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Friday, April 27, 2012 04:33 PM
Recyclotron
 by Fëanor

I didn't have time to do my usual thorough examination of the entire internet for this entry, but I figure I'll post what I have now and maybe add more later, we'll see.

—

Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.

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Friday, October 7, 2011 11:02 AM
On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 4, Episode 1 - "Neither Here Nor There")
 by Fëanor

(OK, so I lied about not posting this week.)

As usual, beware spoilers!

We open with Olivia and Bolivia bitching at each other.

Olivia: "Just because you walked in my shoes, don't you think for a moment that you know me."

Yuck! Hating the dialog so far.

Quick flicker of Peter in the background at the end of the first scene. I'm hoping they are eventually going to explain how him fixing everything somehow made it so he never existed. Seeing as how that's kind of a paradox.

Our favorite Observer is given the unpleasant task of making certain no one ever knows the truth about Peter, and his boss hands him a mysterious device that looks kind of like a hair clip, which I assume is somehow meant to help him in this task.

The background color of the opening credits has always been a clue as to the dominant setting of the episode - blue for our universe, red for the other - and now it's a sort of yellow, I assume to signify the new, blended universe/altered timeline.

The return of our universe's Lincoln Lee! Yay! I'm a fan of this character. He immediately gets a great speech about toast in an all-around entertaining sequence involving his partner being late and not wearing pants.

Holy crap, this version of Lincoln is a serious bad-ass!

Looks like Astrid is now a field agent. And as the Observers helpfully point out, in this timeline, Olivia and Lincoln have never met. This whole experience is quite similar to when we were tossed into the other universe and had to figure out how things were different as we went. Only now it's the universe we know and love that has itself changed.

Lincoln: "I'd like to talk to someone else."
Olivia: "There is no one else. There's just me."
Just kind of driving the sad point home there, aren't they?

At least the cow is still here.

Lincoln walks into the lab, and Walter immediately hands him a dead bird, which he then injects with something. It pops up and starts flying around.
Astrid: "Walter, you brought it back to life!"
Walter: "No, no, it's still quite dead. Isn't it wonderful?"
It's scenes like this that make me love this show.

Walter: "If you really want a story, you should look under the dome. I'm growing an ear."
God, I've missed Walter.

Looks like Astrid acts as Walter's eyes and ears at the crime scenes. He watches through a camera from the lab.

Unsurprisingly, Lincoln's persistence is rewarded and he is essentially inducted into the Fringe Division to help work on the freaky see-through killer case.

The Observer is buying a bunch of random electronics in a junk shop. The proprietor asks him what it's all for and he replies, "I need to erase someone from time." *facepalm* You don't just tell people that! He is such a crappy Observer!

This version of Walter, it comes out, is afraid to leave the lab - which explains why he's using Astrid as his eyes and ears at crime scenes. So it's a bit of a mystery when he can't be found.

Olivia: "Maybe he locked himself in the bathroom again? I'll check Gene's stall."

Turns out he's hiding in the sensory deprivation tank because he thinks he saw somebody in the mirror who disappeared. Poor Walter.

Lincoln: "Is he... all right?"
Olivia: "Well, it depends on your definition of all right. He's functional... except when he's not. But he's often quite brilliant. He's just never had anything to tether him to the world."

This is so sad. Peter's absence has left such a hole in this world.

Walter: "I don't think there's anything sadder than when two people are meant to be together and something intervenes."
And then a pointed cut to Olivia's face.

Walter: "I'm not wearing pants."
Astrid: "I'm on it."

Finally we find a link between the victims: they were all suffering from various diseases that involved metal imbalance. The killer appears to have cleaned their blood somehow. Pretty classic Fringe plot-line: a murderer is killing people to get something out of them to keep himself alive. They fall back on this whenever they need a monster-of-the-week story. I'll go with it, though; I like a good monster-of-the-week story.

Lincoln is pissed when he learns Fringe is keeping the bodies and not telling their loved ones the truth about their deaths.
Lincoln: "Those families are going to spend the rest of their lives wondering what happened to their loved ones - looking for answers. Can you imagine what that would be like, to have that - that hole in your life?"
Uh, yeah, I'm thinking maybe she can.

Walter: "People die. It happens. Sometimes they even die twice."

Astrid: "Dead people do not use their credit cards."
Walter: "Of course they do, certainly."

Olivia retells the story of the pilot episode of Fringe to Lincoln, although of course in this version Peter does not appear at all - she gets Walter out of the insane asylum by herself.

Olivia is a dumb-ass and gets close enough to the killer so that, even though she has a gun, he successfully disarms her with a briefcase. Gah!

Finally she gets it together and shoots the guy, like she should have in the first place. But surprise! There's more than one of them!

So what, there are like a dozen see-through people hanging around? How have they not been noticed more often??

The translucent dudes are some combination of mechanical and biological - similar to the shape-shifters.
Walter: "This tech is not from here."
Lincoln: "Not from here... you mean, like, China?"

