the observer-related stories
Posted Nov 5th 2009 11:20PM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S02E06) "Why is this case so important to you?" - Olivia to Agent Broyles
I said in
my preview earlier today that I hoped this episode of
Fringe wouldn't be a stand-alone creature feature. Unfortunately, that's exactly what it was. No William Bell. No Nina Sharp. No Pattern. No alternate universe. And no Observer. At least, not front and center. Did anyone see him?
Instead, we got a little diversion into the life of Phillip Broyles; how he got so involved in a case four years ago that it cost him his marriage and family. I feel for the guy, but I'm not that interested in his life. As for the Shadow, was this an
X-Files knock-off? You can tell me in the comments after the jump.
Continue reading Review: Fringe - Earthling
Posted Oct 16th 2009 3:52AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S02E05) "Whether you admit it or not, your life is something of a nightmare." - Bowling Alley Guy to Olivia
For a minute there, I thought maybe we were in a
True Blood crossover with the horned guy in the first few minutes of this episode. But no, it was the usual twisty-turny
Fringe-isms involving mind control, computer chips and dream states.
And it appears that something many of us assumed had happened to Peter actually did happen -- though with this show, you can never be sure until it all plays out. It wouldn't surprise me if it's something completely different from what I'm assuming it is. All this, and Mysterious Bowling Alley Guy after the jump ...
Continue reading Fringe: Dream Logic
Posted Oct 9th 2009 3:38AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S02E04) "Momentum can be deferred, but it must always be paid back in full. As I always said to Walter, physics is a bitch." - William Bell to Olivia, on the dangers of jumping universes
Cryonics, frozen heads, worm juice, mercury blood, shapeshifters, and Leonard Nimoy were all featured in this episode, and I loved it all.
Let's start with the worm juice. Olivia must have been seriously craving her William Bell memories to drink that awful stuff. And what a trooper that she was able to keep it down, too. I guess it must have worked. She got some of her memories back, along with some help from the bell -- both the bell they chimed during Rebecca's psychedelic adventure
and William Bell. Or Willem, as Olivia used to call him.
Is she right not to trust him? Could he have started the war? It's certainly possible, given his mysteriousness. He said for reasons she might understand later, he couldn't come back to this universe right now, possibly never. Why? What's he doing over there? Is he the one building the army? Is he being forced to? Will he and Walter face off eventually?
Continue reading Fringe: Momentum Deferred
Posted Oct 2nd 2009 4:27AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S02E03) "Get my portable chemistry set ... this means bodies!" - Walter to Astrid
This episode of
Fringe sort of went along without too many shocker moments -- until the last few minutes, that is. I wasn't all that surprised about the serum that turned people into human explosives, or even that it might be part of a top-secret military experiment. But I was wondering when our friend The Observer would turn up again in a big way and dump something spicy all over his plate of food.
Continue reading Fringe: Fractured
Posted Sep 25th 2009 4:50AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S02E02) "We're all victims of our own gene pool. Someone must have peed in yours." - Walter to Sheriff Golightly
Creature feature? Or relevant to the alternate universe storyline? Those were the questions running through my head as I watched this episode of
Fringe.
What I believe -- at the moment -- is that all of the creature features we had during season one are somehow relevant to the overall storyline. Since things are slightly different in the alternate universe, perhaps there are creatures there who've evolved or avoided extinction that have somehow made their way back to this universe. Of course, it appears that this episode's creature was created right here.
Read my
Fringe theories, and follow me after the jump for commentary on tonight's episode.
Continue reading Fringe: Night of Desirable Objects
Posted Sep 21st 2009 9:00AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: TV on DVD, OpEd, Reality-Free, Fringe, Jane After Dark
In anticipation of the season two premiere of
Fringe last week (read my review and your comments
here), I revisited season one to refresh my brain. There are so many subtleties that connect seasons one and two, and it was good to go back and watch it again.
While there were a few creature-feature episodes that appeared to be stand-alones (but who really knows with this show?), for the most part, much of season one was devoted to weaving an intricate mystery and setting things up for season two. It's too much, really, for one small blog post, but a few things sprang to mind ...
Continue reading Jane After Dark: Fringe, season one - pudding, ZFT, and The Observer
Posted Sep 18th 2009 3:40AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S02E01) "I went somewhere." - Olivia to PeterI can hardly contain my giddiness that
Fringe is back, so ... yay! ...
Fringe is back! More mystery! More intrigue! More Walter Bishop! More Jean! More jump-out-of-your-seat moments!
It's been a long summer since we last left the crew with Olivia in another dimension, Walter visiting Peter's grave, and the mysterious William Bell played by the mysterious Leonard Nimoy. Follow me after the jump to explore how the season is shaping up so far ...
