Fringe (new JJ Abrams show) : Mad scientist, flesh eating virus, a cow and talks with the dead

On the other hand... flying porcupine monsters.

four-eyed Lincoln is really adorable. just sayin.

ohhhhh I love him, so cute

Right?! Kinda bums me out a bit that both versions of him harbor unrequited crushes on Olivia.

I think Lost totally killed any enthusiasm I've had for theorising abt TV shows btw. Normally I'd be all abt timelines, and "Peter's important!", and "what about their baby?!" but I'm weirdly not that bothered that it all ended up boiling down to something as corny as LUV. I just want to see more David Robert Jones.

le sigh...

"me and my army of flying porcupine men will RULE THE WORLD" - Pink and the Brain s2e9

Hahah

This seems like a very cheaty way out, that they get to rehash old storylines now because of WUV

But kinda cool in a way. Those creatures were kind of awesome looking.

The first time ilx crushobject Lincoln got attacked by the lolcupine man, I actually screamed out loud. /muy macho

omg me too

We are wusses!

Really funny episode, btw!

Lincoln must be preserved at all costs!!

Walter with "Hump" magazine was funny

So I was thinking that the timelines have become nonsensical as they're being mashed up (the cause-and-effect equivalent of the people with extra limbs or rows of teeth in that one small-town-you-can't-leave ep) - this is why Porcupine No 1 can have the drugs without having made the deal, despite the guy-with-drugs' premature death (they touched on this very briefly and then rushed off). Things can occur, since they occurred in one timeline, but the cause of those events don't have to be present, since they occurred in one timeline or another, not necessarily the one we're in. Does this make sense or am I just high?

I don't think that is what they're doing, but I get where you are coming from. I think that the source was different this time.

Cool thanks - I was hoping the island was done with me

Remain pretty impressed by how differently torv manages to play the two olivias.

I know right? They really feel like 2 different people.

I liked this episode. But will the shapeshifter be the Cousin Oliver of the Fringe team?

I dug this episode too. After the 'WUV' reveal I'm kinda glad they're just getting on with the story instead of spending a bunch of episodes as Peter and Olivia moon over each other.

Tyrone. :(

Remain pretty impressed by how differently torv manages to play the two olivias.

what makes it even more impressive isn't just the contrast between Olivia and Fauxlivia, it's also the even subtler difference between Old-Olivia and New-Olivia. She plays them all slightly differently, but it's just enough to show that they're -essentially the same person- as well.

I was thinking a similar thing last night -- I really miss old-Livia.

Fauxlivia isn't totally punchable anymore either!

During the episode, I was thinking LL's fanclub would be swooning over this episode, until, you know, one of them bites it.

Btw: Eugene's hat!!!!

I don't think enough people here are fully appreciating the cow's hat.

It's grazing day

Not bad at playing drunk Olivia

Fauxlivia in dress uniform and hair up is AGL.

i know that double astrid farnsworths is not real, but this show makes me believe

cute opening sequence.

although why the observers apparently like to pave things over so they can all walk back and forth holding suitcases is somewhat beyond me.

also, the ending -- they didn't have a stick or something??

dude Desmond has to be noble and self-sacrificing in every Abrams-related show

Given all the time spent setting up all the plots of the past episodes, did the show really need to be rebooted? I'm fine with being surprised, but none of this seemed necessary. I would love to have been in the first table read for this and have everyone look at each other blankly while reading the opening crawl. Did they just suddenly lose access to the guy who plays Lane on Mad Men and just give up?

(That said they did do the one storyline where they went into the future, and there was a daughter in that one too, wasn't there?)

have everyone look = watch everyone look

i don't know about 'felicity', but the norm on other abrams shows (and this one, in earlier seasons) is to reboot every single season.

Next week isn't reboot. Pretty cool starting it now. Plus, this episode was pretty cool

I figure it's not a reboot, but just something to bounce back and forth between a bit before resolving. They've done this pretty frequently on Fringe in the past.

The new intro was super cute.

I love Walter so much.

"these aren't the droids you're looking for."

and then stealing the candy just as the guard lets them through.

oh it was desmond. totally failed to click that. i too was tickled by 'i am not a number…' followed by 'these aren't the droids…'

Gods, this was awesome (even DESPITE the apparent plot holes with the Observers -- if they're not limited to time, they should've completely pwned any and resistance by now) (also, Observers still just white people, but seeing as they're an occupying presence now...).

Despite the obvious CGI, I kind of was hoping that we'd get Nimoy again.

Also, lol, completely lost track of which universe we're in now. Our Walter + Our Peter = Our U, but Henrietta is on the other side, no?

Also:

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2wigbGH9e1qdw3xpo1_500.gif

Bolivia's baby with Peter was named Henry iirc, so Henrietta is maybe with Olivia.

So much awesome in chopping off dude's hand

Also kind of funny seeing a skinhead observer pimping a hoe

Henrietta iz a pretty good character so far

I wonder where Lee is going to be in this future. I like that Fringe can have people "time travel" (etc.) and move on all in one episode unlike Lost which had interesting time-travel plots but you had to piece together how it worked over a course of one million episodes. There isn't as much waiting for Fringe mysteries

I hope this episode, with the cheesy opening crawl, was a sort of parody, like the X-Files used to do in later seasons. Turning the Observers into baddies out of an L. Ron Hubbard novel can't really be where they're going, can it? This reminded me of that Dollhouse episode where we jump into the future and see a bunch of folks we've never seen before fighting against the bad guys who have somehow conquered the world.

the lack of consistency w/r/t/ what the Observers can or can't do killed a lot of the episode for me

I like the Observers as altruistic people. Seeing them having an actual stake in what's going on other than "gotta keep the timeline going" was weird, but the episode definitely had moments.

Anyone else feel like the Walter went from kind of amber brain-damaged to Walter pre-lobotomy? He seemed sharper and more curt than the our-universe Walter.

that's because they put the evil part of his brain back in.

I don't know if he's evil as much as he is capable of all kinds of stuff that he was scared of. The original reason was both to keep himself from doing things he didn't like AND to get rid of the parts of his brain that stored the ability to put together a universe portal device, right?

It's the brain stuff that Walternate never lost.