Author: Fairchild

Braaaaaaaaaains!

“We’re doing a musical episode? Really? That’s… weird.” Let’s address the elephant in the room right at the start: Yes, this is the musical episode, and yes, the musical numbers are, by and large, pretty half-assed. This episode was a part of a special week of Glee-related music-themed programming on FOX, though judging by the [...]

Nasty Newton returns, and there is much rejoicing. In Worchester, Massachusetts, a couple of cute teens sit in a car parked outside an abandoned building. They share a joint and listen to Rush’s “Tom Sawyer,” just like so many teens these days. This is still 1981, right? One of the windows of the building explodes, [...]

Observant viewers may detect a subtle theme. In a commuter train station, a young kid panhandles aggressively alongside a stopped train. He’s not having much luck, probably because he’s waiflike and has killer cheekbones and looks like a Calvin Klein model, circa 1994; I can only speak for myself, but I have a strict policy [...]

Attack Olivia, get clubbed with a candlestick. Simple as that. Oh. It’s a stand-alone episode. That’s kind of disappointing. Not that Fringe hasn’t had some very good stand-alones, but the strength of this show lies in the cool overarching plot — William Bell and the parallel universe, and Walter’s fragmented memories of his past misdeeds. [...]

Everybody loves zeppelins! It’s 1985: Reagan is sworn in for a second term, Gorbachev becomes the leader of the Soviet Union, Back to the Future is the top-grossing movie in theaters, David Lee Roth leaves Van Halen, and at the U.S. Army Research Center in Manhattan, a slightly younger-looking Walter Bishop wears a slightly different [...]

That’s gotta hurt. In a Manhattan architecture firm, Ted Pratchett and his colleague, Pauline, work late. Hey, it’s Jim True-Frost, best known as incompetent cop Pryzbylewski on The Wire! Between True-Frost and Lance Reddick as Broyles, there’s a Wire mini-reunion this episode. Ted’s made himself some coffee, and Pauline is deeply, weirdly envious of this. [...]

Yep. It’s Peter and Olivia vs. Nazis. In Brookline, Massachusetts, a team of caterers lift the world’s dullest wedding cake out of a truck parked outside a large, expensive home. The cake is solid white, three tiers, unmarred by anything resembling color or flair or, apart from a few desultory icing twirls, decoration. It’s the [...]

Yep. It’s another one of those episodes. A young man locks up his bicycle outside the Vitas Petroleum building in Boston and heads for the entrance. I’m jumping ahead a bit here, actually; later in this opening sequence, we’ll discover he’s a young man, and we’ll even learn his name (Mike) and his occupation (courier), [...]

Get used to this sign. You’ll see it a lot. Just outside the town limits of Edina, New York, a state trooper named Johnny Pekarsky talks to his wife on the phone about their baby girl as he cruises down a dark, rainy road. He stares lovingly at a photo of his family taped to [...]

More than you needed to know about Walter’s gray matter. It’s all brains, all the time, over at Fringe this week. We open at Hennington Mental Health Institute in Boston, where a man named Joseph Slater babbles something about a girl in a red dress with flowers in her hair while a thin-lipped man wearing [...]

This is all you need to know about this episode. A distraught young Asian man hurries down a bustling street in Boston’s Chinatown, looking panicky and in pain. It’s not raining, but his hair and clothes are wet. He asks a woman in Cantonese for directions to Ping-on Street. She seems a little taken aback [...]

Yep. It’s this guy again. An Observer sits in a park in Boston. He’s not the same Observer we met last season, though he’s rocking the same iconic look: pale skin, no eyebrows, bald head, dark suit, fedora. He looks down at an old-fashioned pocket watch and drinks from a metal thermos cup, then scribbles [...]

Saying “Fringe opens with a bang” would be in poor taste, right? In Queens, two NYPD squad cars streak up the twisty ramp of a parking structure. Sirens blare, tires squeal, the works. Two guys, both wearing suits, both looking sort of tough, stand on the roof in front of a nondescript sedan with a [...]

***Please welcome your newest recapper into the fold, Fairchild with the long-requested Fringe!! Exhibit A: Why Fringe Is Cool Hello. I’m new here, but I don’t want to bog you down with introductions right now. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and it’s all pretty entertaining: Alien entities! Possessed cosmonauts! People who dissolve into [...]