Fringe ‘Forced Perspective’ review!

This weeks episode of Fringe is entitled ‘Forced Perspective’ and is a change of pace as it only deals with the mythology in the secondary plot and focuses instead on a more drama laden plot of a girl who sees flashes of people dying.

With Fringe the mythology plots are often interrupted to give us a ‘monster of the week’ episode which are often a ‘hit or miss’ affaire. This weeks episode lies somewhere in the middle because despite it having en engrossing storyline it is at times rather slow, also the fact that last week’s saw the return of David Robert Jones had me hoping that the mythology would continue. As it is only the plot involving Nina Sharp drugging Olivia is alluded to.

Now as for the main storyline, the girl is called Emily and she is having flashes ever since she was eleven of people who are about to die, her family knows this but try to make the best of it despite Massive Dynamic harassing them to conduct tests on their daughter. Fringe division discovers her abilities when she tries to warn a person of their impending death by giving them a sketch of their death scene, the storyline suddenly takes a more dramatic turn when Emily draws the scene of a bomb explosion. The race is on for Fringe division to try to find out where this bomb will explode and how to stop the ‘inevitable’. Emily is put into a trance by Walter to make her remember more, the scene of the bomb explosion is revealed in slow motion and is a spectacular example of CGI. Walter hypothesizes that Emily is detecting the echoes of dramatic events as they travel back in time.

Olivia meanwhile still has to deal with the warning from the Observer that she herself will need to die to save the future, Broyles finds out she has made trips to Fringe’s healthcare facility but she shrugs of her headaches as simple migraines not knowing that Nina Sharp is responsible.

In the end Fringe Division finds out that the bomb is located in a court-house and due to Peter’s ability the bomb doesn’t explode, Emily meanwhile has left Walter but she later calls Olivia to say she is in a park. Her father and Olivia visit her and she tells them she has predicted her own death. She dies a little later of a cerebral hemorrhage. The last scene of Emily’s death was a little forced and the writer’s could have alluded to it sooner to give the scene more credibility, as is, the scene does typify a new direction for Fringe as it is not afraid to pull punches.

For a break in the mythology the episode was more than decent.

I hope next week the plot will focus on the mythology again but I understand that the writers also want to focus on plots that won’t alienate viewers not familiar with Fringe.

Score; 8 / 10.

Viewer rating; 3.37 million. This is yet another bump in the right direction but will even this number hold? Perhaps viewers tuned in because Person of Interest was of the air for a week.