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Fringe: "Northwest Passage" 5/6/10 - Grading & Discussion

Grading

  • Excellent

    Votes: 15 53.6%
  • Above average

    Votes: 10 35.7%
  • Average

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • Below average

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • Poor

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    28
I missed the first 15 minutes, why was Peter off in Vancouver investigating dead bodies? I'm disappointed in the identity of the Secretary I was hoping for something more shocking (Belly? new person?).
I thought making the Secretary alternate Walter was a stroke of genius. It just really makes so much sense. Walter is a brilliant scientist so of course he'd come up with something like hybrid shape-shifters and would not give up on recovering his son no matter how long it took. I also really like the idea that this whole conflict is because of a father/son relationship. It goes from an epic notion to a much more intimate one. I mean when the parallel universe story started last season it was this idea of some unknown sinister faceless force but by the choice for Walter it really changed the dynamics for the better.

Maybe if people didn't read spoilers or try to constantly get ahead of writers by figuring everything out they would appreciate story decisions like this. Because for me the twist was surprising.

I also like it because Noble gets to play two very different Walters.
 
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I thought it was a great episode, very much like the X-Files, which isn't a bad thing for me. Liked the sheriff.

And Peter wasn't hallucinating. It was a fake out. He thought he was hallucinating because of the mundane reveal of the serial killer, then in walks Newton and Walternate.

Good stuff. Can't wait for the Alternate Episodes, Alt-Olivia with red hair, maybe some Scar Charlie, and more divergent timeline tidbits, cause those are always fun. Bring on the Zeppelins!
 
I missed the first 15 minutes, why was Peter off in Vancouver investigating dead bodies? I'm disappointed in the identity of the Secretary I was hoping for something more shocking (Belly? new person?).
I thought making the Secretary alternate Walter was a stroke of genius. It just really makes so much sense. Walter is a brilliant scientist so of course he'd come up with something like hybrid shape-shifters and would not give up on recovering his son no matter how long it took. I also really like the idea that this whole conflict is because of a father/son relationship. It goes from an epic notion to a much more intimate one. I mean when the parallel universe story started last season it was this idea of some unknown sinister faceless force but by the choice for Walter it really changed the dynamics for the better.

Maybe if people didn't read spoilers or try to constantly get ahead of writers by figuring everything out they would appreciate story decisions like this. Because for me the twist was surprising.

I also like it because Noble gets to play two very different Walters.



I have to agree with you on most of this, even though I really had a pretty strong suspicion that the man on the bridge was Walternate. My biggest question, really, is why in the blue hell did it take so long for him to cross over into our universe to look for Peter? It can't be because of the tech, since the Alt-U is ahead of us by 20 to 30 years; I mean if Walter and Belly could develop a method of breaching the dimensional veil in the 80s, then Walternate and other scientists in that reality should've been able to as well, IMO.

No, there has to be another reason, a deliberate one, and I suspect we'll find out in the next two weeks. At least I hope we do, because I don't want to wait until September/October to find out.

But like you, I'm thrilled to see John Noble play two sides of the same coin. The man is terrific and deserves an Emmy.
 
My biggest question, really, is why in the blue hell did it take so long for him to cross over into our universe to look for Peter? It can't be because of the tech, since the Alt-U is ahead of us by 20 to 30 years; I mean if Walter and Belly could develop a method of breaching the dimensional veil in the 80s, then Walternate and other scientists in that reality should've been able to as well, IMO.

The alternate universe may be more advanced, but perhaps Walternate just doesn't think the same way as Walter. Walter was able to develop tech that allowed him to cross over unharmed and then use a remote to cross back. Coming the other direction, it messes people up, uses a TON of technology, and requires shape-shifters to cross over as undeveloped blobs.
 
Walter already told us that the alternate universe is advanced in some ways, but not all. And as mentioned, we've seen this to be true already. I mean, the alternate universe still uses zeppelins. That's not advanced tech whatsoever.
 
What we learn about Peter is that he's an idiot, totally self-absorbed and hallucinates enemies. The general notion that ordinary people can hallucinate at odd intervals is better than the idea that ordinary people never hallucinate, but not much.

You didn't watch the episode in its entirety, did you?

Peter didn't hallucinate anything. Sorta the whole point of the end.
 
The discovery that it was a run of the mill freak who just happened to copy Other Sider techniques confirms that Newton and henchman were not in the forest. There was no dart fired for Mathis to find. Sheriff Mathis did not mysteriously fail to notice them running right past her because they weren't there. There was no wacky light show with the same funny noises as on the phone calls but still invisible and inaudible to Mathis. Newton and henchman weren't there. There were no pointless static phone calls to Peter in the first place, which is why there were no records of the phone calls.

The point of the story is that Peter was wrong, but if Newton was doing these things, Peter wasn't wrong, which undermines the point. Even if somehow you insist the episode wasn't about how Peter was wrong about the killer, then the episode was horribly plotted.