Lincoln officially becomes a Fringe agent, and gets to see the bridge between universes - and the other Olivia. You could say he's a little confused.

Olivia has yet another "I know what you meant when you said that thing before" moments with Lincoln. Two of those in one episode is going a bit far, but okay.

The Observer shows up, clearly with the intention of flipping the switch that will erase Peter for good - but he can't do it. He turns off his machine and walks away. Neat moment.

In this timeline, Walter actually lives in the lab - he sleeps there and everything. And it turns out the man he's been seeing in reflections is Peter.

Well, despite a couple of wince-worthy, poorly-written dialog exchanges, and despite the unexplained paradox that sits squarely at the center of the whole story, this was actually a pretty solid episode. I like the sadness underlying everything, the heavy presence of the lack of Peter, and the conflicted Observer. And I like that Lincoln is taking a central role. Yay, Fringe is back!
Tagged (?): Fringe (Not), On the Viewer (Not), TV (Not)
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Monday, September 12, 2011 12:26 PM
Recyclotron
 by Fëanor

Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.

Tagged (?): Art (Not), Books (Not), Business (Not), Clothes (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Doctor Who (Not), Food (Not), Fringe (Not), Ghostbusters (Not), Links (Not), Lists (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), Parenthood (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Shirts (Not), Space (Not), Star Wars (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), TV (Not), Video (Not)
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Thursday, August 11, 2011 03:28 PM
Recyclotron
 by Fëanor

Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.

Tagged (?): Animals (Not), Art (Not), Batman (Not), Books (Not), Comic books (Not), Dinosaurs (Not), Frankenstein (Not), Fringe (Not), Homosexuality (Not), Indiana Jones (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Mashups (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Parenthood (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Shakespeare (Not), Space (Not), Star Trek (Not), The Prisoner (Not), TV (Not)
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Friday, August 5, 2011 11:16 AM
(Last updated on Friday, August 5, 2011 12:22 PM)
Recyclotron
 by Fëanor

Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.


UPDATE:
Tagged (?): Animals (Not), Art (Not), Batman (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Cosplay (Not), Costumes (Not), Craft (Not), Fantastic Four (Not), Fringe (Not), Game of Thrones (Not), Harry Potter (Not), LEGO (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Metroid (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), Photoshop (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Sherlock Holmes (Not), Space (Not), Spider-Man (Not), Star Trek (Not), Steampunk (Not), Superman (Not), The Hobbit (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), Tron (Not), TV (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Web comics (Not)
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Saturday, May 14, 2011 09:55 PM
On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 3, Episode 22 - "The Day We Died")
 by Fëanor

Spoilers! Etc.

Well, that's an ominous episode title if I've ever seen one.

Back in the future, Peter is 47 and a little gray at the temples! Astrid is with him, and she's got long hair! Some title text gives us the date: May 20, 2026. Woah.

The Fringe Division is clearly a big thing in the future. They have large buildings with creepy triangular hallways.

Holy crap! Olivia's niece, Ella, is all grown up, and a newly minted Fringe agent! Also, apparently everybody calls Olivia boss now. Does she run Fringe?

Ella: "People are saying that it's the End of Days."
Olivia: "That's what we think, yeah. We think it's Moreau."
Huh wha?

Weirdly, the newly awakened Peter now seems to have memories of all the intervening time. He is not confused or lost. Huh.

Olivia says the event at the World Trade Center was a stage 3 tear and required amber protocol. The TV announces that a terrorist named Moreau has claimed responsibility. It seems he's the Big Bad here in the future. And guess who's playing him? Brad Dourif! Awesome. I love Brad Dourif!

Yet another new version of the opening title sequence, this one with a gray background and different (more futuristic?) words and phrases floating about. Interesting!

Astrid mentions her father to Peter. That's odd, I can't remember her ever talking about her parents before.

Peter decides the only way to determine how the terrorists' devices work is to bring in Walter - but Walter is now in prison, sporting long hair and a wild man beard!

Walter and Peter touch the glass between them, right next to a little sticker that says not to touch the glass.

A wormhole opened in Central Park, leading back through time to the age of dinosaurs! Excellent.

Walter is apparently shut away in high security, and it'll take a lot to get him out where he can do some good.

The End of Days terrorist group is seeking to accelerate the disintegration of reality, and bring the apocalypse sooner. So apparently Peter getting in the machine didn't help anything, and the universe is still falling apart.

Broyles is now a Senator, and has one bad eye. Intriguing! He also blames Walter for the world falling apart, as does the rest of the world, which I guess is fair enough.

Peter: "Philip. If what we lost in Detroit still means anything, just give me one chance."
Okay, what is that referring to? I'm really enjoying all these little hints they're throwing at us, and that they just threw us in at the deep end here and are letting us figure this out as we go.

Looks like Broyles agreed - they're back in the old lab, and Olivia's getting Walter's old equipment together. They even let Walter shave and get his hair cut, and put on his usual shirt and sweater combo. Things he really missed: swivel chairs, and swiveling in them.

