Decent episode, basically a Monster of the Week style episode from the X-Files days, probably just what we should expect after the season premiere. My only complaint was that much of the story was predictable and felt like a complete rip off of an X-Files episode, to say it was familiar was an understatement.
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Did anyone notice if the doctor and father of the monster was suspected to be affiliated with the ZFT or Fringe scientists or was he just some freelance nutjob who wanted to save his kid? I got the impression that it was the latter. How did the monster apply the blue paralytic? I didn’t see that either.
The more interesting stuff is about Olivia and her disappearance and crash. Apparently she has super hearing now, presumably as a result of something that was done to her while she was gone or as a side effect of the inter-dimensional travel. Not sure which. Nina Sharp made it sound like Olivia had something similar to her bionic arm implant done to her, but Walter made some comments like her travel would have some side effects. Maybe both will happen.
Also the shape-shifter (who do they work for anyways?) is now trying to learn what Olivia knows. The information had better be something good since it seems like the shape-shifters and their bosses know a hell of a lot more about whats going on than the Fringe division.
More magic typewriter. Just noticed that the keys in the mirror move but the ones on the desk don’t when the other person types. The explanation on this intrigues me.
Peter demanded a C-130 from the FBI in exchange for the device. Awesome!!!
Also fits in with what Abrams said about the show not being non-stop storyline. I was wondering if they were gonna throw that away after the Season Finale.
Did I notice a twinge of regret/guilt on Charlie-shifter’s face at the end? He must have gotten Charlie’s memories in the shift, maybe Charlie’s personality is starting to take over?
Help me out. At the end of last season, wasn’t Olivia in an elevator when she shifted into the alternate reality? She wasn’t in her car as I remember it. So how come, this season, they seem to be saying she shifted while in her car and then reappeared back there some time later?
Maybe, I noticed that too. I’m wondering what they are going to do about the mental aspect of shape-shifting. If the baddie is going to be pretending to be Charlie for an extended period of time, having discussions with Olivia and going to work, they are going to have to explain how he knows things somehow. Either that or they’ll have to gradually have people becoming suspicious when he acts strangely of screws something up at work. Hope they don’t just ignore it.
Gotta be something in the Chuckie/Chaz realm. I vote Chaz.
They haven’t explained it yet. I’m guessing the alternate universe has some technology that can send her back but that she has to be sent to a place where she was known to be so that there can’t be two versions of her. And then accident was because the baddies somehow knew the location they’d be using and staked it out.
It’s possible that that whole elevator thing was artificial or hallucinated and that when she swerved prior to that in the finale she actually crashed, but they yanked her out just before somehow and faked the vision of her in the hotel/elevator in order to calm her or convince her it was real.
I thought that was just the after-effects of having been shot a couple of times – he got two in the back in nurse form, and Origicharlie also fired his gun twice; they evidently take it better than normal folks, but perhaps it’s not entirely without effect.
Best line of the ep goes to Walter once more: “We’re all mutants. What’s more remarkable… is how many of us appear normal.”
I also liked the obvious joy he gets out of the little bonding moments with his son; I don’t know, but the actor makes it really seem downright heartwarming.
I love this show. I really do. But sometimes they throw in elements that make my inner production designer roll his eyes: Smurf blue venom.
I mean, okay. You want to make this stuff look odd, but did you have to make it the color of a Slurpie? It just pulled me out of an already weak episode. This one didn’t compare to last week’s at all. The overall monster story was lame and predictable. ZZzzzzzzz.
That said, I simply thought Chucky was suffering from his bullet wounds he sustained last week. But maybe you guys are right. Maybe there’s consequences to staying in a shape-shifted form. I can’t believe it’s from an extended period of stay in an alternate universe, because we have Peter as evidence, as well as Dr. Bell staying over in the other one. And probably more than that.
I did love it when spooked-out Olivia almost blew Peter’s head off. That was pretty intense, actually.
Yet, I too wonder how Chucky will be resolved, and what the details of his transformation are. I find it hard to believe that he also absorbs the person’s memory as well. But if that’s the case, then he should be able to blend in okay. Eventually, he’ll slip up and expose himself. Or Olivia will become suspicious, what with her new-found Spidey Sense.
I loved the name of the fishing lure, too, although a tad disappointing it had nothing to do with the plot. The name is kind of reminiscent of the show The Lost Room to me, for some reason.
Hey, C.H.U.D.! Cool. (Well, not really, I thought it was pretty lame. But how often do you get to refer to C.H.U.D. these days?)
Peter must have known that Walter would completely miss the point of the sad story of the boy who never got to go fishing with his dad, but he went ahead anyway.
