TV: Fringe --"Night of Desirable Objects"--

Before I get into this recap/review, one needs to know a bit of philosophy/backstory to really get the main question this show is wanting the viewers to ask. Here, let Slackers enlighten you:



This is basically the premise of what the second season of Fringe will follow. Agent Dunham has returned from a special trip to an alternate reality where Leonard Nimoy is some random ass businessman. Now, onto the review/recap:

Leaving off with one of the most iconic last shots, and finales for that matter, of last fall season, Fringe is back, and it couldn't be at a better time. TV is lacking, stuck in the mud filled with an office of losers, a hospital of sex starved doctors, and a bunch of other random crews, Fringe is a welcome return to sci-fi thrillers, in the same vein as The X-Files.

Season 2 kicked off last week, but was a bit of a let down. Sure, it was a fine premiere, but it left the ONE overarching question of the show, hanging out on a limb. What happened to Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) when she traveled to an alternate universe? What does that reality represent for her and the rest of the show's participants? And what's up with Massive Dynamic founder William Bell (Leonard Nimoy)? All of these questions were unsolved at the opening of the first episode, and left open, if not more so, at the end. Hell, as I will get to at the end, the episode may have opened up even MORE questions.

What is even more sad, the second episode, "Night of Desirable Objects", does little to close any of those open doors. Instead of sticking to it's overarching themes and questions, it reverts back to it's concept of being a show full of one-offs. While you DO need to have seen previous episodes to fully get these episodes, they aren't a necessity. This episode does that exact thing, and while it's really entertaining, I know the show can do better.

This episode pits our heroes, Agent Dunham, Peter and Walter Bishop (Josh Jackson and John Noble, with the new FBI Agent mysteriously missing from much of this episode), against some sort of tunnel-burrowing monster. While this may sound interesting, it is nothing compared to the truly intriguing aspect of the show, in the deterioration of Dunham, in her psyche, skills, and emotions.

Still recovering from her trip to some sort of unexplained alternate universe (it even SEEMS like they are intentionally toying with us, as Walter begins to explain about alternate universes, but then is interrupted.), and is beginning to hear things. Is this due to her trip? Or is this due to her previously discussed "super powers"? Who knows, as it seems as though the people behind the show really may just be going along with it as well. That said, I have total faith in the creators, that SOMEONE knows what is going on, and these questions are what keeps me coming back. I WISH more shows left me with a single question, let alone a billion, as this rather stellar show does.

Also, there is a really interesting subplot with Agent Francis, Charlie, who is now a monster in human flesh. The premiere's villain is still alive, and in the body of one of the closest people to our main lead. This is definitely one of the stories to watch, as there is something about ready to explode inside this shape shifter.

All in all this is more of a recap than a review, because it would be me simply praising how amazing this show is. It's fun, interesting, visually stunning, and really well acted. This IS the show that you should be watching on Thursday nights, I only wish that it would get back to being Fringe, instead of being the best episodes of the X-Files.

FRINGE //"Night of Desirable Objects"// -- A-

Go see something good!

FIRST LOOK: Fringe; Season 2 Premiere...

So, it is no shock to any reader of this site that I am quite the fan of FOX TV's new hit drama, Fringe. Fringe was actually my new favorite television show of last year, including shows like Dollhouse, Lie To Me, and True Blood.

It then should not freak anyone out that I would devote an entire post to a few photo's from the set of the show's season 2 premiere. These show many things, but most interestingly, they show the hot new brunette that is reportedly taking over for the fallen Kirk Acevedo. So there's not much else to report, so check one photo below, and then click the link for the rest!



Click HERE for the rest.

Season 2 starts Thursday, September 17th at 9 p.m.

Go see something good!

NEWS: Fringe Gets Its Renewal, But There's A Catch...

Looks like this Fall season will see me hitting up Hulu more than I should.

Last week, we got word that Fox would be not only bringing back Dollhouse, Lie To Me, but also it's highest rated new show, and the highest rated freshman show on TV, Fringe. However, the news also brought us the news that the time slot that Fringe would be living in would be drastically changed.

Instead of owning the Tuesday night slot, it appears that Fox will be moving the show to the hottest and most contested slot on the schedule, Thursday's at 9 p.m.

Yes, you heard me, fans of Fringe will have to make a choice. Fringe will go head to head against Grey's Anatomy (which also had a stellar season finale), CSI, The Office, 30 Rock, and Supernatural. The cooking show, Hell's Kitchen was shown in that slot the last two years, but those shows have yet to appear on Fox's preumptive schedule.

Sure, Fringe held its own against Idol and The Mentalist, and it had a brilliant finale, yet, it will still be a tough test for J.J. Abrams newest series.

What do YOU think will happen in this slot. Give me an order of ratings, from the show that gets the highest, to the lowest.

Go see something good!

REVIEW: Fringe Season Finale...

So, it's over.

The finale for the new hit television series (and my personal favorite) Fringe just ended, and instead of being annoyed by people bitching in the news, I decided to write up my thoughts on this fun, if flawed ending to the season.