It's not terribly surprising, but Olivia and Peter are married. More surprising: Olivia now has mastery over her telekinetic abilities.

The big shocker: in this future, Walternate's universe has already been destroyed, and he's the power and smarts behind the End of Days, working to take his revenge by destroying this universe, too.

Walter: "Even if I am successful, our world is still ending. You may stop this group, but you cannot stop the inevitable. Our destiny was set the day we triggered the machine. I didn't understand until it was too late that our worlds were inextricably linked. Without one, the other simply cannot exist. When their world was destroyed, that was the day we sealed our fate. For all intents and purposes, that was the day we died."
Well, there we go. That explains that! Can Peter go back and change things somehow?

Peter: "No matter who's at fault, you're my Dad."
Walter's reaction to this line, and the joy he silently expresses as he bites into the licorice Peter has brought him, is really sweet and moving.

Peter and Olivia discussing the ethics of having a child when the world seems to be ending - wow. Deep.

Walter's examination of the device leads them to a campsite where Peter is handed a piece of evidence. It's a key that he clearly recognizes, but he hides it from Olivia. As it turns out, it's the key to the house on Reiden Lake. Of course! Naturally, Walternate left the key there on purpose, and waited to meet him.

Walternate: "Do you know what it's like to wake up and just for a moment think that everything is as it was? And then realize it's not? That the nightmare you had was real? .... You destroyed my universe, son. And I'm going to destroy yours. But not all at once."

Woah. Looks like Olivia and her men were in range of the light bomb blast! And the worm hole to the dinosaurs is open again!

Peter: "I'm sorry for destroying our world. If I could take back that choice, I would."
Maybe he'll be able to! I hope. Although I'm starting to wonder if the show is just going to continue in this timeline...

Peter: "You're going to come with me now, father."
Walternate: "You know, Peter, if I was really there I don't think I could resist killing you. But I think this is the better way, so you can really learn about loss. Let's start by killing someone you love."
That was a truly nasty and bad-ass move by Walternate. I probably should have figured he wasn't really there, but it caught me by surprise, just as it did Peter. Man, Walternate has such a sour, evil look on his face! Although he's transformed into a straight-up villain now, you can still understand his motives for wanting to destroy Peter, and this world.

Holy crap, he just shot Olivia in the head. Yeah, we're definitely not staying with this timeline. They're willing to make pretty big changes on this show, but there's no way Olivia is staying dead.

We cut immediately to the funeral. I thought we'd see Peter rushing to get there on time and then learning dramatically that he was too late. But this works. I like their choice to just mute all of Peter's speech except the first line, since that first line said it all. Just seeing his face and the faces of Olivia's friends and loved ones is more moving than anything he could have said.

They gave her a Viking funeral! Awesome. I kind of want that now, too. Make a note, people!

Walter: "You used to call me Uncle Walter. Do you remember?"
Ella: "I don't remember much from before it got bad...."
Walter: "If I could go back and change things, I would. I would do anything to be able to go back, make different choices-"
Ella: "But you can't. There aren't any happy endings nowadays, are there?"
Walter: "No, I suppose not."
Man, this is dark stuff. But yeah, they are definitely going to get the chance to go back and make different choices. Or Peter is, anyway. I'm pretty sure.

Ella: "I remember the cow that stayed over there. She had kind eyes."
Walter: "She did, didn't she? My Gene. I do miss her."
Awww.

WOAH. It was Walter who sent the pieces of the machine back through time. That's how it ended up in the past. He used the wormhole in Central Park. Peter suggests he just never send the machine back, but Walter says he has to do it because he already did it. Stupid time travel paradoxes.
Walter: "I can't change what happened because it's already happened. But you can make a different choice within what happened."

Uh... what? That doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Walter: "I simply need to find a way to bring your consciousness forward to now so you can witness what will happen if you make the same choice. For all I know it could be happening already."
Ah ha! So that's what's going on. I like the "simply" Walter threw in there. Like that will be easy, just chucking some guy's consciousness forward through time from the future.

Walter: "There's no way of telling what the cost might be. But it can't be worse than this. It can't be worse than this."
So dark! Also, John Noble is killing it again in this episode.

Bolivia, to Walternate: "They outsmarted you, didn't they?"
Heh. Nice.

I really love the effect of the blurry almost-Peter showing up in the machine in the other universe.

Peter brings everyone together in a kind of bridge between the universes. It's very cool seeing the Walters and the Olivias getting to meet each other face to face. But as Peter's trying to make peace, and explain the consequences of one universe destroying the other, he suddenly vanishes. The hell?

Outside the Statue of Liberty, a ton of Observers are standing around watching.
Observer 1: "You were right. They don't remember Peter."
Observer 2: "How could they? He never existed. He served his purpose."
WHAT?! To save the universes, Peter had to vanish from existence? That's horrific.

I suspected Peter would use the machine to bring the universes together somehow, rather than smash one to bits, but I never guessed something like this could happen.

