The Fatal Flaw In Fringe’s Return
It’s fatal, for me, because not only is it glaringly obvious, it’s completely indefensible. Based on everything that’s come before, if Broyles were to call the team to a children’s hospital and reveal to them a completely hairless child, what would have happened is this: Broyles would have turned to a stunned Olivia and said, “Look familiar?” while the two Bishops stared through the window in shock and surprise.
Given the importance the FBI has placed upon investigating The Observer and his obvious connection to The Pattern — the existence of which is the entire reason that Dunham’s team exists in the first place — if they were suddenly and unexpectedly to happen upon someone (be it an adult or a child) who looked exactly like him, that would have informed every single action they took next, every single decision.
Instead, not one of the four main characters who know about The Observer — Walter because The Observer saved both Walter and Peter years ago, Peter because he encountered him in the woods, Olivia because she spotted him in Pattern-related photos, and Broyles because he’s in charge — bothered even to comment upon the resemblance in passing.
There are always moments in any television series where you just sort of agree with the writers via a wink and a nod to overlook something for the sake of the story at hand. But you can’t do that with an element of the overarching mythology of the show as major as The Observer and hope to maintain the integrity either of the story being told or of the characters within it.
Addendum: It should be noted as well that if the ultimate point, for the sake of argument, was that he wasn’t actually a mini Observer, that still would not excuse not having a single character comment upon it.
This isn’t, say, a case where a child was found who close and attentive viewers would notice had the same scar as some random character from twelve episodes ago. That would be something you could get away with not having anyone notice. Rather, this is a child who looks exactly like a key element of The Pattern. Yet no one mentions it.
In the end, if they just didn’t want to get into it, they could have engaged (ironically enough) in a wink and a nod via some Dr. Bishop hand-waving. Just have Olivia ask, “Is this another Observer?” and Dr. Bishop respond, “No, I don’t think so” and then move on with an impish lack of elaboration. Instead, they simply wrote all four of their main characters to be completely unobservant morons.