From the outset, much of the friction in Fringe has come from the tense relationship between mad scientist Walter Bishop and his clever son Peter. Drilling deep into its parallel-universe mythology, this sci-fi/conspiracy thriller returns Thursday by going back in time to get at the root of the problem.
Fringe ‘s “Peter” episode, airing at 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central Thursday on Fox, flashes back to 1985. As Dr. Bishop (played by John Noble) recounts to FBI Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) his wormhole misadventures, the origins of the man he calls his son (Joshua Jackson) are revealed.
Deeply satisfying, the story clears up several mysteries that cropped up in previous episodes while setting the table for the second half of Season 2.
(Spoiler alert: Plot points follow.)
Fans may remember a bald-headed Observer who saved a young boy from drowning. Explained. The robotic right arm attached to Massive Dynamic henchwoman Nina Sharp (Blair Brown). Explained.
Dr. Bishop’s nervous breakdown that landed him in an insane asylum for 17 years. Partially explained.
Barring a spontaneous song-and-dance episode featuring Torv and the usually stern FBI Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick) belting out show tunes, Fringe ‘s eight-episode spring semi-season will focus mainly on consequences triggered by Walter Bishop’s incursion through a portal to an alternate reality inhabited by a not-quite-identical scientist known as “Walternate.”
Noble, initially appearing in “Peter” as a wrinkle-free, bushy-haired and headstrong scientist brimming with confidence, said last week in a conference call that passing through time-bending portals to other worlds can only lead to trouble.
“The first time that I told my own son that Walter takes a son from the other side, he looked at me and said, ‘Dad, there’s going to be one very angry father on the other side,'” the Australian actor recalled. “It was obvious to him that we were creating a hornet’s nest. When Peter finds out, he is extremely wounded and outraged and bewildered and humiliated…. Having just finally found some trust in his life and given a little bit of himself to these two people, he finds out that he has been duped yet again.”
The root of the problem: Once Olivia learns the secret of Peter’s otherwordly origins, she pressures Dr. Bishop to spill the beans to his son. “There is this buildup towards Peter finding out, which is strangulating,” Noble said. “The tension is enormous because Peter doesn’t know, Olivia does know, and she is pushing Walter to tell him. Then finally, Peter finds out and we tumble, we literally tumble into these extraordinary last two or three episodes.”
The season finale in particular, Noble said, is the great “confrontation that we have been promising for two years.”
The flashback “Peter” episode makes the point, through the appearance of 21st century mobile phones that stun military researchers in 1985, that today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s mall store commodity.
“I grew up as a child reading Jules Verne and it all seemed to be some mysterious, otherworldly thing, yet basically everything that Verne talked about has been revealed,” Noble said. “One of the great things about science fiction is that it does predict the way ahead, more often than not.”
Fringe, recently renewed for a third season, deserves close attention. Besides the offbeat humor, goofy gore and thoughtful stretches of scientific imagination, the series’ showrunners reward viewers by paying off story points that were set in place nearly two years ago. Newcomers or fans with fuzzy memories can get up to speed on the Fringe back story by visiting the Fringe 101 website or by watching the “10 Things You Need to Know About Fringe” clip embedded above.
Blowback: Are You Following Fringe?
How do you like the Fringe mythology? How does the show rank against its obvious influence, The X-Files? Does the series truly hold together on both macro and micro-levels? How do you like Walter Bishop in his looks-just-like-Lou Reed mode? Comment below.
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