I can see the Olivias being able to work together, but it's hard to believe the Walters doing the same. I also don't think the show will leave it this way, and somehow Peter will come back, but how I'm really not sure. Also, I'm really hoping we get to see somebody go through that wormhole and hang out with some dinosaurs eventually.

But anyway, I like that I didn't see this ending coming. It's pretty insane, but it doesn't feel like it came completely out of left field. By which I mean, it fits in with the insanity we've already seen. Where will they go next with this story? I can't wait to see!
Tagged (?): Fringe (Not), On the Viewer (Not), TV (Not)
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Thursday, May 5, 2011 10:57 AM
(Last updated on Thursday, May 5, 2011 10:58 AM)
On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 3, Episode 21 - "The Last Sam Weiss")
 by Fëanor

Spoilers! Etc.

Interesting episode title! The suggestion being there were multiple Sam Weisses. Hmm!

I like that Peter's hooked up to an easily readable heart monitor, but Walter insists on taking his pulse the old fashioned way with a watch and his fingers.

Heh. Walter doesn't want to leave Peter's bedside, but Astrid finally lures him away with the promise of tapioca pudding. That man is a pudding fiend!

A family is driving along a highway and nearly gets struck by another apocalyptic anomaly - this one involving lots of lightning. On the soundtrack? "Riders on the Storm." Very nice!

Weirdly enough, the next commercial that came up while I was watching this on Hulu.com was for tapioca pudding.

Sam says the machine repelled Peter because it thinks he's already inside, and is rejecting everyone now.

Turns out Sam has an unpublished piece of the manuscript for The First People which includes information about a box and a key. The box is supposed to hold a sort of crowbar that can be used to pry the machine's forcefield open and get Peter safely inside.

Olivia: "And what happens if [Peter does get in the machine]? Does he die?"
Sam: "No.... I don't think so."
Olivia: "You don't think so?"
Sam: "As I understand it, the machine is indestructible, so if he gets in, he should be safe."
Yeah, safe from anything outside the machine. What will the machine itself do to him?

Of course Walter is not surprised by the news that there are "dry lightning" storms happening up and down the eastern seaboard. Sure, I figured THAT would happen!

Astrid talks Walter into investigating the lightning storms, but I'm not sure I like where his mind went.
Astrid: "Where are we going?"
Walter: "To get my kite!"

Apparently all of Sam's ancestors were named Sam Weiss, too. One of them dug up the ancient manuscript, another wrote the book based on it, and others searched for the missing sections.

Walter [holding a kite in a lightning storm]: "Strike me down you glorious blue jets!"
Astrid: "Walter, this can't possibly be safe."
Walter: "Nonsense! I'm fully insulated."

Everybody's off trying to save the world, so poor Peter wakes up to an empty hospital room.

It drives me crazy that people in movies and TV shows always just rip their IVs right out. Argh! How could you do that??

When a nurse asks Peter what his name is, he doesn't answer. Uh oh. How badly did that thing mess him up? Don't wander off and get lost, Peter! We're going to need you to save the world later.

Walter has Astrid mark the locations of various Fringe events on the map and finds that they cluster around two points: the location of the machine, and Liberty Island - because that's where the machine is in the other universe! Very cool.

Walter's idea: move the machine on this side to the same location as the machine on the other side, thus slowing the pace of destruction.

Broyles: "You want to move our machine 100 miles, and over water, and park it offshore from the most densely populated city in the country?"
Walter: "Yes."

Olivia and Sam are basically living an Indiana Jones movie over here. They're following the clues in an ancient manuscript to gather relics, one from a tomb, another hidden in a museum. Then they have to sneak under a falling door to escape the museum. Hilariously, Sam uses his bowling super powers to keep the door open long enough for them to get under.

Inside the box is no crowbar, just a picture of Olivia. She's the crowbar! Awesome. She can use her telekinetic powers to affect the machine.

Sam: "Control the machine over there from over here."
Walter: "In theory, yes."
Olivia: "No, it's ridiculous."
Ha! Well, somebody needed to say it. But seriously, I'm loving this idea.

Walter decides Olivia should work up to this feat of telekinesis by practicing on something smaller - like the typewriter Bolivia used to communicate with the other side!

Walter: "I'll never be the man I was. But I've come to embrace those parts of my mind that are... peculiar. Broken. Understand now? That's what makes my mind special."
Word. Let your freak flag fly, Walter! I feel like that line should be the official motto of Fringe.

Walter, to Olivia: "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. You have no idea how extraordinary you are. If you can embrace that, there's no end to what you can do."
Awww.

I was wondering where the addled Peter was headed; for some reason he goes into a pawn shop and buys a really pricey vintage half-dollar coin. Then he goes to Liberty Island and tells a guard there his father is Walter Bishop - the Secretary of Defense. He thinks he's on the other side again? Did he lose his memory of everything that happened since he went over? That would be bad.

Walter: "Do you know me?"
Peter: "I know you're not the Secretary of Defense. The sweater's a dead giveaway."

Turns out Peter hasn't forgotten everything. He's just a bit... confused. His memories are slowly filtering back in.