Newton may have been in the crowd at the coffee shop after the waitress disappeared, for some odd reason. He did somehow totally disappear when view was blocked for just a second. But that is a tired cliche of horror movies, which was repeated with the actual normal killer. And Newton was definitely there in the final scene. But this show often tacks on an unrelated scene for a cliffhanger.
 
Again, the show consistently doesn't dumb things down for it's audience, and for some of us that's great, we don't like being patronised, but for others, it goes right over their head and they end up blaming the show instead of realising they need to watch sober.

Newton was using the dairy to take the memories to find Peter, but when we saw Newton before, he wasn't killing people, he was apologising for the inconvenience. The local kid was watching and catching the girls after Newton had released them, and he was killing them. That's why the partner was still alive, Newton wasn't killing them, and the mill boy didn't swing that way so he didn't grab him.

Fringe has been knocking them out of the park for weeks now, it's a well written, clever show, that doesn't patronise it's viewers.
 
^^^How very careless of Newton to let the guy who owns the property he's using watch from afar. Since the killer wasn't using the dairy, I wonder exactly where he redid the brain thing, lethally this time, in order to take some brains for a trophy. I also wonder why Newton kept the cop prisoner since he could simply apologize for the inconvenience in his little memory search, then release the subject.

There is no explanation for why Newton would be lurking at a crime scene with funny lights and the CD he plays on his prank calls to Peter. Not to mention his dart gun. Perhaps Newton wanted to be sure the deer were serene?
There is no explanation for how Newton and his minion ran past Mathis without being seen. Or how they even got away from the scene without a vehicle. There is no explanation for the pointless calls to Peter. There is not even an explanation of why the calls would be erased from the phone records.

This was a two character story. The emotional high points in the interaction between Sheriff Mathis and Peter all centered upon the questions of whether Peter was right and whether Mathis was right to trust in him. Mathis calling Peter on doubting himself; Mathis calling Peter on his sudden switch from brain tapping to shape shifter body snatching as the explanation for Ferguson's disappearance;
Peter's shock at not recognizing the second victim; Peter grasping Mathis' hand when she started to call in the FBI; Mathis consoling Peter for his success in saving Ferguson despite being wrong. All this is totally controverted by the cheap thrill of Newton popping up out of the woodwork with Walternate in the shadows.

The whole mad scenario where Newton was snatching the victims for exactly the reason Peter said (but the local mad dog killer was confusing things,) depends upon the extraordinary coincidences of Newton running into Peter in Noyo County Washington and a murderous nut happening to be next door to Newton's work area. You can't reasonably believe that Newton had already found Peter but he still needed to brain tap people to find Peter.

My feeling is that thinking scifi doesn't need to make a lick of sense is patronizing. This nonsense is below average writing, though, even for TV scifi.
 
It was Peter's theory that the first woman was kidnapped because she had knowledge of him, not just where he was, but things she picked up subconciously in their interactions.

Maybe this was true.

I believe Newton took the first girl to gain some sort of insight into why Peter was on his own for Walternate. The Dairy Farmer then either took and killed the first girl after Newton was done with her, dumped the body for Newton or went to the first drop site because he's a freak and a girl he was stalking was dumped there.

He bumps into the deputy, who went there without calling it in, surprises the freak and gets taken prisoner. The farmer then assumes his identity and uses it to pull over the second victim, upon whom he performs sicko-surgery with no connection to Newton.

Newton and Bald Henchman meanwhile have been broadcasting something at Peter over the phone and in the woods using alternatech. Perhaps preparing him for a crossover, perhaps giving him insomnia, perhaps just to fuck with him cause Newton's a dick. Mathis could have easily missed the alternates in the fog-shrouded forest. Maybe they have cloaking tech or are really sneaky.

Then Newton shows up at the end, proving Peter wasn't hallucinating and Walternate reveals himself because Newton's work has given him confidence that Peter is ready to see him and be convinced to cross back over.

There. Simple.
 
^Works for me!

Aside from Lost (soon to be over), this is the best on t.v. right now.

The season finale (2 part) is gonna rock! The search for Peter...but will he WANT to go back?
 
Some people are claiming that there's a bald scar Charlie in the previews of the other side, but I don't see it. Do you?
 
But this show often tacks on an unrelated scene for a cliffhanger.

So they show us exactly how it's all related. You know, ockham's razor and all that.

And then you struggle to find ways showing how it's unrelated, when with no struggle in logic at all, it's pretty obvious where things connect?

And some people say the writing on the show is far-fetched!
 
Drivel. The scenes between Peter and Mathis are premised on him being wrong. Suddenly making him right so they can set up the next story, about his rescue, falsifies the story. Which is bad writing. There is no way to justify Newton lurking in the woods doing pointless voodoo and magically escaping. The plot is BS. Which is, again, bad writing.

Metaphorically speaking, misuse of Ockham's razor cuts your own throat.

I believe Newton took the first girl to gain some sort of insight into why Peter was on his own for Walternate.

Walternate knows better than anyone else why Peter might suddenly feel alienated from Walter. And he knows that telling Peter himself might be a successful recruiting tactic. Why ever would he need Newton second hand scraps of insight from a chance met waitress?

