"Awake" Preview

I'll be hammering out two special "Television Breakdowns" to come out in a little more than a week. One will covering the final few episodes of Glee, Cougar Town, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, Community, and Parks and Recreations. The other will cover the schedule of shows coming out this fall, as well as what I'll be watching. I'll probably be adding another writer to the site to cover most television shows this fall, as I doubt I'll be covering all of them by myself. That would just be an insane burden that I don't want to put on myself. However, the one NBC show that I was most looking forward to has been put on hold until mid-season. They just released a short promo for Awake, and it looks just as intriguing and compelling as I expected it would. Take a look below!

Television Breakdown: The Dog Can Still Hunt

Fringe: Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

You know, maybe Fringe isn't the healthiest show for you to watch, seeing as you'll probably lose several hours of sleep thinking of the many potential outcomes. On the other hand, forget that small strain of thought and just bathe in the amazing and unexpected twists and turns this show takes from week to week! This episode took us into a whole new strange universe, Olivia's mind, and gave us a detailed yet subtle look at the character without ever really showing her until the end. Right from the first take, we knew that this was going to be a fast paced and unexpected adventure, with Olivia being put in danger within the first five minutes.

At this point, is it irrational to believe that William Bell might be scheming to put his own nefarious deeds ahead of others? It should be, but thankfully it isn't, as Peter and Broyles still keep an arms length from the famed scientist. Soon Walter and William decided to send themselves and Peter into Olivia's mind to guide her out. Along the way they come into contact with the more nefarious and dark constraints of Olivia's subconscious, mainly the memory of her stepfather. It also takes a strange detour into a cartoon version of all our characters, en route to Jacksonville to find Olivia in hiding.

Before we get into the deeper parts of this episode, may I first state that Peter is hilarious while tripping on LSD! It appears that Walter can handle his shit better than anyone else. His reaction to Broyles as he starts experiencing the effects of the hallucinogenics is priceless, amongst other fun moments. Astrid retorting to Walter's misspelling of her name by calling him "Wally" was such a sweet and hilarious little moment that only fans of the show will truly get. And what's better than Astrid's musings and Peter tripping? Broyles tripping, obviously. Not only did we get the impromptu critique of Walter's love for licorice, but that goofy wide eyed glare just made such a wonderful impact. In the end, it was all in service of the story, as Broyles confided in Astrid emotionally about seeing his own body dead in front of him. I'm glad to see that that plot string hasn't evaporated entirely.

Television Breakdown: Birth of a Nation

Fringe: Bloodline

The last time Fringe shamelessly played to their strengths and committed to an entirely mythology based storyline, aside from flashback episode Subject 13, was in Reciprocity. There is something so completely rewarding about this series when it's firing on all cylinders, and Bloodline was one of those episodes. It brought together so many important lingering plot strings in the show for something incredibly emotional and climactic. It kicked off very quickly, with Olivia and her mother discussing the possibility of her having the same disease that killed poor alternate Rachel and Ella during childbirth. It's one of those things you never thought would come back to bite our heroes in the vagina, but it did.

Not that she should be immediately worried about it, seeing as moments after she enters her apartment she is zapped unconscious by a team of unknown individuals. This launches us immediately into a fast-paced race against time to find Olivia before it's too late. Nothing is revealed about the group of sinister kidnappers, nor should anything be. That shroud of secrecy adds a layer of menace to all the scenes of Olivia in captivity. Well, the fact that Peter's baby boy is rapidly growing inside of her does have that covered already, so this episode was wicked freaky and intense. Brings back some touchy memories from season 1 episode The Same Old Story, doesn't it?

As insane as what's happening on the inside was, what ended up being the bread and butter of the episode was Charlie and Lincoln searching for their friend. While they're on the hunt, who do they unexpectedly run into than good old Henry Higgins, the cab driver that aided Olivia early on this season. I have to say, I was really worried for a moment that things were about to go entirely downhill for poor Henry, but thankfully it was just a followup that prompted Lincoln to pop the ultimate question to Walternate: Was our Olivia replaced with theirs? I guess it was only a matter of time before that happened, and it made for scene of intense relish between the two men. To think that alternate versions of themselves were conversing last week about "soul vampires".