Woah, very cool! Astrid hears a sound and wanders into the back room to find the typewriter is typing by itself, the same phrase over and over: "Be a better man than your father." It's the phrase Peter's mother said to him every night. So Olivia's mind powers were working after all, just delayed? Now it's time to try them on the machine itself!

Hey, it worked! Sweet!

Peter and Olivia have an emotional parting. Yeah, yeah, love and kisses. Get the hell in the machine before Walternate turns his back on, stupid!

As Peter approaches the machine, his life flashes before his eyes. It locks onto him, and all of the sudden he wakes up on a wrecked, apocalyptic-looking street of New York City at least ten years in the future, with a new skyscraper built in place of the fallen Twin Towers, and Fringe Division soldiers all around him calling him "Agent Bishop." Woah. What the hell??

OK, that I did not expect. Very intriguing! The next episode is the season finale, and promises to be exciting indeed. I'm looking forward to it!
Tagged (?): Fringe (Not), On the Viewer (Not), TV (Not)
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 03:33 PM
On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 3, Episode 20 - "6:02 AM EST")
 by Fëanor

Spoiler alert!

We start out on the other side. As I suspected, they're using the blood of Peter's child to try to activate the doomsday machine. Walternate makes the requisite Oppenheimer reference, and pulls out that hoary old quote of his about destroying worlds. Sigh. I'm kind of surprised Walternate is willing to destroy the other world while Peter is in it. I thought this was sort of all about getting Peter back? I guess now that he tried that and Peter betrayed him, he's just going to drop the whole idea and pull the trigger any way he can.

Meanwhile, on our side, apocalyptic events continue to occur. Sheep acting strangely, plagues of locusts. Nice!

I like that the random guy at the bowling alley is named Donny. I think it's safe to assume that's a Big Lebowski reference. Weird stuff's going on at the alley, too - balls acting up. Sam Weiss pulls one of those sets of swinging balls out of a safe and they start moving by themselves. Obviously a (rather silly) indicator of Very Bad Things.

Olivia discovers the dangers of staying overnight at the Bishops' house: she runs into Walter in the hallway, wearing nothing but a pair of gigantic fuzzy bear slippers. He recommends she bring her own next time, because it can get chilly. Ha!
Olivia: "It's 6:30 in the morning and your father is walking around the house naked."
Peter: "Oh, yeah, it's Tuesday. He always cooks naked on Tuesdays."
Olivia: "Is that safe?"
Peter: "Uh-uh. It's not pretty either. You get used to it."

Looks like those dudes with the sheep got blown away by something big. Poor bastards. Apparently it happened at 6:05 AM, give or take a few minutes. I think I'm going to assume it was take three, what with the episode title and all.

Naturally Walter takes this event as further proof that the world is falling apart, and he's probably right. Meanwhile, the doomsday machine on this side came on by itself at... yeah, you guessed it: 6:02 AM EST.

Walter: "If it's the end of the world, this is just the beginning."

Walter quickly determines that the machine on this side turned on because Walternate turned the machine on on the other side. It was a sympathetic response due to quantum entanglement! Yay!

Olivia asks how Walternate could have turned the machine on without Peter, and Peter turns away with a strange look on his face. Is he perhaps realizing how it might have happened?

Walter is not exactly positive about their situation. He says the world is going to end and there's nothing they can do about it. Bah! I say stick Peter in this side's version of the machine and see what happens. What have you got to lose??

On the other side, the machine being on hasn't exactly gone unnoticed. The energy waves it's putting out look like a Fringe event, but Bolivia and her team are told to stand down and not interfere. She hits up her baby's grandfather to find out why. In fact, she's already guessed what it's all about, she's just trying to get him to confirm it. She's not dumb, this one.

Bolivia: "But your son is over there."
Walternate: "Peter chose to leave. He chose his allegiance. I chose to give up my son so that you could keep yours."

Of course, quantum entanglement swings both ways, so the boys on our side consider fiddling with their version of the machine to stop all this, but Walter thinks whatever they might do could be even more devastating than doing nothing. But at least Olivia can use what she learned about Fringe event protocols on the other side to help create an early warning system on this side.

Peter finally suggests the course of action I recommended: put him in the machine.
Walter: "Give him the keys and save the girl. This is what he was doing - he was preparing me. [The Observer] was preparing me, because he knew I would have to let you go. That I would have to sacrifice you to fix the problems I'd created."
Peter: "I think this is what I'm supposed to do. But I can't do it without your help."
Nice. I like that we've referred back to something that happened before in a way that makes sense. That happens so rarely!

It's all coming out now! Nina reveals to Olivia the thing that Sam told her, about her and Peter's relationship being central to which universe will survive. Turns out Sam Weiss was a friend of William's - someone he trusted implicitly. But naturally now that his secret knowledge is really needed, he's disappeared. Olivia decides to try to track him down. Meanwhile, Sam is looking at some anomaly in the sky and scribbling down an equation whose answer is, ominously, zero.

