to the writers of Fringe

[xparrot]

Your show is cute (if still not as clever as you think it is) and fun and I liked the s1 finale twist*, but just so you know (because gnine's head is exploding as if from radiation), Boston to New York City is at minimum, a 4 hour drive. And Pennsylvania is even further than New York.

Look, I know the states of New England are small compared to California. But Massachusetts is actually bigger than a single city, and takes more than 15 minutes to drive through. Maps.google is your friend! (and those maps are to scale. The size that things appear on your screen? The actual states are a teensy bit bigger. Just so you know.)

The brother points out that X-files established the existence of Secret FBI Tunnels, by which you can get anywhere directly, no traffic or speed limits. It helps, of course, that all FBI agents are given Bugatti Veyrons as their company cars.

(This is putting aside all the little wrong Massachusetts details, such as Worcester has no buildings over 25 stories, and there are no redwoods anywhere in the Northeast. And there's been no characters speaking with Boston accents, and yes, in real life people actually do pahk their cahs in Hahvahd Yahd. But that's just standard TV-nitpicking; it's always fun when a show is set in one's home turf.)

(Of course, around the time of the giant cold virus, the brother posited that the writers are actively trolling us - perhaps in a cunning effort to generate buzz, knowing that nothing gets geeks talking online like blatant violation of basic science; perhaps merely because they get off on driving fans nuts - but it has to be deliberate; we can't see how anyone who could correctly use the word epidemiologist wouldn't know that viruses aren't cells?)

* Really, in spite of this, I actually am enjoying the show! Have now seen a couple eps into s2, and oh, Walter...you didn't happen to have instigated an inter-dimensional war, did you? Stealing a son from another universe is never a good idea. And you are going to have to tell Peter sometime, and I do wonder how that conversation is going to go down. I liked that twist, and didn't see it coming until the finale itself, for all that it had laid the groundwork eps before, all those childhood anecdotes that ended with Peter going, "I don't remember that," and Walter answering, "I do."

We also are enjyoing playing 'Where's Baldo?' and the cute nod to the FBI's 'old X classification'. (Also, the Futurama connection - Philip Broyles? as in, broiling? which is like frying? Like Philip J. Fry? XD)

Comments

[sholio]

Hee! Luckily I'm not familiar enough with the area to nitpick it, although I still maintain that Fringe has the WORST. SCIENCE. EVER.

And the twist with Peter was great! It's unexpected enough to be a cool surprise, and yet inevitable enough that you can look back and see how they laid the groundwork for it. And now the truth is hanging over their heads like an invisible sword of Damocles, its blade teetering above the relationship that Walter and Peter are tentatively building for themselves ...

(This is making me want to go back and watch those early eps again!)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

At least from what we've seen, Fringe continues to earn its WORST SCIENCE EVER ranking~!

But yessssss I am very curious when and how that sword is going to fall...Peter is not stupid, but this is not the kind of thing that it would ever occur to a sane person might have happened...! Definitely it makes me want to see more...

[gnine.livejournal.com]

Oh, and to add to the nitpicking, I don't remember there being a suspension bridge over Lake Union in Seattle...or, really, anywhere in Seattle? Niichan, you've lived there awhile, thoughts? (I'd ask you, neechan, as you've been there awhile now too..but...well, we all know your powers of observation...when it's not animal-related, that is ^_-)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I will ask him! XPXPXP

[velkynkarma.livejournal.com]

Okay, at this point, being from Massachusetts myself, I have to ask...are you serious about all these inaccuracies?

Because seriously, research? It is good for you.

(But I am unclear, is it just the fandom messing things up, because that would be disappointing but acceptable as fanfiction, or is it the medium itself, because...that is not acceptable at all).

~VelkynKarma

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Oh, I haven't read any fanfic or anything for the series; this is all the show itself. And honestly the science is even worse than the Massachusetts stuff - but the Massachusetts stuff is hilariously inaccurate. Especially when it comes to geography (as in, they are based in Boston (well, Harvard U, but close enough XD) and will go investigate a crime in Pennsylvania - and then bring the suspect back to Boston to question him, and then go BACK to the crime scene in PA - supposedly all in one day while it's still light out the whole time!)

[velkynkarma.livejournal.com]

Because we are totally within easy commuting distance to Pennsylvania from the Boston area. Totally.

Wow, that's oddly amusing and simultaneously terribly disappointing. Unless they've got their own helicopters or planes or something, that's not so much happenin' lol. I can forgive fandom stuff for not doing its research because most of the time it's just all in good fun. But man, if you've got a budget and want your story to be realistic, it wouldn't kill you to do a little research :(

~VelkynKarma

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

XDXDXD With Fringe I am honestly thinking that they actually don't want it to be realistic - not just that they don't care but they are actively flouting the laws of physics. ...Well, which they do all the time in the show anyway (a la X-files) but yeah, it's so consistently ridiculous that it starts to feel deliberate!

