Lower Decks

The following contains spoilers through the episode “What Lies Beneath,” originally broadcast 1/21/10.

Wow, so I’ve never really had a problem with Wikipedia before, but now I’m starting to think it hates me. That or the ‘Fringe’ creators do. This week I found new episode entries that remove “Unearthed” from the official second season listings and changed the title of “Edina County Limits” to “Johari Window,” and has become almost a tradition this season, postponing another episode (“Jacksonville”) to a later date. I just thought I’d make a note of this stuff, in case the way I list some of this stuff here at Lower Decks begins to confuse anyone, y’know, the way Walter Bishop confounds local authorities who aren’t prepared to deal with his eccentricities.

To begin my commentary on “What Lies Beneath,” I’d like to continue talking about Walter, actually. Recently, I’ve had it confirmed once again that I’m not all that different from him, in that it seems incredibly difficult for other people to understand me. While I don’t have the benefit of being a scientific genius who was locked away for decades in a mental asylum to explain my quirks and unusual personality, it does allow me to sympathize with the good doctor every time his presence proves a stumbling block for people not named Astrid, Dunham, Broyles, or Peter, which of course happens again this episode. This particular instance seemed especially notable, I don’t know whether because I’ve been having a particularly difficult time myself lately or because of the way it was written.

Anyway, the second week in a row I get to put a spotlight on Astrid, too (Ash?), who is finally headed in a more obvious direction as far as her importance to the series, because it seems she’s going to be the one who exposes the big Bishop secret that “our” Peter is not exactly who he seems, which makes “What Lies Beneath” an appropriate episode to begin this arc with, because Peter indeed becomes almost another person this week after being exposed to an incredibly old virus (which Walter still manages to cure) that warps all his good charms into a guy who just wants to manipulate his way or get mad about not getting it.

Okay, I’ve also got to confess that I’m getting a little sick of the episodic format the season has apparently grown comfortable with, the very reason why almost no one, if Charlie Francis hadn’t appeared in it, would have noticed anything unusual about “Unearthed” last week, the “bonus”/“lost” episode. I know last season featured a lot of slack, too, and that this season has already done a fair amount of useful material for the series arc, from drawing out Olivia’s experiences with William Bell to the introduction of Newton and now this business with the tricky Peter Bishop backstory (not to mention a glimpse of the Broyles backstory), but it just feels as if someone has grown a little too comfortable allowing most episodes to simply tell interesting stories, which is fine and all, because ‘Fringe’ does do that sort of thing well, but it just seems as if the show is already relying simply on our affections for the characters rather than truly advancing their stories, which is a dangerous thing for a low-rated show to do. Is someone counting on Fox keeping it around just because of good buzz and the J.J. Abrams connection? I understand that it’s a tricky proposition, because it’s been proven that intricate stories alienate as much as entice viewership, but ‘Fringe’ has demonstrated time and again that it’s capable of crossing the divide between the two forms of TV storytelling in a uniquely innovative way, which has been the hook from the start. It’s not just episodic and it’s not just arc-driven. It’s just, the balance seems to have tipped more to the episodic, that the writers seem to think they can draw their stories out as long as they want.

Maybe I’m just exhibiting some of that behavior that makes me feel like a brother to Walter, I don’t know. There was stuff to like here, I just wish there was a little more of it, not just another hook which faithful viewers didn’t really need. Then again, not everyone watches this, or other stuff, quite the way I do, right? Maybe this is the sort of thing other viewers needed, something they couldn’t help but notice, that pushes a longstanding arc in a more obvious direction, which might well explode that story before the end of the season. We’ll see. “What Lies Beneath” indeed.