Reconstruction Vol. 12, No. 3
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Urban Security and Collapse: Fringe's Portrayal of the American City as a site of Terror in the 21st Century / Sophie Halliday
Keywords: Fringe, Urban, Insecurity, Militarisation, 9/11, Television
<1> Upon its series debut, television critic Matt Roush stated that Fringe (2008- ) should be re-titled “Cringe” due to its “grisly twists” and “mumbo-jumbo science” content that was merely reminiscent of The X-Files (1993-2002) (Roush). He was not alone. Elsewhere Travis Fickett agreed, labelling Fringe as “derivative” and stating that “the ground it covers has been covered elsewhere and better...at the end of the day, it's hard to imagine that Fringe will ever blow anyone's mind” (Fickett). As an FBI procedural depicting paranormal incidents with an underlying current of conspiracy, Fringe’s blend of science fiction and horror elements was thus considered ostensibly as a clone of The X-Files, an earlier success for the same FOX network [1]. Yet Fringe was able to overcome these early struggles in terms of its generic and format identity to distinguish itself as a distinct, unique series in its own right. The show subsequently evolved beyond these early accusations of thematic replication, as its narrative became progressively more complex and serialised. The development arguably most responsible for this shift was the introduction of a parallel universe storyline at the conclusion of the first season. This is of course a standard science fiction trope, but is employed by Fringe through the framework of 9/11. Examining recent anxieties of security and fear in the urban city space, this paper will consider the manner in which this ‘parallel universe’ storyline interrogates manifestations of disaster and terror in a post-9/11 world. The narrative of Fringe posits two different worlds as being at war with one another. This is the consequence of the ‘real world’ converging with its parallel counterpart, resulting in severe global disasters. Focusing specifically on this ‘other’ world that exists alongside our own, this paper argues that Fringe’s use of the parallel worlds trope offers an intriguing allegory for contemporary fears of security and terror. The interrogation of this trope will proffer a careful consideration of the key visual motif of the twin towers, and how Fringe effectively represents the relocation of the War on Terror to the American city space. Finally, this paper will also assess the place the series occupies within the shifting contexts of television, specifically debates surrounding the production of ‘quality TV’. Considering the series within a broader socio-political context, via an exploration of the industrial production strategies from which it emerges, further demonstrates the manner in which Fringe utilises the thematic concerns outlined above to proffer a politicised engagement with this post-9/11 period of anxiety and uncertainty.
Destabilisation: The Twin Towers in Fringe
<2> Essential to Fringe’s interrogation of terror and insecurity in the post-9/11 urban space is how it relocates and represents the War on Terror as central to the American city. The visual aesthetics used in the representation of this war, and the terminology utilised within the text to characterise it, is of particular importance to this interrogation. By utilising 9/11 as a framework through which to present its ‘parallel universe’ storyline, Fringe is able to address 9/11 through an alternate reality which is, crucially, located in the present. This structure therefore cleverly allows each reality its own individual narrative. These narratives inevitably come to interact with one another as the walls which separate each world literally begin to erode. Fringe has therefore sought to utilise the lens of 9/11 during key moments within its narrative. Such moments have been evident throughout the show, which is in its fourth season at the time of writing. However, they are most prominently employed during seasons two and three and the articulation of the ‘war between realities’ storyline. A primary aspect of this articulation is the presence of the twin towers in this alternative vision of society that Fringe presents. The frequent use of the twin towers as an ongoing visual motif within the narrative structure of the show inherently links the events of September 11, 2001, to the anxiety and urban collapse portrayed within the narrative world(s) presented. The first appearance of the twin towers in Fringe comes during episode 1.20, ‘There is More Than One of Everything.’ This visual depiction is used as a device through which to reveal that central character Olivia Dunham has ‘crossed over’ to the alternate universe for the first time. It follows a sequence of events in which Olivia has her first meeting with a character named William Bell. She enters his office and asks “Where am I? Who are you?” He replies that the answer to her first question is “very complicated.” Olivia turns around to look out of a large window behind her. The following camera shot is positioned from outside the window looking in at Olivia, before pulling back to reveal the twin towers still standing in Lower Manhattan. The use of the twin towers here is, in one sense, an obvious way for Fringe to demonstrate the fact that Olivia had crossed over to the other side. Yet, such a reference to the spectre of 9/11 is