Fringe

"Episode 1.17"

2009-04-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

"So ergo, you were not actually there."
No time for rewatch and analysis this week, family crisis still pending. I didn't care too much for this ep anyway.

That's gotta hurt. How do the special effects guys do that?!

"A bleak horizon approaches." I hope that we see some of that horizon before the end of this season, I so want to see if/how TPTB will portray inter-dimensional-multiverse travel. Will the show end like that one episode of Ren and Stimpy where they were in outer space and they imploded the universe?

Poor "Olive The Other Specimen". How is it that Olivia has no recollection of her early internment at all? And what will happen when she does remember? Stay tuned for the next Rocky and Bullwinkle show, same time, same channel.

"Episode 1.16"

2009-04-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

"Just put a sign warning me not to confuse your toxic playthings with breakfast."
Oh well, I was sick this week and an ongoing family element reared its head, so I didn't get a chance to rewatch and fully analyze this ep sufficiently yet. I really enjoyed this one, and it felt like the scary old X-Files monster days, if I may compare it that way once again. There was monster tension, monster mythology, and it's all good to me. Although, the woods of Upstate New York don't seem quite as scary as the foggy ferny forests of Vancouver where The Files was mostly filmed.

Charlie gets some good story time this week, albeit via being victimized by this week's Bugged Eyed Monster. I'm glad that TPTB didn't kill him off, although he's still a bit stiff I like Charlie better as time passes. And it adds some realism that at least one of the team has taken a hit in all this craziness, they were beginning to look like The Untouchables otherwise.

Who ya gonna call? Fringe Busters! Or the Mod Squad, heheh. Pretty cool.

Every paranormal event causes Walter to confront more and more of his past work and this week he comes literally face to face with some of it. I really liked how TPTB has Walter desiring to be increasingly taking more responsibility in making amends for his past work, the more he discovers and remembers what exactly it was that he was doing. But as he remembers more of it, will he also lose the innocence his insanity has given him and regain the desire to resume his ethically questionable pursuits? I wonder. John Noble is doing such an incredible job of portraying Walter's conflicting intellect, thoughts, personality, and fortitude! His range of talents are fully capable of covering Walter's range of personal complexity (also deserving of kudos to the writers!), it's really amazing to watch.

"Episode 1.15"

2009-04-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

"If that's the problem, then there's no problem!"
Well, no time to cogitate this episode as good as it was, with Easter and another fantastic Lost episode to talk about. Suffice it to say that we get a glimpse of a younger (or older devolved?) Observer-being, who was found in an abandoned warehouse tunnel. Did this little one traverse the dimension as alluded to by the last episode? Or was he dropped here to add to the ranks of other Observers that are watching the travelers from other dimensions arrive at ours? At any rate, this gives Olivia a link to them, to add to Walter's and Peter's past link. I'm surprised that Walter didn't think of his previous encounter with one before (that he told Peter about) with them both having that "follicular dilemma". Or at least it should have reminded him of some kind of food as usual, like maybe a vanilla ice-cream cone.

We also get another squeamish serial killer subplot, which I won't even mention except to say, "Don't get in the van you idiot, didn't you ever see 'Silence Of The Lambs'?!" Stupid broad. It cracked me up that she was Becky #1 from 'Roseanne', as well as one construction worker being the friend from 'King Of Queens', and the other being the funny marine from 'Major Dad'.

Walter and Olivia both turn on their empathetic babysitting powers in the lab, and we see that the child has a mental link with Olivia. I find it as difficult to believe that the CIA won't find out where they hid him, as I had believing that Scully could hide her boy from the aliens via adoption. We'll see how that goes. Did I miss anything important?

"Episode 1.14"

2009-02-24T17:15:00.000-08:00

"If you survived that...you'd likely wish you hadn't."
In this episode we get to learn a lot more about Mr.Jones, the curtain parts a little more on what our protagonists are up against, and some clues are given as to the "sides" that are involved in all of this scientific drama. For some reason I was a little annoyed that the Observer was standing on the street where the old newspaper guy's face got sealed up. Is Observer a part of either side in the race to whatever finish is imminent, or is he some kind of referee in the game? Either way, he's pretty cold-hearted about the whole thing it seems when humans become the collateral damage.

Here we learn that "what was written will come to pass", according to Loeb. I must say, Peter sounds pretty sexy when he's pronouncing "Zerstorung durch Fortschritte der Technologie". Then of course we get to see more of Peter's "weird connections". I kind of like the book dealer guy, he's funny in a snarcastic New Yorker kind of way. I hope that he gets to be in more episodes, he'd be a colorful addition to the cast.

It was very hard to not crack up while Olivia was going through her mental exercises to get the lightbox to obey her thought commands. Never mind, that would be hard for even The Amazing Kreskin to pull off convincingly. I very much enjoyed Jones taking Harris down a few notches. Harris is a buffoon and no match for someone like Jones, Loeb, Dunham, or even a squirrel. But now Jones is coming apart at the seams or something. See, Dr. McCoy was right about shuffling your molecules around in a transport machine. And I tend to agree with the sentiment of the manifesto that stated that, "The advances of science, which are supposed to expand our knowledge of the universe, will, if not carefully controlled, destroy the world as we know it". Take me back to simpler "The Waltons" type days any time.

