Fringe Matters: Previous Timeline vs. Current Timeline

Before the current season (season 4, obviously) of Fringe even started, the producers promised that within this new timeline, everything that we had previously seen from the first three seasons did indeed happen; they just happened without Peter. In fact, I tweeted Joel about my concern that the first three seasons had ceased to exist, and his response, verbatim, was, "They happened. Trust." Obviously, since we just saw "Welcome to Westfield" (4.12), it looks like the story is finally beginning to clean up its mess, but still, within this timeline, the producers have been repeatedly proven wrong as episode after episode confirms that either an episode or a handful of episodes didn't happen for various reasons, either because the team had never encountered the Observers before, had never encountered Cortexiphan subjects, had never encountered David Robert Jones, because of episodes that were almost entirely centered on Peter, and so forth, so I have taken the liberty of crossing off all episodes that we now know never happened, or were so drastically different that they are ultimately not worth counting. This is 54% (more than half) of the first three seasons of the series, and as you can see, almost the entire second half of the third season didn't happen (we, in fact, have no idea how the Machine was able to work in this timeline; it's almost like an anomaly), so it looks like my concerns were legitimate, and hopefully, now, it will be easier to see why I want the original timeline back.

Season 1

"Pilot"

"The Same Old Story"

"The Ghost Network"

"The Arrival"

"Power Hungry"

"The Cure"

"In Which We Meet Mr. Jones"

"The Equation"

"The Dreamscape"

"Safe"

"Bound"

"The No-Brainer"

~~"The Transformation"~~

"Ability"

"Inner Child"

"Unleashed"

"Bad Dreams"

"Midnight"

"The Road Not Taken"

"There's More than One of Everything"

"Unearthed"

Season 2

"A New Day in the Old Town"

"Night of Desirable Objects"

"Fracture"

"Momentum Deferred"

"Dream Logic"

"Earthling"

"Of Human Action"

"August"

"Snakehead"

"Grey Matters"

"Johari Window"

"What Lies Below"

"The Bishop Revival"

"Jacksonville"

"Peter"

"Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver."

"White Tulip"

"The Man from the Other Side"

"Brown Betty"

"Northwest Passage"

"Over There" (parts 1 & 2)

Season 3

"Olivia"

"The Box"

"The Plateau"

"Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?"

"Amber 31422"

"6995 kHz"

"The Abducted"

"Entrada"

"Marionette"

"The Firefly"

"Reciprocity"

"Concentrate and Ask Again"

"Immortality"

"6B"

"Subject 13"

"Os"

"Stowaway"

"Bloodline"

"Lysergic Acid Diethylamide"

"6:02 AM EST"

"The Last Sam Weiss"

"The Day We Died"

The Lab Report

Glyphs Decoded - Season 1

01. "Pilot" - OBSERVER
02. "The Same Old Story" - CHILD
03. "The Ghost Network" - AEGER
04. "The Arrival" - ROGUE
05. "Power Hungry" - SURGG
06. "The Cure" - CELLS
07. "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones" - CODES
08. "The Equation" - TAKEN
09. "The Dreamscape" - VOICE
10. "Safe" - TRADE
11. "Bound" - SAVED
12. "The No-Brainer" - BISHOP
13. "The Transformation" - AVIAN
14. "Ability" - OLIVIA
15. "Inner Child" - WALTER
16. "Unleashed" - PETER
17. "Bad Dreams" - BELLY
18. "Midnight" - EIGHT
19. "The Road Not Taken" - VISION
20. "There's More than One of Everything" - GRAVE
21. "Unearthed" - AVENGE

Glyphs Decoded - Season 2

01. "A New Day in the Old Town" - TOWER
02. "Night of Desirable Objects" - MIRROR
03. "Fracture" - BURIAL
04. "Momentum Deferred" - MEMORY
05. "Dream Logic" - BETRAY
06. "Earthling" - DEJAVU
07. "Of Human Action" - ARRIVE
08. "August" - BLIGHT
09. "Snakehead" - HIDDEN
10. "Grey Matters" - PORTAL
11. "Johari Window" - MUTATE
12. "What Lies Below" - WINDOW
13. "The Bishop Revival" - FATHER
14. "Jacksonville" - REVEAL
15. "Peter" - PETERS
16. "Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver." - ENERGY
17. "White Tulip" - SECRET
18. "The Man from the Other Side" - BRIDGE
19. "Brown Betty" - HEART
20. "Northwest Passage" - RETURN
21. "Over There, Part 1" - WEAPON
22. "Over There, Part 2" - WEISS
23. "Over There" [September 16, 2010] - REPATTERNED