Olivia walks into the bowling alley, and there is this close-up profile shot of a man bowling. (And darned if the actor doesn’t look really familiar… but I can’t put my finger on it.) So, we’re all thinking… this is Sam.
But wait. Maybe not.
Then Olivia starts talking to the other guy. She says…you’re Sam. So now we’re thinking this guy is Sam.
But wait. Maybe not. The guy doesn’t confirm her statement. He shoots her a look, but that’s it.
A generally subpar episode. But one thing that REALLY bothered me was after they’ve figured out that they’re facing a homicidal scorpion/mole/zombie/creature of some sort, and Olivia is sure it lives near/under the house, they send… two people with no particular weapons, armors, or tools to go capture it.
So of course it gets the jump on them and paralyzes them (I think that’s what was happening there), but then, fortuitously, accidentally crushes itself under a cop car.
Sometimes episodes should end with a SWAT team going in loaded up with night vision and body armor and blowing the baddy to smithereens. This reminded me of one of my biggest peeves about Alias (also from JJ Abrams) in which the good guys would finally track down where one of the bad guys was, and would send in… Sydney and whats-his-face with pistols.
I think the explanation is simpler than that. Somebody brought up the crash in last week’s thread, too, and I just went through Season 1 on DVD, so it’s fresh in my mind. There is an incident when Olivia is driving in New York on her way to meet Nina when she swerves out of the way of a car. It happens quickly and is seemingly inconsequential. This must be the point of transfer, though it does raise the question of how Massive Dynamic moved Olivia through a portal to the alternate reality without her even noticing (though their technology is obviously much more advanced than Jones’ crude contraption).
In this reality, of course the crash takes place, and that is where we picked up her storyline. In the alternate Manhattan, she doesn’t crash and continues on to her scheduled appointment. Which was, by the way, at the “Mutsumi Hotel on Broadway”, not the World Trade Center. So the elevator was a spatial displacement to move Olivia from the Mutsumi Hotel to the Trade Center, which seems a trivial thing for Massive Dynamic to accomplish. Also, we’ve seen no indication the portal between realities works as any sort of time machine, so there would be no possibility of having two versions of Olivia - at least, not in this reality. Presumably there were two of her over there while she met with Bell (unless she died at some point in that reality, or wasn’t born), but she was absent from this reality entirely during that time frame, and returned to the spot she crossed over at the same time she left over there. (Did we get a clear indication how long it had been between the crash of the empty vehicle and Olivia’s forcible re-entry? It was long enough for Peter and Walter to get from Boston to Manhattan.)
I must say, having just reviewed the entire first season in a condensed time frame and following along now, I’m impressed with the way the story lines mesh and seemingly inconsequential details become important episodes down the line. (“Belly’s” old typewriter and the ZFT Manifesto, Walter’s involvement in the cortexifan trials, the whole first season arc of Jones’ gang of criminals pulling off a series of heists to gather the very specific parts they needed, etc.) It speaks to a much more cohesive plan for the show than say, Lost, which got slammed for apparently throwing out more mysteries than it ever intended to resolve, or having little direction other than generating new questions. Some of that criticism was justified, some may have been overblown (I stopped watching some time in the second season), but I think Abrams may have taken that lesson to heart in the creation and guidance of Fringe. Or so one hopes.
If I ever become an expert in helping cross-dimensonal travelers, I’m going to ask to run a small woebegone bowling alley as cover.
Two “who is that guy” moments in this episode for me, Hughes was John Savage, aka Henry Scudder from Carnivale, and then Sam Weiss, who was in Black Donnellys, a show I had completely forgotten about until I looked the actor (Kevin Corrigan) up in IMDB.
Noticed that Fringe was behind CBS (CSI), ABC (Gray’s Anatomy), and NBC (Office, Community) in the ratings. I’m watching Fringe on Hulu this year because I also watch CSI & Office and my DVR only allows two recordings at a time…here’s hoping Fox doesn’t get nervous and start bouncing Fringe around in the schedule.
Also, what about Charlie’s wife? You know, the one that told horrible jokes? Is shapeshifter Charlie living with her?
There was no Observer this episode, was there? I guess this case is not part of the pattern…
I loved Peter requesting the plane. He apparently watches Criminal Minds…
But Omniscient, which X-Files episode? Early ones like “Squeeze” and “Tooms” (about the same liver-eating mutant who nests in basements) or late ones like “Alone” (venomous mutant guy who blinds people underground)? For some reason I find the, uh, borrowing, charming unlike Smallville which did likewise and annoyed me.
Question: Is there really a lure called “Night of Desirable Objects”? Neat name, but a stupid one for a lure.
And was anyone else expecting Sam Weiss to be a lot…shorter?