also inherently evocative of the uncanny, as emphasised by the deliberately overt and explicit nature of the representation. Sigmund Freud, of course, famously refers to an “uncanny effect” as one which “often arises when the boundary between fantasy and reality is blurred, when we are faced with the reality of something that we have until now considered imaginary, when a symbol takes on the full function and significance of what it symbolises, and so forth” (150-151). Steven Jay Schneider describes the twin towers as buildings which can be “retrospectively viewed as the architectural signifiers of a city and of a country that until September 11 had little to fear from outside its borders” (34). In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, “cinematic images of the twin towers as they used to appear – ‘healthy’ and in all their unsuspecting and, now it seems, naive glory – were for a time deemed more deleterious than images of those same buildings at the exact moment of their destruction” (36). As an architectural image that has become uncannily associated with destruction, the twin towers now signal the opposite when depicted in their previously ‘healthy’ state. The presence of the towers in the alternate universe of Fringe’s narrative is symbolic of this. Rather than displacing its characters in time or projecting its narrative into a future setting, Fringe’s use of the twin towers here is inherently destabilising. Their existence doesn’t merely function to signify a narrative shift into an alternate universe, but to characterise an entire environment that is parallel to our own. Furthermore, far from exemplifying a more utopian alternate environment in which 9/11 never occurred, they exist in a world where the very foundations of society have begun to decay. As such, they signify a world which is completely changed from the ground zero site where they once stood on “our side,” in our own post-9/11 reality. Their significance in Fringe’s narrative is twofold in relation to this. Firstly, they are representative of an alternate world dealing with its own “zero event” in which the rift between universes was created [2]. Secondly, and as a direct result of that preceding catalyst, this alternative world has subsequently been fighting to retain everything that was once considered stable in their society.
<3> This sense of destabilisation, fully exposed during the first employment of what becomes an oft-used visual motif, is a trend that permeates throughout Fringe. It is reflected both in the physical manifestation of the city as represented in the text, and the manner in which the anxiety generated by these physical signs are reflected by the subjects who inhabit this environment. Claire Kahane argues that the events of 9/11 “were hyperreal but also surreal in their evocation of the uncanny…For a day we looked at what we couldn’t see and lost our bearings” (114). The loss of bearings to which Kahane refers, and the destabilisation that is inherent in such a loss, is principal to Fringe’s representation of the post-9/11 American city. This representation therefore necessarily takes place across multiple intersecting narrative strands born from its ‘reality war’ concept: a world in which the towers have fallen and the other side, where they still stand. Each is inherently destabilised as a result. In the former, the consequences of these rifts between universes, termed ‘fringe events,’ manifest in subverse and paranormal ways. In the latter, these fringe events are hugely visible as the fabric of society is literally being ripped at the seams. A prominent example of this physical destabilisation and the resultant anxiety which is exposed can be found in episode 3.19, ‘Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.’ In this episode, Walter and Peter travel inside the mind of Olivia Dunham. ‘Lysergic Acid Diethylamide’ is the culmination of a multi-episode arc in which the consciousness of William Bell, the man whom Olivia first meets in the twin towers of the ‘other side,’ ‘inhabited’ the body of Olivia. As a result, Olivia became lost inside her own subconscious. Walter and Peter must locate her so she can regain control of her self. Upon ‘waking up’ in her mind, they find themselves located in what appears to be a busy New York street. This is most immediately signified by a bright yellow taxi that speeds past Peter as he stands, disoriented, on the sidewalk. A few moments later, Walter points towards a light that seems to be blinking across his face. Peter looks upward, and the sequence cuts to a shot of the twin towers. The shot is framed at a low angle, looking up. The towers are dominant within the composition of the frame: central and seemingly threatening. Walter believes the blinking light, which emanates from the top floor of one of the towers, is an SOS message. He and Peter assume it is from Olivia, although it is later revealed to be William Bell. The function of the towers in this episode again speaks to how they are utilised throughout the narrative of Fringe: as visual signifiers of a destabilised environment and portents of anxiety and fear. While Olivia is hiding elsewhere, the presence of the towers (with Bell inside) are central. This centrality is both literal, in terms of composition within the frame, and figurative, in terms of their narrative function. In both senses they are the pivotal image within Olivia’s subconscious.
