“I pulled you out of a moving car. Momentum can be deferred, but it must always be paid back, in full… As I once said to Walter, physics is a bitch.”

Tonight’s Fringe Icon’s spelled:

This was one of those episodes where the more you think about it, the more you like it. There were some major reveals, deaths and Ralph Fiennes.  Who doesn’t love an episode where semi-human hybrids who bleed mercury are stealing cryogenically frozen heads? And how about that “Willam” Bell? His intentions become a little clearer tonight as we get to see some of the conversation between him and Olivia. Was that all of it? Is there more? I hope so because giving her a warning isn’t enough for me. Maybe he told her how to stop the shape-shifters if she didn’t get to their leader’s head in time. Yes, I said head in time. That wasn’t a mistake. Let’s begin.
Why would someone want to steal cryogenically frozen heads, you ask? Well, I guess they think it is cool to steal heads or maybe they want to bowl with them? Ok, I kid. It turns out that these shape-shifters that have infiltrated our world are stealing these heads from the facilities as they are being transported. Once they get them, they shave them looking for something, but once they don’t find it they toss the head out. I want to know: why would you freeze your head anyway? What is the point of that? Are these people dead? Are they trying to make it through to 2500 when we have a wrestler running the white house and everyone drinks Brawndo, “it has electrolytes” (Thanks, Idiocracy). Cringe. That’s where William Bell and Olivia’s talk comes in.
Walter makes a drink of flat worms for Olivia. He contends that he and Bell once did an experiment where if you fed flat worms to another type of worm that those worms absorbed the memories of the ingested flat worms. Huh? He says it is a bad idea, but Olivia drinks it anyway. I’m not going to lie; I threw up a little in my mouth when she did that. YUCK. But it works, because later, Peter rings a bell and Olivia falls on the floor, remembering her time “over there.” (Bell rings a bell when his time is up with Olivia, what does that have to do with it? Puts a new spin on “Ring my Bell” doesn’t it?) It turns out that Bell pulled Olivia out of a moving car to give her a warning. Olivia, the only person strong enough to be pulled over there and survive, has to stop the “coming storm.” He says that he and Walter knew this was going to happen once they discovered this “other world.” He draws Olivia a picture of a symbol and says that this symbol will be on the neck of the shape-shifter leader. He is the one that can open the door between the two worlds. 
So, Olivia awakes knowing that she must find this guy with this symbol before the shape-shifters do. That is why they are stealing the heads, to find the head of this “leader” who can “open the door to the other world.” That’s not good. She goes to talk to Nina who demonstrates with two snow globes what would happen if this door were opened:  only one world would survive. Cue disaster movie music. This season of Fringe just took a right turn down Impending Doom Lane. Olivia now knows she must stop these people before they find their leader, but she unfortunately tells Charlie where the head is. As we know, he is the shape-shifter and with that knowledge he attacks Olivia because his mission has been accomplished. He calls his shape-shifting cronies about the location of the head and then tries to kill Olivia. They struggle, but of course, she wins out with a shot to Charlie’s head. It’s too late though; the shape-shifters find their leader’s head before the FBI can get to them. So that whole meeting with Bell was a waste of time for him, for her? All of that was for nothing? I hope not. Maybe he also told her how to stop him if she couldn’t find the head first? Crossing-fingers.
Also tonight, we learned a lot more about the shape-shifters themselves. They are 47% mercury (yes, like a thermometer) and a Mechano-organic hybrid that isn’t necessarily human. They are what Bell described as the “first wave.” I know they want to open this door, I know they are more advanced but what good would it do if they open the door and their world doesn’t survive? Does that make it easier for them to infiltrate and take over? Hm. Also, Massive Dynamic gets a hold of a working shape-shifter device through Olivia and now can repair the first one, finding out the identity of the at-large shape-shifter that attacked Olivia. With this knowledge of this device maybe they can also fight these shape-shifters? Know how they work? Why does their device transmit data? We know it turns out to be Charlie, of course. I felt so bad for Olivia when she was standing in that alley and got the full rendering of the shape-shifter. The look on her face was heart-stopping. She was looking into the face of her enemy, literally and just told him where the head was! Oh. No.
Walter also had an eventful episode: kisses, drugs and glowing men! He decides that maybe Rebecca, a girl from an old experiment might still be able to see these shape-shifters from another world. She could recognize them (after tons of LSD) by their glowing bodies. So they have been here since the 70’s? Wow! So, they go and get her and reproduce the experiment. Olivia’s melt down occurs during this time, so they didn’t show much of it. The whole experiment thing was just a way to reveal something about Peter. They walk her to her car and Peter goes to thank her and she sees him glowing. She thinks it is just some left-over drugs, but what does that mean? I know he is from over there, but I thought only shape-shifters had that glow. Does that mean he is a shape-shifter and not even human? Or just from over there and someone might figure it out (Rebecca)? Curious. Also, Bell said something about Olivia needing Peter by her side to fight this war. What did that mean? Why is Peter so special? We haven’t seen him bleed yet, so I’m starting to wonder…
Welcome Ralph Fiennes to our little show called Fringe. I knew when they cast him last year that he would play a pivotal role this season, but who knew he would be the leader of the shape-shifters, the door opener, the ender of the Fringe world? Ok, so he does play Lord Valdemort from Harry Potter, so we knew it was possible, but this is so cool. I can’t wait to see what he brings to the Fringe table. What I want to know is how did they get his body over here? Was it frozen too? How does that mercury reattach a head to a body? So sci-fi! What does that symbol mean on his head? Why was his head disconnected from his body in the first place? My head is hurting. Too many questions.
Did you see the observer in this episode? He was fuzzy in the foreground when Olivia came out of Massive Dynamic and met up with Charlie in the alley. Why would he be there at that moment? I just can’t wrap my head around the observer being a scout for bad guys. He seems too invested in Olivia and her team to really be bad. Wouldn’t it be cool if it turns out the observers are here to save us and that colonel guy in the last episode was just crazy? What if he was a shape-shifter trying to stop information from going TO the observer. These were all things I couldn’t stop thinking about when I re-watched the episode. Why would these shape-shifters need the observers to dig up info when they have been here all along? What do you think? Are the observers good or bad? What do you think of Ralph Fiennes being the ultimate shape-shifter? What did you think about that gross Rebecca/Walter kiss? What do you think of Olivia’s time over there? Discuss.

