Fringe — Episode 10 (Season 4): “Forced Perspective”
An average episode of Fringe that had too much bad science (and math) for me to truly enjoy. I guess we need some mediocre weeks to let us enjoy the good ones.
The Plot: Emily is a teenager who occasionally catches glimpses of someone’s pending death. She quickly sketches the scene she sees in her sketchbook, rips out the page, and then hands it to the victim. She’s essentially Cassandra, and her warnings of imminent death do no good to the victim. They do bring her to the attention of the Fringe Team, especially Olivia, who is still coming to terms with the Observer who told her that she had to die.
Emily gives the Fringe Team a sketch she made showing numerous victims amid piles of rubble. The image is centered on one particular man. The team is able to figure out who he is via his bus pass. Walter hypnotizes Emily (using the standard red and green lights) to gain more information and learns that the disaster will take place at a courthouse. Olivia and Lincoln learn that the man in question recently lost custody of his children in a divorce proceedings. They track him down to a local courthouse and the FBI finds a large bomb in the bed of his pickup truck. They are able to block the radio detonator, but he threatens them with a small bomb he is wearing. Olivia is able to talk him into surrendering and no one is killed. For once, Emily’s prediction does not come true.
When Olivia calls Emily to thank for her help, she learns that she is missing. Olivia tracks her down to a pond-side bench at a park she was fond of. Emily has foreseen her own death and has come to her favorite spot to die, which she does, quietly, in the arms of her father.
Later in the evening, Nina Sharp comes over to Olivia’s apartment to check on her. Olivia complains about the migraines she’s been having (the ones caused by Nina’s secret injections), so Nina promises to send over some “new medicine” the next day.
1. Math Must Be Different in Spain
The math Olivia and Broyles use on the Spanish Flu doesn’t add up. If the last case was 1919, then 91 years later is 2010, not 2012 (or even 2011, when the episode was undoubtedly filmed). Unless they are suggesting that 1 and 2 year-old do not make antibodies, which would contradict years of immunization and vaccine research.
2. Billy Squier
An “overload of electrical energy in her brain was just too much” is not the definition of stroke; it’s the definition of a seizure. A stroke is what I like to call a “plumbing problem” – the required blood cannot get to the brain either due to a blockage (embolic stroke) or bleeding out (hemorrhagic stroke). A problem with the brain’s electrical system would be a stroke, at least in the sense Olivia is describing.
Neither of these would account for the bloody nose, so I’m going to count that as a psychic nosebleed.
3. Scan Acquired
I’m amazed Walter could get such an accurate reading from the occipital lobe when he had no sensors anywhere near it.
Theta-1 waves are said to occur during voluntary motion and REM sleep, though the exact definition of a theta-1 wave varies.
Theta-1 waves originate in the hippocampus, a part of the brain which is nowhere near the occipital lobe.
Since blood carries oxygen, it would be hard to get increased oxygen without increased blood. And since when does an EEG measure either?
4. Radio Free Albemuth
Now I’m no radio-specialist or electrician, but is it really that easy to jam a specific frequency? How did they know they weren’t going to set off the bomb by accident?
Was it wise to send Peter and Lincoln, not trained in demolitions, it to help the bomb squad? Particularly in regards to Peter, he’s one of a kind and is it really worth risking him?
5. Must Be Those Ceramic Wires and Electrodes
So the bomb Albert was wearing had not detectable metal in it? Really?
6. Oh By The Way
When are the Fringe Team finally going learn that they need to sit down and have a long debriefing session with Peter. How many times has he recognized something they didn’t or knew more than they did? Just off the top of my head: shapeshifter’s memory banks, David Robert Jones, and the Observers. I’m sure I’m missing a few others.
While there was nothing specifically wrong with this episode (other than the questionable science and math), it just didn’t gel particular well, with the attempt at pathos at the end being a more than a little over-the-top. The Fringe Doomsday Clock heads back towards midnight.
This week’s Fringe cipher was: MARCH.A list of all previous Fringe reviews is available here.Karl should soon have more to say over at his blog, providing he’s not partying too hard on his vacation.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:49 pm
I don’t know about the rest, but yes, it is very easy to jam a specific frequency. In fact, single-frequency jamming is the norm.
Jamming can be done in two ways: on AM and FM, the jammer can broadcast noise on the specific frequency he wishes to block, increasing the signal-to-noise ratio to the point that the transmission is unintelligible. Jammers can also use the capture effect to completely squelch an FM transmission, leaving the frequency clear.
