The new initiative for the Division to be proactive rather than reactive is probably for the best, but it's still another step closer to The X-Files tried-and-trusted template. This episode, written by Jeff Pinkner and J.H Wyman, could very easily have been a rewrite of an unproduced X-Files script, and there were clear overtones of episodes like "Home" (which featured a family of inbreds murdering townfolk.)Here, the perpetrator is revealed to be a subterranean mutant, the offspring of Dr. Andre Hughes (John Savage), a geneticist whose research to engineer a child his Lupus-infected wife could successfully bring to term resulted in both their deaths. Of course, his dead child was actually buried alive (something that's never adequately explained), so he promptly burrowed through his casket and has spent the past 17 years tunneling around underfoot, dragging the occasional resident beneath the soil to feast on. Six people in nearly twenty years, so at least he's not a glutton...
This episode was rather cluttered and blunt, it has to be said. Last season, Fringe found that its audience only really became engaged in the show when it was mythology-focused and the standalone episodes were treated as entertaining filler. On the evidence of this episode, it seems they're trying to splice the two types of episode together, as the subplot to "Night Of Desirable Objects" continued the story of the sinister shape-shifter who has assumed Charlie's (Kirk Acevedo) form, and is apparently uninterested in killing Olivia now -- despite having plenty of easy opportunities. I thought this might be because he knows Olivia has amnesia after her trip to the alternate universe, so there's no immediate need to eliminate her, but later in the episode he's instructed (via that old typewriter) to help her remember. So, I have no idea what's going on right now.
Olivia herself is developing super-hearing, although I did read an alternative theory that she's just picking up on what her counterpart in the parallel Earth is hearing -- but that doesn't make sense to me, unless alternate-Olivia has super-hearing. We know from last season that Olivia's special and was one of many kids in the late-'70s who were experimented on to become super "soldiers", so maybe alternate-Olivia's far more advanced than our own? Either way, I hope Fringe doesn't go too far in turning Olivia into a "superhero" to mask the character's dullness.
Indeed, while she has occasional moments to shine, I still find Torv rather insipid in this role, and there's just something a bit unlikeable and inaccessible about Olivia at times. Take the scene where Walter accidentally explains alternate dimensions to Olivia (again), but notice Olivia's blank reactions to Walter saying how much he feared she'd died. Noble may as well have been opening his heart to a brick wall.
Really, this episode was just a bit messy and lacked a truly compelling pseudo-scientific idea at its heart. It was a formulaic monster-of-the-week installment and nothing more, with a few nice moments to its credit. The messiness of running some mythology alongside the plot didn't work all that well -- it just felt like that the main story wasn't strong or complex enough to justify the time, and its mind was elsewhere.Overall, "Night Of Desirable Objects" didn't maintain the premiere's quality, but occasional duds are to be expected in shows of this nature. I'll only start to worry if they become more regular, or the mythology that's stitching the series together begins to unravel. Still not convinced about a few creative decisions this season, like giving Olivia amnesia, another super-power, and now introducing a strange "therapist" in bowling alley worker Sam Weiss (Kevin Corrigan), but the writers have done enough to keep me faithful, for now.
24 September 2009
Fox, 9/8c
written by: Jeff Pinkner & J.H Wyman directed by: Brad Anderson starring: Anna Torv (Agent Olivia Dunham), John Noble (Dr. Walter Bishop), Joshua Jackson (Peter Bishop), Jasika Cole (Astrid Farnsworth), Lance Reddick (Agent Phillip Broyles), Kirk Acevedo (Agent Charlie Francis), Meghan Markle (Agent Amy Jessup), John Savage (Dr. Andre Hughes), Kevin Corrigan (Sam Weiss), Charles Martin Smith (Sheriff Golightly), Chad Cole (Raymond), Matthew Robert Kelly (FBI in Parking Garage), Craig March (Co-Worker) & Marsha Regis (Nurse)
