Olivia's no longer in Kansas (Review: 'Fringe' 1.20, "There's More Than One of Everything")

Not that she was ever exactly in Kansas in the first place. The Fringe Division is largely confined to the NE United States, it seems.

Not the Burning Man you normally attend (Review: 'Fringe' 1.19, "The Road Not Taken")

So, two episodes left of Season 1. I have used some of a work Amazon gift card to purchase Season 2 on Prime, because I can download the episodes and don't have to sit through the ads. Also ITVX has a nasty habit of losing your place in the episode.

Anyway, let's head back to Boston in 2009 and this show actually has some bangs.

This is also Spinal Tap... (Review: 'Fringe' 1.18. "Midnight")

Just a lot more gory, even if all the drummers survived this one.

Strange Dreams are made of Liv (Review: 'Fringe' 1.17, "Bad Dreams")

Who am I to disagree? Well, I am going to a bit, anyway.

Also, has it really been four-and-a-half months since the last review. This contains spoilers for the episode.

Not the most ultrasound episode (Review: 'Fringe' 1.16, "Unleashed")

Walter Bishop, bless his heart, is the kind of man who really needs a conservatorship or something like that. He may be a certified genius, but he's frankly certifiable in other ways as well, liable to be a danger to himself or others if carefully monitored by Astrid and/or Peter.

Massive Dynamic Risk Assessment, or a lack thereof (Review: 'Fringe' 1.15, "Inner Child")

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

It's Agent Dunham, you creepy pervert! (Review: 'Fringe' 1.14, "Ability")

So, I kind of forgot this person was in this... and of course, they are a really good actor to boot.

'Fringe' 1.13, "The Transformation"

In this episode, another passenger aircraft gets destroyed by a piece of crazy science gone wrong as a man literally turns into a beast while in the toilet. Insert joke about EasyJet here.

'Fringe' 1.12, "The No Brainer"

It's been eight years since I watched an episode of this show. Barack Obama was President, David Cameron was Prime Minister, Brexit hadn't been voted on and I had never heard of The Last of Us. We have also lost Lance Reddick to heart disease.

Anyway, I intend to resume watching this, especially as I am approaching the end of Star Trek with a plan for a fortnightly post.

As this show is from the same production company as Alias and shares a bunch of behind the scenes personnel - such as Shauna Duggins, who did some of the stunt doubling for Anna Torv here, comparisons between the two are inevitable.

Sydney Bristow and Olivia Dunham could have a fascinating lunch together.

Anyway, this one involves people's brains liquefying after they click on a pop-up and watch some weird video. In 2009, most of us already knew not to engage with strange pop-ups...

Fringe 1.11: Bound

I love Olivia Dunham. Not in the romantic sense of the word (she's a fictional character for one thing) but in the sense that she has just become awesome. Yes, the bottom-kicking female has become a bit of a cliché these days, but if it ain't broke don't fix it.

She does indeed get out of her predicament in style, getting a guard to give her some water... then smashing the glass over his head. She then retrieves some key evidence before getting out and later on has some pretty awesome scenes. Before that, she ends up strapped to a stretcher while a guy in a very creepy mask (and distinctive shoes) looks at her, then gives her a spinal tap.

Speaking of spinal taps, this episode definitely goes up to 11 in several regards. Firstly, the deadly science thing of the week, which involves a gigantic cold virus killing people and coming out of their mouths. While cold viruses don't actually look like slugs (they're far more spherical in shape and can be bought as adorable plushies), it's still a very arresting image.

Also, Walter is definitely in the Mad Scientist category this week - giving LSD to a caterpillar for no obvious reason and showing a bit too much excitement about the Ebola virus while his son and Olivia look for said giant slug in a lecture theatre.

There's definitely some very shady conspiracy going on here; Olivia is now in something up to the neck of her stylish work suit.

Only drawback was the scenes with Olivia's sister and niece, which just seem too much like filler to me.

Conclusion

Minor family stuff aside, this was a very good episode of the show that is now well and truly kicked into gear.

