TV Review: Fringe - "A New Day In The Old Town"

I love Fringe, but I have to admit there are a lot of details in the plot that I don’t understand. I’m certain that during the coming season, I will click as to the real significance of a previous occurrence and feel totally ridiculous because of how long it took me to get it. Such are the trials and tribulations of a confused blogger.

Paradoxically, it’s the reason I started reviewing Fringe; the way I figure it, if I have to sit down and discuss its finer points each week, I will not only have questions, but be forced to systematically address them and, perhaps, understand things a little bit before the ‘Oh my God I’m so stupid’ moment.
And comments from readers are definitely going to help.

As those of you who have been following my personal blog know or those who have read my first two reviews of Supernatural for Blogcritics have probably guessed, I’m quite the avid X-Files fan. Supernatural filled some of the void, but there was still something missing — government conspiracies. Which is the rest of the void Fringe helps to fill up.

But where The X-Files took its time getting us into the conspiracy (only five of The X-Files’ season one episodes had to do with the alien government conspiracy mytharc), Fringe revels in it; the paranormal all comes in to support it, rather than to distract us from it. It’s also interesting to note the use of ‘fringe science’ in Fringe, as opposed to The X-Files, where most of the mysteries were explainable through paranormal science.

Fringe’s first season finished on the pretty incredible scene of Olivia Dunham meeting William Bell. It wasn’t the fact that William Bell is played by Leonard Nimoy that is pretty incredible (although it’s always exciting to see Leonard Nimoy). It was the fact that Olivia Dunham met him… in the World Trade Center. Yes, you read that right – the Twin Towers were not destroyed in the parallel universe where William Bell lives.

You’d expect season two of Fringe to open up with a startled Olivia Dunham looking at William Bell and demanding answers — but if you did, it means you don’t quite get the nature of this show yet. No, my friends, season two opens with a car accident — the responsible party runs away, find his way into an apartment, kills the owner, smashes his face in, and connects himself to the victim whose facial features he then acquires. Not quite the elegant way the Alien Bounty Hunter used to morph in The X-Files, but still, pretty scary (considering this guy, by all accounts, is human).

Article Author: Sahar

The author of The Spirit Within Club, Sahar was born the first of three siblings and the first of eight cousins. Thrust in the role of head of the brood at a very early age, she honed her imagination by creating stories and plotlines the eight of them could play to all summer long. …

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