Fringe, Episode 5.01: "Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11"

Hello, and welcome to the start of Blood Brothers' fall TV coverage! We're kicking things off with the fifth-season premiere of Fringe, a show that has certainly merited the type of cult status that we look for in our TV slate. We've got other series on tap for later this fall, including the eagerly-anticipated third season of The Walking Dead and network TV's most beloved cult comedy, Community… but until then, we hope you'll enjoy the adventures of Walter, Peter, Olivia, and Astrid as they embark on what should be a wonderful final season.

But, to help set the context for my perspective on Fringe, let's trek back to the fall of 2008, when Fringe debuted on Fox. At that time, I was excited to say the least: For starters, this was J.J. Abrams' first science-fiction TV project since the breakout success of Lost in 2004, so expectations were reasonably high. Plus, you have to keep in mind that 2008's new fall shows were scarce, on account of the devastation caused by the 2007-2008 writers' strike. Because of that, Fringe became one of the fall's biggest new shows, seemingly by default. (Fox also used Fringe to kick off their 'Remote-Free TV' experiment, in which every episode of the first season would contain commercial breaks of only 60 to 90 seconds in length, allowing for only 8 to 9 minutes of ads per episode. It only lasted one year, but it was a bold attempt nonetheless.)

And while I watched and mostly enjoyed the first season, I was a little bit underwhelmed that the Fringe team decided not to build an elaborate mythology for the series… opting to rely heavily on the Case of the Week instead. (Blood Brother Matt referred to the series as "X-Files Jr." in that regard.) Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with that approach… and especially in the first season, Fringe's case-introducing cold openings were uniformly brilliant. But when it comes to hour-long TV dramas, I'm the type of viewer that prefers long-form story lines over standalone procedural-type episodes. Even more frustrating, Fringe had all of the elements in place to unfurl a grand science-fiction story, setting up all sorts of story elements (Massive Dynamic, Cortexiphan, The Pattern, etc.), but never exactly capitalizing on them… and I couldn't help but be a bit frustrated in the show.

But, at the very tail end of the first season, Fringe introduced a story element that would be far too big to ignore: an entire alternate universe! And slowly, but surely, Fringe started putting the pieces into place throughout its second season in order to provide the show that I had wanted in the first place. And then, on April Fools' Day 2010, the show that I know as Fringe debuted, with the late-season-two episode "Peter"… a flashback episode to 1985 that took us deep into the alternate universe and the early motivations of Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble). From there, the show took off narratively and creatively, shifting back and forth between universes with reckless abandon, and introducing multiple versions of its lead characters. Then, in Season 4, the show took its biggest narrative risk to date: by taking one of its leads, Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), and completely removing him from existence. That's not exactly what I'd call 'user-friendly'… but for its loyal core audience (myself included), it was ridiculously risky and fascinating to watch. These were bold moves for a network series, and they won its audience's immense respect… but they don't necessarily lead to full network support, either. Over the past couple of years, the show's fate has sealed itself, first, Fringe was moved from a high-profile Thursday night slot to the doldrums of Fox Friday nights… and then, after its Friday-night ratings reached astonishing lows, it received a very real threat of cancellation this past spring.

Faced with the distinct possibility that the series would be cancelled, the episode's two-part finale worked overtime to ensure that the show wrapped up its loose ends: the Fringe Division received a ton of government funding; Lieutenant Broyles was promoted to Captain; Olivia revealed that she was pregnant with Peter's child… everything was coming up roses for our gang. With the exception of the slapped-together cliffhanger ending, in which September the Observer told Walter that "they are coming", everything seemed to be wrapped up nicely… which made for a bit of a problem when Fringe received an order for a fifth and final season of 13 episodes.

And so, my worry going into yesterday's Fringe season premiere was, "How the heck will the show's writers undo everything they wrapped up?" The solution, as revealed in tonight's season premiere, is wonderfully simple, and appropriately Fringe-tastic: by ditching the present completely and jumping to 2036, picking up right where we left off at the end of Season 4's flash-forward episode "Letters of Transit". As you'll recall, in Fringe's version of 2036, the Observers have taken over, the classic Fringe team has been encased in amber since 2015, and Peter and Olivia's daughter, Henrietta (a.k.a. Etta), is all grown up and working for the FBI, trying to and take down the Observers with the help of her partner, Desmond from Lost. (Well, not the exact character… but you know who I'm talking about.) In the episode, the pair managed to find Walter, and freed him from the amber… and he, in turn, led them to where Peter and Astrid were located.