Tonight’s Pattern: Leaf, Flower, Hand, Leaf, Butterfly

  So that’s what liquefied brain looks like. Nice. I’ve always wondered what would happen when people used computers for murder, didn’t you? Ok, the thought didn’t cross my mind. I figured the computers would rise up and take over before we got to that point. I mean, they will eventually be smarter than us right? Who is saying the revolution hasn’t started? Wait, this isn’t a review for the Terminator is it? Sorry. Let’s just dive right into the new episode of Fringe full of mysterious notes, liquefied brains and a computer hand. Yes, a computer hand!

The episode opens on your average male teenager on his computer. Kids these days can’t do without chat, email and their online tools (ok, I can’t either). But something sinister lurks behind our necessity and in this episode it kills. Young Greg is chatting up girls and his best friend, Luke, when he gets a strange message: what is that noise? Now if something popped up and asked you to click it would you? I hate pop ups so I would probably try to get rid of it. Unfortunately, our first victim doesn’t and he goes into a trance watching a slew of images, sounds, and sights. It is like his brain had to watch and couldn’t look away. Then, reminiscent of a strange horror flick on SCI-FI a hand comes out of the computer and it lands on his head. You can see Greg crying so he knows something bad is going to happen. Now that is creepy! Just creepy!

I just wanted to interject right here that last week, I thought something might be going on with her sister, but it isn’t something too deep because everything seemed fine this time around. Her sister was just there. Why is she there? Doesn’t she have a job? I’m still trying to figure out the significance of their visit. Wow, Olivia’s sister says she is a liar in a sarcastic way and in reference to her daughter as well. Is that something alluding to her visit? What is she lying about? What does her sister think she lies about? Hm. Oh, that brings me back to my childhood, the game, Operation. I got relatively good at it and I always beat my sister, but that is probably because she was 8 and I was 12. It is also slightly ironic that they are playing operation around the brain and this episode is about the brain. Good one!

