“Today was a vision of things to come.” - Walter Bishop
On Monday, Josh Levin over at Slate posted an article about the godfather of online television criticism, Alan Sepinwall. While the article was mostly concerned itself with questioning a critic's ability to be both a fan and an “objective” critic, Levin also tapped into one of the more pertinent debates among television critics: Do episode-by-episode reviews rob critics of seeing the bigger picture when it comes to a television series?
My answer to this question is “no, but with some caveats,” an answer that is likely to be reflected in reviews of tonight's episode of Fringe. Critics have, perhaps overbearingly, been singing the praises of the episodes “White Tulip” and “Marionette,” claiming that these are the kinds of standalone episodes that Fringe should be doing. Such talk reared its head again around the time of “The Firefly,” and it will likely rear its head again tonight, though it's less likely that the comparisons will be favorable this time around.
As good as I think this type of episode has been for Fringe, I think this format has worn out its welcome, and needs to go a way for a little while. Part of what made “White Tulip” such a delight was the novelty of it to be sure, but it truly was an excellent episode. However, I think this format has been delivering diminishing returns since then, not only due to the novelty factor, but because the ways in which the cases comment on the emotions of the main characters have become less and less subtle with each outing.
This is how I felt about tonight's case, as having the old woman pining away for her deceased husband's alternate serve as subtext was just too on-the-nose to be affecting in the way that it should have been. Nor did it help that for about the first half of the episode or so, it wasn't really clear whether the case would have an emotional connection, and the “freak” in question here wasn't all that exciting. (Compare that to the shot of Peter Weller with mechanical insides, the sight of the freaky human puppet, or even Dr. Anton Silva from last week.) The only redeeming quality here was that there was an active emotional component for Peter. So often the show deals with how either Olivia or Walter are affected, that it neglects Peter in the process. So not only was this a nice change of pace, but it's good to know the show still cares about growing Peter as a character. (Plus, even thought I knew they weren't going to get trapped in the amber, that scene where Peter and Olivia talk Mrs. Merchant into letting her alt-husband go was still well-paced enough to be rather riveting.)
Yet this episode was still about Olivia and Walter, and once again these two provided the strongest material for the show to play with. Despite my ambivalence for the case itself, I like what it brought out in Olivia (and Peter) and I found the scenes in which the two talked over their feeling to be the most engaging of the hour. Of course, they didn't need the case to confront their feelings (though they should probably thank Walter and his blueberry-pancake-filled ruse), but it was needed to provide the an impetus for Olivia to finally give in to her feelings for Peter.
And while those two kids have found some happiness together, I have to wonder what lies ahead for them. If the destruction/survival of one universe over another relies on which 'Livia Peter chooses, and he has chosen Ourlivia, does this mean that the choice boils down to Olivia or his child? Because that not only oversimplifies the intended drama, but I can already predict a fairly easy way for the show to navigate out of this. And are we supposed to believe that Olivia will be mad that Peter accidentally knocked up Fauxlivia? The further we go along, the more dramatic momentum this arc loses, and last time I checked, that's the opposite of what's supposed to be happening.
As far as Walter, the show used this opportunity to continue exploring the questions that it raised last week concerning the moral standings of both he and Walternate. This time, however, the roles were reversed as Walter, who decried the use of amber, is forced with the possibility of the negative choice that Walternate made (compared to last week's decision concerning experimentation on children). Yet beyond being just a rehash of last week except in reverse, this also caused Walter some moral trouble of another kind, as he realized that Walternate, who must have looked at the amber solution in the same way the he's doing now, couldn't be the bad guy that he's been made out to be. This makes Walter feel even guiltier about his abduction of Peter, as he has lost the irrational logic he had been using all these years to let himself off of the hook. It was some fantastic work from John Noble, and I am looking forward to how this is going to play out in the upcoming weeks. In fact, maybe the show has found it's new new new story arc.
And that's how you do an episodic review without losing sight of the big picture.
What did everybody else think?
Additional Thoughts:
If the above link interested you, here are the responses from Sepinwall, Myles McNutt, James Poniewozik, and Donna Bowman briefly worked in into her review of Monday's How I Met Your Mother. It really is interesting stuff, I recommend you check it out.
This week in viewing numbers: Fringe keep slipping.
In 1973 Walter scientifically proved breakfast to be the most important meal of the day.
“Perhaps I should have made a fritata.”
I'm pretty sure the show stole the idea of a coin flip going the opposite way in a parallel universe from an episode of Futurama.
Walter draws the line at ghosts.
"Soul Magnets" is going to be the name of my new R&B band.
Who wants to take bets on whether Bell will contact Walter from beyond the grave before the end of the season?
Broyles beat the president at golf. Way to risk job security, dude.
“I want what you want.” So she....wants him to want her? (Ba-dum-tsssh.)
Programming Note: Next Friday I will be busy at a friend's wedding, so expect the review to be up some time Saturday night. There is no airing on March 4th (to make way for the NAACP Image Awards), but we'll be back to business as usual on March 11th.
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