‘Fringe’ – ‘The Box’: Over here

A quick review of tonight’s “Fringe” coming up just as soon as I work behind a deli counter…

As I said last week, having the two Olivias swap universes was a great idea, not just in terms of the larger arc, but for spicing up the Monster of the Week episodes. Do a version of this A-story with Olivia, and it’s boring. Do it with Fauxlivia(*) – even if she’s not pulling the strings the way she is here – and it becomes something else altogether. She has an agenda, and she’s trying to learn about our world (“Who’s Bo-no?”), and she’s trying to maintain her cover (here seducing Peter to avoid him noticing the blood stain on her floor), and she’s a general fly in the ointment. And that’s vastly more interesting than our Olivia Dunham working a case and playing straight woman to the Bishops.

(*) By the way, I understand that the show’s producers have taken to calling the character “Bolivia.” I will not be a party to that foolishness. Fauxlivia is a much better nickname by a factor of a thousand, and so instead I will pay homage to whatever internet poster first coined it by sticking with it for as long as the character remains a factor on the series.

Beyond that, the idea of Walter being in charge of Massive Dynamic has a lot of possibilities – just think of what he’ll do with the Food Services division! – though I hope the MD offices have room for Gene the cow if a lot of the research action is going to move there. (Also, I wonder if we’ll see an MD branch up in Boston, or if the characters will be commuting from Boston to NYC even more than before.) And hopefully he’ll have the freedom to play the “Miami Vice” theme there, as well, if it’s scientifically germane.

Overall, not as strong as “Olivia,” but still a very promising sign for this Over There/Over Here structure we’re going to use for at least a while in season three.

What did everybody else think?

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