So blah, blah, the conflict of racing to diffuse the bomb, Olivia's been experimented on, and she has to take another lightbox test that really counts this time or else. Let's get to the juicy stuff. Did I understand correctly that according to the ZFT manifesto that there are two (or more) factions at play within mulitverses that are breaching the boundaries of their respective universes and encroaching on others' to detrimental results? Aha, now we may be seeing J.J.'s sentiment for this show. Not so much anti-technology (as per Jacob in "Lost"), but perhaps just to say, let's not be too hasty to stray outside of our known universe here. I personally think that there's not too much worry needed there, NASA hasn't been allowed to advance beyond a snail's pace for the past 30 years. Although there is that new particle collider...

According to the transcript, Walter's voice-over says: "We think we understand reality. But our universe is only one of many. The unknown truth is that the way to travel between them has already been discovered - by beings, much like us, but whose history is slightly ahead of our own. The negative aspect of such visitation will be irreversible both to our world and to theirs. It will begin with a series of unquantifiable natural occurrences - difficult to notice at first - but growing, not unlike a cancer, until a simple fact becomes undeniable. Only one world will survive. It will either be us - or them."

Wow. It sounds as if: when beings from separate universes via their technological advancements, cross over into another universe or dimension, that both worlds will begin to be affected adversely by the contact (cataclysmic material decay or the scenery-chewing Langoliers?), and that it cannot be reversed. Very interesting as well as frightening. And Walter seriously, just how much of this do you know that you've already forgotten?!

"Episode 1.13"

2009-02-08T15:19:00.001-08:00

"It gets worse."
Okay so, Mulder and Scully are investigating this spiky werewolf on a crashed plane and.....j/k, heheh. But the idea of this mutation doesn't seem possible to me. Less possible than say, Flukeman or Stretch-Armstrong-Tooms on the X-Files? I dunno. I guess I'll just go with it and try not to analyze how an instantaneous morphing into such a beast with all that spiky back-hair could happen like that.

** Wow, Broyles and Nina told Dunham a lot of what she deserved to know in this episode, which I thought was great. It was good to see Nina back also.
** Wow, Dunham told Charlie a lot of what he deserved to know about her tank adventures with Scott -- and he believed her!
** For Lost fans, Walter is Dunham's "constant" while she is in the tank (while she grosses herself out with No-Tell-Motel memories of herself and Scott).
** Sometime soon Dunham needs to tell Walter that Scott's brain was being kept alive so that he can keep the proper notes on what is going on with her in the tank. I think that he'd find it very interesting, and it would help him understand why she was able to interact with Scott in the present, when he keeps telling her that isn't supposed to happen.
** I couldn't believe that they didn't keep Hicks in a cage at the Harvard lab in case he began to morph again, how dumb is that? The lack of safety in that lab is unbelievable, but I'm told that's common at colleges. Although why would the FBI allow a subject with a potential werewolf virus go back out into the public? And of course he did re-morph in the lab, and they weren't ready with the tranq-gun. Tsk, tsk.
** I like Peter more and more every week. Broyles too.
** "John Scott says 'Hi!'"....just like Libby (more for Lost fans). :-)
** I like that Torv doesn't mind getting messy looking when the story calls for it. We have to give her points for playing Dunham in such an un-glamorous way so well.
** I guess that we won't see Scott any more, which is too bad. But it's good that he was exonerated in her eyes at least.
** On a side note, Dunham's sister is beginning to get on my nerves, but I'll wait to see if they do anything more with her character than have her whining at Dunham, and giving Pete the eye, before I get too crabby about it. :-)

Overall I liked this episode, not a lot, but enough. We got a bit more information about the bad guys behind some of the biological and chemical crimes. It was great to have Broyles and Nina give Dunham a mini tour of the MD areas of her need-to-know interests (and ours!), but I'd like to see more of that soon. Putting an end to Dunham's and Scott's cross-the-ether relationship was inevitable I suppose, but like I said, I'm sad to see Scott gone forever if he is.

"Episode 1.12"

2009-02-01T17:12:00.001-08:00

"All these people, and they don't have a clue."

Gosh, it's been more difficult that I expected to talk about Lost and Fringe and chew gum at the same time. Oh well, onward and upward. Was this week the first stand-alone episode, or are we supposed to just assume that this non-working slacker-dad was able to buy and build a room full of high tech computer equipment, and, was smart enough to design a viral program that can melt people's brains without any help from The Pattern people? I've been too busy reading Lost blogs to catch up on the Fringe blogs, so I don't know.

