Fringe Season 4 Episode 12

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 writers

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fringe became the short-lived NBC series Persons Unknown here tonight as the gang was stuck in a town and could not get out. It was a compelling story and they did a good job with it for the most part (the whole ending was a little bit forced) leading to an intriguing hour of television. One of the season's more creative episodes, but I cannot immediately say it was one of the best.

In my book this was the first episode out of the season that had the feeling that the old team was back except for not being able to see much of Astrid. It was a great feeling and case to watch, even seeing Walter and Peter become real close is great everyone starts to notice their relationship growing. Also with Olivia to as well, this episode about people are having thoughts and physical mutation from the alt self in another universe. Another twist is Olivia seems to be effected by all this but not in a dangerous way, she seems to have gotten memories from Peter's Olivia, towards the end. The question is and I still have got a hint of it as of now, is Peter really from an alt universe or this things just change when he no longer existed.

In a way, it felt like the earlier episodes of Fringe, with ( almost ) only our three leads on the case, getting to know each other ( again ) in the process. ( And I'm pretty sure that sense of familiarity was what the writers were aiming for on purpose, after eleven episodes where everything and everyone, except Peter, felt "un-familiar". ) What also felt like the previous seasons is that for the first time in a while, the answer to the mystery of the week wasn't so easy to find, but it's quite consistent with what we've seen in "Jacksonville" : nice to see season 4 continues to build enough bridges with previous seasons so we don't have the impression to watch a completely new show ... and with Olivia's current condition, I'm sure this trend will amplify. At least, it may provide us some clarification on what the new timeline is and how it relates to the seasons 1-3 timeline. On a side note, it was a well-done red herring to let us think she was suffering from the same illness than the townspeople. Anyway, great special effects during the "storm", great acting from Joshua Jackson when talking about "his" Olivia ... I wouldn't say the episode was one of the series' best, but it doesn't disappoint.