Fringe - "The Same Old Story"

After seeing this week's episode I think I'm a lot clearer on where I stand on Fringe, which still seems to be figuring out exactly what kind of TV show it wants to be.

Starting with the opening sequence which was just killer (groan). The scenario is one we see opening TV shows a lot: mysterious man in a hotel with a woman up to no good. However, quickly we get to the twist when, in one of the freakest scenes I've ever seen on TV, the woman goes through the entire process of pregnancy in about a half hour and gives birth to a child who ages and dies before sunrise. It was shocking, creepy, and disturbing in all the best ways and it is a scene, perhaps even moreso than last week's airplane moment, that throws the gauntlet down and says that Fringe is willing to take some chances.

I also thought the character dynamics improved a lot in this episode. Peter seemed a lot more useful this time and his relationship with Walter is developing some genuine pathos, which is nice. Walter continues to be great (my favorite moment was him making popcorn during the climactic showdown), and Olivia is also becoming a little more human. The business with her partner is still not terribly compelling, but her relationship with Broyles and especially Sharp, whose Massive Dynamics gets more terrifying with each episode.

However, this episode also demonstrated how Fringe can go wrong, namely by becoming a sci-fi version of Criminal Minds. All the stuff with the serial killer murdering women in a gruesome way came straight off of the CBS assembly line and, while it turned out that he actually needed to grab their pituitary glands to survive, this week's story still seemed somewhat tired. I know Abrams and Co. have said they want to keep this show less dense than Lost, but that doesn't mean they need to go the obvious route.

The last ten or so minutes did a lot to redeem the episode, however. Olivia's conversation with Sharp made Massive Dynamics sound a whole lot more evil than they did last week. And from what Walter was saying to Olivia at the end, it sounds like Peter may be a clone. And the final scene was kind of touching (right now the Peter and Walter relationship may be the most interesting one the show has).

Ultimately Fringe succeeds when it puts its sci-fi foot before its crime procedural one. The scenes in the lab, the creepy opening and closing scenes, and anything involving Massive Dynamics or Walter works terrifically. However, its going to become increasingly difficult to get involved in the show if 20-30 minutes are dominated by stories as rote as this week. I'm not worried about it for now, since last week's mystery seemed a lot more unique than this one, and even The X-Files had its share of weak mysteries. However, as long as The X-Files remains a more apt point of comparison for the show than Criminal Minds then I think we'll be in good shape.

B-