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Fringe Season 4 Episode 12

Welcome to Westfield

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AIRED: Feb 10, 2012

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9.4

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Episode Summary

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Olivia, Peter, and Walter visit the town of Westfield to investigate a report of Fringe activity, and discover that they are trapped.

FAN RECAP

TV.com Episode Review

153

Fringe: When Over There Comes Over Here

The Fringe Division stuck in a town with a case of the crazies; Olivia acted both funny and familiar.

By Tim Surette, Feb 11, 2012

Fan Episode Reviews (8)

Spooky and Brilliant

10

By LalaDrake, Oct 17, 2012

one of the series best episodes... nice thriller ... had much fun watching the episode with the sense of everything is getting normal again... whether with timeline A or B, it's our Olivia and Walter... Peter u didn't get this mystery right..

the collide of the 2 towns was brilliant, I hope to see what is happening over the other side... although the other side was over here .. but I want 2 know the reaction of the other fringe team, fbi team... who are they going to blame? that villain from season 1 or maybe this is naturally happening because of something else... the rules of physics won't apply anymore !

I LOVED it... way 2 go writersmoreless
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Why Fringe is such an extraordinary TV series

10

By BevinChu, Apr 01, 2012

Fans of Fringe know it is an extraordinary TV series. But what makes it so extraordinary?

One reason is that the writers invested the series with extraordinary emotional significance, by raising the stakes as high as they could imagine. They did this when they came up with the series overall arc. They asked themselves, "How can we make our story matter, far more than usual?"

In many investigative TV series the protagonists solve the murder of a single individual. To wit: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. A great series. One of my favorites. But clearly the stakes are far smaller. As the theme song goes, "Who are you?"

Fringe is a investigative TV series as well. But in Fringe the protagonists race against time to prevent the murder of billions of individuals, not to mention prevent the annihilation of not one, but two entire universes!

How's that for a plot/theme fraught with significance? How's that for a high stakes game? How's that for carrying the weight of the world on one's shoulders?

All of this is on the physical level. We haven't even come to the psychological level. There the writers have been equally ambitious. Perhaps even more so.

Many of the extraordinary phenomenon in the physical universe of Fringe, such as the protagonists' dopplegangers in Universe B, suggest Jungian complexes in the psychological universe. This opens the doors to endless character complexities.moreless
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Fringe's testament to its fans and the Puppet Masters of Horrific Science-Fiction (Spoilers)

10

By jmw, Mar 16, 2012

This was the episode I had waited for. Season 3 had its lot of sci-fi wonders but so far the 4th hadn't raised the bar as high as I hope it would. This 12th installment left me speechless and can be compared to masterpieces like Reciprocity and "Concentrate and Ask Again". There're few superlatives to describe how its acting, writing, direction and overall production have to be praised. Has Fringe reached the acme of science-fiction ? The show could end right there and I wouldn't mind. Indeed now I worry that the upcoming episodes will disappoint me. Would it be inappropriate to compare "Welcome to Westfield" to Smallville's Booster ? I don't think so because I have tremendous respect and admiration for the people behind these TV series. However in the case of our favorite X-Filesean production I have no doubt that the 13rd episode will push the mind blowing barrier even further. Yes because it's what the incredible talents behind the show do. Their expectations are probably higher than ours and this time it was obvious from beginning to end.

Olivia's blue fantasy was a perfect way to introduce the writers' new televisual experiment. It's reminiscent of all these life changing works of art that excel to immerse their audience into their fictional universe in only a few split seconds. You forget everything around you, from the projects that drive you to the things that hurt, and for a moment you really feel like making love to the partner you have always dreamed of. I love you. Je t'aime. Te amo. And it got even better when we soon realized that this new Olivia was operating a mental transformation into The One we miss. The Alpha and the livia. What a stellar ending she could give birth with Peter ! In fact I was so thrilled by the ride they offered us that I didn't see the kiss coming. I shouldn't have left my guard down ! But there're worst ways to get knocked out.