9/10

Fringe 1.10: Safe

This episode features Amir Amirson, later to appear in The Blacklist and the plot here is actually more crazy than an episode of that show, which starts with a man getting literally stuck in a wall and ends with someone being teleported.

Speaking of crazy, Walter Bishop is definitely very funny in this one - his mind works in his own distinct way and no-one else can quite grasp how. However, Olivia and John are both very good in this - the scene in the bar with the card tricks in particular.

Jared Harris appears in this again and it's clear that he's doing what British actors do best - play bad guys. This also has an appearance by James Frain, a British-born actor who has turned up in quite a few American works, as a lawyer who has to get some unusual things for his client... and won't sadly appear again.

There's even a good cliffhanger as Abrams can now have his cake and eat it by putting the female lead in peril... which she will course get out of by herself in style.

Conclusion

A very good episode indeed - the show appears to have finally got fully going.

9/10

Fringe 1.9: "The Dreamscape"

A very Olivia-focussed episode on this; as she investigates the death of a Massive Dynamic analyst who ends up throwing himself out of a window after being apparently attacked by killer butterflies, she decides to go back into the sensory deprivation tank from earlier in the season to retrieve some of the late John Scott's memories that ended up in her brain. We get an indication that Scott was definitely a dodgy geezer and there's clearly more to be mined from that. Anna Torv is clearly settling into the role now, demonstrating someone who is prepared to risk her own health for justice.

This gives some interesting material for John Bishop, who is rivalling, nay beating, the Twelfth Doctor, in saying inappropriate things in certain contexts... seriously, you don't say that around someone half your age unless you're in a relationship with her. The man is definitely not quite right in the head, although probably not a hospital case.

The Massive Dynamic arc is starting to shape up nicely; it's clear that their dodgy extends further than, as we learn in this episode, using hallucinogenic venom from toads on people without their consent.

Conclusion

A good episode. Not exactly completely ribbiting... sorry... but definitely kept me engaged during it.

8/10

Fringe 1.8: "The Equation"

I had to stop this quite early on to look up where I recognised a red-haired woman from. Turns out that Gillian Jacobs was in Community, but I've only ever seen four episodes of that, so it seems odd that I'd remember that face... I thought initially it was Elena Satine, who played the annoying Louise Ellis in Revenge... and on looking up her up on IMDB, she appears to have born in Georgia i.e. the former Soviet state. Very interesting.
****
Rather than do a long drawn out post, I'm just going to outline some key points about this episode, which sees Walter have to return to his former mental hospital to find out key information to save an abducted boy.

• John Noble is investing Walter Bishop with considerable depth and humanity; you really do feel for the poor guy.
• I'm sure that real-life mental institutions are less oppressive than that, at least in the 21st century.
• J.R. Orci has been involved in a number of Abrams shows and The Blacklist as writer and producer. Oddly enough, his episodes on the latter are not in the more disturbing category... unlike his work here which is definitely on the horrific side.
• Do TV shows ever find that their gloomy ex-industrial facility is booked by someone else?
• When you enter the room where the kidnap victim is being held, Olivia, for crying out loud - make a Spot Check!
• What's with rejuvenating an apple? A test run for something else?

Conclusion

A good intriguing episode with a lot of questions being raised that I'm sure will be answered in time.

8/10

'Fringe' and 'Star Trek' reviews

Going forward, I'm aiming to do the former on a fortnightly basis and the latter hopefully weekly. This plan may end up slipping.

Fringe 1.7: "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones"

I have actually been giving serious considering to calling this watch-through off and choosing to focus on other things; however, following this episode I'm going to park that decision for another day.

This episode is a mixture of good and bad. The bad involves some stuff with Olivia and an old flame that provides us with some rather dull talky scenes.

The good? The main plot involving a big parasite and a literal heart attack allows for a pretty decent race against the clock scenario with one rather large extra challenge. Also Jared Harris (best known for Mad Men) gets a great scene in a prison - I get a feeling he may turn up again. Getting key information from him involves the maddest science I've ever seen on any show, Fringe or otherwise; it's clear there's going to be a lot of this and it's really best to just roll with it.

