Fringe: "The Same Old Story"
Wrote the following as a sample piece for The Two Cents, a TV review site that has offered me a position writing about Smallville and Entourage. My reviews should start showing up on the site within the next week. Until then, enjoy these comments on last night's episode of The X-Files clone, Fringe. You're welcome!
"The Same Old Story"
Original broadcast date: September 17, 2008
I still miss Mulder and Scully, but with the exception of those characters, last night’s episode of Fringe continued its reboot of the X-Files franchise, complete with a gross-out teaser, seemingly inexplicable phenomena that, by the end of the episode, are mostly explained, and further hints of a complex conspiracy behind it all. Does the second episode help the series form its own identity? The truth is out there.
The episode’s teaser does manage to up the X-Files’ ante in terms of shock value and overall creepiness. We see Christopher, a guy who looks like a cross between an inebriated Matthew Modine and Tony Perkins checking in another hotel guest, and a working girl in a hotel room, after concluding some, er, business. While Christopher gets out what looks like a drug kit in the bathroom, his partner (Loraine with one “r”) chats him up from the bedroom, until her stomach begins convulsing and she begins screaming in pain and horror. Before long, her tummy has swelled to disturbingly pregnant proportions and Christopher is dropping her off outside the local emergency room before making a fast getaway.
Loraine is rolled into an operating room, where her caretakers soon adopt open-mouthed expressions of horror and disgust. Loraine’s abrupt pregnancy is freaking out surgeons, so we know something freaky is happening. Cue spooky opening montage!
The episode then quickly reintroduces us to the main cast of characters and the premise of the series. We are reminded that Walter Bishop, the kooky scientist, has spent 17 years in a mental institution and has already forgotten that his old lab was returned to him in last week’s episode. Peter, Walter’s grifter son, rolls his eyes at this and offers appropriately sarcastic commentary on his father’s mental state, before he is off with our heroine, Olivia Dunham, at the behest of the mysterious Mr. Royles, to investigate the hotel room where Loraine was, shall we say, introduced to the miracle of life.
Olivia quickly realizes that this case follows this M.O. of a serial killer she and her former love, Agent Scott, investigated without resolution twelve years ago. The killer, dubbed “The Brain Surgeon,” apparently had some fixation for the pituitary gland and devised some brilliantly efficient means of extracting said gland from his unfortunate victims. Cue ominous music!
Coincidentally (?), crazy Walter Bishop also has had some experience with Mr. Brain Surgeon, via his former lab partner, Dr. Claus Penrose, whom Walter is reminded of after remembering the location of a car he parked before entering the institution. Said car is full of interesting knick-knacks, including a severed hand in a jar (shades of Doctor Who) and lots of files that are sure to contain plot devices for future episodes. Walter speculates that Loraine’s birthing pains were largely inspired, if not induced, by Penrose’s experiments in manipulating growth hormones for the Defense Department as a way of creating super-soldiers. Cue Captain America!
After we see Christopher entrap another lady of the evening, Walter and son drop some Jules Verne references and Blair Brown offers her best impersonation of the Cigarette-Smoking Man, before Walter comes up with the idea of using the latest victim’s last vision before death to identify where the Brain Surgeon has been, er, operating. How can we know what the victim’s last vision was? By extracting the electrical images preserved on her retina, of course! Cue eyeball extraction scene that would give Fredric Wertham pause for thought.
While Walter and Junior Agent Astrid make popcorn, Olivia and Peter chase down the Brain Surgeon after identifying the location obtained from Eyeball Lady. Turns out that Brain Surgeon Christopher is Penrose’s experimental son, whom Penrose could not stand to see die. To survive, Christopher must continually ingest pituitary gland juice from his victims. And who can blame the guy? Any sacrifice in the cause of younger-looking super-soldier skin must be valid, right?
Though Penrose escapes, the episode shifts into seed-planting mode for future episodes, and we get hints that Peter’s medical history might make for interesting reading and that he may have spent some time in a lab sleeping in a Michael Jackson-style oxygen chamber. Cue Lost-like episode-concluding sound of closing door!
