"Just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder."Oh boy, we get some Philadelphia Experiment type action this week! Evil Agent Loeb is back in force and the head of a group of mercenaries who don't even know why they are doing what they're doing...cuz Loeb would have to kill them if he told them, even though he says that they just wouldn't understand. Suuuure. For some reason there is a time limit on the grid, and according to Walter later, that cloth (netting, as Walter calls it) is very important to the operation of the effect. I wonder why Loeb has such a vested personal interest in the release of Jones? It looked like he was just beside himself [to put it politely] to see Jones materialize! Is it the mere attraction of world domination? I guess whatever that answer is, is the key to the whole Pattern of anomalies that's happening. Something tells me that Mr. Observer will not be happy with his escape.
I found myself wondering if TPTB might be trying to tell us something with Peter's obsession with people not having spleens or best friends. Probably means nothing, but the questions were odd. We get the usual gory human pieces-parts this ep, and we see a close up of the probes in Scott's head, which look painful! When Dunham said that she knew the perp stuck in the wall from the Marines I wondered, "She was a marine? Did we know that?" But no, we didn't, and she wasn't. And when we were shown that Dunham's reality was blending with Scott's, it became pretty clear that Nina would be wanting her head too if she ever found that out. And at this point, I believe that Nina didn't kidnap Dunham, she seemed shocked...but when Dunham got nabbed I shouted, "Lost2010 called it first !" :-)
Some mysteries began to gel this week. Jones gets out (didn't you just know that the lawyer was dead man walking?!) and he's in line with Loeb and maybe other FBI agents; Little Hill comes into play; and we learn that one of Walter's most serious projects was the study of time travel. I really like how TPTB "let" Walter teach us a little bit about the fringe-osity every week, this ep being the disruption of molecules, via the toy soldier standing on the rice. Nice touch, Mr. Wizard would be proud. I'm wondering if this might be the mechanism by which that sliver bullet travels through the earth.It wasn't too difficult to sense some things before they happened (why Jones needed a suit, sunscreen, and Dramamine, Nina wanting Dunham's brain, etc.) but it was still a great episode. And not too much on the "miraculous solving" side this time. But Mr. Constipated Agent, you do not get to yell at Walter anymore, got it? Walter's already forgotten more knowledge than you will ever know in your entire lifetime, so you give him some respect! :-p And speaking of Walter's knowledge, why doesn't Peter just hook up Walter's brain to some electronics and a TV monitor to figure out what he knows and what's going on? Oh well, I guess that would be too easy.
13 comments:
Nice try on the spleen stuff Capcom, but I think this show lacks all subtext. Other than the "find the Observer" game there doesn't seem to be much hidden in this show. The continuing coincidences remain far too high for me to invest in this show as anything other than something to have on in the background while I work a Sudoku. It's predictability and continuing unlikability in Olivia leave me wondering if I'll put Fringe back on the DVR come January.
But aren't you happy that we might not see her too much (except for maybe gagged and bound?!) for a few episodes? :-D
Besides, you have to watch just for Walter's story and funny-talk. Although I could do without the talk of his bodily functions. :-p
I don't know. It's all getting too cartoonish to me, especially Walter. There was one line last night that made me LOL, but I can't recall what it was.
In contrast I really like the show Life, not for its ongoing mystery though it does have one, nor for its procedural of the week, but because I love the two main characters and their quirkiness. So when they have lucky breaks or even completely unbelievable ones I cut them some slack.
But most of all I prefer when my procedural has some anchor in reality. The really old Law and Orders, the ones with Paul Sorvino, were excellent at that. And I can take an X-Files where the people are operating pretty much totally off the books, but Fringe's mix of working within the government, but not when it's inconvenient really really bugs me because mostly it just wreaks of sloppy writing.
OT: Life is awesome. Although, I seem to have missed why Charley has custody of that girl. . .
Ahem, back on topic. It would be that I finally call something when I'm joking - LOL.
Olivia was talking about never having a best friend at the front of the show. Then when she's in the bar with Peter, she says that she memorized her best friend in high school's tag number. I thought it was supposed to be another sign of how she doesn't know her own memories from John's anymore. And they called her Han? really- doesn't that seem like a strange nickname for a girl? or did they call John Han? (or it's just a continuity error)
And why doesn't Peter remember most of these things Walter keeps telling him happened to him as a child? Did some of his memories get highjacked into someone else's head in one of Walter's experiments? Are some of his memories in fact IN Walter's head.
