Technorama

Secretary Bishop on the Other Side activates his Machine, triggering devastation on This Side. Peter realizes he has no choice but to enter the Machine and try and break the circuit. Meanwhile, Bolivia resolves to save both worlds by trying to bring Peter back to convince the Secretary to stop the Machine.

Rating: 10/10

Once again this show hits the mark with the acting and story line that throws the viewer for a loop. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend waiting to mainline the last three episodes. This is “to be continued” (not in the usual Fringe way.) You must DVR the shows! For some reason, my DVR lost the scheduled program and I missed the first minute or so. Hello Hulu!

The actors who play dual parts on both sides (John Noble – Walter/Walternate and Anna Torv – Olivia/Bolivia) do an excellent job at keeping the characters separate. My favorite scene this week: Walter in the hospital’s chapel. Well played Mr. Noble!

We’re also seeing some great performances out of Blair Brown (Nina Sharp) as she grapples with revealing the knowledge of  Sam Weiss (played by Kevin Corrigan), the bowling alley guy, who knows something about the machine, but she wan’t supposed to tell.

Of course, we all know the world doesn’t come to an end – there’s a fourth season on the way!

An old (not so friendly) acquaintance of Booth’s helps to catch a killer.

Note: This is a bit of a different show, with only one story line through the whole show. No jumping back and forth between the murder story and a personal sideline.

Booth and Brennan take an airboat out to the middle of the everglades where they are shown the remains of a man. They quickly identify the man by the serial number on a glass eye. He’s a museum guard and after examining the last known footage of him on museum surveillance cameras, the team notices he took something from the museum. It turns out to be a scrap of a suspected treasure map (or chart as Bones later corrects booth: maps are of land, charts of of water.) The map is suspected to lead them to the Spanish wreck of the Santa Esparansa that went down with a huge treasure. Sounds like a good murder motive to me!

Booth begrudgingly employs the talents of someone he knew years before who is exceptionally gifted at finding things. They find one Walter “Wally” Sherman in a sunny Florida bar with his legal advisor, Leo Knox (played by Michael Clarke Duncan – remember John Coffey, the big dude from “The Green Mile”), and his bartender/pilot Ike Latulippe (Saffron Burrows). We find out later in the show that Booth doesn’t like Wally because he was hired to find Booth when he went AWOL to be there when Parker was born. Wally found him and Booth was arrested. No fun. Wally agrees to help find the map, but Booth and Brennan have to find the killer.

Bones is skeptical that Wally has a gift so she gives him a test to find her lost science fair award medal from 7th grade. When Wally comes through with the goods (and a surprise newspaper clipping of Bones and her mom), she’s overcome with emotion and starts believing that he can find anything. Can he find the map?

Wally checks out the museum guard’s crappy apartment and turns up an interesting clue – receipt from a pawn shop who is holding a ukelele. Through some clever negotiating tactics, Wally and his team retrieve not only the instrument (which is smashed), but the person who damaged it. It seems that the guard hid the scrap of map in the uke and a woman with an interesting tattoo reclaimed it unceremoniously. They find the woman, Brittany Stephenson (played by Mini Anden – you know Carina from “Chuck”) by means of a local tattoo shop whose owner is in debt to Wally (this becomes a theme). Wally is smitten by Brittany who rebuffs his advances. He follows her to her boat and notices an old sextant on board. She tells him it’s some sort of old telescope, but he knows she’s lying and up to something.