Last twist is very good as well and will make things interesting for later. One final note - the name of the prison has to be a joke for the German speakers in the audience...

Conclusion

Not too shabby; things are starting to come together. Just wish they come together a bit faster than they currently are.

7/10

 

'Fringe' 1.6, "The Cure"

Yes, I know it's been nearly ten months since I last watched this, but a lot of things came up. However, with most of my US shows having nearly wrapped up, I hope to watch some more of this series. Mind you, it's going to need to be better than this episode.

****
A woman is thrown out of a white van in the middle of a street by a guy in a hazmat suit. She goes into a nearby dinner, where she ends up making everybody bleed from the eyes before her head explodes. It's a rather grisly episode again, although the actual head exploding bits are not shown, as this isn't HBO (I couldn't bear to look at one particular scene in Game of Thrones).

Thus the FBI are called in and the team have to locate another missing woman before the same thing happens to her. There's a pharmaceutical company boss who is clearly evil because of his facial hair, an interesting deal with Massive Dynamic, who are shaping up to be big player and a scene involving radioactivity that made my willing suspension of disbelief fail. A lot of the episode feels a bit padded out to me and I'm not sure why this is a 48-minute format; did it air that way?

Olivia gets some character development (although that pesky accent issue rises again) including a great speech on how being guided by emotions is not necessarily a bad thing - and how it's generally a sexist comment levelled by men against women. Walter is again superb; clearly on a higher and different mental track then everyone else, although the negative social consequences of it are also clear to see. Peter Bishop acts as a Baby Bear between the two polar opposites of Olivia and Walter.

One final point: if you're going to do an armed raid on a place, isn't it a good idea to have an ambulance ready and waiting outside?

Conclusion

I was clock-watching for a good part of this episode, which did rather drag out. There were some good bits, definitely, but this is a mediocre episode.

6/10

'Fringe' 1.5: "Power Hungry"

Nobody expects the Olivia Inquisition!

Yes, it's been over a year since I last watched an episode of Fringe and with the Star Wars gig, Abrams' star has risen considerably (no pun intended).

So, back to one of the weirdest shows I've ever seen; this one involves a delivery guy with an enhanced electromagnetic field that means he unintentionally overloads electronics when stressed. This episode starts with him causing an elevator to crash killing eight people (he survives)... much like The Blacklist, this show loves a good horrible death to begin with.

So, Dunham and the Bishops (that's a good name for a rock band) are on the case, in an episode that has some good moments - especially for the delivery guy. You feel for him, although the plot has been used before (indeed in the early chapters of the first Harry Potter novel). However, a cliched villain (he's British) lets this one down a lot.

There's a bit involving pigeons that's just hilarious... John Bishop is a wonderful 'mad scientist'. Liv gets some visions of her dead (or at I think he's dead) former boyfriend that involve her snogging him. Watch out, you'll be engaging in nocturnal pottery before you know it.

7/10

'Fringe' 1.4: "The Arrival"

Yes, I know it has been many months since I watched one of these... other stuff came ahead of it.

An odd episode right from the first scene, especially the guy with no eyebrows (The Observer) and a lot of questions asked but not answered - I suspect that we'll get some of them answered as we go along and others not at all.

The last bits of the episode were excellent and the cliffhanger in particular, but the rest of it dragged a bit.

7/10

Fringe 1.3 "The Ghost Network"

Getting a bit better this - the concept and overall solution of the mystery was an interesting one and the ending was rather good, setting up an arc nicely.

Wouldn't trust Walter with my brain though...

8/10

Fringe 1.2: "The Same Old Story"

A bit of a slow burner this one, despite containing some rather disturbing concepts from the get-go. The fact that the plot to an extent reminded me of a Robert Holmes Doctor Who story from the 1970s did affect my enjoyment a bit.

The 48-minute runtime was a bit too long in my opinion as well. I still don't like Olivia's voice.

6/10.