I do keep hoping that they'll do an experiment where Olivia's memories all get transferred to someone with a personality. It's a shame that Astrid is even more likeable than Olivia - and they barely have her talk at all.
Tried not to think about radiation safety. . .tried really really hard.
Does Peter remind anyone else of The Pretender?
Well, first Memphish, I hope that you keep watching because I enjoy your critiques here. :-) Secondly, what does procedural mean, is that a writing term, i.e., plot technique or something like that?
Oh crud Lost2010, you bring up a good point, how are we supposed to know which are Dunham's memories and which are Scott's now? And "Han" is a pretty butch nickname for a chick (even in many girls' butchier college years, heheh), maybe that was Scott's nickname? I didn't really like her delivery on that line either. I really hate to be mean, but I seriously think that they made a mistake with this actress for such a pivotal main role. She has a nice soft voice though, but it just registers as monotone to me most of the time.
The radiation, I know. :-o
Oh yeah, missed your last Q: do you mean like the Pretender as in he is a genius and seems to be able to do, or has done, a myriad of jobs or tasks in life?
That was one of my favorite shows back then. Hated the special 2-hour (non)ending episode though. :-p
Oh wait no, do you mean the way the boys were cloned and raised to be genius chameleons?
All of it sort of.
Mainly it was when Walter kept talking about his potential. . .it's like Peter was a genius and Walter was training/using him to some end. . .but he never gave Peter the whole picture of what that end goal was. . .and then when Walter was taken away, Peter used those skills to go around the world becoming whoever and whatever he needed to be for his own purposes.
Like when Jared escaped the Center. . .he took all those skills they'd given him. . .and used them to his own ends.
Ah-ha! Very good observatins! :-D
Capcom, A procedural means a TV show that's main focus is on procedure such as cop and lawyer shows like CSI and Law and Order and Life or hospital shows like ER or House where the story week in/week out is the crime of the week, the trial of the week, the disease of the week and how some main group of characters resolve them and guest start rotate in and out as the patients/clients/victims/criminals. This is in contrast to serialized shows such as LOST or Grey's Anatomy where if you miss a week you may miss something so key that you don't understand or at least don't understand fully what you are watching the next week.
Procedurals vary in how character driven they are. Law and Order relies very little on developing the main characters. You know virtually nothing about them outside of their work lives. Others give you more background, but the show remains focused on solving the dilemma of the week rather than if Dr. X is going to hook up with Dr. Y like Grey's Anatomy. In general procedurals produce stand alone episodes where if you fail to watch the last 3 episodes you can still jump in this week, or you can even watch the shows out of order. A mark of a good procedural IMHO is how well they actually stick to real world procedures for cops/lawyers/doctors thus allowing you to pretend that the fictional world is real. Most are poor which is why you never want to watch a law procedural with a lawyer or a hospital procedural with a surgeon, but there are great exceptions such as the early years of Law and Order and ER.
Fringe is trying to be a sort of hybrid show. JJ Abrams has said repeatedly that he wants Fringe to be a show where you can miss a week and still keep up. So unfortunately in my opinion that leaves us with the same formula or procedure every week of some person is sick/dies of some crazy thing; Olivia's team discovers Walter knows something about that crazy thing; Walter solves their problem; and Olivia chases down the bad guys and or rushes to deliver the solution just in time. Then for good measure they throw in about 2 minutes of some overarching Pattern stuff (really the only truly interesting part to me), and occasionally they try to make the characters seem like rounded human beings like in the bar scene. But to me Fringe isn't really succeeding in its hybrid status, but is instead failing to be a) a good procedural -- the conincidences and failure to follow any sort of normal protocol mitigates heavily against that or b) a good serial because things are moving so slowly in the overarching story that my drive to know what is going on is minimal (as contrasted to LOST, for example) or c) a good character show because they haven't worked very hard on character development except for Olivia who I dislike, but in an I don't care about her as opposed to I hate her way like I felt about Ana Lucia.
Sorry for the l-e-n-g-t-h-y post.
Hey thanks! I feel like I should have known that, heheh. So I guess that the X-Files was a hybrid too.
Interesting that the procedural aspect got a high vote for being successful over at FringeTelevision a while back in a poll.
It's hard not to think of that actor as Broyles now. When I rewatched Confirmed Dead, I realized that I was assuming Naomi was involved in The Pattern - then I realized that was the wrong show.
LOL
Yeah, LOL! X-D
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