The Weekend Report: Success Is A Fantasy

As has happened almost every weekend this year, we can't really expect anything monumental or spectacular, no matter how large a budget a film releasing has. I did have a small spark of hope lit for Sucker Punch, because how can you not for a film set in the unstable dream world of a young girl in a mental asylum. Besides that, there's also the flash, flair, and overwhelming noise that made the trailer an unwilling assault on the senses. The latter of those appeals to the dumb grunt male audience this film is targeting, and the former is a cinephile's vain hope for something greater than indicated. The former isn't a factor in Sucker Punch, and I can't say I hold out much hope to see the film this weekend. If it makes as little sense as reviews are contesting, I can't see a reason to shell out $10 for it.

The only other option this weekend is Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules, and we know what the target demographic of that picture is. As such, we can expect it to do moderately well for itself this weekend, giving Zack Snyder's mindless action fest a run for its money. I'd like to think that maybe one of these films will break the mold and come out of the weekend with a figure north of $50 million. I think we'll just have to wait until May for that sort of nonsense. Success is a fantasy right now, and we are waiting for that to change. So what do I suggest you do with your Friday nights? I think I've made that abundantly clear by now.

Television Breakdown: Graves of the Unknown Lost

Fringe: Stowaway

Last week, Fringe brought us into a new chapter in its mythology with the unexpected and polarizing return of William Bell through Olivia's body. This week was on course to be either a sign of a downward trend, or a return to the brilliance this show's been acclaimed for. Thankfully, it turned out to be the latter, and then some. The writers and directors of this show have not gone astray, and remain on task to make these major shifts in reality come out organically and emotionally. Stowaway was brimming with light comedic moments, unexpected occurrences, and greater mythological meaning in terms of both the show and the religious ways of the universe.

The case of the week kicked off with suicide hotline consultant failing to help one of her patients, who was either played by Greg Grunberg or an effective lookalike of Greg Grunberg. As she jumps of the building with him, she crashes into a car, and gets out relatively unscathed. This brings in the Fringe division, minus Olivia Dunham of course, but with the added bonus of William Bell and the Lincoln Lee on our side. We've been getting to know the alternate version of the character throughout this season, and it's safe to see that we like him pretty well. In this universe, you couldn't help but be endeared by him learning of this world he never knew existed.

The Lincoln on this side is kind of a regular sensible detective, and though we don't really get much into his character's background, the same could be said of his character over there. All that we get about him comes from our experiences with him. The two characters are wildly different, and with this episode Seth Gable, only a recurring character on this show, gets more roles that Joshua Jackson. The poor guy just can't catch a break. On a semi-related note, Peter is less than excited by Bell taking over his new girlfriend's body, and you wouldn't expect him to just go about his business as usual. Things have shaken up for this team, so Lincoln coming in to fill the void offers an interesting kind of relationship for Peter to have while he's living without Olivia. I also love the shout out to Hartford, Connecticut. I love that this entire saga takes place on the familiar terrain of New England, even if it's shot in Canada.

Television Breakdown: Unexpected Visitors

Fringe: Os

The show took the week off to gather their bearing and point themselves in the right direction, but this week showed a fantastic hint at that direction. The show has wandered a bit aimlessly since it got back from break, as one could assume for the mid-part of the season. This episode shed the slow proceedings to get right down to what mattered. The episode starts out with the a nice twist on the obvious heist, with two men with the ability to break the laws of gravity getting caught in the act of robbing a local mineral bank. The way they twist off of what is assumed and expected in this opening really makes for one of the best non-mythological moments of the series.