FYI, if something happens to harm Bolivia's baby, I might lose it.

Woah! Bolivia's heading to the other side to get Peter, in the hope's he can somehow save both universes. Apparently she's chosen Lincoln as babysitter for her son? I wouldn't have pegged him for babysitter material, but okay.

Bolivia, to Alt-Brandon: "Lie to me again and I'll shoot you in the knee."
Damn!

Apparently Alt-Brandon developed YET ANOTHER way to move between universes, which Bolivia steals. Sigh.

Here's the silly thing: Bolivia is trying to jump between universes to ask Peter to do something he's already trying to do. Uh, maybe she should just stay home?

Peter: "If this works, and I save both universes, I want you to consider me officially retired."
Broyles: "I'll think about it."

Walter: "I was never good at letting you go."
Peter: "This time you have to."
Walter: "Son..."
Peter: "I know."
You're pushing all my buttons, Fringe! *sniff*

Well, crap! So much for that idea. Peter just touches the machine and gets blown back 20 feet with a bloody face.

They did a clever thing here. We know that Bolivia was trying to cross over, but we're not sure if she succeeded, or when and where she'll show up if she did. So every time they show the Olivia on this side, we have to ask ourselves whether it's really her, or whether Bolivia has taken her place again.

Wow, Walter really must be upset if he's actually entered a chapel to pray!

Walter: "I asked you for a sign, and you sent it to me: a white tulip."
Oh, that's a blast from the past! They're making all kinds of references to previous episodes here. They're really trying to tie it all together.

Walter: "God, I know my crimes are unforgivable. Punish me. Do what you want to me. But I beg you: spare our world."
That could have been a corny, cliched scene, but John Noble gives it his all and really puts some power into it.

Sam suddenly shows up and asks Olivia to take him to the machine. Hmm. I wonder what he has up his sleeve.

Well here's an interesting turn-around. Now Walternate comes to visit Bolivia in the cell where he once imprisoned Olivia. So I guess she really didn't make that jump between universes after all.

They actually made a real effort at continuity in this episode, and they're also really building things up to a huge, epic conclusion. I like it!
Tagged (?): Fringe (Not), On the Viewer (Not), TV (Not)
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Friday, April 22, 2011 10:25 AM
On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 3, Episode 19 - "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide")
 by Fëanor

Lots of spoilers follow, so if you are capable of being spoiled and would rather not be, avoid!

Looks like they finally found a body that meets all Bell's requirements, and they're going to try to jump him into it!

Heh. Astrid just called Walter Wally.

Peter is a bit worried about the safety of the procedure as far as Olivia's concerned. Walter reassures him in his own inimitable fashion: "Olivia's mind is still peacefully at rest. She won't be aware of any of this. Though we should all take a few steps back."
Ha!

Walter: "Ready, Belly?"
Bell-livia: "Aye, aye, Captain."
Hee hee. I'm just imagining Leonard Nimoy saying that, with some pointed ears on...

The procedure doesn't work, but afterwards Olivia suddenly comes to the surface again and has a seizure. Oddly, they immediately call 911. Wouldn't they normally just take care of something like this themselves? Surely Walter is uniquely suited to care for a woman with an old man inside of her, seizing due to a crazy body-jumping experiment. And indeed, when they get to the hospital, Walter keeps trying to interfere with what the doctors are doing, and ultimately Bell himself has to come back to the surface to stop them: "Doctor, I've been jolted once today. If you do it again, you will kill me, and the young woman I'm living inside of."

Bell reveals that his calculations were off and he now believes that Olivia's consciousness is likely to be lost forever in as little as a day if they don't find some way to get him safely out of her body.

So now their plan is to go into Olivia's mind, using a technique they introduced in an earlier episode, find her consciousness, and guide it back out. While this is going on, they somehow plan to put Bell's mind into a computer. Okay then.

Bell-livia: "Walter, where do you keep the electro-magnetic sensors?"
Walter: "Back shelf, by the fish food."

Now we know the point of the episode title. Looks like all our main characters are gonna be tripping on LSD! Apparently it will help the mad science work somehow. Yeah, sure.

The LSD starts hitting Peter as Broyles comes in, and he tries to touch the guy's head. "You're bald! [whispering to Astrid] I think he's an Observer!"

Peter and Walter enter Olivia's dreamscape together - which looks like a city street at the moment. Peter observes that everyone there is dressed like they raided Olivia's closet (black, black, and more black).

Someone (apparently Olivia) signals them using Morse code from the top of an office building. Walter signals back using the top of a pudding container.
Peter: "You can't seriously be thinking about eating."
Walter: "Of course not! I just had lunch."

D'oh! Broyles mistakenly absorbed some LSD, too, and is staring with great fascination at a piece of licorice.

Walter suddenly recognizes Olivia's stepfather in the crowd. Everyone stops and looks at them. Very creepy and Inception-y! Time to run! Walter heads for a cab.
Peter: "Wait, wait, wait, wait! You're driving?"
Walter: "Okay."
Heh.

