Oops! 
Curse you English language and no gender-neutral pronoun!
John Noble rocks. He brings so much depth to Walter. He can go from vulnerable, absent-minded and delicate, to irritated, obsessed and razor sharp in the blink of an eye. He’s got some really subtle expressions, too. Not used to that quality of acting on the tube.
Half Man Half Wit: I was thinking the same thing during the episode. Where the hell does all that mass come from? It’s not an original irritation either, I have the same menacing thoughts when watching the Hulk, or any other transforming type creature do its thing. Pisses me off, it does.
But still, I love this sort of story-telling, so it looks like I’m in for the long haul. Faults and all.
In the opening credits I saw a good omen: Darin Morgan. He wrote the best, and loopiest, “The X-Files” eps, like, “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.”
It’s the capitol Greek letter phi. It’s commonly used as the symbol for the golden ratio, which has all kinds of strange properties, including some related to the Fibonacci sequence. I think the Fibonacci sequence was one of the sequences of numbers Doctor Crazy was reciting at the end when he was trying to go to sleep, but I wasn’t paying attention closely and am not sure.
I absolutely love the floating 3-D letters. Although I was quite put off that in the shot where you see the letters from above next to the circular skyscraper, and you can see some of the letters reflected in the skyscraper windows, they are reflected as if the skyscraper is flat, not circular.
Best (worst) line of the night, and possibly the most hilariously dumb line of TV dialog I’ve ever heard: “the events appear to be scientific in nature”.
That’s not a minor quibble; it’s a description of something inexcusably stupid. Did they actually do that? Well, I’ll save an hour of week not watching that bullshit.
It was the absolutely outrageous stuff like this that made me give up on it. Done once, it’s almost tolerable if it’s simply to get the episode going with a shock. Later on they went through a truly ludicrous sequence and I switched it off:
“Jules Verne wrote a story about images burned on the retina …”
>“That’s a work of fiction.”
“… but maybe you could analyze the state of the neural pathways at death …”
>“No way that would remain for any amount of time.”
“… except that she took a muscle relaxant before she died…”
>“But how would you be able to analyze it?”
“… you’d need a device that would…”
<>“TELEVISION!”
As far as I can tell it’s not being presented as a joke. It’s not that they’re in a world like ours, but with confirmed paranormal/hypertechnological advancements, it’s that there are practically no laws governing reality whatsoever. It’s impossible to relate to, or try to follow the plot, because it’s only going to make sense after they say what it is.
Next week the plot might hinge on the fact that badgers can infallibly track gorillas, as long as the gorilla is standing on its head and is holding a AA battery in its hand. Presumably every fifth grader in their world knows this, but it’s tougher for us over here.
A stronger cast might be able to overcome it, but the crazy scientist (a redundant phrase, presumably) is the best they have, and he’s neither able to nor supposed to carry the show.
I missed the reason for why the cow has to be in the lab.
Gosh, you guys sure take your fiction seriously. To me the minute they said “Fringe” as in “fringe science”, I knew we were in fantasyland and just went along with the ride. Since I enjoyed the way the 2 stories so far were shown, the characters and the actors, I’ll be watching again.
By the way, the computer and lab technology shown in CSI, NCIS, Missing, and other crime procedurals is nearly as unrealistic, but for some reason it bothers me more in those.
Dood… free milk!
Besides all the other ludicrous stuff that’s been mentioned that in no way resembles reality at all is the most egregious yet:
That digital bleep-itybleepbleep-ity-bleep sound the computers make when text appears on screen.
Something about cow DNA being 98% the same as human DNA so it is an ethical test subject. Yeah, it makes as much sense as any other science in the show.
DUMB DUMB DUMB…
I’m just losing my tolerance for the show. My biggest laugh is when the son turns to the old man and says “Can’t you speak like real people” In a show that is torturiously long in exposition and full of awful stilted dialogue that was a gem.