This was another one of those Fringe cases that began to make more and more sense as it unfolded. Watching the episode over again, all the different pieces all fit in so perfectly, and it makes this one of the more well thought out episodes. The villain of this episode is a peculiar one, a father trying desperately to get his son out of his wheelchair. The ending of this episode for his character was so tragic and heartbreaking, with his son misunderstanding his intentions and renouncing him as a father. His work wasn't maniacal or hardhearted, but from the best intentions. He's one of the more terribly conflicted bad guys of this series.

Television Breakdown: The Scene of the Crime

Fringe: Subject 13

Fringe took a dive last week, not ratings, but in quality. They overdosed on the sentimentality, and the extraneous pieces just didn't come together organically. Tonight had a lot of work to do in terms of renewing faith in the series, and it certainly did in the only way this show knows how. Peter was the episode that established Fringe as my favorite show on television, so this episode had some hefty shoes to fill. It didn't deal at all with the collapse of the universes, instead deciding to focus on many of the other aspects of the show. It was a mix of tragedy, hope, and mythological integrity to several different lines of thought.

Keep in mind that this is not the perfection that Peter was, because there's one or two gripes I have. The nature of this episode is different than I imagined, being less action focused and more emotionally based. It's not so much a problem, but something that requires a change of perspective. I also thought Olivia was a bit old to be in that daycare in Jacksonville, but whatever. I'm forgiving of that as long as we're given something as beautiful, sweet, and heartbreaking as what we saw. Subject 13 messed around with the vignette format in an interesting way that was perfectly adept to their brand of quality.

The episode begins with Peter marching out to Reiden Lake, intent on going straight to the bottom and return home. Obviously it doesn't work that way, and he accidentally tries to kill himself. His time in our world has been stressed to say the least, with him railing against the parents and the world that isn't his. Relocating to Jacksonville, young Olivia Dunham is in the midst of Walter's advanced drug trials while simultaneously dealing with her abusive and frightening stepfather. For Olivia, these horrible trials on children were a welcome escape from the devil she experienced at home. So far, he is not played by Gary Oldman, to my great dismay. They've still got time to change that eventually, and when they pay off on his character, I'm sure it will be an interesting plot string.

The next vignette shows Walter's ruthless study of Olivia's different emotional responses. It's almost difficult to watch as Walter turns on a dime on her in order to serve his own ends, though out of the best intentions. He wants to get Peter back home, but has to deal with how far he is willing to go to achieve that goal. Is he willing to sacrifice a little girl for the greater good? It appears not, as both versions of Walter will not sacrifice a child so bluntly. No matter what, there is a line that still can't be crossed. On the other hand, Walter did paint Nick Lane out to be dead in front of her, causing Olivia set the room ablaze. I guess that line doesn't include cruel practical jokes.

Television Breakdown: A Sign of Things to Come

Fringe: 6B

Fringe is in a bit of a slump, as you could no doubt tell from last week's abysmal ratings decline. I can't say that tonight was much help in terms of quality, but I can't go so far to dislike this episode. I can usually tell based on an episode's title whether it will be good or not, and a title as uninventive as 6B doesn't inspired much confidence. This season had episode titles with such ingenuity as Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep, Immortality, and Entrada, and all the week's writers, Robert Chiappetta and Glen Whitman, could think of was 6B? What about Feelings? I think that would have been rather more appropriate, don't you?

The episode focused on an apartment complex in New York where seven guests at a party fall through the balcony to their deaths. The Fringe team is called in, with two conflicting ideologies as to what is happening at the hotel. One is the local rumor that the hotel is haunted, and the other, which obviously turns out to be correct, is that the fabric of the universe is coming apart at the seams. For some reason it is starting at this hotel, and Walter prepares instantly for the worst case scenario. He sets up plans to quarantine the build in amber before the incoming vortex swallows up the entire block.

