There's few things more painful to watch on TV than a network-mandated crossover event.
A few years ago, NBC celebrated "green week," in which all of its programming at some sort environmentally-conscious bent to it. Basically, that meant shoe-horning lines about hybrid cars and recycling into shows like Heroes and Friday Night Lights.
Now comes FOX's "FOX Rocks" week, in which all of the network's programming -- whether it's Glee or House -- will have a musical theme.
Not even Fringe was immune to this, which brings us to "Brown Betty."
On one level, it was a brilliant idea: Walter makes a full confession of all his past sins, disguising it as a film noir/sci-fi musical fairy-tale for Olivia's niece Ella.
The music element was the episode's only weak point, because it seemed as if the show wasn't fully committed to, well, actually doing a musical.
There's actually very little singing in this episode, and what's there doesn't always seem necessary. We hear Broyles sing a few lines from a song when they're first introduced, but it really doesn't add much. Olivia sings a melancholy version of Stevie Wonder's "For Once In My Life" that actually isn't bad, but it comes at a point where she's supposed to be sad over Peter's apparent death, even though they'd just met.
(Then again, it seems like a lot of characters in musicals fall in love despite having known each other for a few minutes, so maybe Fringe was trying to be true to its source material.)
Actually, the only singing that really worked for me this episode was Walter's singing corpses doing "The Candy Man" from Willy Wonka. It's just such a weird moment, and it gives us an idea about the weird world Walter -- both the character telling the story and the character in the story -- has created.
I liked all the strangeness and inconsistencies at work here. Walter's story clearly didn't take place in our reality, with its mechanical hearts and futuristic guns (not to mention the fact that people drove 1940s cars but used cell phones). And maybe the notion of Peter literally stealing Walter's heart -- or Walter stealing Peter's -- was a bit on the nose, but this was a fairy tale. It would have been neat to see how they'd have done it outside of "FOX Rocks" week. And all things being equal, I'll be happy to get back to shape-shifters, alternate universes and weird deaths next week.
Other thoughts:
- Ella demands a happy ending to Walter's story, but the show isn't ready to give us one. Peter's still nowhere to be found, and the Observers aren't too happy about that.
- Also: Ella is less disturbed by Walter killing off a fictionalized version of her mom than she is at him breaking the rules of narrative.
- I like how Brandon, the Massive Dynamic lab guy, showed up in Walter's story as a guy who hopes to work for Massive Dynamic...someday.
- Cool use of Leonard Nimoy's voice (or what sounded like it) and an animated version of him.
- Walter: "I never told Peter any stories."
- Next week: Peter on his own, plus more Thomas Jerome Newton. And, no singing.
Tom Coombe
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