I like how Pete is getting used to his father's idiosyncrasies and is becoming more understanding and protective of him. One of these days Pete is going to find out some more about his past of being a child lab rat and will go two steps backward in his affections though, I bet. What was that coin that Pete bargained the shop guys skills with, a gold doubloon? Was Pete involved with treasure hunting too in the past? :-)

It was interesting that both Fringe and Lost had sub-stories of scientists who messed up their lab assistants somehow. And I really appreciated how TPTB had Walter dealing with his assistant's kin, that was touching. Walter was more in the background in this ep, but was as entertaining as usual. I hope that he figures out why he purchased the $2K worth of baboon seminal fluid! :-o

I can barely talk about Harris, he's such a tool, and there were just so many people like him where I worked in IBM it's too painful to even b*tch about him. It was incredibly gratifying the way that Broyles told him off. Sigh. All in all, the sub-stories were more interesting to me than the main story here. And I yelled, "You idiot!" at Dunham a lot less this week than previously. Although I did have to yell at Pete to get out of the van already!

"Episode 1.11"

2009-01-26T08:25:00.000-08:00

"I'm not even sure that we all exist on the same plane of consciousness"
I hear ya Walter, the story of my life. Anyway I'm way too little and too late here because of the Lost premier(s), but I'll throw out a thought for this ep just the same. Good episode, but I guess that this one kind of left me flat for some reason. I'd like to see more details and fewer random monsters about now, but I accept that the monster-du-jour is Fringe's M.O.

Olivia's escape happened too easily for me, but maybe that will work itself out in future eps. Dunham, and we, were given more confusion about who is on what side, and whether or not she's working for or against whomever is trying to do the right thing (whatever that might be). I was happy that Loeb wasn't killed off because he is a great character, and somehow I believe what he told Dunham in the interrogation room about how they were trying to save her. There was no love lost for his hard edged wife for me though, who seemed as spiky to me as the slugs. I hope that Nina can pull a few strings to get the moron from Olivia's past out of her way, you just don't need those kind of jerks around in the workplace -- but they are always there nonetheless.

Heheh, of course the CDC professor had a freshman hottie on the side, don't they all? Sheesh. It was neat that Charlie asked Pete to break the law for him, but the phone tapping seemed kind of lame for some reason. And that's about all I've got for this one. Except to say that the common cold germ doesn't look like a spiky slug (see Walter's notebook screencap on FringeTelevision for a better explanation of the organism), they look like this, and you can buy one at http://www.giantmicrobes.com/:

"In Which We Meet Mr. Twilight Dad"

2009-01-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

The other night after I saw "Twilight", "Mr. Jones" aired again and it's always fun to match actors from your favorite shows in other things. Apparently Burke has acted in many movies, etc. but I've never noticed him until now. It's not quite as much fun as spotting older actors who had been in the original "Star Trek" series though (or who played a monster on "The X-Files"), but a lot of them are no longer around to spot any way, so newbies will have to suffice.

Only a couple more weeks until we get to see Olivia in her abducted situation. I wonder if they'll keep her locked up in a fancy hotel room or in a skanky basement?

"Episode 1.10"

2008-12-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

"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.

"Episode 1.09"

2008-11-30T13:35:00.000-08:00

"Just your average multinational corporation specializing in secret bioresearch and defense contracting."
"Dreamscape" had a great episode intro, one of the best! But I SO wanted it to be real killer butterflies with razor wings. And I wish that J.J's shows would stop using the word b#st#rd (and SOB). :-p

So, Dunham actually has friends in the real world. But duty calls of course and it's back to work for her, where she gets another glimpse of Scott at the scene of the accident. And Nina was back in all her slippery corporate presence, but Dunham gets a zinger in as to Nina's clinical attitude towards the death of her employee. I really liked her explanation though: "Where one's domain includes the cutting edge of science, there is a risk of exposure to ideas that aren't easy to reconcile...for some it's too much to take." Or, a little too much immorality going on for their conscience to reconcile maybe Nina? A great load of BS-corporate-speak there -- she probably knows what happened, but it was a great line for her cover-up angle.

There is no way that I would have opened those thumping cargo boxes in the storage building like Dunham did, geez. The frog-juice causing vivid hallucinations and physical manifestations is a lot like the poison on the darts in the movie "Young Sherlock Holmes", a little known Spielberg film that should have had many sequels (I highly recommend it for family viewing as long as the little ones aren't scared by some murderous Egyptian cultists, which is actually tame by today's standards). Why did Dunham see the butterflies wiggle though, did she maybe get a whiff of the frog juice in the victim's apartment?

Pete's personal background story is dangerously creeping into his new life some more. And Dunham's second dip in the tank brings her closer to the threat of insanity, according to Walter. I'm beginning to wonder if Walter spent too many "adult swim" moments in the tank himself, which might be what sent his mind over the edge and his body into the funny-farm. I also think that Scott's brain is being kept "alive" at MD in a petri dish which is why he was able to acknowledge Dunham in their shared consciousness during her isolation tank moment. :-) Great epsiode all around, I thought, I enjoyed it.