Glyphs Decoded - Season 3

01. "Olivia" - AMBER
02. "The Box" - ALERT
03. "The Plateau" - BREACH
04. "Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?" - SHIFT
05. "Amber 31422" - EVENT
06. "6955 kHz" - DECAY
07. "The Abducted" - ESCAPE
08. "Entrada" - CROSS
09. "Marionette" - ADAPT
10. "The Firefly" - UNITES
11. "Reciprocity" - ALTER
12. "Concentrate and Ask Again" - HATCH
13. "Immortality" - ROMAD
14. "6B" - HEARTS
15. "Subject 13" - SWITCH
16. "Os" - EARTH
17. "Stowaway" - ERODE
18. "Bloodline" - FATED
19. "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide" - FEARS
20. "6:02 AM EST" - AGENT
21. "The Last Sam Weiss" - MULTI
22. "The Day We Died" - NO MORE

Glyphs Decoded - Season 4

01. "Neither Here nor There" - APPEAR

02. "One Night in October" - LIMBUS

03. "Alone in the World" - REBORN

04. "Subject 9" - RESET

05. "Novation" - STILL

06. "And Those We've Left Behind" - LIVING

07. "Wallflower" - DAVID

08. "Back to Where You've Never Been" - JONES

09. "Enemy of My Enemy" - DEATH

10. "Forced Perspective" - MARCH

11. "Making Angels" - EMPATH

12. "Welcome to Westfield" - OLIVE

13. "A Better Human Being" - HENRY

14. "The End of All Things" - UNITE

15. "A Short Story About Love" - QUILL

16. "Nothing as It Seems" - FUTURE

17. "Everything in Its Right Place" - DREAM

18. "The Consultant" - SIMON

19. "Letters of Transit" - QUAKE

20. "Worlds Apart" - ALIVE

21. "Brave New World" (part 1) - POWERS

22. "Brave New World" (part 2) - PURGE

Quotes

"I'm just not entirely comfortable with this kind of power in private hands."
-William Bell ["Excellent Soap/Strangers on a Train" [comic 1.2)]

"Call me sweetheart one more time; I'd really like that."

-Olivia Dunham ["Pilot" (1.01)]

"So much has happened here, and so much is about to."
-Walter Bishop ["Pilot" (1.01)]

"We've reached a point where science and technology have advanced at an exponential rate for so long that it may be far beyond our ability to regulate and control it."
-Nina Sharp ["Pilot" (1.01)]

"Yeah, sure, no problem. That sounds like fun. The man who was just released from the mental institution, he wants to give you a drug overdose, then stick a metal rod into your head and put you naked into a rusty tank of water."
-Peter Bishop ["Pilot" (1.01)]

"How do we protect people when corporations have higher security clearances than we do, when we're not fully briefed on half the things we're investigating? You know, when the truth, the truth, is, we're obsolete."
-Charlie Francis ["Pilot" (1.01)]

"It has arrived."
-September ["The Arrival" (1.04)]

"I've never had a conversation with a dead guy before. Forgive me if I don't know the rules."
-Peter Bishop ["In Which We Meet Mr. Jones" (1.07)]

"Think back twenty years. Imagine yourself then, imagining yourself now, twenty years into the future. In your wildest imagination, could you ever think you’d be here?"
-Walter Bishop ["Safe" (1.10)]

"You violated the laws of Physics, Mr. Eastwick, and Mother Nature is a bitch."
-Peter Bishop ["Safe" (1.10)]

"This is wonderful, don't you agree? It's just like a good detective movie."
-Walter Bishop ["The Transformation" (1.13)]

"How come when nobody knows and it doesn't make sense, they come to us?"
-Peter Bishop ["Ability" (1.14)]

"What was written will come to pass."
-Mitchell Loeb ["Ability" (1.14)]

"We think we understand reality, but our universe is only one of many. The unknown truths of the way to travel between them has already been discovered, by beings much like us but whose history is slightly ahead of our own. The negative aspects of such visitations will be irreversible both to our world and to theirs. It will begin with a series of unnatural occurrences, difficult to notice at first but growing, not unlike a cancer, until a simple fact becomes undeniable - only one world will survive, and it will either be us or them."
-ZFT Manuscript ["Ability" (1.14)]