The episode only slightly touches on the ethical costs of what they're about to do, with Walter starting to see Walternate as less of a monster. I never thought that Walternate was evil, because he grapples with such emotional decisions in the same way Walter does. Across the years, one thing that hasn't changed about Walter is that he is still "as stubborn as a donkey with a nail at its head", as William Bell would put it. I also wish that Walter and Broyles had more scenes together discussing the ethics of the situation, because those two so rarely get that opportunity. At times it really felt like they may in fact quarantine the building, but they still could've done more with that quarrel.

Instead, the episode was overpowered with emotionality, which isn't necessarily something I'm against. I love the heart of Fringe, so long as it's kept in subtlety. There was no such subtleties taken in this episode, with one inhabitant of the building yearning for her dead husband, and the husband in the alternate universe yearning for his dead wife. Those emotions were bring the two universes together rather violently. When the episode needed to bring out the emotions, it did, but it also did so whenever it didn't. I find myself caught between loving this turn of events and hating it. I thought the woman who played the widow was exceptionally good at her part, for what that's worth.

Then there was the inevitable development of the Peter/Olivia relationship, which I actually didn't have too much of a problem. I've been rather fine with how their relationship has developed over the last six episodes, with the ultimate fallout of Marionette, the slow rehabilitation of such in The Firefly, as well as the unknown kinks revealed in Reciprocity and Immortality. I wasn't a fan of the overemphasized emotionality of Concentrate and Try Again. This episode was edging on being that obvious, but wisely dialed it back. This wasn't about Fauxlivia ruining their lives, but Olivia being afraid to take that next step. It's that real human emotion that I'm ultimately fine with. The direction by Thomas Yatsko was brilliant, and the performances similarly stunning, and despite all the gooey stuff, the final 10 minutes is one intense nail-biter. Unfortunately the obvious nature of the dialogue crippled this one from being great.

7.8 out of 10

Television Breakdown: Hearts So Red

This week covering: Fringe, The Chicago Code, Glee, How I Met Your Mother

Fringe: Immortality

I'm going to go ahead and call this Fringe's Valentine's Day episode, because it surprisingly dealt with romance in the foreground. Of course this still is an episode focusing on a case of extinct insects burrowing their way out of their victims before dying shortly afterwords. I'm with Charlie on this one. Those bugs really grossed me the hell out, and I'm glad Fringe hasn't forgotten how to do that. At the base of it, this episode was about the fallout in the alternate universe, much like Marionette was the fallout in our universe. Things don't go as expected, and they go wrong in the most perfect way imaginable.

As mentioned before, this works as a wonderful Valentine's Day episode for the show that edges on the horror genre occasionally. Charlie has a sweet and awkward little moment with the girl who apparently treated his outbreak of arachnids. That borders on one of the most unbearably funny moments of this series, right up there with Vagenda. I hope that she comes back into the fold later on. Another nice and awkward romantic moment came when Walternate was getting cozy and intimate with his Asian mistress. It was kind of funny to tell you the truth, because I got our Walter in my head for a moment. I would've been balling on the floor laughing if that actually happened to our Walter.

All joking aside, we saw the human side of Walternate this week, as he refused to cross the line and experiment on children, mostly due to his past with Peter. We caught him opening up to his mistress about his regrets in letting Peter return home, and it was a bit sad to tell you the truth, and it makes sense that a great politician like him would have a mistress he could open up to. My question now is what is going on with him and his wife? I need an answer on that one. Don't take my musings to mean that I'm suddenly backing the other side. Take it as what you should, which is the writers making the emotionally dividing show they always intended.

Television Breakdown: The Sue Sylvester Shuffle

It's been weeks, and the inane drivel of the Super Bowl was mind-numbing, but nothing gets me back in the swing of things like Glee. What separates me from the rest of the barbarians is my love of such shows they usually ignore. As much as I expected a senseless victory lap episode, there was some genuine quality to be had here. The football championship is coming up, and tensions between the team and the glee club have reached a fever pitch, and Coach Bieste is done taking their crap. So she delivers an ultimatum: Join the glee club for a week and perform the halftime show, or quit the team.

