Small Glass Screen: Beautiful Monsters

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Fringe: Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep

After the monumental success of Olivia, and the two exceptional freak-of-the-week episodes, things are heating up a spectacular way on Fringe. This episode was a shot of everything we've come to expect from this show, and that the writers have finally taken full advantage of. The episode starts out with Senator Van Horn ending up in a car accident, but there's one simple problem. He isn't the man Broyles originally befriended. He's a shapeshifter, and has been for the better part of two years. That means that the man we saw helping Broyles out in Earthling has been deceiving us all along. This episode was actually filled with events we couldn't see coming.

I expected a far more Broyles-centric episode at the start, but it featured brilliant character work for each actor, even the guest stars. The title actually turned out to be more than just a sweet reference to a science fiction novel. We actually delved into the humanity of these shapeshifters, and I just cried for these monsters in this episode. This show has instantly become my favorite on television. Mad Men has been great as always, but they'll never reach the high tension or emotion of this season of Fringe. I'd love to see a no-holds-barred Emmy battle between these two shows, because make no mistake, it is certainly on.

Fauxlivia is still undercover as our Olivia, but as she gets closer and closer to Peter, we see several shades of doubt. She's unsure if she can keep this up. She's never had to do a case where there's been so much to lose should she fail. She's still Olivia Dunham, and as such she still has some of those same insecurities. The writers have said that they wanted to make the other side's characters so fully fleshed out that it would cause the audience to question their loyalties. Peter remains the show's constant, putting up great work week to week under the same role. Meanwhile, our Walter remains the nutty professor we've always loved. He doesn't get many dramatic beats this week, but it was fantastic to see him doing his deranged work at Massive Dynamic.

T.J. Newton returns, and it certainly is his greatest hour. He doesn't develop the emotional ties that the other shapeshifters have to, so that's made him a cold and precise monster, both physically and emotionally. He's one of the characters we'll miss once he's gone. Nina makes a short comic cameo in this episode, but it's nice to see that she's not been simply discarded. This episode was a sure step up from The Box, giving one of the best opening scenes of the series, as well as one of the greatest closing scenes of the series. The alternating universes between episodes was always going to be a long shot, but this series has made it work by giving us consistent quality throughout them all. I'm going to say right now that Fringe is even better than Lost was on its best day. This episode of Fringe was fantastic, and the best part of it all is that Olivia won't be spending the entire season over there. Because this November, she comes home! 9.5 out of 10

Glee: Duets

I don't know how Glee keeps luring me back for more, but I certainly am enjoying it. This week's theme quite obviously fits the title, with each character scrambling to pair up with somebody for a duet. We get a great idea of where most of the relationships are at at this point. Rachel and Finn are still somewhat ignorant of each others flaws, but this was the first episode where I actually noticed how they've grown as characters. Finn has grown into something of a leader, conscious of his flaws and working besides them. As for Rachel, she's finally not as annoying as she was in the first season. The writers have finally come to realize that they've been forming a character that the audience hates, so they're working to reverse that.

Kurt continues to be the most important character on this show, and I'm glad that Sam didn't actually turn out to be Kurt's new boyfriend. The direction they've decided to go with is tragic in the way most openly gay kids feel at high school. He too is finally growing some awareness of his place in the school. Because of his situation, he has to spend his time on his own, despite the sexual impulses that every kid feels at that age. He's probably everybody's favorite character on this show, and for good reason. His relationship with his father is enough on its own to jerk more than a few tears. Emotions are still trickling from last week's episode, and it'll be a sad experience when Kurt leaves the show eventually.

My favorite couple of the hour was oddly enough Brittany and Artie, because this new season has pitted me against Tina entirely. She's dead to me, and can continue being a little bitch with Asian Mike. From here on out, I'm pulling for Brittartie, because you can't look at Brittany rolling a meatball across a lonely table with her nose, and not have a mixed feeling of comedic tragedy. I hope they get back together later this season. The other couples are nice enough, but nothing special to me. Santana and Mercedes are a great pair, and I'm surprised we didn't get to them sooner. Sam and Quinn are a nice match and all, but when Puck gets back, he is going to be pissed. In case I didn't mention already, Puck's in juvenile hall, and his absence is kind of sad.

The music in this episode was a lot more consistent than last week, with nearly every song having a nice touch to it. The worst was Rachel and Finn, but it was meant to be played for laughs, and not for quality. Sam and Quinn were "so freakin' charming", Mercedes and Santana were straight up bad-ass (I remind you that we're still talking about Glee), Mike can't sing, but that didn't really matter, Kurt has a stage presence the trumps all but himself, and his final duet with Rachel was a beautiful way to end the episode. This show had a tough few weeks, but now it's found firm enough ground to hold me for two weeks until their Rocky Horror episode. I'm still waiting for a Randy Newman featured episode, but I'll be patient.

Undercovers: Jailbreak

I'll be honest that I haven't been keeping up with J.J. Abrams' new series, because the pilot, pleasant though it was, left much to be desired, and I wasn't sure if they'd be able to put up interesting adventures week after week. Given that, I'm still not quite sure, but this episode was the best of this season. You haven't missed anything from the first few episodes, and this episode isn't anything spectacular. However, it is a good fun ride, without being the cornball action the series started out as. I'm still keeping myself at arms length from this series, but if the opening of the next episode is nice enough, I might stick around for the rest of the episode. This is worth checking out if you're bored and have nothing else to do. However, I'd definitely rather suggest the other two series featured above.