At the Jeffersonian, Wally shows up with Brennan’s lost medal who says that Angela can help provide details about the missing piece of map from museum footage (of course.) He comments how attractive Angela is and when Hodgins perks up Wally asks “Who are you?” to which he replies “Her husband.” Wally’s comeback is priceless “You rich?” and goes on to explain that “She’s an 11 and you’re a 7, so to figure the difference, you must be rich.” Gotta love those writers. Of course, Angela pieces together the coordinates in nice clear format from several blurry camera angles of the map so clear you can discern latitude and longitude along with an inscription around the compass rose. Based on the inscription, they determine that the coordinates need to be offset from the Greenwich meridian to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

I did note one disturbing continuity/editing issue in this show (which is pretty rare.) While Wally and Ike are flying in her plane having a discussion, their headphones switch back and forth. They are clearly two different models. One has a green mic and one has a black. One has rounded ear cups and one has a more complex design. When the camera is shooting from Wally’s side, he’s wearing one, and when the camera is on Ike’s side, they’ve switched. It was so noticeable, I don’t even recall what the conversation was about.

When Wally arrives at those coordinates with his team, he makes a dive and discovers Brittany’s drowned body instead of the treasure ship. They get her body back to the Jeffersonian where Cam extracts from the victim’s throat the missing chunk of map. They notice some blood on it and continue to extract a finger further down her throat. It seems there was a struggle and Brittany bit off someone’s finger. That should make it easier to find the killer!

While the map is laying aside, Wally runs his finger over the blood and smears it to reveal a Jesuit symbol on the map. He immediately announces that he’s done with his contract to find the map and turns in his expense receipts to Booth. He goes to a Bishop, who also owes him a favor, and tells him that the Jesuit symbol means the prime meridian isn’t Rome, but the Copernican Observatory, just a short distance away. Angela, working in the lab, also figures out the same fact about the same time and relays the information to Booth.

Also part of the back story is the fact that Wally suffered some sort of mentor or physical trauma while in Iraq years ago which gave him his “gift”, but also causes him to be rather paranoid. His friends only want to help him get better, but he doesn’t want to lose his gift. This is a bit of tension between them throughout the show, but it works well.

Wally dives the wreck and heads to the museum with evidence. There we find the museum curator with his hand bandaged up – missing a finger perhaps? He was very helpful earlier in te show to identify the guard and show the footage of him taking the map. See how that diversion went so the guard would get pinned? Ahhhhh! Wally wants to beat him to a pulp, but Leo advises him not to. Instead they throw him in a box where Leo and Ike dump him at Booth’s feet. Booth thinks Wally should be arrested for taking the treasure while under FBI contract, but Leo reminds him that his contract was up when he found the map so he’s in the clear.

In the closing shots, Wally is back in the tropical bar with Ike and Leo having one of their “philosophical debates” on the chalkboard as we first found the trio and Ike exclaims that Wally will never find long lasting love, but Wally makes a comment that the Bones lady might be the one. The camera does a nice switch from there to the Founding Fathers bar as two beer bottles are put down and Booth is still grumbling over Wally having him arrested while holding Parker. Bones states that Wally likely could have had him arrested sooner, but wanted to wait until after Booth had a chance to hold Parker. He feels better and we’re left with another happy ending.

Rating: 9.5/10 (would have 10 had it not been for the plane scene.)

My notes: I rather enjoyed the mono-story-format. It certainly was easier to write during the show rather than weaving two story lines. 🙂 I also liked the trio of Ike, Leo, and Wally. An interesting combination. It may have just been me, but I swear Wally sounds an awful lot like Tee Morris. 🙂 Don’t believe me? Have another listen. Season 6 is winding down – only four shows left. Will they bring Wally back? Will they leave us with a cliff hanger? Stay tuned…

Drones unexpectedly attack Destiny as she comes out of FTL. The senior crew argues a bit about making a quick jump and Rush reminds them that the last time they did that they damaged the ship. They make the jump and get far enough away from the drones. When they come out of FTL they dial a nearby planet with a gate and are greeted by two people who know Lt. Scott and Greer. When Scott asks how they know their names the two people respond that they are their ancestors from 2,000 years ago. WHA????

Eli is intrigued to find out more. He posits that the “other” crew that was lost in the wormhole was actually sucked back in time to that location by a freak of the solar flare. but Young, Rush, and some of the others aren’t buying it yet. (I love the line when Chloe says “You played  lot of Sim City as a kid didn’t you?” and Eli responds “Actually, this is more like Sim Earth.” +10 geek points to the writers.)