The Dairy Farmer then either took and killed the first girl after Newton was done with her,

Again, Newton's carelessness about letting his closest neighbor watch is inexplicable.

dumped the body for Newton

Wasn't it supposed to be the case that Newton didn't kill his victims, and even apologized for the inconvenience? He certainly didn't kill Ferguson. Why he would hire a freak who killed his brain tap subjects, thereby bringing down a police manhunt? The freak doesn't talk about Newton which implicitly contradicts any hypothesis about him working for Newton. When arrested he woud have every incentive to spread the blame.

or went to the first drop site because he's a freak and a girl he was stalking was dumped there.

Again, wasn't the thing supposed to be that Newton didn't kill his victims? Since the freak was killing them by taking brain trophies (seen in his home, by the way, like the Peter from Boston CD,) the guy had to be doing his amateur brain surgery somewhere! Applying Ockham's razor, the simplest explanation involving the fewest assumptions is that the amateur OR on the freak's property was his kill site, and Newton was never there to question, then apologize to anybody. If the waitress was murdered on the site, it wasn't the dump site but the crime scene. The dialogue explicitly contradicts this hypothesis.

He bumps into the deputy, who went there without calling it in, surprises the freak and gets taken prisoner.

In this context, "there" would be the first dump site, which is contradicted by the sequence of events. Ferguson didn't disappear until later, either when he arrived at the first dump site, or on the way. There is no reason to think the freak returned to the dump site to have some confrontation with Ferguson. Ockham's razor says not to make such assumptions unless necessary. Also, here certainly is no reason to suppose Ferguson had a stroke of genius and went to the dairy without telling anyone where he was going, even if he didn't always bother reporting his arrival.

You could hypothesize that Ferguson arrived at the dump site where Newton and miscellaneous thug were doing whatever nonsense they were up to. Then Newton and said nondescript muscle captured Ferguson and stored him at their OR. This would be astonishingly bad writing since it assumes Ferguson wouldn't bother to say, "There's more of them!" Or if he was braintapped, that no one noticed that he had brain surgery that, unlike the women, he survived. Also, it assumes that the freaky neighbor would cop to kidnapping the cop, when he didn't. Even for a psycho freak, this seems like pretty unlikely behavior, since there doesn't seem to be any perverted sexual thrill to it.

The farmer then assumes his identity and uses it to pull over the second victim, upon whom he performs sicko-surgery with no connection to Newton.

Again, using Ockham's razor properly, the simplest explanation is that Ferguson had stopped the vehicle and was checking the girl's papers, when the freak somehow got the drop on him. The girl then gets the fun treatment, while Ferguson is stowed and forgotten.

Newton and Bald Henchman meanwhile have been broadcasting something at Peter over the phone and in the woods using alternatech.
Perhaps preparing him for a crossover,

The assumption that Peter needs some strange preparation to go back to his original world is the type of unwarranted assumption that Ockham's razor counsels against!

perhaps giving him insomnia, perhaps just to fuck with him cause Newton's a dick.

The need for insomnia is again an unwarranted assumption, as well as also being just an example of Newton's dickery. The notion that Newton would want to dick around with "Mr. Secretary"'s kidnapped son is a peculiar idea in itself, however. Dicks still have a sense of political expediency. In fact, self serving political expediency is a prime ingredient in dickery.

Mathis could have easily missed the alternates in the fog-shrouded forest.

Mathis wanted to believe, but she knew better. Implicitly, so did Peter because he didn't argue the point.

Maybe they have cloaking tech

Again, the proper use of Ockham's razor rules out such special assumptions in support of a preconceived thesis.

or are really sneaky.

They can run sneaky?!

Then Newton shows up at the end, proving Peter wasn't hallucinating and Walternate reveals himself because Newton's work has given him confidence that Peter is ready to see him and be convinced to cross back over.

Why ever would Mr. Secretary think Peter would need convincing? He would think of him a kidnapping victim who was effectively brainwashed by his kidnapper. If he wanted to convince Peter, telling Peter the truth is the start. He seems to have assumed that Peter knew the truth. If he was trying to pose as Walter, instead of presenting himself as the Walternate he is, he sure wouldn't want Newton around. Newton's presence would fighten Peter, as it did. That sort of thing is not calculated to convince anyone of anything.

Newton showing up does make the case for Peter not hallucinating but it also shows the episode was written with complete disregard for internal logic and thematic integrity. The emotional thrust of the Peter/Mathis interaction hinges on Peter being wrong, which means hallucinating the key events. But if he's not hallucinating, then the entire episode was tiresome nonsense about Peter being an idiot.

There. Simple.

I didn't take time before to demonstrate how this is wrong. But it is.

^Works for me!

How ever is that possible? You're say, among other things, Newton would hang around the woods at a crime scene, with a dart gun, on the off chance that Peter would come there again, see the light show and hear the static but any one with him wouldn't see said light show or hear the static, or even see them. Doesn't work for me.
 
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