Character

Walter Bishop

Walter Harold Bishop, Ph.D. is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by John Noble. Noble also plays Walter's counterpart in the show's parall…

Overview

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Walter Harold Bishop, Ph.D. is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by John Noble. Noble also plays Walter's counterpart in the show's parallel universe, who is referred to in the show as Walternate.

Arc

Walter Bishop is the son of former allied spy, Doctor Robert Bischoff (Aug. 21, 1912 - Dec. 11, 1944) (Anglicized to Bishop following World War II). His father, a scientific pioneer at the University of Berlin, conducted espionage for the Allies within the Nazi government, sabotaged German research and smuggled scientific information to the Americans. Walter grew up with a love for science, and by the 1970s, became a head developer for a U.S. Government experimental research program called "Kelvin Genetics", alongside his long-time friend William Bell. He married Elizabeth Bishop in an undisclosed year, and their son, Peter Bishop was born in 1978.

Walter and his friend William Bell conducted numerous experiments in the area of fringe science, including developing highly advanced weapons for the Army. At some point during the 1970s, Walter and Bell discovered the existence of another universe, through the heightened use of LSD, among other drugs. They constructed a "trans-dimensional window", a portal through which could view the other universe, which was more technologically advanced than our own (in "Peter", the Other Side appears to have already created digital cell phones by the year 1985). They began copying the advanced technologies they saw over there, and sold them to the Army to benefit this world. They spent much time sending objects over to the Other Side, including Bell's car, and discovered that the "multiverse" requires balance. If a car goes over to the Other Side, then a car of the same mass must be sent into our universe.

In 1985, the now seven-year-old Peter contracted a rare and savage disease. Walter attempted numerous methods to cure him, ranging from trying to build a time machine to bring a researcher who specialized in these cases from the 1930s to the present, to watching his alternate self, dubbed "Walternate", work with advanced medicine to cure his own Peter in the alternate universe, who was also ill. But Walter could not save his son, and he died in his arms. Following the funeral, which Bell never attended, Walter became consumed with watching Walternate work to save the other Peter. Through the trans-dimensional window, Walter discovered that Walternate had formulated the correct cure for his son, but did not notice as he was distracted by The Observer known as September. Knowing that Walternate would not be able to cure the other Peter, Walter created the correct compound and built a doorway into the other universe, with the intentions of curing Peter there, and then returning home.

Nina Sharp, discovering Walter's intentions and their universally-destructive repercussions, went to stop Walter from opening the wormhole on Reiden Lake (the water from the lake would absorb any excess energy the doorway released). In the ensuing struggle, Walter managed to get through the wormhole, but Nina's arm was caught in-between both universes, and she needed to have a cybernetic arm put in its place. On the journey to the Other Side, the vial holding the cure was destroyed, forcing Walter to kidnap Peter, cure him back in our universe, and then return him. On the way back, they fell through an icy lake, but were rescued by September, who warned Walter that Peter could never return to the alternate universe. After he cured Peter, he and Elizabeth could not find themselves able to send Peter back, so they decided to raise him as their own.

Walter later explained that his kidnapping Peter stirred in him for the first time a belief in God and a sensation of endless guilt that he had violated God's domain and everything resulting from the pattern was God punishing Humanity for Walters hubris.

In 1991, Walter's lab assistant, Dr. Carla Warren, was killed in a fire, and Walter was charged with manslaughter, but was deemed mentally unfit to be tried, so he was locked away inside the St. Claire's Mental Institution. Walter would spend 17 years inside St. Claire's, and was never visited by Peter. Bell, under the alias of Dr. Simon Paris, performed several brain surgeries on Walter, extracting pieces of Walter's brain tissue, which contained the memories of how he crossed universes, per the request of Walter himself, who was frightened of what he was becoming. With the pieces of his brain gone, Walter's mental stability was compromised, and he was driven insane.

In the beginning of the first season, Olivia Dunham blackmailed the adult Peter Bishop to release his father from St. Claire's, in hopes of curing her lover, John Scott. Peter became Walter's legal guardian. After they saved John (who was thought to be a traitor, but later revealed to be an undercover NSA agent), Olivia requested that Walter and Peter remain in Boston, to which Peter reluctantly agreed.

In episode 1x04, "The Arrival", September returned and asked Walter to hide a mysterious cylinder for him. Peter became fed up with his father and decided to leave Boston, but was kidnapped by a man who wanted the cylinder for himself. September encountered Peter, and appeared to read his mind, making Peter realize "The Pattern" was far more than just plain coincidence. He also began to see that Walter was not as insane as he originally thought, and a father-son relationship started to blossom. And, Walter and Peter became civilian consultants to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, under the supervision of Phillip Broyles.

During the episode, "Safe", Mitchell Loeb and a team of bank robbers used a vibrational dematerializing device to steal components from safety deposit boxes around the country. The science team realized the safe belonged to Walter, and the components were all pieces of the machine he constructed in 1985 as his original plan to save Peter, but wa

Source: Walter Bishop (Fringe) (CC BY-SA)

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