FRINGE: Dream Logic

My apologies to Gretchen and FRINGE fans. This has been sitting in a ‘drafts’ folder since the 17th.  Can I blame the pain meds? – Kath

It is 8:00 Friday night and I just got around to watching last night’s episode of Fringe, thanks to a long list of things including (but not limited to) my husband, baseball, and my own ridiculous inability to stay awake while watching TV from the comfort of my own bed – even for my most favorite shows! For those of you who were anxiously waiting to hear my thoughts on the show (Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?), I apologize!

I’m Yawning Just a Little Bit
After last week’s killer episode, this one left me feeling just a little bit flat. Someone mentioned in a previous comment section that they found the show to be “uneven” and I tend to agree. I think all of the episodes are solid, entertaining, well acted, etc., — but the momentum seems to pick up at a crazy pace one episode and then settle in almost as if nothing major had happened by the next. This episode addressed the repercussions of last week (Olivia killing Bad!Charlie) and also advanced one of the most compelling storylines (Walter kidnapping Peter from the other universe), but most of the hour was spent on a stand-alone, non-Pattern (Observer-less) case. I understand the logic behind wanting to keep the show more accessible to the casual or new viewer but it ultimately makes it less compelling to the hard-core fan base.

In a Nutshell
What I’m learning from Fringe is that it is never a good idea to sign up for experimental medical research of any sort. In this particular case, individuals with sleep disorders enrolled in a clinical trial in which a wireless transmitter was implanted into the portion of their brains that controls sleep. The test subjects were all happily relieved of their sleeplessness, but the doctor conducting the research was actually robbing them of their dreams. In fact, he was essentially mainlining their dreams — to the point of complete addiction. To feed his own addiction, he was using the chips to stimulate dream activity in his patients while they were still awake. This basically caused their dreams and nightmares to come to life, which in turn led them to do all kinds of bad things, including killing people. To make matters worse, it ultimately kills them of sleep exhaustion.

The Dream Team

OLIVIA —

Olivia goes back to Sam to return her bowling shoes and to thank him for helping her solve her problem. He points out to her that she has other problems and that her life is basically a nightmare. She reluctantly agrees and he gives her another task which involves collecting business cards from people wearing red, circling one letter from both their first and last names, and then deciphering an anagram from those letters. The solution is “You’re Gonna Be Fine” – the same thing that Charlie said to her during her very first week with the FBI.

This is normally the kind of thing that would intrigue me and I generally love the use of a good anagram, but I find myself not particularly caring much about this storyline. I’ve always been a little hot/cold with Olivia. I get that she has been through A LOT (losing her fiancé/finding out that, as a child, she had been drugged and who knows what else by one of her co-workers/visiting an alternate universe/returning to this universe via a head-injury inducing car accident/killing her partner even though he was actually already dead…need I go on?), but for whatever reason I find myself not all that invested in her pain. Am I just cold hearted or can this also be attributed to the “unevenness” of the show?

PETER —

Peter reveals to Olivia that he used to suffer from terrible nightmares. Walter helped him to deal with it by teaching him a mantra to say to himself each night before falling asleep, “Please don’t dream tonight”. It conditioned him, not to stop dreaming, but to stop remembering his dreams. It worked so well that Peter could not remember any of his dreams from the time he was 8 until the time he was 19. Apparently, it is not working so well anymore because the last scene of the episode shows Peter waking up from a dream. The dream seems to be that of young Peter (Alt-Peter) being taken by Walter. No wonder Walter was so helpful in teaching Peter a way to forget!

WALTER —

Obviously this wasn’t my favorite episode, but there were many moments that I really enjoyed – most of them involving Walter:

Ciabatta bread – Do I eat it or keep it?
Seattle – It is wet and has a smell…reminds me of St. Claire
Asterisk
Don’t be such a Grinch, I told you science should be fun.
That is not masculine!!

That’s it, folks. Looks like Fringe doesn’t return until November so we’ll have to rely on the standard Halloween fare to get our weekly fill of all things weird and creepy (BOO!!!!). See you next month!

For all you code crackers – tonight’s word was BETRAY.

Gretchen is a stay-at-home mom of two awesome little girls who has the good fortune of being married to a husband who is completely cool with her slightly out of control television addiction. During her precious few sleeping hours, Gretchen frequently finds herself ridding the world of pesky vampires and demons, as well as taking down fake secret branches of the CIA.