<4> The episode ‘Lysergic Acid Diethylamide’ later reveals that Olivia’s fears have been allowed to run rampant within her subconscious, while she lies dormant within her own body. This revelation is crucial, and serves to support the contention that within Fringe, the twin towers are a visual motif used to signify a highly destabilised post-9/11 urban environment. The primacy that the towers are given within a context in which Olivia’s fears are said to have run amok clearly serves to construct them as threatening and overwhelming. They are a source of anxiety and fear, dominant within the city space. This contention is reinforced by the dialogue in the scenes in which the towers are present. When making their way to the World Trade Centre to investigate the SOS, Peter states: “the towers are out of proportion. We should be getting closer by now.” Walter replies that “it’s Olivia’s mind assigning importance. Our surroundings represent her emotional landscape, don’t forget.” E. Ann Kaplan cites 9/11 as an example of “a national trauma that was at the same time deeply personal and individual” (20). The characterisation of this narrative setting – an urban, New York cityscape – and the physical geography located therein as representative of an emotional landscape therefore becomes highly significant. It is a landscape wherein the physical manifestations of the urban space are assigned importance, as Walter describes, on the basis of personal emotion. As such, the representation of the twin towers within this episode clearly symbolises not only the trauma of their destruction, but the continued fear and anxiety that prevailed within the urban space in the wake of their destruction. This is the implication of their lack of proportion to which Peter refers, and their threatening dominance within the narrative. Indeed, the lack of proportion signified by the towers extends throughout ‘Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,’ a fact further evidenced by the multiple transitions from live action to animation that occur in this particular episode. During the live action sequences in which Walter and Peter navigate the New York streets in search of Olivia, there is an overwhelming presence of smartly attired civilians, all dressed in neutral, dark colours. This also serves to emphasize the disproportionality that extends throughout the episode. Walter surmises that Olivia represented them this way according to “her preferences” and her “strong desire to blend in.” To hide, as the episode has established, from her fears. Additionally, the inhabitants of this city are intent on trying to ‘kill’ Walter and Peter throughout both the live action and animated scenes, further demonstrating the links this episode consistently makes between physical destabilisation, disproportionality and fear.
The American City as a ‘Battlespace’
<5> Max Page argues that “a powerful sense of unease pervaded American culture immediately after 9/11,” stating that in works that “confronted 9/11 directly, or those that tackled issues of technology and the global economy or environmental degradation there was a sense that the enemy was invisible and elusive and its attacks inevitable” (202). As an explicitly post-9/11 text, Fringe is in many ways indicative of the themes raised by Page in this statement. The show specifically locates these themes within intersecting narratives set in multiple versions of the American city as it exists after 9/11. In this sense, the show’s frequent invocation of 9/11 within this context is inherently about how to exist in this uncertain post-catastrophe world. The disproportion evoked by the visual motif of the World Trade Centre therefore also extends to the wider narrative of Fringe, and the inherent theme of destabilisation it interrogates within the urban space. This assertion is exemplified via the narrative representation of the ‘fringe events’ the show portrays and how these events are portrayed as responsible for the collapse in previous constants of nature, for tearing apart the fabric of the universe which holds the reality Fringe depicts in place. It is these ‘fringe events’ this paper will now explore, considering specifically how they represent the ability of the text to interrogate the War on Terror by relocating it to the American city space. Eyal Weizman offers a conception of the city as “not just the site, but the very medium of warfare – a flexible, almost liquid medium that is forever contingent and in flux” (2006). This conception is born from Weizman’s analysis of a manoeuvre by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in 2002. However, it serves a useful purpose here as such a consideration of the city as a medium of warfare that is forever in flux is frequently evoked by Fringe. This evocation is predominantly found via the consistent destabilisation of the city space which serves as the site of the ‘war between realities,’ and the porous nature of this environment. The characters which populate the alternate reality of Fringe’s narrative are tasked with literally maintaining their reality and its cohesion. This creates an uneasy tension between the insidiously viral nature this war takes and the manifestation of its terror in the form of environmental degradation; and the physical materialisation of defence and the visible militarisation of this defensive front within the urban space. Responding to the events of 9/11, Slavoj Žižek alludes to the potential for further acts of mass terror; acts that are “less spectacular but much more horrifying.” He contemplates the development of “bacteriological warfare,” and “the prospect of DNA terrorism (developing poisons which will affect only people who share a determinate genome)” (36). Within Fringe, such concerns are framed against an environment in which ‘fringe events’ are configured as manifestations of what Page refers to as the inevitable attacks of an elusive and invisible enemy within. In short, they are manifestations of a perpetual terrorism, spreading through a post-9/11 city like an infection or a virus, existing under a constant threat.