"Episode 1.08"

2008-11-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

"Does anyone care what I think?"
This post is too little too late because I sprained my right wrist badly last Tuesday, and wasn't able to do much. I'm "mousing" with my left hand which is very awkward (kind of like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time), so I've kept my interweb activities to the important things, like blogging on the Lost blogs! Heheh.

Gosh, Walter really broke my heart in this episode. John Noble is such an incredible actor, I just wanted to jump into the screen and hug Walter! In the scenes where he was going back to the asylum, and when he was in it, you could really sense Walter's apprehensions and fears. Maybe it's just because when I was a kid some old movies that I had watched made me afraid that someone would commit me and I'd never get out again (maybe it was that movie The Snakepit that clinched it for me), but to me those were some of the most moving scenes in the series so far. We also witness Walter having visions of himself in the asylum. I wonder if he's had those before (and we just don't know it yet) or if it's happening to him only since he was put back behind the padded walls. It was kind of like Walter's sane self was watching over him, and was there to make sure that Walter didn't lose it again. Sort of like, "Stay with me Walter, don't go back there." I hope that we find out what that was all about soon.

The science was interesting this week, something about making solids penetrable, and the similarities between math and music. Any musicians out there who can give some insight on that subject?

We are finally shown blatant applications of the GGGRs (green, green, green, red lights) that have shown up as easteregg clues since the beginning (see FringeTelevision for details). We now know that it can be used somehow for hypnoses among other things. Dunham was amazingly void again this week, haha, and when she was standing near the hotel (or whatever it was) talking on the phone I was screaming, "Red castle! Red castle!" to her on the TV. :-)

"Episode 1.07"

2008-11-16T14:21:00.000-08:00

"Sie haben keine zeit mehr!"
This week's episode is very faced-paced (not like they all aren't), trying to find answers before an entity that reminds me of the giant man-eating flower in "Little Shop Of Horrors" chomps on an agent's heart (but wasn't his purr so cuddly?!). And yes, we get another infected body in the lab with few Hazmat precautions (somebody call OSHA on these guys!), and more electrical hookups to brains (poor Pete finds out that this isn't his first time).

It is mentioned that someone is "trafficking scientific progress" and that doesn't sound good. To me that could mean that someone is doing nefarious para-scientific work that's going to the lowest (or highest, depending on what the goal is) bidder, and "They" don't much care how the goal is reached just as long as it is reached. It also makes me think that "They" are assigning different jobs to different "vendors", much like most corporate work is vended out nowadays, only the purpose here is to keep all the labs in the network separate and ignorant of what all the other projects might be. It's also a good idea to spread out your work if you are trying to keep it hidden, i.e., if a project is found at one location, all the other locations are safe and still have to be tracked down...in which case you have time to move the lab or obscure as necessary. I hope that it doesn't take too long to get into the meat of these elements. But still most everything here is happening in and around "Bahston", Mass.

Walter is especially annoying to Broyles in this caper, so I'm wondering if there is an approaching confrontation between them at some point that will reveal that they have a connection like all the others that link Walter to MD, the Observer, etc. I didn't quite understand all the code business, so I'll have to watch it again to try to get that straightened out in my head. I'll take some help on that too. :-) It doesn't seem like Fringe fans are taking apart the elements on this show in detail yet (you know, the way we do for Lost), I wish that I could find a blog that did - maybe it's out there but I just haven't found it yet. I feel as if I am missing a lot of important obscure points.

Observer was spotted in the German airport, I missed catching him this time, but I forgot to pay attention. Take a look at the episode comments on Fringe-Television to get the translations of all the German spoken in the prison (thanks to Steven!). I was very intrigued by what the prisoner was saying to Dunham about who she is supposed to trust, or not. I mean, it's obvious that there are some shady confidences going on here such as between Broyles and Nina (hey, where's Nina been?!), and Dunham and Scott, but is there an even more surprising "criss-cross" to surface in the future? And I have to say that the twist at the end really tricked me, I wasn't expecting that at all.

"Episode 1.06"

2008-10-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

"The cure made her a perfect candidate for weaponization"
Well, this episode opened with a very long (uninteresting, sorry) intro that was punctuated by lots of ketchup. It happens in Mass., so I have a question: if someone is "experimenting on the whole world", why do these weird things always happen in or around Boston? Just askin'. Mulder and Scully got to traipse across the US (even though we knew that they were really still in Vancouver, heheh).

The story we get this week hit close to home for me, after being through the whole chemotherapy experience -- I can vividly relate to the fear of watching someone pumping gallons of bizarre toxic unpronounceable chemicals into your veins. And here we see one of the Lost taglines ("The cure is worse than the disease") getting an even more serious treatment. Apparently someone is infusing the "cure" with a substance that sets the patient up for becoming a walking weapon. Interesting. But of course experiments do have their failures before perfection is attained, and these failures are tres gory!