"Walter, put the cow away, would you?"
-Peter Bishop ["Ability" (1.14)]

"If you can dream a better world, you can make a better world."
-Peter Bishop ["Bad Dreams" (1.17)]

"I can just about remember when a suspect's being human was a given, not an option."
-Phillip Broyles ["Midnight" (1.18)]

"When you [Peter] finally meet a nice girl, I would avoid bringing her home for as long as possible."
-Astrid Farnsworth ["Midnight" (1.18)]

"Everything that's stolen is not necessarily lost."
-Peter Bishop ["Midnight" (1.18)]

"You're definitely hot, but I'm looking for someone with Syphilis."
-Peter Bishop ["Midnight" (1.18)]

"Beneath every cynic, there is a frustrated romantic."
-Peter Bishop ["Midnight" (1.18)]

"We're trying to plug a hole in the universe. What are you doing here?"
-Walter Bishop ["There's More than One of Everything" (1.20)]

"The teleporter, it may be killing me, but in the meantime, it's made me something rather special. You see, your bullets just go right through me, and soon, Doctor Bell will see just how special I am. "
-David Robert Jones ["There's More than One of Everything" (1.20)]

"Please, allow me a moment to entertain my fantasies. They often lead to a truth."
-Walter Bishop ["Unearthed" (1.21)]

"They said I can ride in the back with the body. Can I, please?"
-Walter Bishop ["A New Day in the Old Town" (2.01)]

"Go get that bitch."
-Olivia Dunham ["A New Day in the Old Town" (2.01)]

"We're all victims of our gene pool; someone must have peed in yours."
-Walter Bishop ("A Night of Desirable Objects" (2.02)]

"Momentum can be deferred, but it must always be paid back in full. It's like I always told Walter; Physics is a bitch."
-William Bell ["Momentum Deferred" (2.04)]

"There are times when the only choices you have left are bad ones."
-Phillip Broyles ["Jacksonville" (2.14)]

"I've always known that one day, I'd have to pay the price for my deception."
-Walter Bishop ["Peter" (2.15)]

"When you open your mind to the impossible, sometimes, you'll learn the truth."
-Walter Bishop ["Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver." (2.16)]

"I'm not looking for a man who is going to give his heart to the world. I mean, somewhere in the universe, there's gotta be a guy who'll keep me warm when I'm cold, feed me when I'm hungry, and maybe on occasion, take me dancing."
-Olivia Dunham ["Brown Betty" (2.19)]

"If you can imagine it, it's possible."
-Peter Bishop ["Northwest Passage" (2.20)]

"Today is the day for which you were created."
-Walter Bishop ["Over There" (part 1)" (2.21)]

"We've accomplished a lot together, Walter, but she [Olivia] may be our greatest achievement."
-William Bell ["Over There" (part 2)" (2.22)]

"You [Peter] have to come back, because you belong with me."
-Olivia Dunham ["Over There" (part 2)" (2.22)]

"Sometimes, you just got to believe in what you can see."
-Henry Higgins ["Olivia" (3.01)]

"I am still a scientist, Brandon; I just have a much larger laboratory."
-Walter "Walternate" Bishop ["The Plateau" (3.03)]

"Real is just a matter of perception."
-Peter Bishop ["The Plateau" (3.03)]

-"We draw our moral lines in the sand, and unless you can put yourself in another man's shoes, I don't think you can really judge their situations."
-Peter Bishop ["Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?" (3.04)]

-"Nature doesn't recognize good and evil, Phillip; nature only recognizes balance and imbalance."
-Walter "Walternate" Bishop ["Amber 31422" (3.05)]

"This all began because a man came over here to save a boy, and twenty-five years later, I came back to save that same boy, but if you let me die, then we will strike back, and we will fight."
-Olivia Dunham ["Entrada" (3.08)]

"Now, she's everywhere; she's in my house, my job, my bed, and I don't want to wear my clothes anymore, and I don't want to live in my apartment, and I don't want to be with you. She's taken everything."
-Olivia Dunham ["Marionette" (3.09)]

"Every relationship is reciprocal; when you touch something, it touches you."
-Walter Bishop ["Reciprocity" (3.11)]

"Sometimes, walking away from one's fate leads one directly to fate's doorstep."

