Fringe: "Ability" 2/10 - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Aragorn
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It looks to me like Fringe is off next week.
The trailer at the end of the episode said that Fringe is off until April....
I guess this is a good time to catch up then.
Wow. Just wow. My roommate and I watch this show because we enjoy the cheap thrills (Aside-- God, you know you're a star trek geek when you almost write trills 
). A lot of the single episodes were ok, not awful, but nothing particularly amazing. Call them monster of the week episodes, even if there literally wasn't a monster. The cast has always been consistently entertaining but the show didn't really surprise us. The one episode that really interested us was the earlier episode with Mr. Jones and the subsequent episode where Olivia escaped uncovered the double agent.
But now...
(SPOILERS BELOW)
a war with a parallel universe? Walter has been aware of this the entire time? What does Massive Dynamic (run by Walter's ex-partner) know about this? How many sides are there to this? And what are the roles of all the seemingly random episodes that we've seen before? What does the parallel universe even want? Did Mr. Jones go back to the parallel universe? Is he from it? And what's the deal with the original experiment that went wrong and sent Walter to the insane asylum? Lots of questions. But in a good way.
Fringe's stock just went up big time for me, I was thoroughly entertained and much more drawn in.
). A lot of the single episodes were ok, not awful, but nothing particularly amazing. Call them monster of the week episodes, even if there literally wasn't a monster. The cast has always been consistently entertaining but the show didn't really surprise us. The one episode that really interested us was the earlier episode with Mr. Jones and the subsequent episode where Olivia escaped uncovered the double agent. But now...
(SPOILERS BELOW)
a war with a parallel universe? Walter has been aware of this the entire time? What does Massive Dynamic (run by Walter's ex-partner) know about this? How many sides are there to this? And what are the roles of all the seemingly random episodes that we've seen before? What does the parallel universe even want? Did Mr. Jones go back to the parallel universe? Is he from it? And what's the deal with the original experiment that went wrong and sent Walter to the insane asylum? Lots of questions. But in a good way.
Fringe's stock just went up big time for me, I was thoroughly entertained and much more drawn in.
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^^^
Yes. Agreed. 100%. I never sang the praises of the song too much before, just that I enjoyed it. But now. Wow. The wait was worth it. Such a crazy concept.
I also wonder (only because of the Abrams connection) if he's exploring almost 2 sides of the same kind with his two shoes here. Lost, and how there's only one universe, one timeline that can't be change. And now this. A multiverse which, by its very nature, suggests a maleable timeline to boot.
Maybe I'm just reading WAY too much into this. But still.
Wow. Great episode.
Yes. Agreed. 100%. I never sang the praises of the song too much before, just that I enjoyed it. But now. Wow. The wait was worth it. Such a crazy concept.
I also wonder (only because of the Abrams connection) if he's exploring almost 2 sides of the same kind with his two shoes here. Lost, and how there's only one universe, one timeline that can't be change. And now this. A multiverse which, by its very nature, suggests a maleable timeline to boot.
Maybe I'm just reading WAY too much into this. But still.
Wow. Great episode.
Yeah, this pretty much mirrors my take of the show. The previous episode with Jones and now this one really gives me hope this show can go some pretty cool places.
It's definitely better than Hero's right now while I don't think it's quite got "Serenity" potential - yet - nor is this on par with Lost, it's showing signs that this show could end up being really worth watching.
Above Average, and that's not on the "Fringe" scale but relative to any show out there. Here's hoping they can keep things going.
Btw, for those of you who were less than impressed by the first several episodes - as was I - I'd recommend using this long Hiatus to catch up and give this show a chance for several reasons:
1. The show seems to really show flashes of promises in 2-3 episodes so far
2. The show is no real danger of cancellation which for airing on Fox is a bloody miracle
3. I have faith that the people involved will continue to tweak it and hopefully kick it up a notch or two to make the show really worth watching as the story - especially tonights story - continues to unfold.
By the way, your Observer sighting of the week occurred as the first victim was stumbling away, and one of the guys who moves out of the way is the Observer.
Hmm. I've been into parallel timelines, alternate realities and the multiverse in general for a number of years now, and for Fringe to delve into the concept — which, IRL, is being studied by physicists — should be interesting.
Too bad I have to wait until April for new episodes.
Gatekeeper
Too bad I have to wait until April for new episodes.
Gatekeeper
I took it that our Walter had written it and this is further corroborated by the fact that Jones holds Bishop in such high esteem.........it'd be a bit like meeting Moses or something..........
Dammit I missed the show...! 
When does it repeat during the year?
Never mind, there are other avenues... Hulu Avenue, for example.
When does it repeat during the year?
Never mind, there are other avenues... Hulu Avenue, for example.
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I don't think so. They said earlier in the episode that some alternate universes are exactly like ours except that they're slightly further ahead in their histories. IMO, that telegraphed that this manuscript was written by alternate universe-Walter (who's probably a few years older, it's probably 2012 or something in that universe), and would have eventually been written in this universe by our Walter. That's why Jones holds him in such high esteem. It would be like you or me meeting Einstein a couple years before he discovered the theory of relativity (or, since we're in a Trek forum, it'd be like when Riker met Zephram Cochrane in First Contact). We'd be thrilled to meet him and he wouldn't know why.
I'm glad they've already started answering the questions they've raised. Maybe that'll keep the show on the air longer.
An excellent episode all around. I was glad to see the cow was back. What is the deal with the cow anyways? Did I miss something, or is this just more of Walter's craziness?
According to the show, the manuscript was already written in our universe some time ago and then it disappeared. This means someone in our universe has written it about a coming war with an alternate universe.
Throughout the episode Walter seems to know what Transporting side effects their are and since it's not death and Jones goes missing, I'm guessing that people who are transported are eventually sucked into that alternate universe.
Couple that with the way the letter "Y" is offset a bit and how Walter starts to suspect he himself wrote it and verifies this by testing his theory out on his own typewriter, it seems pretty clear that either Walter wrote it or someone else wrote it on that typewriter.
I hope the show has several seasons to flush this storyline out as it's one of the few shows on air right now that show much promise at all.
I had a similar thought. However, Massive Dynamic and Jones all seem to be specifically interested in Olivia so I'm guessing they know something about her that identifies her as a "Recruit" in the upcoming war and peter was just their to lend moral support.
I'm really disappointed by the way the John Scott story ended. It was obvious that this wasn't where they originally intended to go. When Massive Dynamic took his body at the end of the pilot, they made sure to say out loud that he had been dead within the allowable time frame to resurrect him. And if the chip thing died when the person died, they would've been too late anyway.
I was expecting him to wake up as the season one cliffhanger.
I was expecting him to wake up as the season one cliffhanger.
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