Another question that I need to ask is, how is it that our intrepid para-science team can bring highly contagious corpses back to their ad hoc basement lab with no precautions? I mean, I know that they are set up for the bizarre, but why are the exploded bodies contagious in the diner but not the lab? And I'm beginning to wonder if TPTB are trying to out-gore CSI in the post-mortem department. The gorey details don't bother me that much, knowing that they're fake, but it's becoming laughable to me.

I love the new sneaky Pete. He is drawing on his grungy mysterious espionage persona and meeting with Nina to make deals to get info for the team. As he is not in law enforcement, he can take risks that Olivia can't, which makes things interesting. I can't wait to see what Nina asks of Pete in return someday for payback. (insert creepy "mwa-ha-ha-ha!")

I really didn't get the point of the mouse having to explode underneath the sheets, but if the answer is for TPTB to save some money on Special FX, that's a good enough answer for me.

I missed it, but someone caught Observer at the swanky happy hour where Olivia confronted the evil doctor. That whole confrontation felt stilted to me, but I think that I'm just getting too negative about this ep. I really didn't like it too much, but we're still in the set-up stage of the overall mythology so some of the important details that need to be revealed for the long haul might still be getting planted into the episodes. The X-Files didn't get really gripping for me until the second season.

Something tells me that Broyles might not be as angry at Dunham as he seems to be. His admonishment might be mostly a CYA maneuver, such as A.D Skinner used to pull on Mulder and Scully ("I specifically told them NOT to go!"), while giving them the old side wink. But I could be wrong. I really do love his office though.

We didn't get a visitation from John Scott this ep, but that's a good thing as it would have been too predictable. Unless that card pushed under the door was really from him. I don't know what to think of Dunham's creepy father story, but can you explain to me how it is that an FBI agent with her uber-connections can't track down a deadbeat dad? Seriously.

Overall this episode seemed low-key like last week's, but the science du-jour was thought provoking. And I was intrigued by the scenes revealing how an altruistic physician's compromises evolved into evil purposes via utilization by the wrong people. I'm sure that happens quite a bit in real life. BTW, be sure to check out the easter-egg section of FringeTelevision, they've posted some great ones for this week. Also, all my images here are from their screencap gallery, as Fox is not really putting much effort into keeping up with theirs.

"Episode 1.05"

2008-10-15T10:30:00.001-07:00

"You're doing fine Walter."
This week we get a softer, more tolerant Peter who is coming to terms with helping Walter cope with his life. "Power Hungry" takes another stock SciFi theme and puts the Fringe spin on it, when frumpy Joe Schmoe has self-esteem problems that get acted out via involuntary electrical impulses that wreck havoc with his surroundings...just the kind of guy that normal single women try to avoid in life. :-) I like the actor who plays Joe, he played a cute and gentle college guy in "Mona Lisa Smile", and he's good here as Electro Joe. His travails are not as gory as the victims in previous eps, but he does get the electrodes in the head which seems to be a favorite for this show! He is, of course, another experimental victim gone haywire, but via an odd avenue.

I really like Olivia's partner, I hope that he isn't on the wrong side of the law, I'll be disappointed. Everyone needs a well-grounded friend like that. He gives her a sincere pep-talk about dealing with Scott's betrayal and death, but Scott comes around again later to try to explain things to her on his own. I'm not sure how I feel about all that yet, to me that's more way out there than the kooky science, but we'll see how it plays out. Walter says that Scott's brainwaves are in her head since they were connected up (with electrodes in the head!), but I suspect something weirder. Maybe now that they're connected, and his brain is being kept animated for downloading, something's going on there in the ether between their heads. This may make Olivia an honorary member of The Pattern, in the way that Scully became physically entrenched in the alien/consortium plans in the X-Files.

We also see the Observer briefly again, this time quickly darting out of the elevator that Joe gets into before he unwittingly slams it to the ground full of people and himself. Joe walks away unharmed of course, something about the EMF holding him hovered in the center of the elevator car. Walter does a weird thing with Olivia's necklace to explain it, which seemed kind of hard to believe also, just because it wasn't floating when she was wearing it so why did it float after Walter started playing with it? I'm open to suggestions.

Walter plays with some enviable science equipment of course (this retired former lab-rat would SO love to be working with Walter, I've worked with nutty scientists, I could handle it!)

I have no idea if pigeons have metallic particles in their beaks! Hopefully someone doing recaps will discuss this point.

I was glad that this week's victim didn't get killed for a change. Joe gets captured and sent off to who-knows-where (probably MD eventually to get more brain electrodes!). And this week we again get a little mini-story at the end of the episode which seems to be the M.O. of Fringe and I like it (it's like getting 1 1/4 episodes). Olivia gets some messages from Scott again, which lead her to some Pattern info. I won't spoil it completely.

