Lower Decks

The following contains spoilers through the episode “Over There, Part 2,” originally broadcast 5/20/10.

It’s funny. This season on ‘Lost’ there’s been a pretty significant presence of an alternate reality. In Star Trek, there was always the Mirror Universe, which at least in ‘Deep Space Nine’ became a recurring place to visit and watch develop. But even in a show like ‘Sliders,’ which is probably one of the most prominent examples of a TV show employing this gimmick, I can’t imagine it ever being as important as it has become on ‘Fringe.’ As the second season concludes, you can find no more dramatic exploration of just how much.

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The following contains spoilers through the episode “Over There, Part 1,” originally broadcast 5/13/10.

Wow, so this was definitely an escalation of the mythology. This marks our first real look at the alternate universe, after many glimpses, brief visits, and suggestions about what it’s like, well, over there. Mind-blowing would be a good way to put it.

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The following contains spoilers through the episode “Northwest Passage,” originally broadcast 5/6/10.

“Find the crack.” Maybe that phrase is another of those perfect metaphors ‘Fringe’ seems to find so easily, or maybe it’s just a private joke between some guest characters. Could be just a nice thing to find written on a pen. Anyway, this is another episode that could be mistaken, like last week’s, to be somewhat unessential, while at the same time be completely essential. If you really care for these characters, you’ve got to think the latter.

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The following contains spoilers through the episode “Brown Betty,” originally broadcast 4/29/10.

Well, for those keeping score, the second season will officially be longer than the first season of ‘Fringe.’ This same episode count was the complete set last year, and as the preview for next week reminded everyone, there’s still three episodes to go. It’s too bad, too, because there’s such an incredible momentum, so much potential just in what’s been going on, that you might expect so much more of the season left to be told. But that’s the strength of this season, that it has successfully expanded the series to the point where it seems easy to have a third season at the very least. If the audience still hasn’t realized it, “Brown Betty” is here to explain everything once again, just how much depth is there.

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The following contains spoilers through the episode “The Man From the Other Side,” originally broadcast 4/22/10.

As important episodes go, this one was pretty inevitable, and is probably best considered for how it works with the rest of the season, the series, and the run of episodes since “Peter” at the beginning of the month. I wouldn’t say it’s as essential as that one, or even last week’s “White Tulip,” so much as something that needed to happen. Simply put, Peter finally finds out the truth.

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The following contains spoilers through the episode “White Tulip,” originally broadcast 4/15/10.

Here’s another big difference between ‘Fringe’ and other J.J. Abrams shows like ‘Alias’ and ‘Lost.’ Where the others eventually lost interest in continuing any particular character drama and suspense from episode to episode, favoring instead a greater arc that drove the whole story forward, ‘Fringe’ has maintained and seems destined to continue maintaining a real sense of its characters as people who experience and develop from their actions on a regular basis. That’s what makes it more serialized than episodic, more than the mystery that has been at the heart of the show from the start, what exactly lies behind the pattern of fringe science they’ve been investigating. We know, increasingly, that Walter Bishop is behind most or all of it, unfortunately. Now we’re exploring how personal it really is.

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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?

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The following contains spoilers through the episode “Peter,” originally broadcast 4/1/10.

I don’t want to say I’ve been backing the right horse, but hey, I’ve been backing the right horse. From the start, I knew the creators of ‘Fringe,’ had a pedigree that would at least result in something intriguing, but for the past two years they’ve developed one of the most emotionally complex and compelling shows on TV today. Much of this has centered around Walter Bishop, the brilliant mind released from a mental asylum in the first episode, and his relationship not only to the mysteries investigated every week, but his son Peter, whom viewers gradually learned wasn’t who he seemed. But as misdirections go, it wasn’t Peter’s own ambiguous talents and activities that ultimately proved to serve as the driving force of his story, but where he came from and how he came to be here.

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The following contains spoilers through the episode “Jacksonville,” originally broadcast 2/4/10.

It appears that we’re headed back into strictly arc-driven territory, something this season has been reluctant to do, even though last year ended on so many notes that would have suggested its inevitability. This was the “winter finale,” the last episode until April, at which point there will be eight episodes, leading to 5/20/10, which happens to be numbers Walter mentions this episode as important for reasons he can’t remember…

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The following contains spoilers through the episode “The Bishop Revival,” originally broadcast 1/28/10.

Well, I gotta say, all that negative talk I had going on last week is completely irrelevant this week. This was a wickedly good episode all the way around, not only terrifically compelling but a good one for both a casual and committed fan of the show. It’s funny, because on the surface, there are a lot of common elements between “What Lies Beneath” and “The Bishop Revival.” But where the former episode teases things we know, the latter exploits them in new and interesting ways, and even tells us some new ones.

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