-William Bell ["Stowaway" (3.17)]

"There's an entire world out there with no rhyme or reason. Where would you like to start?"

-William Bell ["Lysergic Acid Diethylamide" (3.19)]

"This is my favorite part of the day - sunrise, when the world is full of promise, you know."

-Olivia Dunham ["6:02 AM EST" (3.20)]

"They outsmarted you, didn't they? They know you turned the machine on, so they put Peter in theirs, and now, we're the ones that are going to get destroyed."

-Olivia "Bolivia" Dunham ["The Day We Died" (3.22)]

"I don't think there's anything sadder than when two people are meant to be together and something intervenes."

-Walter Bishop ["Neither Here nor There" (4.01)]

"I've always felt that there are people who leave an indelible mark on your soul, an imprint that can never be erased."

-Phillip Broyles ["One Night in October" (4.02)]

"We create technology; how it is used is not our concern."

-Nina Sharp ["Subject 9" (4.04)]

"Magic is a word for what science has no words, but everything that exists in nature is part of the whole, and that is the point of science, to complete our knowledge of nature."

-Dian Cecht ("Peter and the Machine" [chapter 2] [BEYOND THE FRINGE #2A])

"Life is an experiment; you have to find out where you belong, find your own place in this world."

-Peter Bishop ["Wallflower" (4.07)]

"There are some fringe benefits to having one's body reassembled on an atomic level."

-David Robert Jones ["The End of All Things" (4.14)]

"It's every human being's right to know love."

-Anson Carr ["A Short Story About Love" (4.15)]

"There is no scientific explanation, but I have a theory. Based on a uniquely human principle, I believe you could not be fully erased because the people who care about you would not let you go, and you would not let them go. I believe you call it love."

-September ["A Short Story About Love" (4.15)]

"There are these people you come across, these bright, bright lights. They drift through life effortlessly, unforgettable."

-Canaan ["Everything in Its Right Place" (4.17)]

"Love makes us vulnerable, but it also makes us human, I suppose."

-David Robert Jones ["The Consultant" (4.18)]

"The Bible tells us God created his universe in seven days. It's taken me considerably longer."

-William Bell ["Brave New World" (part 2)]

"If we are capable of being gods, then it is our destiny to do so."

-William Bell ["Brave New World" (part 2) (4.22)]

"There was a time we solved Fringe cases; I think it's time we created a few of our own."

-Walter Bishop ["The Bullet That Saved the World" (5.04)]

"Do you know why you tilt your head in that way? It's an involuntary reflex in your physiology. It changes the angle at which sound waves hit the eardrum, allowing in more stimuli. Like a lizard. I've studied them, too. Intriguing characters. Their brains have evolved over 320 million years, yet for all their evolution, they form no bonds. Love does not exist for them. They are incapable of dreaming, of contemplating beauty, of knowing something greater than themselves. Not unlike your kind. The experiments we conducted right here in this lab yielded a surprising result, because for all your years of evolution, you inadvertently developed and honed primitive instincts that we moved beyond long ago, so in reality, you're the animal."

-Nina Sharp, addressing Windmark ["Anomaly XB-6783746]

"You [Peter] say that as if we're not carrying enough technology that can bend space and time into a mobius strip.

-September ["The Boy Must Live" (5.11)]

"You are my favorite thing, Peter, my very favorite thing."

-Walter Bishop ["An Enemy of Fate" (5.13)]

"It's not about fate, Walter, yours or mine; it's about changing fate and protecting our children."

-September ["An Enemy of Fate" (5.13)]

Previous Timeline vs. Current Timeline

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The Lab Report

Categories

Time Travel

Glyphs Decoded - Season 1

Glyphs Decoded - Season 2

Glyphs Decoded - Season 3

Glyphs Decoded - Season 4

Glyphs Decoded - Season 5

Quotes

Fringe Opening - Unaired Pilot

Fringe Opening - Season 1

Fringe Opening - Season 2 (Blueverse)

Fringe Opening - Fringe 85

Fringe Opening - Season 2 (Redverse)

Fringe Opening - Season 3 (Redverse)

Fringe Opening - Season 3 (Blueverse)

Fringe Opening - Entrada (Blueverse & Redverse)

Fringe Opening - 2026 (The Day We Died)

Fringe Opening - Season 4 (Orange Timeline)

Fringe Opening - Season 5 (2036)

Links to Desirable Fringe Objects [Amazon]