"Episode 1.04"

2008-10-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

"Open your mind or someone may open it for you!"
In "The Arrival" episode, we watch as Raygun Man and Observer Man pry open cranky Peter's closed mind after he tries to worm out of helping Olivia and get back to his life of global trekking and spy games. The cause of this revolves around one of my all-time favorite SciFi elements: the mysteriously appearing, impenetrable, foreign metal object that emits odd lights and sounds. It's an old SciFi standby, but still fun here, I thought. This time it has a twist though, it doesn't come from outer space as usual, it's boring it's way through the earth to and fro, manifesting in various locations, and then boring back into the ground as oddly as it surfaced. It disappears from the episode as well without leaving us with any explanations, so now we get to add this to the list of running experiments and mysteries that we learned involve the bald Observer Man, who we've seen since the beginning (see FringeTV).

Of course the mystery cylinder figures into Walter's past, and so does the Observer as we find that they have met before in the Bishop family's history. The cylinder also "visited" Quantico in the 1980s before continuing on its tour through the earth. We don't know of it showed up anywhere else between then and now. Creating the conflict around the subterranean silver bullet is Raygun Man, an unknown grungy guy who is tracking down the cylinder for some reason, using a plasma type shooter (and another invasive electronic mind reading setup) to carve a path and locate this episode's uber-science subject.

Peter gets to be confronted by both Observer and Raygun Man, and comes to the conclusion that he should stick around to help with all these bizarre things that are going on, after a mind-reading session with the Observer that shakes him up (and opens his mind). Shortly before, Raygun Man captured him and picked his brain via electronics, because he knew that Pete was Walter's son and wanted info on the cylinder.

Olivia tracks them all down into the woods and saves Pete, but not before the cylinder slips away again down into the depths of the dirt. The Observer seems to disappear into the ether, but we'll probably see him again soon. Meanwhile after all has settled down, Walter tells Pete how he first met the Observer, and Olivia gets some visitations from a certain dead guy!

"Episode 1.03"

2008-09-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

"It always goes back to the duck."
What Walter says about the duck/rabbit optical illusion drawing describes how the para-science elements of this show will consistently be reminiscent of topics in the X-Files, the vanguard of this genre of TV. As for the X-Files, its "duck" was "Night Stalker", so it's interesting to see how the SciFi genre is evolving here. This episode again springboards off of familiar science into the fetid pool of more creepy fringe science. At first I thought that the topic was going to be either about the spiritualist practice of "auto writing" (in this case auto drawing), or remote viewing. But it turned out to be an interesting concept of its own concerning iridium tainted blood and secret frequencies received in someone's brain. Note: Iridium is a "very hard, brittle...silvery-white metal of the platinum family...the second densest element and is the most corrosion-resistant metal."(Wiki) It also seems to have some radioactive properties, so whether or not Roy's body could actually withstand prolonged exposure (not to mention replication) of the iridium in his blood is a question.

Unfortunately, even though I've been a follower of the outre' science covered on the Art Bell Show for a long time, I am not familiar with the subject of "ghost frequencies". I haven't done a search on it either, or had time to read any of the other discussions on this ep as yet. Sounds plausible to me I suppose, in light of the story that Lucille Ball was receiving transmissions from the Japanese off-shore during WW2, via her dental work, heheh. I also have no idea if an instantaneously hardening aerosol-based gel that entrapped the bus riders is possible either, although something like that would be very helpful in my old lab for mounting cross-section samples!

Here are a few things that I was thinking about while viewing this ep:

* Peter gets some new layers concerning the guy who was following him. And I think that it's pretty clear that Walter knows that Pete wasn't telling the truth about that.

* I really don't get Nina yet. She's polite and helpful, most likely because she's a part of whatever Boyles' group is all about, but she's also playing it coy about most of the things she discusses with Boyles and Dunham. Not sure if she's on the side of right or wrong, but it's too soon to know that about MD as well.

* It was too unbelievable that they just walked into and out of the old Bishop house like they did, without even any snoopy neighbors noticing.

* If Dunham knows that Boyles and Nina are working together to solve The Pattern problem, why did he tell her that he was giving the disk to the NSA? Unless Nina/MD is a part of a branch of the NSA as well.

* Abrams gives us another person getting whacked by a bus again!

* I also find it hard to believe that you can drill into someones skull and brain like that as if you were just picking their teeth with a toothpick. But there is a bizarre practice called trepanation, where small holes are routinely drilled into the head for treating certain health problems. Believe it, or not.

This was another good episode, giving us more clues to inch toward getting the overall picture of what is going on with The Pattern, Walter's past (poor Roy), and Massive Dynamic. Including the final scene where we are again shown that MD is busy downloading and interpreting the data from Scott's dead head, which also begs the question of whether or not he was working for MD or someone else. Does anyone else have any ideas? :-)

"Episode 1.02"

2008-09-18T10:04:00.000-07:00

"...Trying to maintain that distinction between God's domain and our own."
I'm really liking the crazy old coot. For one thing, up to this point he's got the most colorful personality of anyone on the show. Secondly, he's a crazy genius, a great comedic combo. His son is beginning to flesh out as a strong character for himself, as well. He's not just a rebel without a clue, he's smart, determined and logical, even if he does hold a grudge -- he's sort of snarky but with heart. We're still waiting for Agent Dunham to reveal some personality. I know, I'm mean.