The begrudging union does offer some great musical performances, but things are complicated when Sue Sylvester offers an ultimatum of her own to the Cheerios. She schedules the finals for the cheerios at the same time as the football championship. They all are then forced to tender their resignation from the glee club, and poor Brittany is forced into consenting to be shot out of a cannon. It sets up for what seems like a totally depressing finale, which is exactly what I expected from the show that constantly screwed us over emotionally on the last minute.

Instead, it leads to the inspiring finale where Quinn, Santana, and Brittany quit the Cheerios, and Karovsky and the football team risks public ridicule by playing the halftime show with the Glee club. It was the delayed climax of the first half of the season, even if we didn't think it was. It's not all about sectionals or regionals. It's about bringing the worlds together for a compelling performance, and it worked. That is until the ending where things return to the way they were, but there is change in Karovsky. I don't think we've seen the end for him. The repressed homosexuality is bubbling to the surface, and I can't wait until it just breaks out, which I half expected to happen this week. Then again, we've got another episode coming down the pipe on Tuesday, so maybe it still will. As for what I'm happiest about, there's a resurgence of QuiFinn (Quinn + Finn). Dianna Agron is sexy as hell in anything but the Cheerio uniform.

-"California Gurls" (B-): I am in agreement with Sue on this one. I was severely bored by this performance, despite the breasts and explosives.
-"Need You Now" (B+): Perhaps the long break away from the show has made Rachel less unlikable, but I love me some Puckleberry.
-"She's Not There" (B+): The first conjoined performance of the football infused Glee club was pretty damn great, even if it skimped a bit on the flash and didn't make any sense with the zombie makeup.
-"Bills Bills Bills" (A-): Just when you thought that the Warblers were a forgotten squad, they manage to remind us why their heading to regionals. Only thing I hate is that Kurt is still in the background chorus. Use your assets, damn it!
-"Thriller"/"Head Will Roll" (A-): When an entire episode boils down to one musical number, it has to bring its A-game, and the cast did their best. The grade could just be my affinity for the song, but whatever.

8.5 out of 10

Television Breakdown: Don't Trust Sam Weiss

Fringe: Concentrate and Ask Again

After 11 episodes of solid character development, emotional consequences, and fantastically emotional stories, we have the first half-hearted shortcoming of the third season. Every episode that we've received up to this point had a profound affect on me, but somehow that just didn't work out tonight. The premise seemed solid upon entrance, with a chemical compound being used to disintegrate a man's skeleton. That leads them to finding a former marine with a grudge against the men responsible for his unborn daughter's death. This leads to a collaborator planning their final act of revenge. Since the marine is shortly put into a coma, the team heads out to New Hampshire (YAY!) to find a cortexiphan drop out with the ability to read minds.

He may the best part of the episode, with the mentally crippling handicap he is saddled with. So what was so wrong about this episode? Partly the standalone nature of it, but also the fact that it didn't have an emotional tether to keep us invested. The bad guys didn't give us much of a reason to care about their side of it. We didn't really care about any of the victims, as they were rather stationary business types. It just didn't work. To be fair, there was a mythological edge to the episode, and I'm only half dissatisfied with it.

At this point, we're behind Olivia's heartbreak, and we really feel for her. The little scenes of sweet innocent Olivia talking to Nina and Peter about Fauxlivia are such bittersweet concoctions. Yet in the final act of this episode, we got something that really caught me by surprise. Remember all those copies of "The First People"? Well it turns out that they were all written by our old bowling instructor, Sam Weiss. I guarantee you, that was the most welcome surprise of the episode. The least welcome was what he explained. It appears that the outcome of Peter and the machine depends on which side he's most loyal to, and that's attached to which Olivia he chooses.

