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Fringe: Power Hungry

Electromagnetism is a pretty hot topic in genre shows these days. I’d love to see a renaissance in stories that focus on the mystic allure of gravity. So powerful, so ubiquitous, so unstoppable!

Poor Mr. Meegar was just as unstoppable, and I felt bad for him. Not all super-powered sad sacks have a kindly Uncle Ben to explain the ethics of power and responsibility. It was rather nice to get a sense of the evildoer’s character beyond just plain old evil-doing. The super-powered villain was ripped straight from an old X-Files (D.P.O.), and the super-fiendish doctor bent on creating a monster from a man was ripped straight from a little-known work called Frankenstein.

Mr. Meegar was just the A-storyline, though. We wrapped up (well, sort of) some loose ends, and got drawn deeper into the mystery of what’s going on with Olivia’s dead lover John Scott. They shared consciousness, and so... um... she sees him and he tells her stuff she doesn’t already know? OK. Sure. He led her to a secret basement full of important files that I’m sure will be important in various episodes when a smidgen of importance is needed.

I’m having a hard time pinning down the Theme of the Week, again. It seems to be “baggage”—Olivia’s struggle with John Scott, dead future fiancĂ©; Walter’s struggle with St. Claire’s; Mr. Meegar’s struggle with his own inadequacies; the Samsonites under Peter’s eyes. Poor boy.

Stranger Things Have Happened (It’s Walter’s Motto):

• “It’s almost like another generator came online, jacked into the system, and overloaded it with double or triple the voltage.” Wouldn’t that have just shut the motor down, not super-charged it?

• Does the FBI really have access to everything, including on-the-job accidents at shipping companies? I must admit, that’s more than a little frightening. Way more frightening than electromagnetism.

• REO Speedwagon? Now that’s unbelievable.

Actually Funny:

• “It was usually the Commies in those days.”

• “So he floated, like my necklace in the elevator?”
“Um, no.”

• The eighties guitar riff during the pigeon hunt scene. I’m not sure it was supposed to be funny, though.

Spot The Observer: In the elevator.

Not bad, not great. Let’s say...

Two out of four pieces of luggage.

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

3 comments:

  1. Yeah, this totally felt like an episode of the X-Files. You could have replaced Olivia and her Merry band, with Mulder and Scully, no problem at all.

    I'm learning to go with the flow with regards the complicated explanations as to why things are. Since we're talking about fringe science, and fringe science=the biggest pile of horse shit they can possibly conjure up, it doesn't pay to think about probability too much. It's all totally illogical. Which is how I like it. Like I like my coffee. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Unless we somehow blame fringe science. There, I just made it all better.

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  2. For me, the scene where Walter skated around the room in his wool socks and zapped Peter with static electricity was the height of the episode. And the pigeons. I really don't care much about the residual brain spirit John Scott. They need to find a better subplot for Olivia, because as a character, she needs all the help she can get.

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  3. Pigeons! But I liked the residual brain spirit thing with John Scott. It's like a (hopefully) benign parasite, sticking around now because its original "host" is dead and this is the only life it has... Had me thinking of something from Dollhouse

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