The Strange World of Thomas P. Coombe

Fringe: Amber Alert

Hearing people say this week's Fringe was an "improvement" over last week's solid, creepy "Over There" outing have me puzzled.

To me, "6B" had me thinking something I hadn't thought about this show in a long time: "This would be terrible if it weren't for John Noble." In this case, Walter brought both comic relief and dramatic weight to what was kind of a flat story with a cloying resolution. 

As Ryan McGee put it on the Monkeys as Critics blog, it's one thing for the show to have a heart, quite another for it to begin resolving its weekly case via the power of love. (And yeah, technically, logic actually won the day here, as the thing that breaks the spell over Alice is learning that the other Derek had children.)

Still, I thought Walter's debate about introducing the Amber into our world was a compelling one. Doing so would be something he -- and the show -- would have trouble coming back from. I just wished the episode hadn't pivoted on convincing a woman to get over her dead husband. Oh well...next week looks promising.

Other thoughts:

• Walter: "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I proved it in 1973." When do we get THAT flashback episode?
• Yay, Velvet Underground.
• Did anyone else expect the Over There version of Derek did recognize Olivia, having just seen her counterpart hours earlier?

Tom Coombe

Fringe: Meet the Beetles

After two sort of underwhelming episodes, Fringe was on track again this week with an hour that was all Over There, all the time.

We've seen episodes that followed Fauxlivia in our world, and episodes that took place on Earth B but featuring the Olivia of this world, but this is the first time neither element of our original starting point was in play. "Immortality" asked us to spend an episode with people who are ostensibly the villains of the show, and we're more or less comfortable with them.

And this is a hallmark of how strong Fringe has become: we're no longer sure who to root for. Yes, our Walter is funny and cuddly, and his doppleganger is angry and authoritarian. But Walternate may only be the way he is because of the actions of Walter in 1985. (And he won't experiment on children, something our Walter had no qualms about.)

Over There certainly has its share of home-grown villains, like last night's Doctor Silva, so investing in achieving a Jonas Salk level of scientific fame that he turned people into incubators for a long-extinct species of beetle. Kind of a standard (well, standard for Fringe) storyline, but one that leads to an important revelation: Other Olivia is pregnant with Peter's child, meaning Walternate now has a new way to get his son back home.

Other thoughts:

•  I would purposely infect myself with spiders if it meant the Adorable Bug Expert would flirt with me the way she did with Charlie.
• I suspect how much some of you liked this episode is based on your tolerance for insects. They tend not to bother me...although that doesn't mean I want them chewing their way through my neck.
• Joan Chen -- who must have some sort of Dorian Gray thing going on -- was kind of wasted in this role, don't you think?
• Next week: Back Over Here...then the week after that promises to be a sequel to last year's landmark "Peter" episode.

Fringe: Dear Diary

This was an odd episode. Not odd as in "There's another universe just like ours" or "There's a guy who can read people's minds." 

Rather, it felt kind of disjointed, as if the writers had a bunch of long-term plot-threads they wanted to use and shoved them into one episode. 

The revelations in Fauxlivia's diary, the notion of Peter fighting his own secret war against the shapeshifters, Peter's relationship to the doomsday machine...all of this might have made for a good episode, or at least a good subplot in a monster-of-the-week episode. But all of it all at once made for Fringe's least satisfying episode of the season.

Here's to next week. Other thoughts:

• I like how the show has adopted "Fauxlivia" into its lexicon, the way fans of the show did earlier in the season. Also, she "ruined U2 for all of us," Walter says.
• Wow, Peter just hacked that guy's fingers right off. 
• How long until we see William Bell again? 

Tom Coombe

Fringe: Ripple Effect

Thanks to a recent Twitter conversation, I found myself thinking last week of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, one of the last shows to occupy FOX's "Friday Night Sci-Fi Death Timeslot" (or whatever they're calling it).

It was an OK show, sort of like a mini action movie every week, but that's about it. Dollhouse, another show that lived and died in the FNSFDT, didn't find its voice until it was too late.

And Firefly -- the poster-child for brilliant-but-cancelled series, FOX, sci-fi or otherwise -- ended its run long before I was really aware of it.

(I saw it for the first time about three years ago, lamenting the fact that it only got 13 episodes with every one I watched. And now that I think about it, I didn't watch Sarah Connor until after it had ended as well. And while we're at it, I should note that The X-Files was once a Friday show, but that was in a different age.)

But Fringe...well, I've been with it from the beginning -- 52 episodes, more than Dollhouse and Firefly combined -- and I'm much more invested than I ever was in any of the other shows I mentioned here.

It's been on an amazingly strong narrative streak since the middle of its second season. The days when it was an uneven sci-fi procedural anchored by John Noble's performance are far behind it. I want to see this story through to the end, not because of any great, unresolved mysteries -- Fringe, unlike its cousin-show Lost, doesn't have many of those -- but because we've come to care so much about these characters.

"The Firefly" -- a clever in-joke title that belies a much more weighty plot point -- continued that streak.