I missed the episode, but in this case they probably used the latter – noise jamming is less reliable than squelch capture.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:50 pm
The part where they said it was a buildup of electrical activity had me thinking “THAT’S NOT A STROKE THAT IS A SEIZURE” It made me a bit angry.
I believe with radio jamming, the FBI (or other government agencies) have devices that can block specific frequencies.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:52 pm
@bros: Squelch capture isn’t exactly high technology, and doesn’t require a fancy government device. Anyone with an FM transmitter (like the ones hams use) could do it.
January 28th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
[...] As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent [...]
January 28th, 2012 at 1:00 pm
I’m no doctor, but when Walter was commenting on the blood and oxygen, even I thought, “Can’t the actors say, ‘You know, he’s just got electrodes on her forehead’?”
I’d forgotten to be bothered by the generally lax approach of the Fringe teams until the Observer issue came up. Is there still some kind of apocalyptically incremental degradation happening between the universes as in the Peter Timelines? If so, everyone is acting rather leisurely about it all. And I kept waiting for Broyles to say to Olivia, “You know, in every timeline, everyone dies. Maybe it’s not imminent.” Can someone pay me to write a TV show? The writing is just so lazy. It’s not like there’s no time to cover more information or have less elliptical conversations, especially in an episode like last night’s, with all those long, slow takes just showing people looking at each other. Did someone deliver half a script and the director realized he had to pad things? I thought LOST was the master class in such things . . .
January 28th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
I really don’t know if the bad science or, yet again, the fact that they are the worst agents in the FBI gets to me more. They seem to have covered both very well this past episode.
January 28th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Could someone please clear something up for me?
Twice now this season Peter told the new Walter that he needed to build the machine suited only to his use saying he knew Walter could do it “because [he's] already done it once before.” Are the writers just throwing this in all of the sudden or what? Maybe Peter came to a revelation that he and Walter were the “first people” that originally built the Machine, but it was never stated outright, so they shouldn’t expect an audience to figure it out and just assume Peter’s telling the truth by throwing it out there. The original Walter and crew had the mysterious machine parts dug out of the earth and had Massive Dynamic put it together. Walter had no idea where it came from or why it was attuned to Peter. Also, once Olivia brought the Observer’s drawing of Peter in the Machine to Massive Dynamic, Nina said, “Bell designed it, but he never built it!” Why haven’t we heard more about that? It seems like kind of an important point if Bell really did design it! (Or are they just trying to save face here since Leonard Nimoy said he can’t be involved anymore?)
I’m annoyed…Has there been any mention of the Machine’s existence in either of the two universes since Peter was wiped out? If the Machine is still in the ground, are they going to dig it up again, because Peter made it sound like they were going to start from scratch and just build a new one like he’s supposedly done before.
January 28th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
My prediction – Peter is going to end up an observer himself.
January 28th, 2012 at 6:10 pm
I think that in the episode where Peter uses The Machine and gets a glimpse of the future they say that they created the machine and sent it back in time to be discovered and put back together by themselves.
January 30th, 2012 at 6:26 pm
I liked this episode much better the first time.. when it was on the X-Files, and it was called Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose. :-) http://x-files.wikia.com/wiki/Clyde_Bruckman’s_Final_Repose
January 31st, 2012 at 4:26 pm
I am beginning to believe that FOX is trying to kill off FRINGE via excessive creative interference. The comments made by the head honcho a week or so ago moaning about the high costs of producing the show, coupled with the low return on advertisements has probably given the FRINGE’S network bosses the power to “note’ the show to death. The writers have probably written excellent. logical and entertaining scripts that are squeezed dry of any semblance of their desired outcome and entertainment value. FOX has also seemed to have taken the science out of the fiction by strangling the special effects budget. This weeks show could have easily been done any other networks list of who-done-it type shows, the only obvious special effect was the I beam smashing the first victim; unless one also counts the doubling of the cast seated around the giant table.
One other sinister point was the two minute, or longer break, that had the cast being interviewed reality show style, talking about their own show. That was very lame. Combined with the countless plugs for other FOX shows and the very low budget ads that filled the gaps, I am sorry to say that FRINGE is headed to that great gig in the sky that so many countless other abandoned FOX shows have drifted off to.
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