Eli, Camille, Chloe, and Scott go back to the planet where they are greeted with reverence by Jason and Ellie (the two they met earlier.) They find out that the original settlement was on a planet called Novus and came this planet via the gates to find additional settlements, but have been stranded for at least 20 years. When they reach the small camp of people, the inhabitants are rather stunned, but polite. Both parties have questions for each other, but settle to drink tea. Camille interprets a Chinese (?) proverb that  the old man makes which is a little incredulous that not one, but two languages would remain that intact after two thousand years. :-/

Back on the ship, we learn more about the two factions on Novus (a population of millions.) One that followed Col. Young and one that thought Rush was back on Destiny and would one day come back to rescue them as their savior. Oh boy! When some of the planet’s inhabitants visit the ship (while bringing supplies aboard) they meet Rush who is rather stand-offish. That’s when we find out that those who don’t believe he’s the savior see him more as Satan. Now we’re talking!

Eli plugs in a “thumb drive” from the planet’s people and starts watching some Keno footage

The planet’s people make one last request to have Destiny take them back to Novus, which 30 years ago was wracked by earthquakes and volcanoes. The colony is in trouble. They are barely scraping by. Eli tells them that they could make it in a week, but Young says they cannot take that many people on board and Rush says they don’t have enough resources to make the trip and would be stuck. And don’t forget the drones might still be on the way. Young agrees that the planet is on their way (to whatever) and they can at least get there, check it out, and they might be able to help fix the gate and rescue their own people.

We find Eli, TJ, and Chloe watching keno footage of TJ giving birth to a boy (fathered by Young) – the first baby born on Novus. The next keno scene jumps ahead to Eli 10 years later regretting that his mother couldn’t see him or her grandchildren. The next scene is an older Young telling those around him that they need to stick together. Young watches that last part and is still of the opinion that they can only do so much, and it falls short of what they can do – just get Destiny to Novus and try dialing back. Suddenly the colony is attacked by drones – and so is Destiny. OUCH!

They get as many colonists aboard Destiny as they can when one of the drones damages the gate on the planet beyond repair with Scott, Eli, Greer, and Camille still trapped there while Destiny continues to take a beating. Col. Young gives the order to make the jump. Back on the planet, the team figures out that the drones have likely been tracking them by locating actives gates. That means the could soon be attacking (or have already attacked) the other colonies sent out from Novus years ago. The crew aboard Destiny figures the same thing – they’re safe as long as they don’t dial. They can’t risk going back for the others either. When Col. Young tells the planet’s survivors aboard Destiny, they are crestfallen.

Eli thinks that he can use a subspace signal from the damaged gate to reach Destiny without triggering the drones (who zero in on the gate event.) So far all he can do is turn it on and off. Eli uses that to send a Morse code message to Destiny where, fortunately, Young gets the message and comes back with a couple shuttles to pick up not only Destiny’s people, but the rest of the planet’s inhabitants.

When they get to Novus, they send down a shuttle and ominously don’t pick up any radio signals. As they get through the significant dust and debris, Scott reports that it’s very cold and comes across an intact modern city, but there’s no sign of life or people. They think it might be a nuclear winter, but more likely a super volcano. Where did the Novus inhabitants go?

Editor’s notes: I found the story line a bit predictable, but still pretty good. It was interesting to see Eli’s eternal optimism in hoping for the two factions of Novus making peace with each other, but the others are more realistic. The look at humanity and “should/can we help them” was intriguing. It will be interesting to see how this all wraps up in just a couple more weeks. FWIW, I read news today that there’s no plan of an SGU movie. Darn!

Rating: 8.0/10

Walter, Peter, and Astrid are trying to get William Bell in to another body. When the experiment fails, Olivia reaches out to Peter for help then collapses. As they get her to the hospital they are just about to shock her when she awakes and speaks in Bell’s voice “Doctor, I’ve been jolted once today. If do it again you will kill me and the young woman I’m living inside of.”