Other low points:
The entire meeting scene where we are re introduced to every character and reminded again what a genius Mr 190 IQ is even though he’s done nothing to demonstrate that fact so far in two episodes (Nothing worse then when they have all the characters tell you the strengths of a hero instead of, you know, showing it and letting us decide for ourselves)
The Incredible growing infant:
Where did the mass come from and how about the energy required to produce that growth? ( Sadly this could have been easily fixed by having him “consume” the mother during his rapid growth thus also giving a full ick factor opening and while being fantastical having some plausible means of gaining that much mass.)
The image retained on the retina:
Ok let’s assume that by magic science and lasers you can record the last image of the deceased… why is the last image the bridge? Wouldn’t it have been, you know, the ceiling, or the face of the killer? I know they went out of their way to have super soldier make her look at the bridge because the plot required it but showing her with her eyes open later on the operating table kinda makes that whole thing moot.
The 17 year old car:
A throw away bit for sure but why bother? I mean all I could think was that the battery would need replacing and the oil has been away from the engine parts so long is it worth it to waste time fixing it and driving away. Would that sucker be able to move after sitting that time? (I admit I’m not sure on that just wondering)
Instamatic home made De Fib machine:
Not only does it start hearts without singing flesh but it miraculously eliminates any anasthetic in the body that your patient was overdosing on just prior to use.
EEEEVIL corporation.
Anybody else sick of the cliche of a corporation that controls the destiny of billions?
I mean they even had to make a big point of it with the resume of things the company does when they tried to hire the agent.
Ok the good
I like the nutty proffesor. Some great acting with what could be an awful character. Unfortunately his brilliance tends to really show the weakness of the other actors or at least their lack of real characters.
Favorite moment: The popcorn scene. (Now at least someone is working hard to make this work!!!)
I’ll give it one more episode, who knows it may improve but my brain can’t handle much more of the bad writing.
Also, I *hate *the way the characters on any CSI clone tell each other things both characters already know, only it’s done as exposition to explain to us watching. And that they never ever wear one of those protective suits so as to not contaminate the crime scene. I assume it’s because there’d be less cleavage (sp?).
The biggest thing that bothered this week in **Fringe **we was the use of flashlights in fairly well lit rooms. Actually, flashlights always bother me. Turn on the damn lights, you’re the cops, you have nothing to hide. And nothing gives you away as easily as the flickering of a flashlight moving around (note to self when I turn CEO of The Universe - Send memo to scriptwriters that burglars should not use flashligts).
The science in Fringe is stupid, bordering on silly. Was there any reason to pull out the eye ball? Why does a woman with an artificial hand get sweaty palms when flying?
But I’m entertained and think Anna Torv is a babe, so I’ll keep watching.
See, there’s “fringe science”, which presumably has at least some scientific rigor applied and is probably at least internally consistent and then there’s “whatever whackadoodle notion our crack team of literature major writers can come up with that will serve to drive the plot along”.
This show is squarely in the latter category. Which is infuriating.
Yes. Oh my god, yes. That was driving me insane the entire time. Why would the even assume that the last image on the girl’s retina would be anything other that the face of the killer or the ceiling? The minute that possibility was even brought up, I was expecting someone to say, “So we can see, what, a blurry picture of the ceiling half-obscured by her eyelid?”
Didn’t really like the show any more than last week, but at least we got to see Joshua Jackson with his shirt off.
The lead actress drives me crazy. I don’t know if she could possibly have less charisma.
Yeah, this was anticlimactic.
She lacks charisma in a black bikini bra and panties. That takes some doing.
Well, only one hand is fake, so the other can sweat just fine.
When I was watching live, I heard her say it made her “hand” sweat.
As far as the science goes, I wish they had the growing infant trying to devour everything to get the mass it needed. I can’t see why they wouldn’t make it even more horrible by making it cannibalize its mother.
I’m more forgiving of recalling an image from a dead eye than most people.
I’m not as forgiving of the misuse of “triangulation.” You could extrapolate the location of the warehouse from the picture of the bridge, but not with triangulation unless you have two images with which to triangulate.
I don’t see the corporation being treated as eeeeeevil. They’re being treated as mysterious. They could be fighting the pattern, the accidental cause of the pattern, or actively causing the pattern. It’s not clear.
There are a lot of clunker lines, but I like the premise of the show and hope it can become something as good as X-Files.