<6> The dialogue used within Fringe to characterise this war between realities underlines the destabilised nature of the city space. The character Nina Sharp notes the presence of “soft spots” within this environment, describing them as “places where the fundamental constants of nature, the speed of light, gravity, the mass of a proton for example, have begun to decay.” In these areas, “the membrane between realities is thinner, almost porous.” Terminology and rhetoric such as “soft spots,” “membranes,” “breaking through,” “breach” and “molecular cohesion failure” is common in addressing a developing ‘fringe event.’ The presence of the twin towers in Fringe’s alternate reality is perhaps also representative of a porous “soft spot” within the post-9/11 American city. Such characterisations of the city space as it exists within Fringe underlines the contention that the city itself is a vehicle through which this war is conducted, adding to the destabilisation of the environment and the terror which it comes to host. Cindi Katz argues that, post-9/11, “the fortress nation…is a spatial fiction. The nation is porous and perforated” (355). Fringe has come to fully establish this assertion through its use of the parallel universe trope, the relationship between each of the realities constructed through this trope, and, essentially, the terminology used to characterise this relationship. Katz notes that the security state invokes this porous nature via a “mobilisation of the nation as perforated” (355). This conception of a nation as perforated is evident through “the creepy insistence that ‘they’ may be anywhere and everywhere, sleeper cells ready to be triggered, suicide bombers ready to roll...terror, in other words, is mobilised to solidify a porous nation” (355). Within Fringe’s narrative representation of a porous nation that is exposed to insidious threats from within, the lines that separate each reality are frequently characterised by the text as growing persistently more blurred. Indeed, the membrane between the two is literally described by Nina Sharp as growing ever more porous. Fringe therefore effectively interrogates the War on Terror through the inherent contradiction that exists between the destabilised porous nation and the environmental degradation that is symbolic of this; and the visible militarisation of this defensive front that manifests from the conception of the nation as already perforated. This interrogation takes place via the key site of the post-9/11 American city, thus relocating this war from any number of foreign states where it is said to be currently engaged. Fringe places its characters within this destabilised city space, and tasks them with maintaining its cohesion: in essence, with maintaining their very reality. Mitchell Gray and Elvin Wyly argue that the American urban state entered “a new and paradoxical era” after 9/11 that was both familiar and uncertain. In this era they identify the revival of the Cold War anxieties that existed in the middle of the twentieth century, anxieties that have been “revised in accordance with the elusive spatiality of today’s terror” (329). (Emphasis added) Within Fringe, this newly uncertain paradoxical urbanity is literalised through the parallel universe narrative. The familiarity of the environment is evidenced through the manifestation of the uncanny double within these competing realities: characters literally come to face themselves and fear themselves within this space.
<7> Drawing on his previous work surrounding the deepening connections between urbanism and militarism, Stephen Graham identifies what he refers to as a new military urbanism [3]. He sees this as emerging from “the creeping and insidious diffusion of militarised debates about ‘security’ into every walk of life.” Thus, the new military urbanism “is manifest in the widespread metaphorisation of war as the perpetual and boundless condition of urban societies – against drugs, against crime, against terror, against insecurity itself” (388). Manifestations of this new military urbanism can be clearly identified within Fringe’s representation of the post-9/11 urban space. This paper contends that in Fringe’s alternate reality, post-9/11 New York operates as a ‘battlespace’ [4]. Described by Graham as central to the new military urbanism, “the battlespace concept prefigures a boundless and unending process of militarisation where everything becomes a site of permanent war.” The concept works by “collapsing conventional military-civilian binaries” (389). Indeed, the character of ‘Walternate,’ Walter’s alternate reality counterpart, is particularly expressive of such binaries that are evident within Fringe’s depiction of the post-9/11 American city space. Terminology is again central to this, often utilised to underline the text’s representation