[akira17.livejournal.com]

lol
you think thants bad i live in canada and once had a man ask me what the biggest mall is i told him (its the edmonton mall) he then said so it will take about what? 3 -4 hours to drive there? we were in niagara falls its about a 3 day drive and when i told him this he argued with me that canada was not that big and when i told him we were bigger then the us he got pissed and walked away
so distance inacuracys are fun

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

XDXDXD Canada is HUGE! I guess some people think that if there's not that many people living there (relatively speaking, Canada's still bigger than a lot of countries) it must be small? ^^;

[akira17.livejournal.com]

lol i guess right
i just love that he got so pissed when i tried to contradict him, it was funny in a horifyingly ignorant way

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

1) I was gonna say wait for it! I was sped through season 1--which is dull--but thought 2 and 3 were great.

2) the Ny-Boston thing gets if anything WORSE. They really seem to treat it like going down the BLOCK. I feel like sometimes they go back and forth several times a DAY. it's crazymaking!

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

1) I know several folks who love the later stuff - you being one ^^ - so I was assuming it must pick up! And it's scifi, I'm used to the lousy/boring s1 phenomenon.

2) Weren't they filming in NYC first season? How did they get that confused?! I mean, obviously THEY couldn't just pop up to Boston to shoot stuff every day, so why do they think their chars could?! (secret FBI tunnels!)

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

I tell ya, I think they just decided not to care, which in a way I respect. They need to get from Boston to NY, they just cut there. You're already dealing with monsters and alien universes, you're going to obey speed limits? (my theory: tesseracts!)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Really, Fringe is so blatant in its ignorance of any kind of physics - whether it's how electromagnetism works or how fast a car can go from one place to another - that I do have to think it's deliberate. They're in an alt universe already; it happens to be one where Boston and New York are a comfortable half hour's drive apart! XD

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

You remind me of me when I see a movie set in NYC that is clearly filmed elsewhere. The worst of these was the camp sci-fi film "Escape From New York," in which a character is at the NY Public Library on 5th Avenue and says "We have to get to Grand Central Station. Let's take Broadway." Which elicits both guffaws and horror in this neck of the woods, as the two places are about three blocks apart, and nowhere near Broadway.

And then there are the "Washington, D.C." films that show the Mall with skyscrapers towering over it. Uh, nope. No skyscrapers in D.C., filmmakers.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

It's always fun watching stuff set in a place you know well - it's pretty rare for all the details to be correct. --Though when it comes to geography, seriously, no excuse these days! there are online maps, people! It's not that hard! (or am I the only one always plugging my chars' routes into gmaps to figure out the how and how long? ^^;)

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

My favorite example of this is Rumble in the Bronx, where Jackie Chan lands a hovercraft on the beach....in the Bronx.

[topaz-kat.livejournal.com]

I haven't ever watched "Fringe", but I had a similar response to an episode of the SyFy (still thing the spelling change was immensely stupid!) "Warehouse 13". They had an episode this last summer that took place in Ithaca ^_^ But decided that we had a taco truck on "Ithaca University" campus and also that the local hospital was called "Ithaca General" *eyebrow twitch* But I forgave them. There was also an episode of the American Version of "Being Human" (produced by SyFy) where the werewolf character was from Ithaca, but his family lived in a heavily wooded area that opened up next to the lake. I figure someone involved at the channel must be an IC grad. ^_^

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

"SyFy" will never not be stupid :P

Heh - I kind of like it when they do things like "Ithaca University" - so it sounds like a real place, but actually isn't, so you can't actually confirm it's incorrect.

And yes, there are quite a few IC grads in TV writing, I expect!

[tipper-green.livejournal.com]

ROFL! I haven't seen Fringe, but this makes me laugh so hard! Of course, I don't think I've ever seen a TV show get it right, since Spenser (which, well, was filmed here, teamsters and all!)

Of all the current shows that take place in Boston, though, Leverage has to be the absolute worst for realism. I have no idea who convinced them that Portland, OR looks like anything like Boston, but they really need to get their eyes checked. Not that Portland isn't a lovely city, but...really? Have you seen how wide their streets our compared to ours? LOL! My favorite had to be the wealthy house they went to see in Brookline with the mountain in the background (hee). Luckily, I love the show like crazy, so I can mostly ignore it. (Though turning South Station into an auditorium for a fashion show made me laugh so much I had to rewind to catch the dialogue!).

I wish they would go back to filming these shows in Toronto instead of Vancouver and Portland -- at least you get some of the northeast feel with Toronto. (I'm looking at you, Once Upon a Time. Maine ain't that wet and mossy...).

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yes - I live in Seattle now, and it is a whole different universe from Boston! (at one point a random "Massachusetts" town in Fringe had a divided boulevard with a neat little row of trees planted down the median strip - yeah, no, first blizzard a snow plow would take those out XD) Most of the time it just amuses me (when it's not making me miss the real New England!)

Hee to the mountains (reminds me of when we watched Smallville - filmed in Vancouver but Metropolis was supposedly in Kansas. So you often saw the great mountains of Kansas in the background XD)