We Recommend: Fringe Season 5

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So, this is it. The finale of Fringe, the finest science-fiction of the past four years. A throwback to The X-Files which when freed from the fear of cancellation in its first season (the axe loomed multiple times but only seemed to be a creative factor that first year) blossomed into a free, confident beast of a narrative with a wide diversity of characters and fantastic arcs structured brilliantly and interspersed with some fantastical monster of the week type interludes. Everything is set up. It’s the end and our heroes - Peter Bishop, Walter Bishop and Olivia Dunham - are going to wage war against the Observers.

It’s a fascinating conflict we have here. For years the Observers have been just that - folks from another time who visit history to see what happens and otherwise stay out of the way, unlike those similarly tasked folks in The Adjustment Bureau. Now, after the events of last season, we see that they’re planning on taking over the world as in their time it’s all a bit rubbish. this isn’t a novel storyline and it will baffle many who until two-thirds of the way through season four felt the endgame for Fringe would be something remarkably different. The things with that is though, it belies the strength and courage and discipline which the writers have shown to get to this point and still have it all make sense.

The result is that despite this path being a seemingly brand new one, you suspect the writers and creative directors know what they’re doing and what the endgame today looks like. That means these remaining episodes of Fringe will be worth watching. They’ll probably blow us all out of the water and you want to be there. You want to be watching. You want to be able to look back on it in twenty years when watching Sci-Fi x53 and say “This is the best since Fringe”. You need to be able to remember that.

It all kicks off from Wednesday 24 October at 10pm exclusively on Sky 1 HD.