This episode was good also, but had some mature content, so I won't be watching it with my 8 year old nephew because I want to leave that kind of question-answering for his parents (ahem). The easter-egg found by the guys at FringeTV (an image of a pen and a rose on a newspaper vending machine) turned out to be the name of a scientist in this episode, so good work on their part. They found other interesting items in this ep too, so be sure to go there and check out the easter-egg/screen cap section.

At first I found it difficult to believe that Agent Dunham could go to Massive Dynamics and just ask for a bizarre state of the art piece of equipment and get it without any questions asked, but then I remembered the opening scene where The Group (what I'm calling them for now) has chosen her and her two Bishop cohorts to work on their team. I didn't understand why they asked her to work for MD, if she's already considered a part of The Group, so maybe someone can explain that to me. The scene where old man Bishop remembers where he left his car reminded me of "Silence of the Lambs" where Starling breaks into the garage and, well, you know what she finds. It's similar here, probably an homage to that movie but I won't spoil it. The lighting in the scene near the end when Dunham finds the "old man" perp, was a Hitchcockian touch (a la "Psycho", in the scene where mother Bates' corpse is revealed and the hanging lamp is swinging dramatically back and forth).

There are lots of clues in the episode for mysteries to come, including the possibility of a not-so-normal childhood of Peter Bishop, so we get to think about how that will all unfold. Hmmm. For additional info and behind the scenes work, including SFX, visit the official FOX site for the show.

"Episode 1.01"

2008-09-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

"I just want to go back to before."
I enjoyed the first episode of Fringe, although it didn't blow me away enough to need to talk about it immediately (or maybe it's just my general malaise this week). But, I had to warm up to the X-Files too, so I'm going to keep watching it even though it conflicts with my favorite Scifi show, Eureka, which I'll watch at midnight.

The opening theme music and score is good, by Giacchino from LOST. So lots of scary shaky violins too. The special effects in the show were great, and just right...not too few and not too over the top ridiculous. It wasn't as creepy as I expected it to be, but that might ramp up later. There is a lot more dialogue than in LOST, so that's a relief. As some reviewers have mentioned, all the difficult tasks that they had to set up for their investigation were completed much to easily. But, that's TV.

The characters came out of the gate well enough. Agent Dunham is no Dana Scully, but those are impossible shoes to fill IMO, so that's not quite fair. Everyone else seems plausible and I'm looking forward to seeing what TPTB will do with the characters, and how many more they'll bring in (and kill off). I really like Walter, the old crazy guy.

A few things reminded me of other shows; the cow reminded me of Dark Skies, when the main couple found the cow in the farm lab with the human baby in it; the see-through man reminded of The X-Files:Fight The Future, where the bodies incubating aliens went transparent and gooey; and of course the isolation tank is reminiscent of Altered States.

Overall, it was fun and interesting. I hope that the list of the "Pattern" incidents mentioned are an indication of the kinds of events that the show will follow. The end twist was a good one, and we are also left with the idea that, as in the X-Files, the agents aren't as powerful in their crime-fighting as they had hoped, and that there are people on the inside of the government that are undermining the safety and sanctity of our everyday lives. I'm looking forward to the next episode, and of course, seeing if they show the dead agent being "questioned" before the 6-hour window is up for probing his consciousness. Till then, I leave deeper scrutiny of this ep to the guys at FringeTV. :-)

"Premiering This Week"

2008-09-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

"Healing By Radionics"

2008-08-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

The practitioners' definition: "Radionics is a technique of healing using extrasensory perception and an instrument. It is not directed at the physical body so much as at the subtle energy fields. The patient can be with the practitioner or many miles away - distance is irrelevant. [It] is a method of sending precisely defined healing energy to people, animals or plants, no matter where they are in the world. The name reflects the view of early practitioners that they were ‘broadcasting’ healing, but we now believe that radionic treatment occurs at a level of reality where there is no distance between us."

http://www.radionic.co.uk/

The Wiki Definition: "Radionics is the use of blood, hair, a signature, or other substances unique to the person as a focus in order to supposedly heal a patient from afar. The concept behind radionics originated in the early 1900s with Albert Abrams (1864-1924), who became a millionaire by leasing radionic machines which he designed himself. However, Abrams was never able to demonstrate that his devices were effective; no radionic device has been found effective in the diagnosis or treatment of any disease. Radionics is not based on any scientific evidence, and contradicts the principles of physics and biology. As a result, radionics is classed as a pseudoscience."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionics

Legit technology or quackology? Having been through the horrors of conventional cancer treatment myself, I am very open to most natural means of healing and am practicing many. This seems a little too fringe for me though, for now. But since radionics doesn't involve contact with invasive metal probes of any kind, I might change my mind if my troubles recur and it's not cost prohibitive. :-)

"Life As We Know It May Be Killing Us"

2008-08-25T12:51:00.001-07:00

http://www.thebodytoxic.com/

A ubiquitous material that permeates the lives of everyone born since the early 20th Century, may be deforming, sickening, and killing us. That material would be: plastics...the wonder substance that changed the world (and finance, according to the movie "The Graduate"). The material that touches us from the day we are born to the day we die, every day of our lives, might be our biggest health threat.

