FRINGE 1.4 - "The Arrival"

Writers: J.J Abrams & Jeff Pinkner
Director: Paul A. Edwards

Cast: Anna Torv (Olivia), Joshua Jackson (Peter), John Noble (Walter), Lance Reddick (Phillip Broyles), Kirk Acevedo (Charlie Francis), Jasika Nicole (Astrid), Michael Cerveris (September/The Observer), Michael Kelly (John Mosley/The Rogue), Nestor Serrano (Colonel Henry Jacobson), Lisa Joyce (Young Waitress), Nancy Ticotin (Older Waitress), David Sajadi (Technician), Mark Valley (John Scott), Jennifer Ikeda (Agent Chaperoee) & Ash Roeca (Agent Rodriguez)

"Open you mind, son, or someone may open it for you."

-- Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble)

Writer-director-producer J.J Abrams has built his career on high-concept mysteries and secrets (Alias' Rambaldi prophecies, Lost's island-full of puzzlers, the unexplained rabbit's foot from MI:III, the identity of Cloverfield's monster). His projects all have a tendency to ask lots of exciting questions, without giving too many boring answers. Fringe could do with an injection of Abrams-style mystery right about now (as the post-"Pilot" episodes have failed to capture the imagination), and "The Arrival" arrives just in the nick of time…

Spoilers. If there's been one consistent element to Fringe, it's the excellent teasers. "The Arrival" opens in a city diner, with a side-order of strangeness. A bald man (Michael Cerveris) in a black suit orders a sandwich, while simultaneously surveying a construction site across the street with futuristic binoculars, making notes written in an alien language. As if on cue, an earthquake rocks the city and the man (who we'll come to know as The Observer) wanders out to survey a massive hole in the ground…

The titular arrival turns out to be a bullet-shaped "beacon" borne from the ground and retrieved by Homeland Security, who bring it to the attention of Walter (John Noble), who becomes concerned by the object's discovery and strangely secretive about its purpose. Broyles (Lance Reddick) tells Olivia (Anna Torv) that an identical beacon was found in 1987, so she meets with the previous beacon's discoverer, Colonel Henry Jacobsen (Nestor Serrano), to get some straight answers.

Concurrently, Peter (Joshua Jackson) has become disenfranchised with his role on the team -- which is apparently to baby-sit his semi-insane father and interpret his crazy theories. The episode essentially gives Peter a definite reason to stay on the team, as he becomes heavily-involved in the search for the beacon after Walter hides it once again. It appears that two men are desperate to find it: The Observer (who has been spotted at the scene of countless Pattern-related events); and a man known as The Rogue (Michael Kelly), who uses antiquated-looking equipment to painfully extract information from peoples' minds about its whereabouts.

J.J Abrams and showrunner Jeff Pinkner have co-written a script that delights in throwing up peculiar and puzzling events, with no great desire to answer them. While the lack of resolution could infuriate some people, it undoubtedly fires the imagination and will have fans debating the minutiae of this episode for weeks. If you remember, Lost's own fourth episode "Walkabout" also rocked its audience's preconceptions (we discovered Locke was stuck in a wheelchair, but arriving on the island had healed him). Similarly, "The Arrival" looks like it's laying the foundation for more outlandish sci-fi, and I'd be surprised if Fringe doesn't build on the odd characters and background history introduced here

My own thoughts about the craziness? Well, Walter reveals that The Observer saved the life of both him and Peter after their car crashed into an icy lake and sank to the bottom many years ago, drowning Walter's wife. It's inferred that The Observer spared their lives because he will need their help one day.

Walter protected the beacon to repay his debt, somehow knowing The Observer can't actually touch it. So will Peter will have to help The Observer at some point, too? In any case, The Observer must either be precognitive, or a time-traveller from the future. Both are areas of fringe-science, and both would partly explain The Observer's abilities seen throughout "The Arrival" (is the lack of eyebrows an evolutionary thing? Is he writing in a yet-to-be-created language? The advanced binoculars and ray gun looked futuristic.)

I also loved the spooky moment where The Observer's dialogue matched Peter's word-for-word, before he proceeded to predicts Peter's thoughts and vocalize them. Still, it would have had twice the impact if Doctor Who hadn't scooped Fringe with that idea in its "Midnight" episode earlier this year. Is J.J Abrams a Whovian?

Broadly, this episode did a good job of adjusting Peter's stake in the show, and John Noble continues to amuse as Walter, but Anna Torv is still quite distant. As Olivia, she seems to just float around looking bemused and beautiful until required to chase down the latest villain. And Lance Reddick? Well, he's essentially there because he has a oodles of screen presence and a very distinctive voice -- two qualities that make him an effective guest star on Lost, but not a particularly compelling regular on Fringe. I'd like to see Broyles become more three-dimensional. Is he married? Does he have kids?

Overall, in some ways this is a simple episode that concentrated on delivering creepiness and obscurity -- free of having to provide coherent answers. Regardless, I still found it the most enjoyable story since the "Pilot" (and arguably the most intriguing of every episode so far), and the significant development for Peter is a solid change the show will benefit from immediately. Assuming that events in "The Arrival" will be explained at some indistinct juncture, I was happy to be swept along by the joyous confusion here. I also enjoyed Michael Cerveris' quirky performance as a benevolent puppetmaster with a penchant for pepper.


30 September 2008
Fox, 9/8c