When it's time to joke, it's John "Walter" Noble time ! His evolution slightly mirrored Olivia's one but the writers' were wise enough to make it as subtle as possible to leave our three-two (#?!) love birds some space. And with The Return of the Killing Pancake I already anticipate how much his reunion with Peter will make me cry of happiness like someone having its bare feet licked by a giant bear with a bird hat who has a beard and probably drank way too much beer ! But for once the comedy elements were anecdotic and the story couldn't have been more serious. It was quite welcome considering I found Making Angels a little soapy. First the parallel disaster was reminiscent of Amber 31422's wormhole. I can't imagine how much it was expensive to produce so many visual effects heavy scenes ! It really felt like the merging of two worlds even if I found the eye of the storm part a little rushed. Why did it end so abruptly ? At least the last thing we saw was Peter looking at Her. An other element I appreciated was the overall Stephen King's spirit. People trapped in a creepy town ? Of course the dimensional loop can only remember the time bubble from "And Those We Left Behind" but in my humble opinion it was more in the fascinating vein of a Groundhog Day or a King's novel. Indeed there was just something scary about the abandoned village, don't miss Nightmares & Dreamscapes' "You Know They Got A Hell Of A Band" by the way, and there was even a freak in the schoolbus ! Last but not least the black smoke, unrelated to Lost's one, some people had in their eyes was probably an homage to the cult oil from The X-Files. So definitely yes, this was the episode I had waited for.

Note : This review was first posted on Kritikenstein, my weblog.moreless
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Only on tv

8.0

By RobertSandwit, Mar 08, 2012

Walter manages to do a full chromosomal analysis in a couple of hours using school science lab equipment yeah right ok sure that can happen.
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Phantoms

9.5

By EddieMilstead, Feb 17, 2012

This was a great episode. The atmosphere of the story reminded me of the book "Phantoms" by Dean Koonts (not the movie based on that book). I really like how they are coming back around to know and love Peter again. Walter is so funny and he seems to be coming back around from the depressed "I'm going to lobotomize myself" Walter. Thank God! I'm looking forward to the rest of the season now.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

EDIT

Anna Torv	Olivia Dunham
Joshua Jackson	Peter Bishop
Lance Reddick	Phillip Broyles
Jasika Nicole	Astrid Farnsworth
John Noble	Dr. Walter Bishop

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Tim Kelleher	Cliff Hayes	Guest Star
Michelle Addison	Angela Hayes	Guest Star
Kevin J. Andruschak	Crazy Man	Guest Star

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Episode Photos

Joshua Jackson, John Noble, and Anna Tor...

© 2012 Fox Broadcasting Company
Joshua Jackson on Fringe from "Welcome t...

© 2012 Fox Broadcasting Company
Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv on Fringe f...

© 2012 Fox Broadcasting Company
Joshua Jackson on Fringe from "Welcome t...

© 2012 Fox Broadcasting Company

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (3)
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- Trivia: The Westfeld High School mascot is the Killer Bee. This is a clue toward the next episode, "A Better Human Being," when Walter compare the killers to bees.
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- Trivia: The Observer can be seen on the road as the jet passes overhead, standing next to the truck, his back to the camera.
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- Trivia: The glyph code for this episode is OLIVE.
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QUOTES (3)
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- Olivia: What's in it?
  Peter: It's mostly cinnamon schnapps and butter, but right now it's mostly butter.
  Walter: It needs more butter.
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- Olivia: So you're able to control the machine with your thoughts through this?
  Peter: That's how I was able to do it back in my timeline.
  Olivia: And what, you just click your heels and think of home?
  Peter: Well, we haven't quite worked out how that works yet, but that's kind of how I ended up here in Oz in the first place, so in theory, yeah.
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- Peter: When she first found me, I was in Baghdad trying to run a scam on these two Iranian businessman.
  Olivia: I didn't picture you as the scamming type.
  Peter: That's what made me so good at it.
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NOTES (3)
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- Music: California Stars (Billy Bragg & Wilco), Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (The Shirelles), Crazy Dreams (Conway Twitty), Epistrophy (John Coltrane & Thelonious Monk)
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- Blair Brown and Seth Gabel are credited but don't appear.
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- International Airdates:
  Canada: February 10, 2012 on Citytv
  UK: March 7, 2012 on Sky1
  Germany: July 23, 2012 on ProSieben
  Finland: January 30, 2013 on MTV3
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ALLUSIONS (0)
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