Bell tells Broils that he was testing on rats and they only lasted 2 weeks before the host consciousness is lost. They then find out that Bell cannot simply “leave” as he once promised because his consciousness is the only thing keeping her alive and she only has one more day to live.

The plan is to dump Bell’s mind in to a computer by entering Olivia’s mind. Peter is concerned and reminds him that the last time they did this to her they used a probe and massive amounts of LSD. Walter thinks it’s a brilliant idea and tells Peter that he needs to be “the guide”. Olivia and Peter take the LSD and he starts to trip just as Broils walks in and has some fun with him. I’m not spoiling that one!

As Peter is put under with Walter and Olivia, he’s brought into a matrix-like environment to be greeted by Walter on top of a city bus asking for help getting down as the bus drives away! WEEEEE!

In the lab, Broils suddenly becomes fascinated by Walter’s red vines (candy) and Astrid asks “Did you help clean up the sugar cubes?” OH MY GOSH! What a site to see Broils having a psychedelic episode! The scene with him and Astrid is simply amazing! I’m sure it will go down in TV history.

While inside Olivia they find a lot of people dressed in clothes similar to Olivia and Walter explains that cortexiphan subjects like to blend in – making it hard to find her. It turns out she finds them from the top of the World Trade Center via a reflective morse code. Suddenly Walter spots Olivia’s step dad in the crowd and the entire crowd stops and attacks. They barely get away and make it to the WTC where they’re met by Nina Sharp who shows them the way. As she opens the elevator with an access code, Peter gets suspicious as he notices her prosthetic arm and saves Walter from falling down the elevator shaft (no car). Just as Nina struggles to push Walter, she ends up falling down the shaft. (I knew she was no good in any reality.)

Walter questions why everyone is trying to kill them as they head up to Bell’s private office where Olivia is supposed to be. Walter says “we need to be ready for anything”. When they open the door, they’re greeted by Bell drawn as a cartoon (with Nimoy’s voice). When Walter says “Belly, why are you a cartoon?” He responds “I’d ask you the same question!” and you see Peter and Walter animated as if they just stepped out of a Marvel comic book. BRILLIANT!

The three of them figure out that Olivia is hiding from her fears from the dark side of her mind because she’s confused that William is there. Peter figures she’s gone some place she considers safe. Peter says she’s headed to Jacksonville, but Bell and Walter say it’s the last place. That’s why Peter is so sure. Just then they are attacked by zombies. Walter and Bell make their way to the zeppelin as Peter fights off the zombies on the roof top. As the zep pulls away and the rope ladder goes over the edge, Peter makes a daring leap and grabs the ladder.

Onboard the zeppelin, someone cuts the fuel line and Peter goes to check when he’s attacked by a man with a gun. The gunman grabs a parachute, shoots a hole in the ship and gets sucked out… along with Walter. As he falls to the ground. Just before he hits the ground he wakes up in the lab and is disappointed.

As Walter and Astrid try to get the computer ready to receive Bell’s consciousness, he breaks a critical component and has to cannibalize his phonograph.

Back in cartoon land Bell and Peter argue about how to get the daycare center when Peter says “She’s not at the daycare center.” Olivia once told Peter she lived on a military base so they head there only to find hundreds of identical houses. Well, almost identical.  They look for a house with a red door that her dad painted. When they get to the house, Peter hesitates. When he enters the house he finds her and neither of them are “cartoon again”. He says that it’s OK for her to come back, but then realizes he’s not talking to Olivia. A little girl comes up and says she had to be sure it was him because she’s been tricked too many times. Not soon after they are chased from the house by more people and Peter is hit by a jeep and is forced to wake up in a panic. Now it’s up to Bell to get her out. He takes young Olivia by the hand as they continue to be chased through the cartoon military base. Bell falls and he tells Olivia to go. She turns on the crowd and forces them to stop and says “I’m not afraid of you.” then suddenly grows up.