Everyone is trying to kill them for some reason, but they still manage to make it to Bell's office. It turns out Olivia is not there after all, just Bell - and he's a cartoon! When they enter the room, they become cartoons, too. Walter is pleased by this development; we can tell because a thought bubble appears over his head reading, "How wonderful!"

Olivia's mind is in fear mode, with all of the bad things from her past climbing out to attack. She's hiding from it all somewhere in this huge mental landscape, which is now entirely turned against them, and somehow they have to find her.

Broyles on acid is pretty amusing.

Peter says he thinks he can find where Olivia would hide - Jacksonville. Then they escape from a pack of zombies via zeppelin! This is pretty wild stuff.

Although the cartoon effect is creative and clever, I'm a little disappointed that we have to look at these clunky, computer representations of the actors instead of the actors themselves. I feel like John Noble would be wrecking this quiet scene with Bell right now. Ah, well.

Walter is worried he can't handle the things to come (Peter and the machine, in particular) without Bell's help, but Bell says Walter has achieved the wisdom of humility and his decisions will be just.

A mysterious stranger is in the engine room of the zeppelin. He dumps the fuel and jumps out with a parachute. Walter falls out with him. When Walter hits the ground, he wakes up back in the lab - he's out of the dream and Peter and Bell will have to go on without him.

But who is the stranger? Bell suspects it's someone Olivia had a bad experience with in her past. Hmm...

Broyles whistles at a tiny cartoon bird that lands on Walter's shoulder. Hoo boy.

Walter breaks some very important part of the computer by mistake and has to tear apart his beloved record player to replace it.

Turns out Peter really does know Olivia pretty well. Using details she's told him about her past, he's able to narrow down where she's likely to be hiding - in a house with a red door on the military base where she grew up, with her real father, who was apparently an important man. I'd be curious to know more about him and how he died.

As Peter steps into the house, everything becomes real again. There's a last test - he has to recognize that the grown-up Olivia at the door isn't really her; it's the child Olivia in the back. I feel like he's sort of making up for mistaking Bolivia for Olivia here.

Suddenly Olivia's stepfather shows up again, and some military vehicles come after them. Foolishly, Peter and Bell run away on foot instead of jumping back on the motorcycle. Sigh. Why do people always do this in movies and TV shows?

Peter gets hit by a truck and pops out of the dream, which means it's up to Bell to save Olivia. Which is not good. I don't trust that guy, especially when it comes to this.

Olivia finally just turns around and tells all these subconscious fears of hers to stop. And they do! So what was that all about? Bell says she should have been safe inside her own mind from the start, but Olivia has never felt safe, so she let herself be overwhelmed by her fears. She's her own worst enemy. But she's finally realized now how strong she really is. Now it's time for her to head out - and for Bell to go away.

Bell: "Tell Walter I knew the dog wouldn't hunt."

Bell knew moving his consciousness into the computer wouldn't work - he knew that for Olivia to survive, his consciousness would have to vanish. He gave Walter the computer thing to work on so he wouldn't be upset. He knew Walter would be okay without him.

And I have to say, even though I'll miss Bell, I kind of like that the computer thing didn't work, because that would have been hard to swallow even for Fringe.

Seeing Olivia and Peter be all happy together is creepy and weird.

Olivia has drawn a sketch of the mysterious stranger in the zeppelin. Peter asks who it is, and Olivia answers quite calmly, "Yeah, I don't know, I haven't seen him before. But I think that he's the man who's going to kill me."
Woah! That's a way to end an episode.

Well, we got rid of Bell again! Too bad. Some fun dialog moments in this one, and some cool, surreal stuff in the dream world. Definitely better than last episode. Plus, for a while there I was afraid Peter was heading to the field of tulips to find Olivia, and I'm glad that didn't happen, because it would have made no sense at all.
Tagged (?): Fringe (Not), On the Viewer (Not), TV (Not)
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Wednesday, April 20, 2011 10:54 AM
On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 3, Episode 18 - "Bloodline")
 by Fëanor

Here there be spoilers! Beware!

Argh! I can't believe that in the "last time on..." section at the beginning of the episodes, they keep playing back this scene:

Bolivia: "Whatever happens to me, I want you to know that this started out as an assignment, but it became-"
Peter: "-something more."

That's like the worst, most cliched exchange of dialog that's ever been in Fringe. Don't keep reminding me that happened! I'm glad that they reminded me Bolivia was pregnant, though. I totally forgot about that somehow.

Turns out Bolivia is at high risk for a condition that will likely kill her and the child - the same condition that killed her sister and her baby. And since she feels a kid wouldn't fit into her life too well anyway, she's looking at an abortion as pretty much her only option. Her mother is trying to talk her out of it - and is also not buying her story about the father (which is that he's some guy she met in a bar).

Ooh, an Observer is watching Bolivia. Always a sign that something interesting is about to happen!

And indeed it does! She's suddenly tasered by a couple of mysterious dudes. They totally made me jump out of my chair with that one.

