Director: Bill Eagles
"It's like how a microwave oven cooks food. Onlyin Emily Kramer's case... she was the oven."
-- Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson)
There are a few minor changes to the formula this week, but not quite enough to count as a major shake-up. But, the scientific experimentation on unwilling subjects has no link to Walter's (John Noble) pioneering work, and we're finally given some background to Olivia (Anna Torv), which again suggests co-creator J.J Abrams has some serious daddy issues…
"The Cure" begins with the investigation of a diner, where the night-time clientèle apparently exploded after being subjected to intense microwaves -- emanating from Emily Kramer (Maria Dizzia), a young woman with an incurable disease that mysterious went into remission. It seems that someone cured Emily using cutting-edge treatment, but the side-effects were weaponized and later tested on the diner. The idea reminded me of Torchwood's "Reset" (where a secret medical facility were curing people of diseases, but at a fatal cost), and the written scene had similarities to those starring death-dealer Maya in Heroes' second season.
Writers Felicia D. Henderson and Brad Caleb Kane have a very unusual history (the former worked on The Fresh Prince Of Bell Air; the latter was the singing voice of Disney's Aladdin!), but this apparent quirkiness and comedy background doesn't infiltrate their Fringe script. In broad terms, it was just another "human guinea pig" story -- told in a procedural style that offered little invention or surprise. Indeed, Fringe as a whole hasn't provided a complex and compelling storyline yet -- just a smattering of cool ideas, tense/exciting sequences and gruesome FX.
I'm glad this episode attempted to enrich Olivia's character, by revealing her history with an abusive stepfather, but Anna Torv is still too frosty and petulant to really care about. The fact her personal tragedies (dead boyfriend, violent stepfather) have both been explored in previous J.J Abrams-produced series (Sidney's boyfriend in Alias, Kate's stepfather in Lost) also gave me pause for thought. Abrams either has a bizarre affection for these themes, or he's plain out of ideas when it comes to crafting three-dimensional female characters.
As ever, Walter is good fun (farting in the lab, humming to electricity lines, requesting cotton candy and onion soup), even if his zany attitude and muttering sometimes edge into '50s B-movie pastiche. Meanwhile, Peter (Joshua Jackson) continues to shoulder the thankless roles of layman interpreter and resident snarky-pants. Still, Peter later helps crack the case by asking Massive Dynamic's CEO Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) for a big favour, so Nina's help will clearly come back to bite him. Hard.
It was also interesting to note that Sharp helps primarily because the exposure of a rival company's unethical practices will help boost MD's share prices. Is this why MD are so interested in "The Pattern" -- because every occurrence has the backing of a rival company? That would possibly explain her alliance with Broyles (Lance Reddick): he gets to maintain homeland security with her help, she gets to put her competitors out of action with his team's assistance.
Overall, there were some good moments tucked away in this episode (head eruptions are always fun, an exploding hairless rat was creepy, the tension over persuading someone to inject themselves in the jugular worked well), but there were also quite a few silly moments, too (the unnecessary "shock" suicide of a complicit doctor, the insensitive and unwarranted search of a dead girl's bedroom during her wake, etc.)
At the moment, Fringe's formula is too predictable and limp to be much fun (away from the regular injections of gore), and even new ideas designed to resuscitate interest (Olivia's creepy stepfather) fall flat because of poor performances. And why hasn't Olivia, a Federal Agent with plenty of resources, investigated where her stepdad's letters are being mailed from?
21 October 2008
Fox, 9/8c
Cast: Anna Torv (Olivia), Joshua Jackson (Peter), Lance Reddick (Broyles), Kirk Acevedo (Charlie Francis), Blair Brown (Nina Sharp), Jasika Nicole (Astrid Farnsworth), John Noble (Walter), Chris Eigemann (David Esterbrook), Maria Dizzia (Emily Kramer), Marjan Neshat (Claire Williams), William Hill (Officer Marty Pitts), Lisa Emery (Paula Kramer), Robert Eli (Ken Williams), Alok Tewari (Dr. Sanjay Patel), Scott Evans (Ben), José Ramón Rosario (Gary) & Jane Kim (Elizabeth)
