Fringe: Of Human Action

Watch Fringe!
Fringe has not been getting too many viewers recently. If you don't watch Fringe, you should. Fringe is one of the best shows on primetime tv right now. At first I was upset with the somewhat formulaic quality of the show. Now, however I think of it as a modern day Twilight Zone. The things that the characters have to deal with are very interesting and even though they can be somewhat unbelievable, Walter Bishop's explanations have enough real science to convince you to feel that crazy things like mind control and alternate realities can exist. The show is meant to be friendly to the casual viewer and I feel that each episode has just enough of the backstory to satisfy the hardcore fans of the show. I do usually find the episodes that focus more on the mythology better, though.
Anyway, enough proselytizing, onto my review. In the first couple episodes of Fringe I found Dr Walter Bishop's portrayal of the crazy, mad scientist to be stereotypical. Now, I find his character to be quite funny sometimes. I physically laughed when he was instructing the FBI in regards to the anti-mind control, white sound emitting headphones. And only on Fringe can you find two people discussing the taste of someone brain will removing it and listening to elevator music.

Mind Bend
I liked the twist that Tyler was actually the one with mind control. Another big surprise came at the end. Massive Dynamic has been the root of many problems on this show. I am very curious about what their motives are. Now we know they were cloning a fifteen year old to experiment on. Why do Nina Sharp and William Bell want to know if mind control is possible? Do they want to use it as a tool against the war that they are always talking about, or is that a lie? I don't know, but I want too.

Hidden Things
In last night's episode there were a couple little hidden things. First of all, the Homer pez container Tyler used to keep his mind control drugs and the name of the place where Tyler's surogate mother lived (Springfield) were shout outs to The Simpsons for the Fox Simpson Scavenger Hunt contest thing. Also, there was a Slusho machine in the convenience store that was held up. Slusho is a fictional brand of frozen drink that has appeared in the other J. J. Abrams show, Alias. This Slusho website was also used in the viral marketing campaign for Cloverfield. The Observer was pretty well hidden in this episode. He was briefly in the foreground at the beginning of the episode at about the 48 second mark when the police car is drifting. Speaking of the Observer, and judging by the promo after the episode, it looks we will learn a lot more about him in the next episode, which I am looking forward to.