Walter prefers “Faux-livia”

The title above is a reference to a scene in the episode “Reciprocity.” This confirms a suspicion I’ve been having that Walter serves the Hurley role of “speaking the mind of the fans.”

Either way, it was cool.

So, this most recent episode, Reciprocity, was a pretty good one. Action packed and kept me from guessing what Peter was doing until the reveal. They made it obvious he was up to something, but the writers did a nice job of keeping the reveal a surprise without pulling it out of no where.

I’ve mentioned before that Fringe tends to have the “reveals” earlier in the episode than one would expect. This episode was no exception. What was a little less satisfying was how the 5 minutes post reveal showed no major consequences.

I’ve got some thoughts on the spoiler filled (very spoiler filled) “Lightning Round” video released by Fringe, but I’m going to save them for a future post.

I will encourage you, however, if you can’t wait to check out The Fringe Podcast for some great thoughts on the show.

Keep watching this space for some thoughts on other TV shows and more about Fringe.

–Scott Copperman–

Fringe has returned!

Speaking of Fringe, I went through the whole Olivia in the alternate universe first half of the season expecting to see John Scott. How could John Scott not make some sort of appearance. He’s the reason our Olivia is with the Fringe Team, isn’t he?

So Fringe is back. It was a decent episode. Definitely set up some storylines for the balance of Season 3 and hopefully the future.

Here are impressions/reactions going forward (no spoilers, only theory… although I will be talking about what happened IN the most recent episode)…

1) I don’t like how timid Olivia has become. I was originally going to say how “damaged,” but I can understand her being damaged. That’s not how she’s coming across. She seems almost weak as a foil to the Faux-livia we watched for many weeks. I don’t like it and it’s making her an annoying character. The possible upside, is it’s generating fan sympathy for Peter and undoing some of the anger fans were feeling toward her for not realizing who Faux-livia was.

2) I think the John Scott of the Red Universe is being kept in the writers “back pocket” as a story line they can go to when needed/ready. It’d be easy to back-introduce him by having Faux-livia correspondences from her time on our side reference him as a possible way of getting to the real Olivia. Maybe a scan of a photo, some commentary in a cross-dimesnional email, etc.,. I think they can bring him back as a weapon to be used against the Blue Universe down the line. What is not addressed still, and may not ever be, is the whole Massive Dynamics keeping of John Scott’s body and who/what he was.

3) I felt really badly for Walter this episode. The Doc Brown character, “Roscoe,” was interesting, and it was a neat way to help Walter grow… but it was still sad to watch him learn he had been responsible for these new consequences. I’m ready for Walter to be less “damaged” and start to heal. I don’t want him to become the obnoxious Walter-nate, but I’m ready for him to be less needy. Quirky is fine, infantile is not.

4) My guess… is that the “next time” the observers are referring to about Walter letting Peter die, is related to Peter using the machine. I think we will all be led to believe Peter died, but in reality he will not. The effect of this on Walter will be a multi-episode arc like Olivia’s time on the other side.

That said, I do notice that Fringe often has cliff-hanger moments mid-episode and resolves them very quickly. For example, Peter getting shot by the observer could have been a much more dramatic moment… possibly the end of the episode. But there were about 5 minutes left … and within 90 seconds of screen time he was up and about. There have been other moments of tension that are diffused quickly by the fact that the show has X minutes left and the story quickly resolves the moment. So, I’m not sure if they would do that at all. The counterexample to my observation is the Season 2 finale… where we saw Olivia trapped. That’s one of my all-time favorite season endings. Killed me all summer long.

Can’t wait ’til next week.

–Scott Copperman–