This week’s Fringe, an episode titled “Reciprocity,” was about breaking codes and breaking down defenses. It began on a rather light note, when it was revealed that our heroes had cracked the encryption code on the alternate-world-Olivia’s case files. (In deference to Walter, who this week started using the widely-employed fan term “Fauxlivia,” that’s what I’ll call her here.) What was the key to the code? READ FULL STORY »

Fringe returned in its new time period on Friday night with “The Firefly,” an exemplary episode designed to bring joy, deep satisfaction, and uneasy fears to the hearts of its fans. I’ll deal with the joys and satisfactions first. READ FULL STORY »

Knowing that this was the first Fringe after the alternating alternate-universe arc and the last before a winter break placed quite a burden on this week’s episode, entitled “Marionette.” But by now, the series is so sure of its tone, its surging story-telling power, that it more than met its challenges. The fringe-science case was a resonant dilly: A man is harvesting the donated organs of a dead woman he loved/loves, hoping to put her together, Franken-style, and reanimate her. In the same way as this harvester, Fringe has become exhilaratingly fearless about READ FULL STORY »