A New Day In The Old Town



The season opener of Fringe opens up as strange as ever. As FBI agents are rushed to the scene of a bizarre car accident, a strange being shoots down a man and takes on his shape. Yes, welcome to the bizarre, odd, and sometimes quiet wonderful world of Fringe. The episode starts out quickly and violently and the momentum hardly slows down.


The set pieces move quickly from plot point to plot point, as we deal with Olivia's (Anna Torv) chaotic and confusing return from another universe, while the team copes with the idea that they are being assaulted by shape shifting soldiers. Walter (John Noble) continues to steal the spotlight, continuing his new and exciting take on the mad scientist archetype. Peter (Joshua Jackson), who had the most surprising twist of the finale, takes a larger role in this episode taking over Fringe Devision after its leader is incapacitated. Fringe Devision itself also comes under attack from the US government. Feeling that their efforts and money are being wasted on some strange wild goose chase, they pull the plug on the operation leading operation leader Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick) to deal with the implications. All the plot points eventually come to a head as Olivia, confined to a hospital bed, is attacked by one of the shape shifters, and the following chase scene is both haunting and shocking in its conclusion. All culminating in a twist that was expected, but wrenching all the same. Fringe knows how to handle its delivery.

The only real down point to this issue is Agent Amy Jessup (Meghan Markle). Jessup is an FBI agent who becomes accidentally involved with Fringe devision and becomes involved in the plot. Her conclusion in this episode comes off as odd and some times distracting from the main story. However, what bothers me the most about Jessup is just her overall point. She is set up through the whole episode as being a new and essential character, but she only appears once in the following four episodes, and even then for a few minutes. Its as if the writers decided that she wasn't worth the trouble incorporating and just decided to drop her all together. This comes off not only as distracting, but just sloppy production side, and it really takes away from the episode as a whole.

Score: -A