Fringe: Over There

Fringe pretends for 75% of the season that it is C.S.I. and subscribes to a case of the week formula. When in reality those episodes are all, albeit minor, preparation for the other 25% of Fringe episodes. It is that 25% which helps Fringe transcend from decent television to epic drama. "Over There" was a terrific episode of television and cemented "Fringe" as the series to beat in my "what will fill the Lost void" competition for the 2010 - 2011 television season.

We have known for a while that Walter is responsible for terrible atrocities in his past. We even had really good hints that his trip to the other side led to the destruction of the entire city of Boston. Now we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Walter's pursuit of Peter is responsible for the bleeding between worlds and may bring about the end of one or both of them. No wonder William Bell removed a significant chunk of Walter's brain.

Who is Lee? I know he must have been a cortexaphan kid but I do not remember the exact circumstances of his episode. Was he the brother of the empath? Lee did recognize the him and call him by name. Fringe is definitely headed towards a place where I will need to re-watch the series in order to keep up with the twists and turns. The healer/disease giver was featured only a few episodes ago but the empath and fire girl I believe reach back to season one.

Charlie! You are alive, though not well, in zeppelin-verse. Charlie has spiders and needs to inject himself every few hours in order to keep them under control. I guess it is official that the episode which featured Charlie post-death was simply an episode aired out of order as the Charlie in that episode had hair and did not need to inject himself.

Olivia in zeppelin-verse seems to have a fairly good life. Though I was a bit upset that she was not with Agent Scott in this version of reality. Astrid, however, seems to have it a bit rough. She reminded me of the precog's in "Minority Report". On the other hand, Broyles certainly has more respect on the other side of the window.

The universes are actually much more different than they seemed at first glance. While Peter's kidnapping initiated the world collision, it did not create the point where they diverged. Lee did not know President Jackson who, for our non-history buffs, was the seventh president of the United States of America. It was pretty awesome to see Martin Luther King Jr. on the 20 dollar bill though.

I thought the scenes with Peter and his actual mother were emotionally intense. It seems like she will save him and both worlds from the machinations of his obviously crazy father.