Fringe: "Os"

Once I add philosophy to the requisite bank of knowledge needed to fully enjoy an episode of Fringe, I'll offer up a review of last night's episode, after the jump....

I suppose I should start off with an apology, both for completely skipping the reviewing of “Subject 13” and for the lateness of this post. It turns out that Fringe's move to Fridays can even cause scheduling conflicts for this hardcore fan. (In other words, I have a life, so get off my back.)

Though I'm not sure that I really do need to apologize, given the quality of the past two episodes. Sure, “Subject 13” was a great piece of storytelling, but it was still a inconceivable piece of retconning, based on a treacly meet-cute, all to further this sense of destiny/fate between Peter and Olivia, something that I think the show doesn't really need to have, and a plot element that kind of ruins the mystery over what universe Peter will choose to save (or wherever we are at this stage of things).

And then there's this week's episode. Now, I hate to base a majority of any Fringe review around one element – the standalone cases – but when they take up a majority of the screen time, their quality is bound to have a major effect on how I view the quality of an episode as a whole. And unfortunately, these week's standalone wasn't as good as it could have been.

Now don't get me wrong. There were somethings about it I liked. The visuals were fantastic, both with the opening camera angles, which efficiently expressed the idea that without gravity the words “up” and “down” become meaningless, and the sights of bodies floating in the air during autopsy. I also really enjoyed Alan Ruck's performance as Dr. Crick, as man who is pushed the edge by his love for his son, yet who had this evil streak in him all along. (Clearly, somebody on the show's staff saw his performance in the first season of Justified.)

Yet, the idea that a father would do anything for his son is kind of tired, and though it did elicit a great scene between Crick and his son at the jail cell, I felt that this plot could have been expounded on and given a touch more detail/personalization.

And then there was an issue over the case/mystery itself. Approximately one-third of the way through the episode, both of the floating robbers were dead, and even though we saw one more person become injected with the anti-grav serum, it meant that a chunk of this case was all about figuring out why osmium would cause someone to float. While I enjoy when Fringe bases it science-fiction in actual science (even if that isn't always the case, which I'll get to in a moment), focusing on the physical properties of elements for 20 minutes doesn't really make for good television. In fact, it's pretty boring, even if the reason for all of this was to connect it back to the ongoing narrative (and in a bit of a shoe-horned manner, at that).

Which brings us to those pesky little ongoing plot elements. Usually these are my favorite part of the show, and while there was some real quality at play here, I am admittedly torn about the whole thing. As mentioned above, Fringe tends to play jump rope with the line between real science and science-fiction, and I am okay with; as long as the show gives an something resembling a plausible explanation for what goes on, I can generally buy anything that the show throws at me. But the idea that souls are made up of energy, and thus due to a few scientific principles can be returned to human form? Well, not only does that fly in the face of all that I have been taught by the (admittedly basic-level) science and philosophy classes that I have taken, but the explanation reads like a cheap excuse. I'm not saying that Fringe has to be realistic all (or even a majority) of the time; but when a show generally provides logical (for this show's universe, anyways) explanations for things, and then give us something like this, well, that pill becomes a bit hard to swallow. (Or, as Todd VanDerWerff put it, it's just a bit too “goofy.”)

Yet the way in which all of this was laid out was fantastic, and it helped this pill go down a lot easier. For starters, Walter's fears that without Bell he wouldn't be able to stop the destruction of the universes was nice, believable beat for the show to play, and just some fantastic work from John Noble. And though individual mileage may vary, I found the Peter/Olivia scene to be just the right amount of cute, and I am glad that the show didn't have Peter keep his secret from Olivia for any longer, because at this point, more relationship drama is the last thing we need.

But what really made all of this work was how the show ended up connecting these two plots, by having Olivia channel (for a lack of a better word) Bell in Peter's lab, to give him the answer he needs, all because Walter rang the bell at the right moment. (And can I just say that Anna Torv's Nimoy impression is pretty great?) And thank god it was Olivia that channeled Bell, because that is a choice that makes sense, and if it had been anyone – or anything! - else, then it would have pushed this whole “soul magnets” concept right over logic's edge.

This week's episode was a bit of a placeholder for the season, a way to introduce new elements without going at them too hard and heavy. And while I respect this approach, I only wish that the meat that had strung this elements together has been far more tasty.

What did everybody else think?


Additional Thoughts:

That was of course Jorge Garcia playing the stoner security guard, in a role that held no significance other than the fact that Hurley could be on yet another J.J. Abrams show.

“What did he say?” “It was the 70s; what could he say?”

The only thing Walter has achieved while head of Massive Dynamic was the invention of a new flavor of cupcake frosting: Baconberry. Mmmmmm.

Bell once went in search of the perfect bowel movement. After all, Everyone Poops.

Apparently mints are the next best thing to licorice.

“Do you think the perpetrator's from outer space?”

Broyles' pronunciation of the word “curator” bugs me, thought that may just be because that's my dream job.

Since it looks like we'll get at least an episode of Olivia channeling William Bell (which actually sounds like it could fun), what should we refer to her as when in this state? Leave your suggestions below.

In ratings news: Not terrible, but still in the “could be canceled” zone.