Now this is interesting! Peter finds a hand written note under the door of the Harvard lab and simply balls it up and throws it away. Did you see the look on his face? Without being too conspicuous, Astrid sees him, so then takes it out of the trash and reads it. Did you see the look on her face? What is in that note? Why would Peter throw it away when it is addressed to his father? So curious.

Back in the investigation, Olivia goes to visit the family after the incident and it seems there is no reason to hurt this innocent teenager. Olivia learns of Luke, Greg’s friend and then goes to talk to him at a garage. Luke is stunned so seemingly a dead end. But, back in the lab Walter finds that his brain matter was completely liquefied. Yuck. Why and how did this boy’s brains become liquid? What does it have to do with his computer, since the hard drive is totally fried? (Of course, we know what happened but not why.) Oh goodie, we get more information on the aloof Astrid, lab tech extraordinaire: she minored in computer science. She is trying to figure out what happened to the computer.

Now one victim is enough, but two? Another poor soul is found at a car dealership with brain matter coming out his nose. Is that the father of the victim Greg that works there with this man? I’m not sure. He says he is friends with the now dead salesman and they recently went to the strip club together. But now there are two victims with similar issues and both of their computer hard drives are fried. Why are people around this man dying? People he cares about at that! Who is targeting him?

Back at the lab: I haven’t heard that sound in ages either, Walter. No one these days has a phone that sounds like it is circa 1970. A phone? They have a phone? Who would have that number? Peter answers and says it was just a student looking for financial aid. Astrid gives Olivia a long look and after Peter is gone she shows Olivia the note. Olivia gives the audience a long look. So what, seriously, was in that letter and what is Peter hiding?

To get to the computer related problem, Peter takes the hard drives to a “friend”, Akeem, who admits he had never seen anything like it and would work on the problem. He finds that there is no way to find out where the signal/file is coming from but they can see who is downloading it next. Peter sees it is Olivia’s apartment and the race to her sister and niece begins. At the apartment, Ella, her niece is the one on the computer playing with a coloring book tool. How innocent, sweet. Why would they target her? Are they really trying to target Olivia who is trying to find them? Ella opens the program but Olivia gets there in time to stop the program but Ella, her niece, is frozen and won’t respond. Finally, she comes to and Olivia insists they take her to the hospital to make sure she doesn’t have any permanent damage. Ella swears she downloaded a file and then a hand was coming out of the computer. As she goes over what she saw, that is when Olivia sees the green camera light on, so she knows the killer is watching through a web cam. That is when we learn who it is: Luke’s father! But why? It is obvious Luke knows something is going on with his father because he asks if he has a job and why he is staying in this industrial warehouse. But, I don’t think he knows what his father is really up to. I’m sure that will be a shock. I mean, he killed his best friend!

Ok, so this Harris guy is really getting on my nerves. Why is this guy so gung-ho about shutting the operation down? First, Harris says this is CDC’s jurisdiction until Olivia admits she called them and they had never seen anything like it. Then, he goes on a rant about how Fringe unit is a rogue division operating outside regulations of the FBI and its guidelines. He says he is here to remedy that. Wow. You could see Olivia’s eyes squint a little in disgust. Then, after the investigation is closed he goes to Broyles and rants about HOW the whole investigation went down. Broyles tells Harris if he goes after Olivia, he goes after him. He is willing to stake his reputation and career on it. WOW! I heart Broyles. What I want to know is why does he trust Olivia so much? Does it have to do with that “committee” he is on? Who are they and what do they want with Olivia?

The team figures out that this computer program traps the brain in an endless loop, like a computer virus that infects humans. That makes sense! Unfortunately there is another victim and fortunately he is exactly the link they needed to solve the case. He is the step-father of Greg and the new husband of Luke’s mother.  They figure out that Greg’s father was Luke’s father’s boss and that Luke’s father got laid off at some point earlier.  So that’s the connection, a disgruntled ex-employee? That is an extreme if you ask me! He went and killed people around this guy, which hurts more than actually killing the target himself. So cruel! He must be crazy. So in the end, Olivia rounds up Luke and his father shoots himself in the head and that is that. All that after a gun stand-off. What fun. How sad.