Early last week it was announced that Fringe would return for the fall, as FOX sent in an order for 22 episodes for a second season. Where would this finale take the show, and would it be a direction worth heading?

(For those of you who haven't seen the show, either WATCH IT, or head over to my series overview write up I did a few days ago)

The episode starts and we are thrust into the middle of the case. Nina Sharp has been attacked, and as she recovers, it is revealed that an energy cell has been stolen from her mechanical arm by Dr. David Jones.

As I wrote on Twitter, this energy cell is Fringe's version of a passport. This allows Jones to not only see an alternate reality, as when someone has a case of deja vu, but it ultimatley allows him to cross over into the said reality, which would allow him to finally confront William Bell, who he needs to prove his worth to, or so he says.

During all of this, Peter goes on the hunt for his father, who is taken by The Observer to a beach house where he gets a device that seals the portal open by Jones' device. The two meet Olivia who is on the trail of Jones, and they intercept him in the middle of opening his portal. They use the device found by Walter, which closes the portal, slicing Jones in half, leaving a half in both dimensions.

Owning up to a deal that she and Olivia made, Nina Sharp sets up a meeting. However, she bails, and Olivia leaves. Then, as she goes down the hotel on an elevator, she exits and is rushed into an office, where she meets William Bell. The final shot is a pan out of a widow of the office, where it becomes clear that she is in one of the World Trade Centers.

This episode was a bit of a mixed bag.

The real surprise of the finale was just how clean some of the things came together. Jones' process of selecting his spots to use the energy tube brought in the apparent use of the "Golden Ratio" within the commercial break interludes, as it looks as though it played into the dispersement of his experiments. Also, the use of the alternate reality idea was really well done.

The last shot is a great example of this, but there is another, more subtle shot that really got me wondering.

During the episode, Walter mentions to Peter that, while he was young he was extremely ill and dying, he would collect coins. However, he said he may not remember that, and of course, Peter doesn't. Then, during one of the last two shots of the show, we see a note in the office written for Peter. The note says that Walter is out and Peter shouldn't worry about him. Then there is a shot of Walter placing the coin on the grave of Peter, which can be seen with both a birth and a death date.

This, along with the idea of an alternate reality, which was of course thought of by Walter leaves me with one question. Is Peter the alternate reality version of his son? Knowing that there is a second season, I sure hope that this idea is minded a bit more, as not only the idea really interesting, but this could cause some great plot movements within the relationship between Peter and his father.

Also, the last shot is quite haunting. We start the last scene by simply seeing William Bell (Leonard Nimoy, of course) in the shadows. Dunham asks where she is and who he is, and he responds:

The answer to your first question is, it's complicated, and the answer to your second question, is, I'm William Bell."

Then the camera pans out to show us that Dunham is standing in one of the towers of the World Trade Center. The shot of her in the WTC would be haunting enough, but with the fact that the season is over, leaves me wanting more. And truely, that is what the best finales do.

However, there were a few flaws.

The main problem I had during this episode wasn't really anything that bothered me during the span of the show, but it was just one moment.

There is a monolouge given by Peter (Joshua Jackson), where he describes his childhood, in hopes of sparking memories in his father. While the idea is great and all, it was given with such a weird mix of cheesiness and sincerity, that it just didn't work for me. Whereas the rest of the series showed a great relationship between the father and son, this episode just really didn't work on that level. However, that didn't effect the impact of that last shot, which I talked about above.

All in all, this was a phenominal end to a phenominal show. It's a well acted, beautifully shot, and really well scored series, that delves into things that I have been craving since the loss of The X-Files. Sure, it may not hit every note, but for something this intellectually stimulating to be really entertaining, is something to stand up and cheer.

I'll be the one in the front with the megahorn.

Go see something good!

FORUM: The Brilliance of Fringe...

Sometimes, a show comes along, that you just know is going to be something to watch out for. Over the past two decades, shows like The X-Files, The Wire, Rome, and Battlestar Galactica have been shows that, while featuring overarching storylines that span seasons, are also able to be picked up, and enjoyed by the everyday viewer.

However, with every piece of brilliance shelled out by television studios, comes a certain cancellation as it’s the idea doesn’t feature a bunch of blondes with the brain capacity of a crap I just took, or a bunch of F list celebrities trying to win a dollar by paying their dignity.

That’s why it was a great surprise to yours truly when it was announced that not only was Fringe coming back for a second season, but Fox ordered a 22-episode season to follow up the shows 20-episode first season. At least someone in Hollywood has a brain.

While the last show I talked about, Dollhouse, was a bit more intellectually stimulating, Fringe has been on a roll as of late, and features a premise that is kind of a mix of the X-Files and the 5400, while not riping off any previous show. It’s taking ideas from other series, but it’s its own monster. A chimera to be exact.

