Lower Decks

The following contains spoilers through the episode “Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver,” originally broadcast 4/8/10.

Before I get to this week’s episode, I remembered tonight what I forgot to include in last week’s review, namely the retro opening credit sequence that featured 1980s style music and graphics. That was pretty awesome, the kind of touch this series routinely does, the details that help make everything work so well. But that’s nothing compared to the work done this week, layering and layering established threads so that the whole episode feels like a symphony, or a waltz of season and series story arcs marching forward, working so well you can’t imagine ever wondering why you questioned the show. Okay, so maybe that’s just me talking. Then again, these are my reviews. Who else would be?

Decision. Consequence. Since this week’s HYGOTS features ‘Alias,’ and this episode seems to make it so appropriate, I thought I would begin the review talking about how ‘Fringe’ has been developing in the context of other J.J. Abrams series. On ‘Alias,’ it was always about how Sydney Bristow would handle the latest curveball in her life. On ‘Lost,’ it has always been about peeling back the next layer of the big mystery of how and why Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on the island. With ‘Fringe,’ it seems the show has been going out of its way to spell out certain arc elements, with the intent to let the characters as much as the audience soak them in, the full gravity of the situation. On ‘Lost,’ consequence has always been a pretty important thing. On ‘Alias,’ decisions were almost more important than consequence. Yet on ‘Fringe,’ a balance of decision and consequence (these two words were important to something I saw within the last year, and I can’t remember what that was; if you’re reading this and know what it was, you get bonus points that will be mailed to you in the form of a copy of the Beatles “Help!” CD, non-remastered), never quite as evident than this week, especially on the heels of the events depicted last week. Olivia now knows Walter’s big secret, and throughout this episode, she struggles with it, worrying about whether and how she can possibly tell Peter.

Olivia visits with my old friend Sam Wise, who may not actually be my friend, but who is at least one of my favorite new elements from the second season, someone she can turn to when she can’t talk to any of the regulars about something. Sam helps her realize she can’t sleep because she can’t bring herself to tell Peter the truth. He appears again later in the episode and helps give it the odd title, inspired by the classic board game “Clue.” Seriously, if this guy were made a regular, I would not complain. Through Sam, we also get a few more hints about Olivia’s background, which is sure to be a major element of later episodes.

She also visits with Nina Sharp, and finally gives voice to everything regular fans have been wanting her to say since first meeting the enigmatic director of Massive Dynamic, all the doubts and concerns that have hung over Nina since the start (even though recently she’s seemed as innocent as Astrid). But Nina turns the table on Olivia and makes her realize that as suspicious as she is, she’s still one of Olivia’s best assets, someone she trusts to understand things without necessarily having to be involved. Nina suggests that Olivia really visited her because she wanted Nina to talk her out of revealing the truth to Peter. Any number of scenes revolve around this dilemma, some involving Peter himself.

Part of the regular fun of the series has undeniably been the dynamic between father and son Bishop, how their relationship has improved leap and bounds from the strained, almost totally alien distance between them in the pilot to the good-natured buddies they’ve been lately. Olivia knows just as well as Walter that if Peter found out, that would go away in an instant. There’s a part of Peter that’s clinging to an illusion, too, which rests on the pity he began feeling for his father’ alienation and the genuine affection that replaced it. The Peter we know today is domesticated, someone who is as alien to the one we originally met as he once was with his father.

Again to decision and consequence. Whereas on ‘Alias’ or ‘Lost,’ once discovered a secret can become common knowledge within the very episode it’s revealed. It’s hard to keep. On ‘Fringe,’ it’s kept hidden for longer. It has more value. This arc with Peter has been playing out since last season, and it’s still going strong, and will fuel many an episode for the foreseeable future. That’s the real value of the approach the series has taken from the beginning, why it was so important to introduce everyone as deliberately as the series did, why it’s still important that Astrid may still seem trivial to some viewers. Her value only increases with time. That’s the mark of a good television show, where time is precious, time can make everything so much more rich. In a way, the thing I have valued so much about ‘Lost,’ the flashes, has been like cheating, at least compared to how ‘Fringe’ approaches the same material.

The episode also touches on the drug trials Walter performed on Olivia and others twenty years earlier, as it unravels its usual fringe science elements, this time concerning another of the people touched by Walter’s past, and specifically those trials. Like Sylar in ‘Heroes,’ this man realized a terrible potential, and nearly destroyed his life because of it. That was another beauty of the episode, how organically the fringe-of-the-week worked in with everything, not just the personal drama, but the mythology of the show. In counterpoint to the antagonist, we also find Walter running into a former student, who thinks well of his experiences in that classroom, which inspired his own future scientific pursuits. That’s the kind of detail that makes a well-rounded character that much more real, no matter how throwaway it seems.

I can’t forget that Diane Kruger, recently seen in Quentin Tarantino’s WWII masterpiece ‘Inglourious Basterds,’ made a cameo in the episode’s teaser, the latest name actor to grace the season (next week it’s Peter Weller!). The prestige of the show, its reputation, has already snagged noted screenwriter Akiva Goldsman as a fan and creative collaborator. Whatever the actual viewership, quite a level of respect has been earned to this point, which has no doubt helped its continued renewal fortunes.

I cannot speak highly enough about the show’s ability to evolve, and to maintain the spirit it premiered with, a confidence that came with the pedigree behind the scenes, and the quality of the material that is continually sustained. I’ve gone on somewhat endlessly about how ‘Fringe’ straddles the line between episodic and serialized drama. This week is another fine example of the advantages to this approach, how exceptionally they can be utilized, the unexpected benefits. There are still six episodes left in the season. Care to bet on the chances of the show somehow managing to disappoint?