This Week in Fringe - 10/7/10

This week's episode takes place in the alternate universe, and follows the exploits of a completely irrelevant autistic dude who doesn't want to be reverted to his previous state, while Olivia struggles with her identity.

Episode 3 - "The Plateau"

Zach says: As last seen, Olivia has almost wholey taken on faux Olivia's identity, traits, and personality. She believes she is the alternate Olivia, however, deep in her brain, she knows this isn't true. She imagines seeing Peter and Walter, and by the end of the episode, Peter even talks to her, through her own subconscious, to remind her that things are not right and about who she really is. It also played another plot point in the episode, which I totally called, but is basically irrelevant, except for its effect on Charlie. Charlie voiced some concerns and thoughts about Olivia and thinking about the possibility that perhaps she wasn't crazy, but really IS who she said she was two weeks ago. It looks like Olivia will have an ally in the coming weeks.

Another interesting quote was from Broyles after Walternate said why Olivia was so important, due to the fact that she could cross universes freely. Broyles said something to the effect that using Olivia and gaining that tech could "help us to defend ourselves". To me, this means that Broyles, and via him, the Fringe division, aren't really nefarious or the bad guys. It seems that Walternate is quite the dastardly figure, so we'll see how his alliances work out in the end.

Other than that though, I didn't think too much of the episode. It was OK, and delivered both some major plot points, while mostly giving an "entertaining" story that doesn't have much to do with the major arc. It works.
Zach's Score: 7/10

JDW says: Unlike Zach, I felt this "case of the week" from the other side was actually an improvement over the Fringe norm. Sure, it is technically a return to the formula, where the case subject doesn't really have much to do with anything, but unlike all the other formula episodes from seasons 1 and 2, this was on the other side, with the other Fringe, and I honestly found the change in setting, characters, and tone to be quite refreshing.

Not to mention, I found the whole viewing inside the mind, seeing alternate reality... within an alternate universe scenes to be really interesting, and made the episode much more suspenseful than usual. But that's just me, and from the look of next week's preview all of the 'our side' episodes will be for progressing the story and all the 'other side' episodes will be for using the formula style, but different. We'll see.
JDW's Score: 8/10

Overall Score: 7.5/10

Missed the episode? Watch it on Hulu