It brings the entire confrontation down to this love triangle, which both worked and didn't work for me. If they had added a tad more subtlety to it, I'd have thought it was a fantastic move. In many ways I think it's wonderful way of translating the cost of universal destruction, but the backbone of every Fringe episode is the screenplay, and it just didn't work tonight. It was too obvious and heavy-handed with its messages, relying far too much on the literal than the visual, and the director's execution was altogether weak. Whatever writers and directors worked on this episode should be fired. I'll come back to the show next week because of everything I love about it when it's done right. This episode wasn't, and if you saw tonight's episode as your first, I encourage you to give it another shot.

7.5 out of 10

Cougar Town: Cry to Me

Cougar Town is going away for a while, which always has a certain strain on my stream of consciousness. They had one last week to entertain and instruct, and what we received was good at the very least, and fun at the very most. It wasn't a bad episode, but it wasn't a great one. I was happy with what I received. Jules is being the panicky person she's always been, trying to get Grayson to cry. Ellie is procrastinating against Valentine's Day while Andy and Bobby go on a date. The best piece of the evening was Travis trying to take a "sexy" picture for Kirsten. The usual stuff, but I kind of wish they'd brought more before they take a ten week hiatus. This is going to be hard.

8.3 out of 10

Community: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons

This was the most entertaining show I watched this week, by a long shot. Community indulges in episodes of profound meaning, or else just fun half-hour shenanigans. This was the latter, and I have no quibbles about that. It was a simple tale of Jeff Winger trying to keep Fat Neal from killing himself by playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Enter Pierce, who all but ruins the game with his cruel ignorance. As usual, Abed stole the show for the greatest portion of it. His gnome conversations with Britta were hilarious, as well as the sex scene Annie described, but we never actually heard.

9 out of 10

Television Breakdown: The Big Reveal

Fringe: Reciprocity

Last week's Fringe had a certain feeling of dread about it, and that lingered over the entirety of the episode. Right from the start, we felt that something terrible was going to happen, or some major reveal was on its way. The latter turned out to be right, and while I had already suspected it, having a mild piece of confirmation made it so much more impacting. If you didn't pick up on the revelation, you should in an episode or two. Every episode since we got back from break has been leading up to a big reveal at the end, and that adds some enticing confusion to everything up until that point. It makes repeat viewing even more necessary than before.

It helps that this was a particularly exciting episode, and it didn't have to do with any case-of-the-week scenario. Right from the beginning, this episode was about Walternate's machine and its relationship to Peter. The device itself has such a menacing look to it, borrowing most prominently from the device Mewtwo was hooked up to towards the beginning of the first Pokemon movie. It's ridiculous parallel, but it's a fascinating one as well. This episode was another analysis of the state of the situation, much like 6955 kHz. Suddenly it felt as if a completely new case was butting heads with the initial conflict of the episode, as somebody has been hunting down and killing shapeshifters.

From that moment on, the episode is an intense hunt for whatever mole has infiltrated Massive Dynamic or Fringe Division. I was so worried for most of the episode that Astrid was the mole, seeing as everything started going down after she started tackling Fauxlivia's computer files. Instead, the truth turned out to be far simpler, yet unexpected. I think that everybody picked up on the doctor being more than what he seemed, but even though I knew that Peter was going out at night for some mysterious reason, I could never have guessed that he was the one killing off those shapeshifters.

Olivia continued to recover from the emotional trauma of returning home, but it was such a meaningful episode for her because she started to see the humanity in her doppelganger. The two think in similar manners, so it allows for Olivia to in some ways empathize with the woman who stole her life. It's horrible, but that was the job that Fauxlivia was meant to fulfill, and she reacted as emotionally to it as we would expect our Olivia to. There are differences between the two, one having not been subject to Walter and William Bell's drug trials, but they're just alternate versions of the same person. However, this episode was far more about Peter than anyone else. The reveal at the end that the machine had "weaponized" him was equal in shock to when Olivia became convinced that she was Fauxlivia. It's frightening to think that he might be changing for the worst, and it's some strange foreshadowing of the events still to come. As for what I didn't like, Josh Singer remains my least favorite writer on the show in terms of dialogue, and that showed a bit this week. However, the execution of the story along with the outstanding performance from Joshua Jackson made it a powerful experience. That final scene is absolutely to die for, not in terms of revelation, but in terms of execution. Ultimately, this episode managed more impact and thrills than last week's Observer piece.