of what Gray and Wyly refer to as “the discursive dualities of local and global, here and there, us and them” (330). The characters in Fringe frequently refer to their other side as being “over there” versus “over here.” Walternate is a particularly interesting example because he deliberately constructs these binaries in the name of defence. To Walternate, security must be mobilised at home in the face of a war with those from “over there.” His actions within seasons two and three thus illustrate the intersection of the globalised nature of the War on Terror with the domestic experience of this war within the city space. In doing so, they also echo much of what Graham identifies above. His intentions during this narrative are to fashion a stable defence in this urban environment via its explicit and visible militarisation. His Fringe team is characterised as a military unit and members can often be seen dressed in camouflage fatigues. However, perhaps the most pertinent textual example within Fringe that substantiates Walternate’s conception of the city as a ‘battlespace’ is the Statue of Liberty. Graham argues that the key pillar in the sustainability of the new military urbanism is the legitimacy and power it gains by “fusing seamlessly with militarised veins of popular, urban and material culture” (397). An apt illustration of how Fringe’s representation of the reality war is based upon the interrogation of the space between the visible and the invisible, this structure is re-appropriated by Walternate and utilised as the site of the Department of Defence. The co-option of such a symbolic structure as a signifier of military power speaks to Walternate’s intent to establish a firm, visible defence against the porous nature of the city at war with an invisible enemy. The militarisation of the post-9/11 American urban state, and Fringe’s representation of this, is one manner in which the city responds to the perpetual fear of an ongoing war, and the consequences of its “elusive spatiality.” The visual motifs that are used by Fringe to demonstrate this porous environment therefore serve to illustrate not only the theme of destabilisation that runs throughout the text, but the anxiety and insecurity that is prevalent within such a consideration of the city as a ‘battlespace’.
<8> The state of the urban space and the theme of environmental degradation that Fringe employs to illustrate this destabilisation is effectively portrayed during an early scene in episode 2.23, ‘Over There, Part 2.’ In this sequence, Peter observes the Manhattan of ‘over there’ from a helicopter as an automated guide details several significant ‘fringe events’ that have occurred. These include the presence of “temporal and spatial distortions,” and an “unstable wormhole at the Madison Square Garden” where the 10,000 people quarantined inside have been “recently ruled legally dead.” This reference to ‘quarantine’ alludes to another visual textual device Fringe effectively adopts to illustrate the effects of this war upon the spatial form of the city and its inhabitants. Referred to as ‘amber protocols,’ this quarantine device is implemented throughout the alternate universe to counteract the rift between the worlds and the vast destruction that permeates the landscape of this ‘battlespace’ environment. A tool designed by Walternate, the intended function of the amber is essentially that of a plug. Acting as a quarantine device it aims to seal any developing tears in the fabric of society and hold the structure of nearby surroundings together, literally solidifying their invisible porous state. Episode 3.01, ‘Olivia,’ offers one particularly arresting depiction of the quarantine procedure. In this sequence, the camera pulls back from the lobby of an old theatre as smoke emitted by the protocol comes billowing out of the front doors of the building and weaves its way up into the atmosphere. As it does so it turns a slightly green colour, before solidifying into amber. It seals the building and smothers the immediate surroundings, having moved up the outside walls of the structure and swallowed half a street lamp on the nearby sidewalk. This representation of the quarantine procedure fully reveals the intriguing form of the amber protocols. Utilised by the militarised Fringe Division overseen by Walternate, they are used in the visible defence of the city against a spatially elusive and invisible enemy. Key to this visible defence is the visually striking manifestation of the protocols. The proliferation of these amber quarantines thus exist as the scars wreaked upon the city by the war between realities. In Fringe, amber is another visual motif used to signal the geographical bruises which present a constant reminder of the insidious and destructive nature of a war which could strike at any time, in any place.