More specifically, compounds such as "Bisphenol A" (BPA). Wiki: "Bisphenol A was first reported by A.P. Dianin in 1891. It is prepared by the condensation of acetone (hence the suffix A in the name) with two equivalents of phenol. The reaction is catalyzed by an acid, such as hydrochloric acid (HCl) or a sulfonated polystyrene resin."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A

Ian Punnett, host of the "Coast To Coast AM" late night radio show, interviewed the author of the new book "The Body Toxic", detailing data on what is one of the most important but possibly most detrimental materials in our modern world. The C2C website posted in the synopsis that, "...world experts have written a consensus statement regarding the adverse affects of Bisphenol A, a compound found in baby and sports bottles. According to [Nena Baker's] research, exposure to Bisphenol A and similar chemicals may have led to an increase in breast and prostate cancers, urogenital abnormalities in male babies, a decline of semen quality in men, and early puberty in young girls." She reports that until plastics saturated our lives, previous generations did not come into contact with the types of health threats that we do today as their environment consisted of non-synthetic materials closer to their natural forms.

Additional sources of harmful polymer-type chemicals are found to be Teflon, microwavable plastic containers, plastic wrap, and the inner coating of microwave-popcorn bags. These types of toxins are released via heat that causes outgassing of the materials into the foods we cook in them, and are also scraped off during food preparation. Word is slowly getting out about the risks here, and manufacturers are beginning to look for alternatives. Will changes come soon enough to save lives? Baker suggests that one of the first adjustments we can perform to avoid these toxins, is to use as much glass and ceramic as possible, instead of plastics, when cooking and storing foods.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2008/08/23.html

"Eureka!"

2008-07-30T02:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it's probably not polite to talk about another SciFi TV series, on another network, here on my Fox TV show blog, but after seeing the first episode of the third season of "Eureka" last night, I've decided that I really want to live in a town like that. I need to live in a town like that! Seriously, what could be more fun than to live in a community where everyone has a purpose? A scientific purpose. Where the entire town supports a top secret vanguard technical industry where geniuses live and work -- a town where logic rules, and nutty, fringe-y, science-y things happen all...the...time! Sigh. Ayn Rand described it best in her essay "Apollo 11" in 1969, after attending the launch as a guest of NASA:

"Our room was the home of an engineer employed at the Space Center...one might have said a typical small-town family, except for one thing: a quality of cheerful openness, directness, almost innocence -- the benevolent, unselfconsciously self-confident quality of those who live in the clean, strict, reality-oriented atmosphere of science."

It doesn't get any better than that. So if you think that you would like to live in that kind of town (with a kooky twist), check out "Eureka" on the SciFi Channel on Tuesday nights if you haven't already discovered it.

http://www.scifi.com/eureka/
http://www.spacecast.com/eureka/

"Bad Vibrations"

2008-07-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

"For two years now, the Ehrfurths have been enduring an annoying, persistent noise in their home — a low, motor-like rumble accompanied by a vibration. They can't figure out what's causing it, and it's been a challenge getting others to believe them because the problem starts and stops. "Imagine putting your pillow on the hood of a running car — you can't sleep through that,' Leona Ehrfurth said. 'You get this pressure in your ear. Sometimes I have to get out of the house, because I can't take it anymore.'"

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080723/GPG0101/807230687/1207/GPG01

This is similar to the X-Files episode (S6-E2) where the government was performing an ELF communications system application near a housing area in Nevada. The low-level noise was causing the inner ears of humans and animals to explode. Annoying ELF noise has been reported for decades in various areas of the United States, including Taos, NM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_low_frequency

"Outre' Science"

2008-07-01T16:02:00.000-07:00

Be sure to keep an eye on the updates at: http://fringetv.blogspot.com/.

Wiki: Fringe science is scientific inquiry in an established field of study, which departs significantly from mainstream or orthodox theories but which can be classified in the "fringes" of a credible mainstream academic discipline...many fringe science ideas are advanced by individuals either from outside the field of science, or by scientists outside the mainstream of their own disciplines. Another use of the term is in describing fields of knowledge which are not, for lack of evidence or confirmability, recognized as bona fide sciences.

"Ptolemy created a universe that lasted a thousand years. Copernicus created a universe that lasted four hundred years. Einstein has created a universe, and I can't tell you how long it will last." -- George Bernard Shaw

"System Of A Failure"

2008-06-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

http://drmarysmonkey.com/

A cancerous monkey virus in a new polio vaccine ... a particle accelerator for purification ... a scientist turns up dead and burned to a crisp with a missing arm.

"...the public health authorities were so fixed on the theory that the disease must be caused by a virus, that they ignored medical reports of severe cases of the disease being cured by the use of antitoxins..."

"Polio Vaccine Contaminated"

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1554139,00.html

http://www.vaccines.plus.com/