With all the excitement over new images from the Star Trek movie, we almost forgot to do our regular update for our adopted show being made by the Trek team. Yesterday the fifth episode of Fringe aired, see below for our review and the latest on Fringe.
Review – Fringe episode 4 – "Power Hungry"
The fifth Fringe episode settles in for another mystery of the week, but there is still some overall mythology involved. This time out we have an average Joe who seems to put everything electronic around him on the fritz which unfortunately leads to him accidentally killing an elevator full of people…oops. Speaking of mythology, if you look closely you will have spotted the new eyebrowless character ‘The Observer’ getting off that same elevator shortly before its fateful plunge. Is he going to pop up every week like Waldo?
Once again the mystery leads Walter to think back to the old days when he was a cold-war scientist and he remembers some experiment he conducted to supercharge people so they could be located by carrier pigeon. At this point the ‘I remember back when’ thing of Walter’s is starting to wear thin and it is time for the team to find a mystery that Walter actually has to crack a book or something to solve…or even better, give his son Peter a chance to knock one out of the park. While the mystery was rather predictable and run of the mill, it was at least somewhat connected to the overall mythology of the show and it did introduce a new mad scientist to the mix, the genetic engineer Dr. Jacob Fisher…who looks like he will be making a later appearance. Plus the episode did have a pretty funny moment involving Walter running a removed human heart sitting on a tray with a car battery.
What shined in this episode was the character moments, especially in the B Story involving Olivia having visions (and whole conversations) with her dead former lover John Scott. It was interesting that Olivia turned to FBI agent Charlie (Kirk Acevedo) and not Peter, when she sought advice on how to deal with her phantom. It may be that these two characters have the best chemistry in the whole show.
So this episode gets a ‘meh’ on the mystery and mythology, and a ‘yeah’ on the character development. .
Fringe science of the week:
- Humans turned into electrical dynamos (and trackable by Pigeon)
Walter line of the week:
"I am sure it had something to do with the commies, it always did back then."
John Scott is back…or is he?
Ratings – Fringe holding audience
Even though Fringe took a week off, it still held almost all of its audience, bringing in around 9.5 million total viewers. Fringe continues to trail ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and CBS’s The Mentalist in total viewers for the time slot, but it also continues to win the key 18-49 and 18-34 Demographic groups, leading TVByTheNumbers to declare both Mentalist and Fringe ‘hits.’ Fringe and House continue to help FOX win Tuesday nights in the key demographics, while coming in second in overall viewers.
Quick Fringe links
- BuddyTV looks at Where is Fringe Ultimately Headed
- Fringe is the cover story for this weekend’s TV Guide
Watch episode and extras online
If you missed it, you can watch the show online at Fox.com, in HD. Plus Fox has a full recap and also a bonus feature of ‘Walter’s lab notes.’ More at the official site.
[CLICK to watch FRINGE online]
Cool! I wasn’t sure if it aired last night or not.
Glad to know you’re not such a big fan that you’re going to gloss over a less than stellar episode, Anthony! Thanks for the great review! It definitely made me feel like I wasn’t alone in enjoying this episode and yet feeling like it could be so much more.
Wow what a day of news,,,
I cant wait to see Fringe over here in New Zealand,,
Cant wait to see Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy too,,!!
gee,, maybe NZ might get a Trek Con now !!
:-D
Fringe BITES! Its a stupid science of a week show. Random people who I dont care about getting killed by some lame super powered whack job. Then some horrible heros try saving the people who I dont care about with some scientist who started everything but is now senile.
I’m loving this series and the continuing story.
The only negative is that each strange occurrence seems to be based on a theory or something that was posited sometime ago by Walter. It will be nice when some new things happened that Walter has no knowledge of through previous research. I keep guessing whether the words ‘posited’ or ‘theorised’ will be uttered.
Noticed ‘The Observer’ appeared briefly walking out of the lift, but nothing else happened with his character in the episode, which was cool.
This episode was a disappointment compared to “The Arrival.” The John-in-Olivia’s-head thing is dumb and mostly implausible. The magnetized homing pidgeons were silly, and I groaned when Walter again was like, “Oh, I totally know all about this!” (as mentioned above). Where is Massive Dynamic? I loved Nina Sharp, and she seems to have disappeared.
Nevertheless, every show has its good episdodes and bad episodes, and Fringe is a promising show that can be given a little leeway especially since this is only its first season, and all things considered, it’s an overall success. I’ll keep watching. Here’s hoping something will stump Walter soon.
Loved the episode as normal, but does Joshua Jackson have to look so horrid, let him get a nights sleep already. And it’s really not flattering in HD :(
Apparently, The Observer has made appearances in ALL the episodes so far.
Click here to see: http://eastereggs.fringetelevision.com/search/label/Observer
I’m guessing that the only reason viewers didn’t notice him was because they weren’t looking and he wasn’t given a substantial part on the show until the 4th episode.
The only interesting character is The Observer. Everyone else is pretty freaking boring.
Dr. Bishop is boring? I thought eccentric characters were always well-liked. Just look at Doc Brown.
Fringe is still Junk.
I saw that Christian Slater show, and I thought it was better.
wow, maybe you should call this site trek movie & fringe tv report.
Or the J.J. Abrams report.
Question: What is it that most people have a problem with, when it comes to J.J. Abrams?
I still like Fringe. Yeah, I think it’s odd (contrived, maybe?) that every odd occurrence happens right near Boston. Eventually, something weird has to happen somewhere else so they need to travel (like the “Criminal Minds” team).
Walter is a hoot. Anna Torv (I can’t remember her character’s name right now) does only seem to have one facial expression: concerned. Still, I like the show a lot.
To answer Kyle Nin’s question:
Jealousy.
They know better and they should be running the Trek franchise. You know, nothing better than a good fan fic made official!
16. YodaOldBoy
No Trek fan should ever run the franchise. Ever.
#15- Maybe they will all get promoted and get a jet by season two. Its still early in the show, and I don’t expect Boston and Walter’s lab will be the status quo forever.
#16:
Were they jealous of Gene Roddenberry too?
#17:
Oh, I don’t know. Manny Coto is a fan and if he wanted to run the franchise, I’d take him in a heartbeat.
I dunno, my hat is off to Manny Coto for managing to make the bland-as-they-come Enterprise characters slightly more interesting in Season 4, but I’d have to see more before I handed over the keys to him.
As for the ep, I thought it was solid. Sure, the whole ‘Walter knew about this back in the 60’s’ thing might feel a bit contrived, but it still didn’t feel that overdone. I felt for the electrified fella, and silently cheered when he fried his annoying mother. Anna Torv is getting some meat to chew on in her personal storyline, and I’m hoping the one weak spot – Joshua Jackson – settles in to the point that I no longer think ‘Hey it’s Pacey being a jerk, just on a different show’.