So that is what the note is about. In the midst of this investigation, an older lady is standing outside of Harvard and Peter goes to talk to her. She wants to see Walter because she is the mother of the lab assistant that got killed in the lab accident that put Walter in the mental institution. Peter doesn’t want Walter to talk to her because he fears it will send him back over the edge. What a good son. Unfortunately, Olivia knows what is going on and weighs in on the matter. She thinks he should let Walter and Mrs. Warren talk. Olivia and Peter fight twice. But ultimately, Peter caves and Mrs. Warren and Walter talk. She doesn’t want to hurt Walter, she just wants closure and they share a hug and some kind words. Peter feels bad about how he treated Olivia so he goes to apologize in the last scene of the night. Peter admits that because of Olivia he has his father back and he didn’t want to lose him again. Awww, so sweet. But, I think I’m going to have to scream at the TV. Are they trying to connect Peter and Olivia’s sister up? Did you see that look they gave each other? NO! It is supposed to be Peter and Olivia, not her random, no-job sister! Ok, that wasn’t fair, but why is she there and why isn’t she working to support her daughter? Is she on vacation? Did I miss something? Just don’t put them together. Please?

I would like to take this moment to express that I’m so happy Fringe is doing well in the post American Idol time slot. It consistently does as well as 24 with about 12 million viewers. That gives me hope that good TV will someday catch on and people will stop watching reality TV and game shows. But, enough about that… I was watching something online at tvguide.com that had an interview with Jarred, who plays Mr. Jones. He was asked who his character was and he said he didn’t know. You know what I think, he is William Bell. If not, who else would have that much connection to Walter’s work? When do we get to see him again? Massive Dynamic (they have been eerily quiet)? C’mon JJ, where are my answers?

Sanctuary: An original web based show turned primetime. Stars Amanda Tapping as Helen Magnus, scientist studying the extreme and Robin Dunne as Zimmerman the psychologist who people say sees too much.

Settling into a smoother format, this episode opens with a supposedly normal robbery. Clerk sets off the silent alarm and the criminals make a break for it. As one of the criminals seems trapped in a corner, he proceeds to make his skull collapse and is perceived to have squeezed through the pipe. Cut to the good folks at the Sanctuary, in the office, checking out the surveillance tapes.

It appears the theft of only gold from the store seems familiar to a case will worked on a few years prior with a similarly impossible escape. With a print scraped from the crime scene shown earlier, the investigation is under way to track down all those possibly involved or related. The closest they can get to the perp (Malcolm) is a man who is a drifter in a run down part of town. They question the man thinking that the perp is his son, since he lives in a community of other folding men.

It turns out that the drifter does have a son, but he is one of Malcolm’s co-conspirators. Part of the point of stealing the gold was to create an addictive drug which also happens to ease the pain of extreme folding. Ashley once again seeks information from an abnormal informant, who easily leads them to Malcolm ending in a short chase and capture.

Inside of the facility, Will questions Malcolm about his involvement with the crimes. Here a valiant attempt is made to paint the picture of Malcolm as the victim of the infamous Nomad: leader of the criminal folding men. The problem with this is the fact that the most likely audience for this show is full folks who already watch a large amount of television. With this in mind, the shows writers cut between Malcolm dictated flashbacks and the other characters.

The big problem is that the character painted as the most perceptive, misses pretty blatant hints about Malcolm’s real intentions. Malcolm, leads the team to a place where the drifter’s son may have been hiding. Instead of a warm greeting, they find all his belongings and his remains. The team, minus Will, heads over to intercept a possible delivery of the drug while Will continues to talk to Malcolm.

Magnus and the others find out the lead they had on the drugs was a ruse, just as Will asks Malcolm to lead him to the hideout. Unfortunately for Will it was a trap, its just too bad it wasn’t better acted. Of course Magnus thought ahead and placed a tracker on Will’s car, distracting the group of folding men long enough for Will to spill the beans on the drifter’s son’s death. One of the subordinates questions Malcolm (predictably revealed as the infamous Nomad) which prompts them to trade bullets. Magnus stops the drug shipment and sort of happy ending.

This episode may have been too early in the season. Filler episodes work much better in the middle of the line, then again I am not sure how many episodes have been greenlit. Unlike the previous episodes, this is the first one not from the web version of the show. It is better paced than the premiere and has a better feel for the characters. The parts of the program I didn’t buy into where the more routine ones, but that comes from tons of TV and movie screenings. It holds up pretty well regardless, and I can now say I do recommend giving this show a shot.