Considering that Fringe has been placed in the timeslot following House, Fox clearly has big plans for this series. So what do you think? Is Fringe making more sense the less you pay attention? Are Olivia and Peter up to the challenge of helping us forget all about Mulder and Scully? Will Agent Skinner and CSM be making guest appearances on the show? Is this really “the same old story” or is Fringe’s envelope-pushing content as fresh as Walter’s laboratory milk and popcorn?
The episode’s teaser does manage to up the X-Files’ ante in terms of shock value and overall creepiness. We see Christopher, a guy who looks like a cross between an inebriated Matthew Modine and Tony Perkins checking in another hotel guest, and a working girl in a hotel room, after concluding some, er, business. While Christopher gets out what looks like a drug kit in the bathroom, his partner (Loraine with one “r”) chats him up from the bedroom, until her stomach begins convulsing and she begins screaming in pain and horror. Before long, her tummy has swelled to disturbingly pregnant proportions and Christopher is dropping her off outside the local emergency room before making a fast getaway.
Loraine is rolled into an operating room, where her caretakers soon adopt open-mouthed expressions of horror and disgust. Loraine’s abrupt pregnancy is freaking out surgeons, so we know something freaky is happening. Cue spooky opening montage!
The episode then quickly reintroduces us to the main cast of characters and the premise of the series. We are reminded that Walter Bishop, the kooky scientist, has spent 17 years in a mental institution and has already forgotten that his old lab was returned to him in last week’s episode. Peter, Walter’s grifter son, rolls his eyes at this and offers appropriately sarcastic commentary on his father’s mental state, before he is off with our heroine, Olivia Dunham, at the behest of the mysterious Mr. Royles, to investigate the hotel room where Loraine was, shall we say, introduced to the miracle of life.
Olivia quickly realizes that this case follows this M.O. of a serial killer she and her former love, Agent Scott, investigated without resolution twelve years ago. The killer, dubbed “The Brain Surgeon,” apparently had some fixation for the pituitary gland and devised some brilliantly efficient means of extracting said gland from his unfortunate victims. Cue ominous music!
Coincidentally (?), crazy Walter Bishop also has had some experience with Mr. Brain Surgeon, via his former lab partner, Dr. Claus Penrose, whom Walter is reminded of after remembering the location of a car he parked before entering the institution. Said car is full of interesting knick-knacks, including a severed hand in a jar (shades of Doctor Who) and lots of files that are sure to contain plot devices for future episodes. Walter speculates that Loraine’s birthing pains were largely inspired, if not induced, by Penrose’s experiments in manipulating growth hormones for the Defense Department as a way of creating super-soldiers. Cue Captain America!
After we see Christopher entrap another lady of the evening, Walter and son drop some Jules Verne references and Blair Brown offers her best impersonation of the Cigarette-Smoking Man, before Walter comes up with the idea of using the latest victim’s last vision before death to identify where the Brain Surgeon has been, er, operating. How can we know what the victim’s last vision was? By extracting the electrical images preserved on her retina, of course! Cue eyeball extraction scene that would give Fredric Wertham pause for thought.
While Walter and Junior Agent Astrid make popcorn, Olivia and Peter chase down the Brain Surgeon after identifying the location obtained from Eyeball Lady. Turns out that Brain Surgeon Christopher is Penrose’s experimental son, whom Penrose could not stand to see die. To survive, Christopher must continually ingest pituitary gland juice from his victims. And who can blame the guy? Any sacrifice in the cause of younger-looking super-soldier skin must be valid, right?
Though Penrose escapes, the episode shifts into seed-planting mode for future episodes, and we get hints that Peter’s medical history might make for interesting reading and that he may have spent some time in a lab sleeping in a Michael Jackson-style oxygen chamber. Cue Lost-like episode-concluding sound of closing door!
Considering that Fringe has been placed in the timeslot following House, Fox clearly has big plans for this series. So what do you think? Is Fringe making more sense the less you pay attention? Are Olivia and Peter up to the challenge of helping us forget all about Mulder and Scully? Will Agent Skinner and CSM be making guest appearances on the show? Is this really “the same old story” or is Fringe’s envelope-pushing content as fresh as Walter’s laboratory milk and popcorn?
posted by Chazzbot at 12:33 PM
1 Comments:
Hey, great work! I read TWOP regularly, and your recaps on this Two Cents site are going to become regular reading, too. Maybe I'll even start watching Smallville again...
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