Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Fringe season 4 episode 11 : Making Angels

Summary : Too much drama, careful cross editing, missed sci-fi opportunity, in love with Walter, smart main character development, geeky ripple effect, fascinating mathematics

Score : 8/10

Spoilers

There're moments when I wonder if Fringe knows it's a sci-fi show. This time it was so heavy on drama that it reminded me of Defying Gravity. Don't get me wrong I like Astrid but I'm not sure focusing on her was the writers priority. And if their plan was to make her grow on us to crush her heart in some upcoming episode then they couldn't have been more predictable. But my real disappointment is that the first seconds were promising because I instantly imagined some possible explanations of the other Astrid behavior. She crossed over… because she's also a shapeshifter ? Nice ! To meet Prime Astrid and drink coffee ? Boring ! Her scenes were also thrown between the others. Their only redemption was Jasika Nicole's performance and the immersive editing. I had never seen two characters played by the same person shake hands on screen ! The digital illusion was perfect. Now let's hope our Olivias will cat fight in liquid amber for Peter ! Seriously one interesting plot involving the Astrids would have been to cover human-computer interaction. Indeed if I understood correctly the other is special and that's why she's able to use the super computer of the other side. However without it she should have experienced some difficulty to investigate and solve problems in the Prime universe. Instead she behaved like if her mind was still connected to the machine.

Hopefully the main story was original and involved Observers. One of them is definitely in trouble but let's hope the poor soul won't be sentenced to an eternal life between dimensions or something ! Sorry for this reference to Saint Seiya, the otaku within can't help taking over from time to time. My only complain would be the clumsy airport sequence because Olivia and Peter should know better than yelling to apprehend a suspect. The rest almost represents the best of what Fringe has to offer. First everything Walter was delightful, from his father and daughter relationship with Astr'd to his triple X warnings when Bolivia the Candy Woman from the Other Side™ was around. Mint ? I knew it ! Evil spy, sent to kill us all and steal our precious ring. Sorry, wrong review. More seriously the installment was also a success in the Peter department. First using the other Astrid to develop his complex relationship with Walter, not his real father, was smart. Indeed relying on a third party to solve a conflict is sometimes the only solution. It allows people to see things in a whole new light. An other drop that satisfied my thirst was the lake connections. When I thought September knew his classics he has apparently never seen Back to the Future Part II ! If it was the case he would have anticipated on the ripple effects caused by his lost gizmo. Last but not least even if I missed the shapeshifter arc, again, I couldn't help nodding when the antagonist was compared to a savior. Even better was the mention of mathematics as an almighty tool to explain life. Indeed I read once that God could only be a master of geometry considering how creative and diverse our universe is. From spiral galaxies to snails, formulas and shapes are all around us. 1 + 1 = 3 ? I don't know, I'm just a mere mortal.

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