WRITERS: Jeff Pinkner, J.H Wyman & Akiva Goldsman[SPOILERS] A disappointing conclusion to last week's first part, but still good fun despite the fact it ended with a sorely predictable "twist". "Over There: Part 2" was underwhelming because the threat was never allowed to reach boiling point, the science got dumber, and a lot of it devolved into knockabout fun with two Olivia's (Anna Torv) fighting and the grumpy banter between Walter (John Noble) and William (Leonard Nimoy).
DIRECTOR: Akiva Goldsman
GUEST CAST: Leonard Nimoy & Kirk Acevedo
A thin mixture of storylines, really, which was half the problem of this finale. After a meaty and compelling start, everything continued flatly to an uninspired end. There was certainly some fun spotting the alternate-Earth's differences (Fringe has always been great at background jokes), and I was pleased to see more screentime given for William, although it felt strange that William's stature in this reality was far lower than we'd been led to believe. Perhaps because Leonard Nimoy's age was more of an issue than the writers hoped, this episode became his swansong and William's significance was greatly reduced. He's just a man who's been stealing technological breakthroughts from alt-Earth and passing them on to Nina so that Massive Dynamic can claim them as their own. I expected a lot more to his character, but it appears that Fringe is now more interested in developing Walternate as the series' mysterious villain.
From an emotional standpoint, Peter's relationship with his mother (a highlight of Part 1) wasn't returned to in this episode, and how Walternate behaved around Peter didn't convince me, either. John Noble's a great actor, but for some reason I didn't believe Walternate's spent the past 25 years trying to get his son back. He barely shared the screen with Peter in both episodes, and when he did the script lacked authenticity in its dialogue. In fact, a key reason I felt "Over There: Part 2" didn't work all that well was because there wasn't much to get excited by with the characters. There was a nice conversation between Olivia and alt-Olivia when they noted the differences in their lives (Olivia's sister is alive but her mother isn't and vice-versa for her equivalent), but that was the only time this episode tugged at any heart-strings. I didn't even respond to Olivia convincing Peter to return by admitting her feelings for him, because the idea of a romance between those two just isn't interesting and is actually a massive cliché the show has done well to avoid until now.
The episode ended on the unsurprising twist that alt-Olivia had managed to replace the real Olivia in returning to "our" world (I take it she underwent Corexiphan injections as a kid, then? Sounds unlikely...), and "our" Olivia is being kept in a pitch black cell by the evil Walternate. Beyond its unfortunate predictability, that's not a bad way to end the season, although I couldn't help thinking they've played this card alreadt -- when a shape-shifter posed as Charlie and was likewise sending messages to the alt-Earth using that weird typewriter. Has Fringe run out of ideas already, so it's started to bastardize itself? Hope not.
20 MAY 2010: FOX, 9|8c
