Ironic and Straight Up at the same time, just because it was so cartoonishly over the top. This was the best, but not a style Fringe could invoke.

Community does that too. They had a whole episode about a student at the college who was the legal personification of Subway. This past week they all rioted because of the Subway.

I'm not saying shows should do away with product placement. Just that they should do a better job of incorporating into the narrative. The ones on Bones are really really bad. The one on Fringe was just jarring.

I have seen some clips of product advertising from Soap Operas. Lets just be glad we aren't getting that level of atrociousness.

Gaald wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

And...there's whatever Chuck did, where it was somehow Ironic and Straight Up at the same time, just because it was so cartoonishly over the top. This was the best, but not a style Fringe could invoke.

Community does that too. They had a whole episode about a student at the college who was the legal personification of Subway. This past week they all rioted because of the Subway.

I'm not saying shows should do away with product placement. Just that they should do a better job of incorporating into the narrative. The ones on Bones are really really bad. The one on Fringe was just jarring.

I have seen some clips of product advertising from Soap Operas. Lets just be glad we aren't getting that level of atrociousness.

Funny you should mention this. Every time I see one of those overly blatant situation in Bones, it reminds me of the shows from the '50's where the housewife plugs some product during the show. Circle of life I guess.

Gaald wrote:

I have seen some clips of product advertising from Soap Operas. Lets just be glad we aren't getting that level of atrociousness.

To be fair, everything about them is atrocious.

Their only mistake was not making it an iPhone. If they had done that, then everyone complaining now would be going "Oooh, see how great Apple is!"

Iphones can't do that though.

Maybe not that particular service, but I know a couple of restaurants I use have something similar that they advertise as both iOS and Android.

Apple seems to have nailed the product placement niche though. Look how often you see Macbooks for example.

Yeah NFC is rumored to be on the next iPhone, this summer or whenever that is.

No doubt about the laptops though. I can recall seeing a few Dell laptops here and there (Big Bang Theory maybe?) but that's it... every other laptop in the world is a Mac (according to TV/Movies).

It was speculated during the first season of 24 that either Mac users were good guys and Dell users were moles, or the other way around.

Also, 24 had really, really obvious product placement that always made me laugh. If Cisco Systems help David Palmer, they're good enough for me!

Anyone else catch the Sun/Oracle placement at the beginning of Avengers?

Here's an extended trailer for the season finale that Fox put up on YouTube. May be considered spoilery by some, so watch at your own discretion.

Is it just me or does Leonard Nimoy look terrible? He looked like he moved fine (his body hale and able) but his face is a weird mix of old and sunken, and capped teeth.

tanstaafl wrote:

Here's an extended trailer for the season finale that Fox put up on YouTube. May be considered spoilery by some, so watch at your own discretion.

And by spoilery, you mean spoilery as bloody hell by the end. Wow!

Is it Friday yet?

Are you ready for the end... of the season?

trueheart78 wrote:

Are you ready for the end... of the season?

No, so I'm desperately trying to complete the machine that will change my frequency to be in tune with a version of me from another universe who is ready, thus when our frequencies are in sync, we'll merge, and then I'll be ready. I've got the oscilloscope running, and an array of tuning forks set up on a local magnetic fault line, but my dark matter cookies simply refuse to rise properly.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

Are you ready for the end... of the season?

No, so I'm desperately trying to complete the machine that will change my frequency to be in tune with a version of me from another universe who is ready, thus when our frequencies are in sync, we'll merge, and then I'll be ready. I've got the oscilloscope running, and an array of tuning forks set up on a local magnetic fault line, but my dark matter cookies simply refuse to rise properly.

Well if all else fails, you can always try taking a massive dose of LSD and lying in the sensory deprivation tank for a while.

Wow. Great season.

muttonchop wrote:

Well if all else fails, you can always try taking a massive dose of LSD and lying in the sensory deprivation tank for a while.

That's slated for Sunday.

There were things in this episode that I fully expected, some that were supposed to be huge that were (to me) already confirmed, or at least hinted at, in previous episodes.

That being said, with the leash they were on for the existence of a fifth season, I really did enjoy it. I really would like to see what was originally to be the series finale.

My favorite thing is that Olivia's last line was a line I've heard about a billion times, practically a season finale cliche, and yet in the context of this show, it was ominous and filled me with the cold dread of inevitability.

And I was pretty surprised when Walter did what he did. I figured that would happen, but I thought it would be more self directed.