However, at the end of that episode, Olivia was still MIA. Fortunately for us, the show wastes little time, revealing that Olivia's ambered body is As tonight's episode picks up, the hunt for Olivia is on… and apparently, the 'amber gypsies' have cut her out and sold her on the black market. We find her in a most unusual place: as a coffee table of sorts for Markham, the bookstore owner, who's holding out for the possibility of a modern-day Snow White situation. ("She's supposed to wake up and see me as her savior! She's supposed to overlook my height issue…") You see, right before Olivia was trapped in the amber, she was trying to locate the titular device, the Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11… which essentially serves to merge and decrypt memories. In our case, it's to decrypt Walter's memories, which contain the plan he and September put together to defeat the Observers once and for all. However, once the device is found and activated, nothing is found in Walter's head… requiring our team to start from scratch.

If the end-of-episode preview is any indication, we're going to be in 2036 for the next several episodes… if not the entire fifth season. The more I've thought about it, the more I'm excited by this choice, and the possibilities it offers. It's the type of ballsy move I've come to expect from Fringe: even more so than Season 4's jarring shift to a world where our characters have never heard of Peter, this season is bold enough to take the chance to drop us - and our core characters - into a new and largely unfamiliar world, more than twenty years in the future!!! I'm a little bit afraid that the 2036 world won't be as entertainingly rich as the alternate universe… but what they have presented thus far, such as the oppressive carbon monoxide plants, and the $3,000 walnuts, provides a lot of promise.

Plus, there's already a purpose and a mission to what the new Fringe team is doing, which will no doubt provide the necessary momentum to help wrap up the series. The episode makes every effort to establish the danger incurred by the Observers' takeover, chief among them the Observers' pumping of carbon monoxide into our air, ultimately reducing human lifespans to 45 years in the process. Heck, they took out Central Park to put up a carson monoxide plant! (How dare they!) And as personified in the torture-room scene by Windmark, the head Observer, their disdain for humanity is hardly veiled: as he says to Walter, "You seem much more interesting as a human being than as a vegetable. But, quite frankly, all things considered… I don't mind which one you end up." With only 13 hours to work with, it's comforting to know that the show's writers are going to make each hour count, and establishing the major conflicts right off the bat is an important part of that.

On top of that, though, the episode finds a lot of time to explore and re-establish character dynamics and relationships… which is easily accomplishable Certainly, the mother/daughter reunion between Olivia and Etta is wonderful; with the addition of Etta, the Fringe team is essentially a family now. (My apologies to Lincoln Lee… you will never be forgotten!) Also of note is Walter's adjustment to 2036, especially the final scene where he manages to find an undamaged CD, and listens to it in a world where the Observers have essentially destroyed music. It's a powerful moment, acted with tenderness and vulnerability by John Noble that helps sell us on what a horrible place 2036 has become. And given the frequent use of background tunes during the show's scenes in Walter's lab over the years, the scene legitimately earns its value.

But overall, last night's Fringe revved me up for the new season in ways that I wouldn't have thought were possible 24 hours ago… and I'm even more excited than before to see where we're headed. And so, I hope you'll enjoy our coverage of Fringe throughout this final season: for the most part, we'll hope to have reviews posted by Saturday morning. Please join us!

Random notes:

• Tonight's episode has two credited directors… likely due to the fact that production was halted while John Noble was treated for sleep problems. The directors are Miguel Sapochnik (of 2010's Jude Law/Forest Whitaker sci-fi pic Repo Men) and Jeannot Szwarc (who helmed Jaws 2, Somewhere in Time, and Supergirl).
• Fox is continuing the weekly Fringe hashtags; this week's is #TheyAreHere.
• I guess we'll get to enjoy the 2036 Fringe title sequence from here on out, too… "Individuality", "Imagination", "Freedom"… :-D
• Yes, Naughahyde was a very popular premium pleather.
• Tonight's alternate Astrid names: Aspen and Afro!
• The song from the final scene is Yazoo's "Only You". (Fringe has used a fair chunk of music over the years, mainly as background music in Walter's lab… but rarely is the music as prominent as it is here.)
• "Resistance is futile." "I feel like I've heard that before!"
• Who wants to chow down on some egg sticks?

Breaking Bad: Some season-ending thoughts...