Fringe as Quality Television
<9> In positing the American urban environment as a ‘battlespace’ wherein war is both conducted and visualised, Fringe presents an interesting case study for an interrogation of disaster, insecurity and terror in a post-9/11 world. Sarah Caldwell suggests that the recent “high visibility” of ‘American quality television’ has opened up new possibilities for debating the question of what distinguishes quality television from good television (19). Following on from this, Peter Dunne argues that quality television should also be studied in its context rather than in an historical vacuum, given that “the social, economic and political environments in which programmes are developed bring very real and often disturbing influences with them” (98-99). While other ways of determining what constitutes ‘quality’ television (such as authored TV) certainly exist, within the context of the themes explored in this paper Dunne’s point is particularly significant. This is most clearly emphasised by the fact that in any assessment of programmes that emerge from these given environments, Dunne states it is necessary to recognise “that their quality must be measured by their impact on, and contribution to, society.” This is a judgement “based on value rather than polish – by what a programme can provide, rather than what it can earn” (98-99). The televisual context from which Fringe emerges offers an opportunity to consider the position of the text as it exists within a broader socio-political temporal context. Its engagement with important events within this context enables Fringe to be considered an example of quality television. The relationship between the complex serialised narrative Fringe presents and the contemporary production strategies of television proffer another approach to the text alongside the themes thus far addressed, and it is upon this relationship that this paper will now reflect. John Ellis argues that television has taken the form of ‘working through,’ stating that the medium’s contemporary nature provides an important social forum which allows viewers to process concerns of their society (3, 74). Fringe is a text which, in its exploration of the destabilised, post-9/11 environment, specifically engages with this challenging period of trauma, anxiety and uncertainty. Emerging at a time when wider shifts in television culture are taking place, Fringe is positioned in a broader contextual sense to take advantage of the possibilities present within series television for complex and extended narratives. Jason Mittell has interrogated this particular trend of contemporary television, characterising this complexity as a “distinct narrational mode” of the medium (29). Fringe’s serialised nature, and the wider contexts with which it debates, therefore further enables the show to proffer a clear and politicised engagement with the cultural events of the era. Such an engagement comes at a time when US television is undergoing its own shift in industrial practice. The impact of increased audience fragmentation, technological developments and multi-channelling (among others) and the emergence of a post-network era have been widely discussed elsewhere [5]. Yet it remains important to note the industrial context in which Fringe has been developed when considering it as an example of quality TV. As television has gained increased legitimacy, in part because of its appeal as a long-form medium that caters to producers and writers, so has the proliferation of shows that might be termed ‘quality.’ HBO, a premium subscription channel, has built its audience and reputation on narratively complex shows (Mittell 29). Yet as Robert J. Thompson argues, “basic cable has also emerged…as a somewhat surprising venue for new iterations of quality TV” (xvii). This is evident in shows such as FX’s The Shield (2002-2008) and AMC’s Mad Men (2007- ). Finally, narratively complex, high-budget and visually sophisticated examples of quality television are also present on the major broadcast networks, demonstrated by shows such as ABC’s Lost (2004-2010), FOX’s 24 (2001-2010) and NBC’s The West Wing (1999-2006). In considering the formal means of how television shows convey content, Mittell points to this changing landscape of the medium as it exists in America, wherein “complex and innovative storytelling can succeed both creatively and economically” (n.p.). As such, Fringe’s status as a text which is able to engage with themes of insecurity and anxiety, as this paper has explored, is also illustrated by the formal means it utilises to convey this content. This is most clearly evident in its narrative complexity, through which such themes are interrogated. The parallel universe structure Fringe adopts forms the basis of this narrative complexity. During the course of its run, Fringe has constructed and cultivated a different narrative setting in each consecutive season. Existing within this interactive framework are multiple worlds, multiple timelines and multiple versions of the lead characters, all used to interrogate the contemporary American socio-political environment, as this paper has highlighted, in distinctive and intriguing ways. The specificity of series television within this contemporary era of production therefore also contributes to the ability of Fringe to position itself as an inherently suitable text, in terms of its complexity, wherein cultural anxieties can be worked through within national and global contexts. Fringe is able to utilise this platform to aptly interrogate the wider cultural concerns of contemporary America. As this paper has demonstrated, this interrogation centres specifically the on-going impact of 9/11 and the War on Terror within the American environment.
<10> This paper has endeavoured to illustrate the myriad ways in which the American television show Fringe addresses contemporary fears of anxiety, insecurity and terror in a post-9/11 context, by exploring themes of destabilisation and war in the urban space. In constructing a complex narrative that encompasses two universes at war, and utilising powerful visual motifs that specifically reference the spectre of 9/11 and the increasingly militarised, yet paradoxically destabilised, city space, Fringe is able to interrogate contemporary manifestations of disaster and fear via a representation of the War on Terror as central to the American city. Attempts to construct binary foundations of “us” and “them,” such as those employed by the character of Walternate, are deconstructed and shown to take place in a world that is literally breaking down, while the gap which separates the two realities continually erodes. Isabella Freda states that the events of September 11, 2001, “seemed to invert outside and inside, ‘them’ and ‘us,’ or fiction and reality, providing a potential and actual site of destabilisation of what we might call “American spectatorship” (227). This correlates with Žižek’s claim that what previously existed as a “spectral apparition” on the screen entered “our reality” on September 11th: “It is not that reality entered our image; the image entered and shattered our reality” (16). Fringe’s negotiation of the visible and the invisible, the physical and the porous and its interrogation of the kind of inversion that Freda highlights, takes place through this narrative framework of opposition. Yet unlike the binaries Walternate evokes in support of this structure, the relationship between the two realities Fringe presents has always been inherently permeable and “overlapping.” This in turn points to the manner in which Fringe is able to proffer an explicit engagement with the socio-political events of the era and thus a working through of contemporary cultural anxieties and fears.