Continue reading Fringe: A New Day in the Old Town (season premiere)
Posted May 13th 2009 8:27AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S01E20) Oh my. I wondered how they would wrap things up (or not wrap things up) in the season finale, and they definitely delivered the goods. It's no big shocker that we're dealing with an alternate reality; most of us probably saw that coming. But there was that one moment that made me gasp.
We knew Walter had done experiments on Peter when he was a kid, but it never occurred to me that Peter might have died -- or maybe it was just buried in the deep recesses of my brain. When Walter visited the graveyard, I fully expected to see his wife's name on that gravestone. Instead, we saw Peter's.
Continue reading Fringe: There's More Than One of Everything (season finale)
Posted May 7th 2009 4:29PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Lost, Reality-Free, Fringe
That last episode of
Fringe just will not let go of me. Tapping into parallel worlds, and then hearing from Walter that they're real... The impending conflict that he and Bell were preparing Olivia and the other children test subjects for in Florida... The Observer coming to collect Walter because it's time... You can feel it. Things are coming to a head and it reminds me of that feeling I had toward the end of the first season of
Lost.
Back then it was just a show about bizarrely connected people on a weird island who somehow survived a plane crash. We certainly didn't know 90 percent of what we do now, but we could feel all that story percolating. Mid-2008
Fringe was just a little show about weird happenings and I kept waiting to get more into the big conspiracy, the "what's this show really all about?." Now Nina Sharp of Massive Dynamics is scared, and The Observer is telling Walter that it's time. Oh the pot is stirring my friends.
Fringe is one of the best hours on television right now, and it could well be poised to be one of the all-time greats!
Posted May 6th 2009 8:31AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S01E19) It's an interesting premise. That we can have several different alternative realities, and if the brainwaves are hitting just right, we have the option to see more than one reality. Or in this case, more than one charred body.
I must say, Olivia handled it way better than I would have. I would have been FREAKING OUT and curled into a fetal position if the whole time-shift thing was happening before my eyes. But she took it all in stride, using it to help solve the case and find the twin sister in the lab. But oy ... what a shocker ...
Continue reading Fringe: The Road Not Taken
Posted Apr 29th 2009 8:00AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S01E18) We're definitely getting closer to some sort of revelation on Fringe. Last week, we heard Leonard Nimoy's voice on a videotape as William Bell, talking with Walter about a young Olivia in the room with them. This week, we learned that William Bell, founder of Massive Dynamic and the richest guy in the world, is the person funding ZFT. But it's not all that shocking. We've pretty much known all along that he's involved, unless ... there's some big, new twist about his involvement yet to come.
Continue reading Fringe: Midnight
Posted Apr 22nd 2009 8:04AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S01E17) I really love it when Olivia works someone over, like she did in the above photo. But wow, this episode of
Fringe was one psychological creep-fest from start to finish. As with
last week's episode, they really had us feeling like something eerie was about to happen, and sure enough, a bunch of eerie stuff DID happen.
Just the idea that someone could possess mind-control abilities is creepy, and now it looks like at least one of our main characters -- Olivia, a.k.a. "Olive" -- might be in that situation. The scene on the street with Nick gathering followers and taking them to the rooftop gave me goosebumps. Olivia was really in a tough spot. Either shoot the guy with the mind-control powers, or let everyone die.
Continue reading Fringe: Bad Dreams
Posted Apr 16th 2009 5:09PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Reality-Free, Fringe
I'm not talking about a newspaper, I'm talking about the mysterious bald guy on FOX's
Fringe.
Alert viewers have probably noticed the character on the show. You can often see him lurking in the background, as part of a crowd, or just walking by (as well as other, more obvious scenes). Now the character has made his way off of the show and is lurking about on other FOX shows, including
American Idol, NASCAR coverage, even during NFL games.
Continue reading Have you seen The Observer?
Posted Apr 15th 2009 8:02AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S01E16) "Psychedelics? No, not since Thursday." - Walter, responding to Peter's question as to whether he's on something. Fringe just gets better and better! This week's episode was one big, long freak-show-horror-movie-mystery. Although they once again didn't have anything about the pattern or the missing Nina Sharp or Massive Dynamic, we know it's coming. We know this because
Leonard Nimoy is on tap to play the mysterious William Bell, Walter's long-lost lab partner. Wheeeeee!!!!
Continue reading Fringe: Unleashed
Posted Apr 8th 2009 7:46AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Fringe
(S01E15) "There is so much that is unexplained ... until it is." - Walter BishopFirst things first: I'm so glad to have
Fringe back! It's such a good show, and this episode with its tense moments, mind-freak games, and The Observer reminded me once again why I love it. And, of course, everything that is Walter Bishop. The scene with the record player and the blues and the neurotransmitter was classic Walter.
They sure jumped right into it with the opening scene: the storyline about the contractor having a "feeling," double-checking the building before demolishing it, finding the hollow room below, and then finding the child in the dank, dark bowels of the building ... it all made for an intense opening scene that made you feel like anything could happen.
Continue reading Fringe: Inner Child
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