In lieu of full-blown reviews of the final two episodes of Breaking Bad this season, here's a few overall thoughts on the episodes, and the season as a whole:

• Is it just me, or did Mike's death in episode 5.07 seem a bit hasty, plot-wise? From a scene-work perspective, the episode was magnificent - Mike silently departing from his granddaughter in the park, the gorgeous final scene of Mike and Walt gazing out into the water (especially the final wide shot where Mike plops to the ground). But, for whatever reason, I just wasn't sold on how the story had gotten us to the point where Walt shot Mike. The episode itself made the best case for justifying it, in how Walt belatedly realized how he could've gotten the list of names from Lydia… and besides, Walt has basically devolved to a point where he believes that murder solves everything (as the prison-shanking montage from the finale demonstrated so vividly), so, to an extent, it seems just enough within character. But still, it just seemed so hasty, compared to the show's slow-burn approach towards these matters. Which leads to…
• Would this season have best been served by a full 13 episodes, instead of just the 8 that we received? Although Mike's death seeded this idea in my head, I really started to convince myself of this during and after the "Crystal Blue Persuasion" meth-making montage. For a show that's taken its sweet, sweet time (4.5 seasons!) covering a single year, it felt jarring to have a montage skip past three months of time… and the extra time would've helped to justify the changes that have happened in Walt's life as a result of the extravagant success of the new meth operation. When Skyler revealed the ginormous pile of money in the storage shed in the finale, it was a staggering sight, to be sure… but I would've loved a bit more justification in the show to show how we've gotten to that point. I also realize that we've still got to burn through nine months of time to get to the season-opening 52nd-birthday flash-forward… but the more I wrestle with it, the more it seems contrary to how the show traditionally operates.
• Even in these final two episodes, the sheer filmmaking skill on display was off the charts. I already mentioned the gorgeous scene where Mike dies, but the opening of the episode - the desert meeting between Walt and the prospective methylamine buyers - was a delicious stand-off for this modern Western. The penultimate episode's montage in the safe-deposit room (complete with the awesome wrist-cam!) was a bouncy bit of fun, too! And the finale's two montages were tremendously executed and edited. The stark combination of the brutal violence, the jazzy music, and Walt looking outside, Godfather Part II-style made for a disturbing, yet memorable, montage. And the "Crystal Blue Persuasion" meth-cooking montage was staggeringly complex and deliriously brilliant in terms of editing, scene transitions, and furthering the show's narrative. (And yes, once I realized what song they were using, I couldn't help but think, "It took them this long to finally pull this song out?" What a fun little moment...)
• I'm still trying to figure out what Todd's angle is in this entire operation; I'm simply convinced that there's more to Todd than what we've been let on thus far. Besides, after three months of working with Walt, I'm sure he's pretty skilled at the specifics of the business at this point… almost dangerously so.
• Walt's teary-eyed re-appearance at Hank's office was downright slapstick-y, compared to what we saw earlier this season. I can't say that I liked it, but the episode needed to get down to business, I guess…
• Even a character like Mike isn't immune to the degradation of a barrel of hydrofluoric acid. Frowny-face!
• All season long, the ricin has threatened to come back into play… and although we got so very, very close in the finale with Lydia, Walt hasn't had to use it… yet.
• Bad-ass quote from Walter, in the hotel room with Todd's "connections": "It can be done exactly how I want it. The only question is, are you the men to do it?"
• So, just how much money is in that storage-shed pile? Somebody do the math… quick! :-)
• The CAT scan in the final act of the finale had to have been shown for a reason… has Skyler's wish for the cancer to return come true?
• That tortured look on Jesse's face after Walt left his house said so much… dammit, who doesn't feel bad and sympathetic for Jesse at this point?
• I doubt you'll disagree with me that next summer's first episode needs to pick up immediately from where Sunday's finale left off. It would be a tremendous disgrace if we don't see how Hank reacts to his mind-blowing discovery. (As an aside, I found it darkly funny how Breaking Bad managed to put the "shit" in the season's final "Holy shit!" moment.)
• Some fun ephemera that's hit the Internet in the past couple of weeks:
• Walt's "Say my name" moment from the desert face-off spurred this fun remix of the Destiny's Child song of the same name.
• Entertainment Weekly dug up the first film appearance of Jonathan Banks, who plays Mike: the 1974 educational film "Linda's Film on Menstruation". Skip to the 1:10 mark, and watch in amazement.
• Also, in amazing revelations: Jonathan Banks was also in the finale of the comedy classic Airplane! Skip to the 0:37 and 1:09 marks.
• Finally, since Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass figured prominently into the season finale, I must post a clip of Homer Simpson's thoughts on Walt Whitman, from the episode "Mother Simpson".

Breaking Bad will return in the summer of 2013 with the final eight episodes of the series… we hope to see you then!