Fringe keeps me awake, but I can’t look away

by Jen Creer

We are going to start seeing a lot more of the Alt universe this season on 'Fringe'. Do you think you could eventually feel torn about its fate?

CliqueClack TV

TV Shows

Fringe
- Season 3, Episode 3 - "The Plateau"

I got lucky this week. I had set up this post as a draft so I could wax lyrical about my love for/obsession with Fringe, and then Carissa had a conflict so I stepped in to write about last night’s episode. I thought about doing a Virgin Diary column about Fringe because I’m a relatively new viewer, but I couldn’t slow down to watch/write about the show one episode at a time. My husband and I had heard good buzz about the show, but had trouble finding time to watch it. So, we bought seasons 1 and 2 on DVD and plowed through them. I am not kidding when I say that Fringe keeps me awake; I lie in bed at night worrying about Olivia.

I might have a bit of a problem separating reality from fiction.

Jasika Nicole and Joshua Jackson have said in recent interviews that the Olivias are going to remain switched for a while. At first this really, really bothered me. Last week when Olivia started to have some of Fauxlivia’s memories, I was horrified. Can you imagine completely losing yourself like that? Now that is the definition of insanity. Last night though, fortunately, we were able to see some cracks in the surface.

Can we talk about what a difficult job Anna Torv has and how beautifully she does it? For one thing she is Australian. So, now she is portraying two American characters with slightly different accents. Fauxlivia sort of slides her consonants together: “I’m gonna,” whereas Oliva is more formal: “I’m going to.” Fauxlivia is also happier; she lost her sister as an adult, but she never lost her mother. Fauxlivia dresses in combat boots and cargo pants, but she tucks her shirt in to show off her tiny waist, and she has a little hip swagger going on. I don’t know how she does it, but I can always tell the two characters apart.

This week the episode took place in the Alt Universe exclusively. It’s a real pleasure to see Kirk Acevedo back as Charlie. Charlie, of course, is the only person who suspects that maybe Olivia was telling the truth when she insisted that she was being brainwashed to think she was someone else. He knows the real Olivia visited, and he knows something is up. Lincoln (who I think of as the Peter/Walter stand-in on the team) insists that he just knows Fauxlivia better. Hubris.

The Fringe case was one worthy of any of the rest we’ve seen. Using a (now-obsolete) ballpoint pen, a man with extreme cognitive delays is given medication to make him a genius on par only with machines. He doesn’t want to be taken off the medication and reversed to his former self though, so he starts killing off members of the research team by causing random chains of events to occur. He is so good at seeing probabilities that he makes Faux Astrid look like she’s personable and a little slow.

Astrid gets off some good lines in this episode. They ask her to calculate the probability that someone could cause this to happen, and she insists, “0.00. It’s not possible!” Then, as she looks down at her tabletop computer screen (I love this, but don’t their necks get tired from looking down?), her expression changes. “What is it?” they ask her. “It happened again.” The impossible event just occurred three times. It’s OK, Faux Astrid: This is why they call it the Fringe division.

At the beginning of the episode, all of the agents are asked to make sure they are carrying oxygen with them. We see Olivia pat her hip subtly and there is no oxygen, but she is trying so hard to make everyone convinced that she has recovered from her so-called breakdown that she doesn’t mention it. Fortunately for everyone (and for her), she starts having visions of Peter and Walter. Peter’s vision even speaks to her, insisting that she not forget who she is or where she came from. Thank goodness somewhere deep inside her she hasn’t lost herself.

Her oxygen error ends up saving her life: She doesn’t have oxygen and doesn’t know the protocol for when alarms tell people to use it, so she doesn’t pause in pursuing the savant. She behaves unpredictably (which should tell everyone around her that she is not who she seems), and avoids being crushed by a load of bricks. Charlie tells her later that he knows she was just being a daredevil, but hopefully he can see through her mistake to the truth. And, if that happens, hopefully he won’t want to kill her.

I’ve seen in interviews that the show’s creators are hoping that once we get to know the characters in the Alt Universe, we will come to like them and root for them as well as our beloved characters in the Prime Universe. I like Charlie a lot, but otherwise I don’t see that happening. However, if they can pull it off, I will be so happy for the show! I think Charlie is going to end up being Olivia’s ticket home, though. What do you think is going to happen?

Editorial note: We have only one episode of Fringe left before the baseball playoffs kick in until November 11. However, you will be able to catch the show in repeats on Fox on Saturday evenings at 11pm (10pm Central).