It was helped along by a rather touching performance by Christopher Lloyd, miles away from Doc Brown. It deepened our understanding of Peter and Olivia's relationship, and of Walter and Peter's. And any episode that gives the Observers any sort of significant screen-time is hard not to like.

All in all, a fine way to christen Fringe's new time slot; here's hoping it has better luck than some of its forebears.

The Best TV Shows of 2010

It was a pretty good year for TV, but for me, a bad year for TV watching. I spent the second half of 2010 buried in work, which meant I didn't have much time for this blog. But with the year winding down, it's worth remembering the cream of this year's TV crop, whether I wrote about them or not.

1. AMC -- At least one of this network's program's -- Breaking Bad -- was an obvious contender for the top spot before the year was halfway over. Then came Mad Men's fourth -- and best -- season, followed by Rubicon and The Walking Dead, and by the time November arrived, it became clear AMC was TV's new king of quality TV shows.

No network has had a year like this since 2005, when The Wire, The Sopranos and Deadwood (not to mention Rome, Carnivale, Six Feet Under and Curb Your Enthusiasm) were all part of HBO's line-up.

The Walking Dead proved to be the network's biggest hit so far, a comic book-inspired horror/drama that managed to transcend its roots by the time its six-episode season was over. 

 Rubicon's low ratings, slow pace and complicated storyline pretty much doomed it early on, but it was still fascinating to watch, and heartening to see AMC take this kind of risk, even for just a season. In the end, the show's conspiracy plotline wound up being less interesting than its characters -- the fascinating, funny villain Truxton Spangler justly inspired a fake Twitter feed -- and it's those people, rather than the answers we did/didn't get, that makes me sorry Rubicon won't be returning.

I'd been a little underwhelmed by Mad Men's second and third season, but its fourth was brilliant, taking us deeper into the mind and soul of protagonist Don Draper while also giving us a compelling look at an ad agency struggling to keep its head above water. But put all that aside, and Mad Men rises above most of its contemporaries on the strength of "The Suitcase" episode alone.

The king of the AMC mountain this year, however, was Breaking Bad. In three seasons, it's gone from "interesting" to "must-watch" to "comparisons to the Coen Brothers are not unwarranted."  

In the article I linked to above, TIME's James Poniewozik ties Coen movies like No Country For Old Men and Fargo to some of Breaking Bad's larger themes. It's an apt comparison, but I'll take the connection in a different direction: just as the Coens can jump from No Country to Burn After Reading to True Grit, Breaking Bad can be a different kind of show every episode. One week it's the most tense thriller you've ever seen, another it's a tragic-comedic "bottle show." And it does all of those things well, helped along by a brilliant cast and the most beautiful cinematography on TV. The finest show in production now.

As for the rest...

Fringe: Bringing It All Back Home

Once again, work = short, crappy blog entry. I promise, a day will come when I have more free time. Maybe around Fringe, season five. 

 (We can dream can't we? Not so much about the having free time as about the notion that FOX would be that generous.)

 So for now I'll just say that I've really liked the last two episodes, mainly because they played with my expectations. I thought for sure the show was wasting time devoting so much of the last episode's story to alterna-Broyles, only to have him become a crucial part of this week's epiosde. And I figured Walter would come up with some last minute way to rescue Olivia, only to have her pretty much find her way on her own, albeit with the help of Walter/Walternate's sensory-depravation tanks.

 (A nice touch, by the way, taking the series back to its roots while showing us just how far it's come.)

 Where things go from here, I don't know. Next week's episode is the last one until the end of January, and I'm praying we don't get a standard case of the week episode to tide us over for nearly two months.

 But that will be a small setback. Everything the show did with tonight's episode -- and the season that proceeded it -- promises good things in the long run.

 Other thoughts:

•  I didn't notice a lot of cultural differences between Over There/Over Here, other than the fact that Penn Station in Newark is called "Springsteen Station" on the other side.
• Nice work tonight by Anna Torv and Lance Reddick. There was a time when I'd watch Fringe and say "At least we had John Noble as Walter." Thankfully, I haven't had to write one of those reviews in some time.
• I really hope Fringe can deal with the fallout of Olivia's capture/return and move the story along. That said, I wonder how she'll be around Walter, Broyles, and Brandon (the Massive Dynamic guy who's enthusiastic and friendly Over Here, and clinical and scary over there.
• If Fringe was more popular, "vagenda" would be a huge slang term by Christmas.

 Tom Coombe

Fringe: The Men in the Iron Mask

I went into "The Abducted" expecting it to move the Olivia/Fauxlivia storyline along quite a bit.

 And although that didn't happen, it's hard to complain about an episode this well done. A very tense, creepy hour. Take it out of the parallel universe context, and it would have been a strong season one episode, back when this show's monster-of-the-week installments were a lot more frequent (and usually hit and miss).

 The monster -- or monsters -- in this case were members of a church abducting children for a series of bizarre experiments that cured diseases and reversed aging, but turned their test subjects into withered, sickly shells.