Premiering back in September, Fringe tells the story of FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham, who is part of a special government group that investigates different aspects of what are called Fringe Sciences. Things such as telepathy, psychokinesis, and reanimation are all investigated by Dunham along with scientist Walter Bishop and his son Peter. The group was brought together after a series of mysterious experiments, spanning the globe, had begun. Called “The Pattern”, these “experiments” began out of nowhere, but as the series progressed, an apparent connection between “The Pattern” and the global research company, Massive Dynamic, has proven otherwise. Along with the rise a bioterrorist organization called the ZFT, the two sides are also mysteriously connected by a special chemical, developed by Walter and his partner William Bell (the CEO of Massive Dynamic), which was given to Olivia and other children when they were born. The drug, Cortexiphan, is at the root of this series, and it’s what is set to be discussed during the season finale, airing Tuesday at 9 p.m. on FOX.

The main reason that I think this series needs to be seen by more people, is how user friendly the series is.

Sure, the show has it’s season spanning storyline, with the points like what exactly ZFT is, how they are connected to the recent experiments, and what exactly cortexiphan is, but it was one major promise of J.J. Abrams, to make this series easy to follow.

Abrams is the same guy who created the geek favorite (although not one of yours trulys) series, Lost. Where as that show has a plot that not only spans many characters storys, but also time as well. With it’s copious amounts of flash forwards and backs, that show has a insane following, but is not open to new viewers.

However, Fringe is on the other end of the spectrum.

Where as Lost is much more of a comic book style television show, in that a viewer needs to have seen previous episodes to understand the new one, a viewer can skip one, two, or even three episodes of Fringe, and pick it up without to much lost. That’s not always a good thing, but I think it makes each episode more poignant, while still allowing for long time viewers, like myself, to get just that much more out of it. Sure, you will understand a ton more, but as a piece of television, a first time viewer is able to enjoy an episode, no matter where in the shows timeline it stands.

Lost has garnered a certain reputation for being a very complicated show and one that you have to watch every episode. Fringe is in many ways an experiment for us, which is, we believe it is possible to do a show that does have an overall story and end game, which Fringe absolutely does… We can do a show that has that, so that there's a direction the show is going and there's an ultimate story that's being told, but also a show that you don't have to watch episodes one, two and three to tune into episode four -- J.J. ABRAMS

That said, Fringe is full of nuggets for the long time viewer to chew on.

The primary mystery the show attempts to have the viewer decipher is actually so unbeknownst to most viewers, as it is in the interludes to commercial breaks.
One thing that this show, along with Dollhouse, is pioneering is what FOX is calling Remote-Free TV. The normal television drama is roughly 6-7 minutes shorter than Fringe, as the commercial breaks are in small amounts (probably 5 an episode), and only last for 30, 60, or 90 seconds. Also, when the show fades to commercial, one of nine special “glyphs” can be seen, and it is these little images, mainly a frog,
that Abrams has hinted at as to having meaning in the show.

The frogs first appeared outside of the commercial breaks in episode 109, The Dreamscape.

As the episode unfolds, we discover that the frogs produce two separate toxins: 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin – both belong to the family of hallucinogenic tryptamines. While these frogs don’t truly resemble the frog glyphs from the interludes, it goes along with them, along with the Origami frogs which are shown in Walter’s lab notes.

However, within the frog glyph from the breaks, the frogs contain the Greek letter, phi. Phi is a greek letter, that, in mathematics, means what is known as the “Golden Ratio” or 1.6180339887… Many organisms grow according to this ratio, and even the branching veins of humans and animals follow this ratio.

Along with the frogs, each of the other eight glyhps have special meanings

Apple – Split in half, and instead of seeds, human embryos are in their place.
Butterfly – Has bones for wings
Sunflower – Has dragonfly wings as some of the petals, and in the center, there are counter rotating spirals, which represent the Fibbonaci sequence. Also, it has mirror symmetry, and a spade playing card can be seen.
Hand – Has six fingers, seen as a left and right hand (which doesn’t play into the location of the yellow dot seen), and it appears in every episode during the title sequence.
Horn – Shaped as a Fibonacci spiral, and has the number Phi inscribed along the horn.
Leaf – Has a Delta symbol on it
Seahorse – Has a Fibonacci spiral on its side, which can also be seen in the tail
Smoke – Forms a womans face
Yellow dots – Appear in many glyphs, and could be a possible code, as many people believe that the location of the dot along with the glyph could be a code, with the dot being a specific letter, and the glyph being another.

There is evidence relating to each of these glyphs, all of it adding a ton to the experience, at least for me, but I’ll let you all hunt that stuff down. Head over to Fringepedia for all of this information, and then some.

So, enough of my rambling. All I really want to say is that this show is something special. It takes the basis of The X-Files, or a show of that style, and throws in terrorism and a hot ass female lead. What more could you ask for? Relevant issues (big corporations, terrorism, bio-terror, enviornmentalism, etc.), great acting, stunning visuals, and completely engaging story makes this a must see, for those who care to spend an hour in front of the TV on Friday nights at 9 p.m. The season finale is coming up this Tuesday, and I hope this has sparked at least a bit of curiosity for those of you previously not interested.

Go see something good!