Notes
[1] See, among others, Alessandra Stanley, “Spooky Conspiracy on Sci-Fi Frontier” in The New York Times (September 8, 2008) <URL> and “Dying Networks Show Signs of Vitality” in The New York Times (December 17, 2009) <URL>.
[2] ‘Peter.’ Fringe. Episode 2.16. Dir. David Straiton. FOX. 1 April, 2010, is set in 1985 and details the events which lead Walter to cross over and kidnap the alternate Peter in an effort to save his life. This later becomes known as the “zero event” which set into motion the destructive chain of fringe events, putting the universes on a collision course with each other.
[3] See the following by Graham: “Postmortem City.” City 8.2 (2005): 165–186; “Switching Cities Off: Urban Infrastructure and US Air Power.” City 9.2 (2006): 170–192; “Robowar Dreams: US Military Technophilia and Global South Urbanization.” City 12.1 (2008): 25–49.
[4] Graham borrows this term from Tim Blackmore. War X: Human Extensions in Battlespace. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.
[5] See, for example: Television Studies After TV: Understanding Television in the Post-Broadcast Era. Ed. Graeme Turner and Jinna Tay. London: Routledge, 2009; Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond. Ed. Janet McCabe and Kim Akass. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007; Amanda D. Lotz, The Television Will be Revolutionised. New York, NY: NYU Press, 2007.
Filmography
‘There is More Than One of Everything.’ Fringe. Episode 1.22. Dir. Brad Anderson. FOX. 12 May, 2009.
‘Over There, Part 1.’ Fringe. Episode 2.22. Dir. Akiva Goldsman. FOX. 13 May, 2010.
‘Over There, Part 2.’ Fringe. Episode 2.23, Dir. Akiva Goldsman. FOX. 20 May, 2010.
‘Olivia.’ Fringe. Episode 3.01. Dir. Joe Chappelle. FOX. 23 September, 2010.
‘Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.’ Fringe. Episode 3.19. Dir. Joe Chappelle. FOX. 15 April, 2011.
Works CitedCaldwell, Sarah. “Is Quality Television Any Good? Generic Distinctions, Evaluations and the Troubling Matter of Critical Judgement.” Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond. Ed. Janet McCabe and Kim Akass. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007. 19-34
Dunne, Peter. "Inside American Television Drama: Quality is Not what is Produced but what it Produces." Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond. Ed. Janet McCabe and Kim Akass. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007. 98-110
Ellis, John. Seeing Things. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999.
Fickett, Travis. "Fringe 'Pilot' Review." 8 September 2008. IGN. 10 May 2010 <http://uk.tv.ign.com/articles/908/908619p1.html>.
Freda, Isabella. "Survivors in The West Wing: 9/11 and the United States of Emergency." Film and Television After 9/11. Ed. Wheeler Winston Dixon. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. 226-246.
Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
Graham, Stephen. "Cities as Battlespace: The New Military Urbanism." City 13.4, 2009. 383-402.
Gray, Mitchell and Elvin Wyly. "The Terror City Hypothesis." Violent Geographies. Ed. Derek Gregory and Allan Pred. New York: Routledge, 2006. 329-348.
Kahane, Claire. "Uncanny Sights: The Anticipation of the Abomination." Trauma at Home: After 9/11. Ed. Judith Greenberg. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. 107-116.
Kaplan, E. Ann. Trauma Culture. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 2005.
Katz, Cindi. "Banal Terrorism: Spatial Fetishism and Everyday Insecurity." Violent Geographies. Ed. Derek Gregory and Allan Pred. New York: Routledge, 2006. 349-361.
Mittell, Jason. Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling, pre-publication edition. MediaCommons Press, 2012.
Mittell, Jason. "Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television." The Velvet Light Trap, no. 58 (Fall 2006): 29-40.
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