TV Review

Mania Grade: A

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TV Series: Fringe
Episode: The Road Not Taken
Starring: Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Jasika Nicole
Written By: Jeff Pinkner, J.R. Orci
Directed By: Fred Toye
Network: Fox
Series: Fringe

Fringe: The Road Not Taken

The Observer is Coming

By Stephen Lackey May 06, 2009

Mania's latest review for FRINGE: The Roat Not Taken(2009).
© Mania.com/Robert Trate

We haven’t had a bad episode of Fringe this season but some have been significantly better than others. This week makes up for some of the lesser installments that have been hitting the tube lately. Still no mention of the pattern specifically – which is still frustrating – but the events of the episode could easily be tied to a pattern if not “the” pattern. The case of the week involves a woman that is combustible. Of course there’s a lot more to it than that. One could complain that suddenly this series feels a bit X-Men-ish in that people with special abilities are becoming the center of the story arc but the fact that have abilities isn’t as intriguing as how they came by those abilities. At the center of everything is Massive Dynamics, William Bell, and Walter Bishop. Unfortunately, Walter just can’t seem to remember everything. Small things have been coming to him throughout the season but now as everything appears to be coming to a head he just can’t remember what Olivia, or as I like to call her Olive wants to know.

J.J. Abrams last, and still running, series LOST, has softened the mainstream audience to classic tools of science fiction storytelling. So, hopefully the implication of alternate realities won’t alienate the less sci-fi friendly fans that help keep this show on the air. Olivia is seeing different things at crime scenes and just generally than everyone around her. First, Walter asks her again if she’s been on drugs. After she says no, he devises a new theory and describes the way the brain can see into alternate realities. Once Olivia knows this is happening to her, she uses it to solve the case of the week. The real question is why is this happening to her? Is this ability a result of the experiments that were done on her as a child? One has to wonder if Massive Dynamics is responsible for Olivia being a part of the FBI’s Fringe Science investigation because they want to see if they can activate her abilities. It becomes obvious that activating the abilities within the ones that were experimented on as children is important to William Bell. He has yet to appear on the show but the teasing is fairly intense at this point. It appears that he will be on the show next week.

Though Bell doesn’t appear on the show this week, Nina Sharp is back. Any time this character appears on screen, the suspense and intrigue is turned up substantially. She’s the doorway to all the answers. It’s pretty easy to assume that Massive Dynamics has moles in FBI because the company or ZFT or both have been able to fairly successfully been able to manipulate everything that has happened so far. There are two reveals of those moles this week though and they are both shocking. One of the moles reveals himself as a true villain. He’s been a pain since he first appeared on the show but he just seemed like a corporate tool. He ends up being much more though. The second reveal is less certain. When Nina Sharp shows up at the home of an FBI agent for a conversation, that agent may not be a full blown villain but he certainly is more a part of the dark side than has been revealed up to this point.

There’s no way the show is going to reveal all of the answers that fans want this early in the series but the show is coming to a head with at least some of the story. It was great to see Olivia finally demand answers from William and the result is one of the most emotional scenes on the series so far. Also the stinger ending involving the Observer is a LOST worthy cliffhanger that was true edge of your seat stuff. The comedy took a back seat this week with Walter only delivering some smirk inducing scenes that came from his food fetish of the week. There were two hiccups in the episode. The first was the device that Peter build for Walter to transfer his records to a digital format. I know those records were a bit water damaged, but there are already much simpler devices that already do this task without ripping apart thousands of dollars in scientific equipment. The records are obviously not that damaged because he is still able to play them just fine. The second is a ham fisted Star Trek reference from a stereotypical nut bag. It just felt a little too heavy considering Leonard Nimoy is appearing on the show and the creators of the show are re-launching the Star Trek franchise. It’s just too much. Other than those complaints, this episode is as compelling as the show gets. William Bell is coming and he’s going to be more a part of ZFT than Olivia previously believed and so is Walter.

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COMMENTS AND RESPONSES

ponyboy76 5/6/2009 1:52:24 PM

It was another great episode. I totally agree with a "A" grade. Fringe, personally has replaced the void for this type of show, I had when The X-files left the air. I can only hope they can keep it going for awhile or at the very least finish it out properly.

I agree that the ST reference was a bit much but it actually worked within the context of the story at least as far as bringing the audience into what the nut job was saying, up until her mentioned Khan.

And just because Walter could play some of his records doesn't meant those are the ones that Peter was referring too. Not to mention, maybe Walter had used Peter's machine already which is why he was actually playing them. We don't realy know the time frame from the end of the case til he was in the lab.

So is Leonard Nimoy going to be playing William Bell?

Mataa 5/7/2009 7:36:57 AM

Leonard Nimoy is going to be William Bell, you can hear his voice in the last couple episodes I believe.

Couple things that really jumped out at me. When Olive has her vision of the city on fire, spray-painted in yellow on the building on the left said "He is Here". Probably something not a lot of people noticed but really has me curious who "he" is. Or, am I just overanalyzing, always possible.

Cool easter egg also was the nutjobs address, his home number was 1701.

vinylcharmer 5/7/2009 1:09:09 PM

Sure the Trek bit was cheesy but it still had me laughing especially with the overt mention of the new movie plot and that Clint Howard was on TOS has a child. Great... no, funny, yes.

Stephen - The so-called second reveal was not a reveal we already knew that Broyles was working with on some level with Nina Sharp. They had a discussion about whether Dunham should be allowed to join Fringe division in an early episode (2nd I think). That now makes sense due to her direct involvement with MD & the coming war.

Mataa - I think the "he" they are referring to is Walter. And I would always pay attention to these guys. If Fringe is anything like Lost then all elements most be analysied. Hell I was recently reading about the glyphs and what they mean each week. Usually they just reference the current episode but they may change as they go along.

troopershades 5/7/2009 1:53:22 PM

Lab rule number 1!

jfdavis 5/7/2009 1:56:06 PM

Did anyone else notice Walter's alternate reality explanation was basically the same theory behind Orci and Kurtzman's change to the Trek timeline in the new movie? I loved it all actually.