9.5 out of 10

Cougar Town: Lost Children

I've tried not to take up writing on half hour shows, but just because they don't have the same amount of content doesn't mean they deserve to be ignored. I'm not going to lie and say that I don't absolutely love Cougar Town, because the moment I got started on it, I was hooked. It has such a wonderful flavor to it, and I just hope that it someday earns Courtney Cox the Emmy nomination she never got from her work on Friends. The show never indulges in mythological arcs, but it's just as necessary and enjoyable as a good modern comedy like Easy A.

The episode really focused around an adult version of hide and seek, which was mostly just Jules looking desperately around for Ellie, and everyone else doing their own thing. On top of that, Grayson's friendship with Andy had a bit of trouble this week, which grew rather funny when Grayson decided to tie Andy to a tree. However, the hilarity of the episode mostly came from the search for Ellie, and was mostly concerning Travis. Why isn't he at college? There's also a wonderful shout-out to Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. "Give me back my son!"

9.2 out of 10

Television Breakdown: Violet Sedan Chair

If you didn't catch the new episode of Fringe last night, I can't truly say that I'm too angry at you. It's not because the episode wasn't up to the caliber that we've grown accustomed to all season, which it absolutely was. It's just that it somehow managed to do perfectly fine without those viewers that didn't tune in, garnering a 4.9 viewership rating, and improving upon where it stood on Thursday nights. It looks like the leap to Fridays turned out for the best, though I still highly encourage people to tune in for the show if they haven't done so already. It's the absolute greatest genre series on television. In the meantime between now and next Friday, take a listen to some of the unique music of the top band in the Fringe universe, Violet Sedan Chair.

Violet Sedan Chair "Seven Suns" LP Side 1 by k1k1chan

Television Breakdown: Rise of the Firefly

There hasn't been much viewing options this past week, but it's hard to quibble after having my mind completely blown away once again by the writers and producers behind Fringe. The show has taken so many brilliantly unfortunate twists and turns across the past nine episodes, and we're just starting to see the complication and repercussions of Olivia's stay over there and Fauxlivia deception over here. I can't say that this was the start of the next chapter of Fringe. It's a standalone adventure with huge mythological importance to what this series is about, and what is to come for our melancholy heroes. This episode was another look into the world of the Observers, most specifically September. He's the one assigned to our group, and we saw a side of the character that we've never seen before. For the first time, the bald man in black took action to influence the course of events, all for the purpose of delivering a simple message, as well as confirming a precarious theory.

It started when September brought former-musician Roscoe Joyce's son several years into the future to see his father. This brings our team around to Joyce, and after Walter has been kept on the sidelines over the first part of this season, the visit from his lifelong idol was especially important for him. I always want to head back to watch a Fringe episode over again, but it's kind of a requirement for this episode. All of the intricate plotting and maneuvers orchestrated by September build towards an emotional climax. September was testing Walter emotionally and psychologically, seeing if he would eventually be willing to finally let go of the most important person in his life: Peter. Walter was hell bent on fixing his memory so he might stop Walternate's insidious plans, and all the potential consequences Walter faced were made apparent from the onset. Walter has become obsessed with saving his son, even if it means the destruction of the universe. We saw huge progress in that respect this week, be it in an ominous fashion.

Television Breakdown: Final Countdown

Apologies about springing this up so suddenly, but if I wait any longer then it may be easily forgotten. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know there was a new episode of How I Met Your Mother on last night, so when I found out there was this morning, it was a top priority. If you haven't seen last night's episode of the hit sitcom, I caution you to read no further until you've seen it. It's quite a devastating and emotional blow for the usually light and comical series, so as with every edition of Television Breakdown, I place a vital
SPOILER WARNING
for all readers.