 Because I expected the last half of the episode to mostly be about Olivia trying to cross back over, I was surprised when the There's Actually TWO Bad Guys twist popped up. And I was willing to forgive Fringe resorting to the Sympathetic Witness Is In Danger trope, because of the way it complicated Olivia's relationship with Alt-Broyles.

 All the same, I'm looking forward to where this all leads in two weeks, where we spend time in both worlds, with both versions of Olivia in way over their heads.

 Other thoughts:

•  I sort of wish we'd seen a little more of Andre Royo's Henry. Maybe next week.
• Notice that Over There spells "Manhatan" differently. Or the Fringe graphics department screwed up.
• Is there a President of the alternate United States, or is Walter running everything?

 Tom Coombe

 

Fringe: He Ain't Frozen, He's My Brother

   
I've been enjoying Fringe's universe jumping all season, but this week's episode featured the first case-of-the-week that just didn't work for me. Nor was I all that interested in the attempt to tie the twin brothers' story into the larger two Olivias plotline.

 

 Compared to shapeshifters, the guy who could predict the outcome of any given situation the week before that, and that box that melted people's brains the week before that, Olivia foiling a bankrobber isn't all that compelling. I was far more interested in the notion that the people encased in the amber -- one of the more horrific notions this show has given us -- are basically alive and aware the whole time. 

Still, in terms of moving the overall story of the season along, this episode worked. Any doubts Olivia has about where she really comes from are erased by the time the hour is up; next week, we'll see how her doppleganger is handling her own cover, hopefully in the midst of a more interesting case.

 

 Other thoughts:

•  It's good to see the rules of movie/TV CPR apply in the alternate universe: if you pound on someone's chest with enough desperation, they'll come back to life.
• An interesting call-back to season one tonight, as Olivia goes into an isolation tank to try to cross over. Of course, the folks "Over There" have much better technology -- Walter's season one tank looked like it was made of sheet metal -- so Olivia takes a much longer journey.
• Ghost Peter is a pretty nifty way to keep the entire cast working in each episode.
• I wonder if we'll get an episode where Walternate gets as much screen time as regular Over Here Walter. It's neat seeing John Noble play a version of the character that commands this much respect (notice how Olivia sits up straight when he walks into the room.)
• So, which New York City thoroughfare is "Nixon Drive" supposed to be?

 Tom Coombe

Fringe: Bad Robot?

If you're writing a TV episode and going to reference Blade Runner -- or at least its source material -- it's probably a good idea to say something at least semi-interesting about humanity and identity. 

 In the case of tonight's Fringe, mission accomplished. Mostly.

 "Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?" didn't have anything quite as cool as this scene, but it at least took the time to get inside the head of its sympathetic villain (played by Marcus Giamatti, cousin to Paul). Until now, the shapeshifters had been cold, efficient killing machines (or, as Walter put it, creatures that are neither and both human and machine). 

 Here, we learn that just as the shifters are capable of insinuating themselves into the lives of the people whose identities they steal, they're also susceptible to taking on that person's emotions, the way poor, fake Ray Duffy came to realize he needed his impostor family. 

 All that aside, there was just a lot to like about this episode: it gave pretty much all the characters something to do, it found just the right blend of creepiness, humor and humanity, and it featured one of the best pre-credits sequences this show has ever had. 

 I'm excited to see where things head next, how long Fauxlivia can keep her cover intact and what Olivia's up to Over There. See you all on November 4.

 Tom Coombe

Fringe: Too Smart For His Own Good

Since we'll be spending at least a little while in Fringe's alternate universe, I'm glad the writers have chosen to make it a real place, as opposed to just "dark, backwards America."

 Even if Charlie, Lincoln and Olivia are in the employ of a mad genius, they're still good at their jobs (Lincoln and Charlie could've solved the case themselves when you think about it). And like their counterparts on this side, they're working for the common good.

 Still, I wasn't thrilled with "The Plateau," which I thought had some interesting ideas -- specifically the horrific Flowers For Algernon-like experiment that turned Milo into a supervillain, then a supercomputer -- but moved a bit too quickly towards setting up Olivia to figure out who she really is. 

 Granted, the writers probably had a good reason to have her where she is, but I sort of expected her to go along thinking she was Fauxlivia for at least a little longer.

 Other thoughts:

•  Recurring Fringe director Brad Anderson returned this week, doing a really nice job with Milo's orchestrated accidents.
• Things Sure Are Different In This Alternate Universe, Vol. 6: Ballpoint pens and avocados are rare, smallpox is a serious problem, and America fought in the Arabian (?) War. Update: Noel Murray of the AV Club -- who liked this one much better than I did -- says it's "Aruba War." 
• Android-like Astrid is almost as adorable as the one we're used to. Nice job by Jasika Nicole in the dual roles. Lance Hendricks' Broyles seems to be the same guy in both universes, but it's tough to complain, because hey, he's Lance Hendricks.

Tom Coombe