Ha! Charlie went on a date with Bug Girl! Awesome.

Charlie is aware, as all the viewers are, that Lincoln has a thing for Bolivia.

The people who kidnapped Bolivia are pretty dumb. Why give her a pill to knock her out?? Why wouldn't you stick her with another needle, or give her an IV? This way, you have to rely on her to swallow the pill.

Man, I was certain Bolivia had faked swallowing that pill, and was going to kick all their asses and escape. I guess not! I feel like our Olivia would have done that.

Oh no! Olivia's cab driver buddy, Henry, is going to get nabbed because he's been hanging around her place too much. Poor guy. Interestingly, he may let Charlie and Lee in on some secrets about Bolivia they're not supposed to know. (Also, in this universe, the comic strip character Opus is a peahen, not a penguin.)

Looks like Bolivia's kidnappers are planning to pull the baby out of her. Kinda figured it'd be something like that.

OK, this time she definitely faked taking the pill. I would like to reiterate how dumb it is that they are administering a sedative via pills. Why would you not set up an IV??

Lee and Charlie's run-in with Henry is making them think harder about the idea that the Olivias could have been switched.

Bolivia's mother learns that her daughter does indeed have the condition that means she must get an abortion if she's to live. Just to twist the knife and make it even more painful, she happens to glance over and see a grandmother, mother, and daughter playing together with a kite. Ouch! That's rough.

The weird thing is, the people who kidnapped Bolivia might actually be trying to save her and her baby. It might actually be in her best interest to let them complete this procedure. Although obviously they didn't go about it the best way.

When Lee asks him point blank whether the Olivias were switched, Walternate admits they were. He also reveals who the father of Olivia's child is. And he gives him complete access to Olivia's mission files. He lost his son; he can't lose his grandchild, too. He's willing to do whatever it takes.

Bolivia's child now appears to be at full term, just like that. I guess they shot it up with Miracle-Gro??

They actually do have an IV set up, and they're not administering the sedatives and pain medication through that? I know I keep going on about this, but... come on! Talk about clumsy writing. The only reason they have them giving her pills is so she could fake taking one. There's no real, logical reason for it to happen, only a plot reason.

The nurse is clearly of two minds about this procedure they're doing, so Bolivia tries to appeal to her sympathy. I thought it was going to break, but no go.

Charlie makes a Taxi Driver reference and Lincoln doesn't get it. Interestingly enough, in this universe the movie was apparently directed by Francis Ford Coppola, not Martin Scorsese.

Finally, Bolivia acts! She tried convincing the nurse to help her peacefully, but if that's not going to work, it's time to bring the knives out!

Bolivia escapes and gets to a pay phone, but can't tell Lincoln much about where she is. Hilariously, she tries to narrow down her location in Chinatown by telling Lincoln, "I see a red dragon and there's a noodle store." Uh, that's every corner in Chinatown, Liv!

Emergency baby delivery scenes are pretty cliched at this point, but for whatever reason, I'm finding this one extremely emotionally effective. Maybe because I'm really not sure Bolivia is going to survive it, and I've actually come to care about her character, and about Lincoln's relationship with her.

Man, I was really sure they killed her off for a minute there. Bastards!

So yeah, it would seem that the "evil" kidnappers actually did some kind of science magic that defeated Bolivia's condition and skipped over months of boring pregnancy to give us a healthy baby right away. Couldn't they have just told her that's what they were doing? She might not have tried to stab them and run away!

Now that all this is over (for now, at least), Lincoln and Charlie have the chance to think back about everything that's happened, and what was kept from them, and they are not too happy.
Lincoln: "Makes you wonder what else we don't know."
Charlie: "Yes, it does."

The folks who take the baby's blood in the hospital are the same people who kidnapped her. (Disappointingly, Bolivia somehow doesn't realize this. She's very passive this episode. It's very unlike her.) And, it turns out, they work for Walternate!! So he engineered the whole thing. Which makes a weird kind of sense until you think about it for two seconds together. If he had some magic way of curing her condition up his sleeve, why in God's name did he go about it this way?? Why not just tell her he had the science to help her and bring her on board willingly? She certainly wouldn't have said no, and then she could have been treated safely in a real medical facility that she wouldn't have tried to escape from, instead of in a warehouse! And they could have been more certain of the procedure working. Also, a doctor could have delivered the baby, instead of a cab driver with almost no experience. Why fake a kidnapping, reveal all those secrets to Lincoln, and make him extremely suspicious and vigilant? How does that help you at all? Seriously, what the hell was the point of all that?

As far as I can tell, this episode was completely and utterly ridiculous and pointless from beginning to end. It had emotionally effective moments, but in terms of logic and reason, it didn't make any damn sense at all. Also, it turned Bolivia's character into a person that things happen to, instead of a person that does things. Yeah, ultimately she did escape her kidnappers, but at that point, they'd already done everything they needed to do. Very disappointing.
Tagged (?): Fringe (Not), On the Viewer (Not), TV (Not)
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