After rediscovering the Pilot, we head once more unto the breach! Our aim is to make new discoveries and forge fresh connections as we tackle “The Same Old Story” – or, as I am now calling it: “Love Blinds”.
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From the category archives:
The Same Old Story
Synopsis “Our unlikely trio’s strange partnership begins as they investigate the mysterious death of a woman who conceives, carries to full-term and births a baby in the span of hours, and her baby who ages 80 years in a matter of minutes.
As the bizarre and seemingly unexplainable occurrences are explored, quirky Dr. Bishop runs extensive testing in the lab; his reluctant son Peter endures his new role as his father’s keeper; and Olivia turns to Massive Dynamic Chief Operating Officer Nina Sharp for assistance.
General Thoughts: If the pilot episode was about Olivia and her team passing “tests”, this episode was about making connections and putting the pieces together – “like a puzzle”. The title of the episode serves to illustrate the collision between Olivia’s past and present. Her world may have been turned upside down, but the same old stories are playing out – only now she is better equipped to solve them.
This episode retains the prize for being the most X-Filesque of all Fringe episodes. This disconnected me from the story somewhat, as did the score. I also felt that some of the scenes were a bit ‘clunky’.
Below I outline my New Observations and Perspectives, Unresolved Mysteries, Closed Mysteries and provide my Final Thoughts based on my rewatch of this episode.
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Here’s how New Zealanders are advertising Fringe. It’s not the best trailer in the world, but it does make me slightly nostalgic for Fringe. Funnily enough, what I remember most about episode 2 was that nurse who had a healthy set of lungs on her. My ears are STILL ringing!
Elsewhere, New Zealand’s Otago Daily Times has an interview with Anna Torv where she addresses the early misconception of her character, Olivia Dunham. It’s no secret that Olivia was perceived by many to be “withdrawn” in the early stages of last season. But Torv defends Olivia by saying that the character was just misunderstood:
“In the first scenes of the first episode of the show, she’s this bubbly young thing who’s madly in love with this man. All of a sudden he’s attacked and she goes on this mission to find out what’s wrong. She gets him better and then realises . . . it was for nothing. She starts the series there. She’s a shadow of her former self . . .She has become extremely isolated and extremely shut off from the rest of the world.”
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The episodic format of Fringe is rather frustrating as it means that we can’t always expect to have events from the previous episodes referenced in the current episode. In recent episodes we’ve witnessed potentially important events, which have so far failed to be acknowledged or referenced in the episodes that follow.
Like, what happened to John Mosely’s (Rouge) pulse gun that was last seen leaving the foot of Olivia as she kicked it away from his smiling corpse? This is potentially useful information – where and what ‘time’ did the gun come from and was it made by Massive Dynamic, are just a few of the questions that spring to mind.
Another plot-line which has so far failed to be acknowledged satisfactorily, concerns Walter attacking and injecting Astrid with God knows what, the young rookie was rightfully pissed with him, in fact she could barely look at him when he went to apologise to her. By the time that we see them in the next episode, they’ve apparently kissed and made-up again, the only sign of resentment from Astrid was her “rats with wings” retort. So what happened off-screen, did Walter serenade her into forgiving him, or is Astrid just as forgetful as Walter? I would have liked to have seen how they resolved their broken relationship. Even more than that I would have liked to have seen Astrid make Walter suffer a bit longer before forgiving him – she needs some lines right? Drawing out her resentment for a few episodes would have given her more involvement.
The one that really bothers me though is Clause Penrose. I’m fine with him escaping into the night, I’m even fine with him escaping into the night, leaving a trail of blood from the bullet wound and still leaving the FBI clueless. But I want some carry-over. He’s still out there at large, possibly cultivating more creepy Christopher’s as we speak, the very least I expect is for someone to mention him. Perhaps Peter can give us a snarky throw-away line, or Broyles can gravely express his concern that too many of their targets are escaping, getting killed or exploding back through the earth.
I guess we have to accept that a lot of these ‘discussions’ will happen off-screen, which to be fair, happens a lot in “Lost”. I’m fine with that, the writers can’t bog the story down with every detail. But in “Lost” you get the sense that these fairly important things will eventually be referred to again – yes, even the black and white stones that are probably still in Jack’s sweaty pocket!
I love Fringe, the creators are doing a very good job, but for the show to remain credible and trust-worthy in the long-run, we need important elements to have more continuity in the subsequent episodes. Like Peter’s battered and bruised face in “Power Hungry”. Now that was great continuity – more of THAT please!
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Fringe producers Alex Kurtzman, Jeff Pinkner and Roberto Orci tease us with “7 insights” into Fringe, and show us a glimpse of what’s coming up in the next episode. It’s a fantastic watch but contains possible hints, which some readers might consider spoilery, so watch at your own discreation!:
Watch below:
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Yet more positive Fringe news – this time on the DVR front:
For the week of September 15-21, Fox’s House had the largest audience via DVR viewing with 4.064 million viewers via DVRs, one of the largest DVR audiences we have measured to date. In fact, Fox had the top 5 biggest DVR audiences including Fringe, Bones and Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles and Prison Break.
Rank Programs Network Persons Live+7 (000s) Persons Live (000s) Time-shifted Audience (000s) % increase from Live to Live+7 1 HOUSE FOX 16,821 12,757 4,064 31.9% 2 FRINGE FOX 14,866 12,073 2,793 23.1%
Thanks: TvByTheNumbers.com
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It was staring us in the face for weeks! The viral poster with Olivia Dunham’s upside down head-shot contains the word “Observed”, hidden along one of the strands in her hair (see the red box, you should be just able to make it out):
See the image below for a closer look (from another shot) - the word “observed” is highlighted by the red box:
Click here for an even closer look!