Sanctuary: An original web based show turned primetime. Stars Amanda Tapping as Helen Magnus, scientist studying the extreme and Robin Dunne as Zimmerman the psychologist who people say sees too much.

It was quite gracious of SciFi to pick up the web series Sanctuary and try to give it a home on their network. Unfortunately, the either only wanted people to watch the show live and not let them enjoy the ability to go back and watch it closer or they were unsure about the series because it took me four tries to watch the show. The first couple of times it aired, I was otherwise occupied and tried to use the glorious DVR to watch, and SciFi ruined that by having “signal issues”. To the detriment of the show, it only allowed me to see the first 20 minutes each time, the twenty minutes that are easiest to promptly forget. I want to apologize for taking soo long for this, but I literally just watched it. I am going to avoid making references to the web version since I did not get a chance to check them out prior to the show being picked up.

The show starts off somewhat like a twisted cop drama. A pan of the city over a bit of tension inducing music, followed by a couple of murders. Instead of bullets, its from a tentacle coming out of a small child. The we cut to forensic psychologist Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) who is in a restaurant making detailed deductions about the dish he was just served, he is paged and heads to the scene. Upon arriving he scopes out the crime scene and butts heads with straight shooter cop Kavanaugh (Kavan Smith) over the existence of the boy at the crime scene. As if he is in a videogame, Zimmerman’s enhanced perception is shown as if the image is highlighted in a glow. He sees the boy outside but is halted in his chase by Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) , who hits him with a car.

While out he has a dream about what appears to be a giant bug attacking him as a child. Kavanaugh had made comments about Zimmerman being demoted from a government agency due to the oddness of his theories, which keeps being repeated throughout the episode as very thin foreshadowing. A witness identifies a “shooter” falsely which drives Zimmerman to question everything about the case and walk out into the rain where Magnus is waiting. In an alley an ominous bald man appears in thin air named John (Christopher Heyerdahl) who proceeds to murder a hooker after asking her for the location of Sanctuary.

Next the viewer is treated to more backstory for Zimmerman, an interlude between his cute but condescending ex-girlfriend who came to make sure he was not one of the victims and pick up the rest of her belongings. More token protagonist with nothing to lose fare, prompting him to contact Magnus and check out the Sanctuary. Ominous John tries to enter the premises with his neat little teleportation-esque power and is stopped by an electromagnetic field. He is seen to cough in what appears to be an attempt to portray him as terminally ill.

Cut back to the inside of the facility and we see Magnus giving Zimmerman an overly long tour. The effects are pretty good for the budget, but the viewer who chose to watch SciFi on a Friday night already has a good idea what “surprises” Zimmerman has in store. We also get to meet a couple of scary looking creatures with hearts of gold who help out the protagonist later. One of the recurring issues with this premiere (and less likely with the web version due to time constraints) is that SciFi has a big issue with crappy filler. This premiere should have been and hour or less. The four webisodes it was based on would have made it about an hour tops.

Normally two hour premieres are a great way to suck the viewer in, but it was somewhat taxing even without the technical difficulties to make it through the first hour. It takes about that long to introduce the daughter of Magnus (Emilie Ullerup) and Foss (Ryan Robbins), the characters that do a much better job of keeping you interested. Its one thing to enjoy Tapping in her time at Stargate, its another to wade through the accent she has on this program. At this point I’ll skip ahead a bit, they catch the boy and only Zimmerman is able to tame the beast. Evil John tricks the daughter into taking him to the facility then fools Foss and has him turn off the EM field off so he had teleport around.

After he grabs Magnus’s daughter and puts her in danger we get more Magnus backstory, she was knocked up by John the Ripper and is really old due to something in her blood. John uses the daughter to pursuade her to cure him, but she tricks him and he appears to dissipate. Zimmerman and scary character with a heart of gold save the girl. More backstory reveals Magnus saved him from the monster as a boy, and Magnus is 157. While it has its quirks, the follow up episodes may not have the pacing issues and will probably work much better. I have not been able to catch a promo for the new episode, but after an up and down premiere, I still have hope that the series has gotten the hard part out of the way and will improve.