Fringe ‘And Those We’ve Left Behind’ Review!

Now that I have seen the sixth episode of Fringe I kind of get the feeling down which road the producers want to go, they certainly want to hold off from any big storyline and antagonist and focus a bit more on drama (like season one in fact).

It may entice new viewers to the show but for regulars its a little uneventfull. Yet this weeks episode marks the return of the sexual tension between Olivia and Peter and immediately sets the temperature higher.

As for the story…

Peter Bishop, who has only recently appeared unexpectedly in the alternate timeline, is still being held by Fringe division who have yet come to fully trust him. Walter Bishop (John Noble) still disbelieves that Peter is his son, but, under orders from Broyles (Lance Reddick), studies him as a clinical test subject.

Fringe learns of several cases that involve time fluctuations. Broyles (Lance Reddick), while instructing Olivia (Anna Torv) and Lincoln (Seth Gabel) to investigate, orders them to bring Peter along to examine the scenes. Broyles is concerned that Peter’s reappearance may have created further tears between the prime and parallel universe leading to these events. The three find the time events are localized, returning the affected area to conditions four years ago for short periods of time before dissipating, such as a building reverting to a fire-worn state, or a train crossing on a long-disused set of tracks. Peter finds himself further jumping through time near these events. Recognizing the presence of time manipulation, the three return to Walter’s lab to try to find a pattern in the event. Walter initially refuses to help with Peter’s involvement, but soon postulates that the events occur along a spiral defined by the Golden ratio, and believe they will find the source of the disturbance at the epicenter of the spiral. Lincoln and other agents used an extent of the spiral to try to predict future mishaps that may be more damaging, while Olivia and Peter arrange an FBI search of the spiral’s epicenter to find the source.

One unfortunate FBI agent is vaporized while approaching a suburban home, and Walter recognizes that a time bubble is surrounding the home. Isolating the extent of the time bubble, they find the home belongs to a couple, Raymond (Stephen Root) and Kate (Romy Rosemont) Green; Kate was a distinguished professor in physics at a nearby university until four years ago when she was diagnosed early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Walter devises a portable Faraday cage that Peter offers to wear to enter the time bubble safely. Inside, he finds that Raymond, a skilled electrical engineer, used Kate’s research to construct a giant machine in the basement of their house that creates a temporarily time bubble. Raymond has used the machine to revert their home to the state four years prior, before Kate fully suffered from rapid deterioration of Alzheimer’s, and has been convincing her younger version to complete her research to allow him to stabilize the time bubble permanently. Raymond notes that he only has successfully gotten the machine the work in the last few days.

Lincoln informs the others that they have found the next time distortion event, threatening to flood drivers in an underground tunnel that did not exist four years prior. The younger Kate, having only recently discovered what Raymond has done, recognizes the side effects of the time bubble, and urges Raymond to shut it down, requesting Peter to not prosecute Raymond for his lack of understanding of the effects. As Peter discusses this with the FBI, Kate reveals she has completed the proper equations, and Raymond asks her to write them out in a notebook so that he can recreate the time bubble machine in a remote location. When Peter returns with his assurances to Raymond’s fate, Raymond disables the machine; the house reverts to its present-day state, with Kate bound to a wheelchair. The time distortion in the tunnel dissipates before it can harm anyone else.

The Fringe division and the FBI remove the time bubble equipment from the house; Raymond, having kept Kate’s notebook, discovers that she had marked over all the equations, leaving a final message to him to keep on living his life and giving him her love.

Back at Fringe division, Peter notes that Raymond’s success with the time bubble started simultaneously with his appearance in the alternate timeline. Broyles thanks Peter for his help, and offers him to stay in the home Walter has on campus. Peter attempts to try to explain to Olivia of this timeline his relationship with the Olivia of his original timeline.

Score; 8 / 10.

Viewer rating; 3.03 million.

Sadly the ratings seem to be sliding yet again, and I can’t really blame the audience. The show remains good but has seen better days and quite frankly a few other shows are doing a better job of keeping viewers watching.