The first three episodes of the show have also alluded to the fact that our fringies are being watched..or ‘observed’. Many of the fans had already deduced that, as the above poster suggests, it is Olivia Dunham who is being observed. The presence of CBG (Creepy Bald Guy) in each of the first three episodes, and Nina Sharp’s suggestion that Olivia is connected somehow to “The Pattern”, make the following screencaps (posted earlier on our blog) even more poignant:
The words “Observers Are Here” were first seen in the Fringe titles (episode 1.01) after the word “Dark Matter”.
CBG can be seen outside of the Massive Dynamic HQ whilst Olivia is inside talking to Nina (episode 1). He can also be seen inside the hospital as Olivia and the team walk past the reception area (episode 2). Then he is seen standing on the train as Olivia walks past him (episode 3):
Perhaps CBG is observing Olivia because he’s jealous of her hair!?
We’ll be on the look out for more clues in episode 4, which by the way, looks awesome if the trailer is anything to go by.
Thanks: Cheery Rose, BuddhaWithMace and Fringe-Forum for the CBG Image
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Meet Feebo, Notchy and Pie! They are the lovable Fringemunk clones who have teamed up with the talented David Wu (better known as “The Marked Mouse” on the Fringe fansites) to recap each new episode of FOX’s hit TV series Fringe with a song!
Episode 1.01: Pilot
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Episode 1.02: The Same Old Story
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Love it!:-D
Check out DavidWuMusic.com to download the Fringemunks, and for more episode-based tunes which will be added in the future!
*Thanks to David Wu for allowing us to post the above audio and share it with you all.
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Who was your favourite Fringie for episode 2 – ‘Same Old Story’? Feel free to make your vote count below!:
Episode 2 - Fringie of the week?
- Peter (33%, 9 Votes)
- Walter (30%, 8 Votes)
- Olivia (11%, 3 Votes)
- Nina Sharp (11%, 3 Votes)
- The Nurse with the great set of lungs (7%, 2 Votes)
- Astrid (4%, 1 Votes)
- Loraine Daisy (4%, 1 Votes)
- Christopher Penrose (0%, 0 Votes)
- Claus Penrose (0%, 0 Votes)
- Phillip Broyles (0%, 0 Votes)
- Charlie (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 27
Loading ...Walter Bishop already holds one victory – will episode 2 grant him a repeat, or will another Fringie keep him company at the top?
*P.S. The polls should now be fixed and you’ll hopefully be able to cast your vote no problem. If this is not the cast please let us know via the comments or email, and we’ll look into it. Chars!
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Here’s our easteregg observations for episode 1.02 “The Same Old Story”. Thanks to Fringe-Forum.comfor some of the screencaps used in this post.
Picking Daisies:
Poor old Loraine, first her mother botches up her name and gives her ‘Daisy’ as a middlename, then she has the misfortune to give birth to a man-baby. And what does the father do? He dumps her at the hospital with no forwarding address - typical man..boy..or whatever Christopher is..was. Anyway, if you followed the Fringe viral during the summer, you will have noticed that one of the most prominent images was that of a hybridized Daisy with a dragonfly wing as one of it’s petels. Our Loraine not only has the middle name ‘Daisy’, but her unfortunate sisters are also all named after flowers. Flowers are coded by a very specific pattern, or sequence – Fibonacci. Coincidence? Only if you call planting seeds coincidence. It’s also worth noting that there were lots of flower images in the Massive Dynamic waiting room – see here for more.
Lordess of the Ring:
The exuberant Nina Sharp is always good for a bit of debate, if it isn’t her “I’ll be back” hand, it’s her Cheshire cat grin, and failing that it’s her new ring that she was sporting in 1.02. They gave it too much focus and attention for it to not be alluding to something. Considering she’s one of a select group of private individuals with clearance to information regarding “the pattern”, and attends crisis meetings in the bowl of night (inset), it’s safe to assume that this ring represents a membership, or status of some kind. Then there was the leaf necklace that she was wearing in the pilot – the leaf also being a part of the Fringe viral campaign.
You Can Leave Your Hat On:
Who is this man and what is he doing outside of Massive Dynamic, and why was he watching Walter/Peter as they walked past him at the hospital?
The Pen-ny Drops:
The appearance of Claus Penrose (right) in episode 2 was foreshadowed by a poster with a pen and a rose (left), outside the Massive Dynamic head-quarters in the pilot episode.
It’s a-boat time…travel?:
Remember the “ZENO” kayak we mentioned in our easteregg 1.01 round-up? We think we have a parallel reference, in the shape of the toy yacht that the little boy and his father were playing with. Not only is this another boat reference, but there’s a small marking on the sail of the yacht. It appears to be an “A” – similar to the “A” marking that is also on the “ZENO” kayak. We’re pretty sure that these boat references will be explained eventually, perhaps linking to Olivia’s past and the mention of her uncle in 1.01. There are also some time-travel allusions in there. There was just too much Olivia angst in that scene for this to mean nothing.
Lock up Your Strippers!
The final scene of episode 2 showed us 3 more Christopher Penrose’s – 2 in Massive Dynamic incubators (notice the “M” logo at the side of the incubators) and 1 in the centre, who is almost done hatching. This seems to suggest that the people who paid Penrose to conduct the initial ‘Christopher’ experiment are in fact Massive Dynamic (them again!), who have since grown more siblings, perhaps Penrose also loves them as much as he did his other man-son?
This made us laugh – we haven’t marked it, but if you look closely you’ll notice that both of the incubators have telephones attached to them. What, do they use this to sing lullabyes to the young’un? “Row, row, row your boat..”
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