Bell realizes that all along, Olivia has been her own worst fear, but has finally fought back. Then he tells her that in order for her to survive, he needs to leave. As he does so, he delivers a cryptic message to Olivia “Tell Walter, I knew the dog wouldn’t hunt.” She awakes back in the lab and Bell’s consciousness is captured in the computer… sort of. The data transfer is incomplete. William Bell is gone. Walter hears the message and realizes it was Bell’s way of saying “This isn’t going to work and doesn’t like goodbyes.”

Astrid tries to comfort him, but he says he’d rather be alone for a while. Very sad!

At the end of the show Peter comes over to visit Olivia and is greeted with open arms and a warm smile. She thanks him for coming to get her and he says “It’s not as dangerous as crossing in to another universe, but what are you going to do?” When asked what comes next, she says “I don’t know, but I’m not afraid to move forward.” Peter then spots a sketch Olivia made of the man from the zeppelin and asks “Who is this? I saw him in your mind?” She responds, “I don’t know, but I think he’s the man who’s going to kill me.” WHAT THE F***?! Damn you Fringe producers for a final punch like that! (That’s my way of saying NICE JOB!)

A full 10 points on this again! I absolutely LOVE the acting. Between Olivia impersonating Bell, Broils tripping (he frakkin smiled!), I never laughed so hard at this show. The writing is top notch and I’m thrilled that it’s coming back for another season. It might be a long summer, but I can wait.

A young couple is out in the woods on a date doing some butterfly watching – well, the guy is doing the butterfly watching, the girl is trying to get him to notice her when she grabs him and plants a big kiss as they notice a huge mound of butterflies. As they fall to the ground the butterflies clear to reveal a partially decomposed body.

When Booth and Brennan arrive on the scene with Hodgins (who reveals that beautiful butterflies will eat the grosses things) they notice the heart has been ripped out of the body, all the blood drained out, and the odd smell of sulfer. This could only be the work of a chupacabra!

The body turns out to be Lee Coleman, a TV celebrity who is famous for debunking myths, particularly those around cryptozoology (unexplained creatures.) Booth and Bones travel to the nearby lodge where the deceased recently spent time gathering material for his upcoming show. While there they learn a little more about the chupacabra from the local innkeeper and his guide/assistant who takes guests out to buy the latest AR-15 rifles and hunting, hiking, and riding ATVs. Angela and Hodgins head back to the murder site to find a hidden camera common to Coleman’s show. They make a few quips about her pregnancy and find the camera which produces no viable evidence other than a tiny bit of noise (a growl?) just before Coleman shuts it off. Angela performs her magic on the audio and finds out that it’s not a natural noise, but a composite of man made sounds Through the Jeffersonian’s sound database they determine that it’s a two stroke engine and man-made deer call.

Back in the lab, we’re treated to a little humor as Mr. Nigel-Murray reveals that he’s a recovering alcoholic and as part of his AA (alcoholics anonymous – that’s not the funny part), is supposed to make amends for his wrong-doings to those around him. He confesses some rather odd lies he’s been telling and deeds he’s been doing and makes the entire lab uncomfortable. We found out later than he claims to have told his buddies that he not only had a sexual relationship with Cam, but also Dr. Brennan, and Angela. While Bones’ reaction of laughing at his story hurt his feelings (and good on her for recognizing that she did, in fact, hurt his feelings – nice job writers), the quiet, practical joke, revenge that Hodgins got was best of all – I’m not going to ruin that one for you. Rest assured, I’m sure it will change the relationship between those two in the lab. Mr. Nigel-Murray tells Bones’ that although his feelings were hurt, he knows that he has to accept the consequences for his actions.

As the investigation progresses on the murder, we are also introduced to Lee Coleman’s assistant who receives a threatening email from another cytpo-guy who was denounced and demoted to public access TV. Booth and Bones go to check him out while he is filming one of his shows and he unexpectedly asks Dr. Brennan to join him on camera where she starts to bring him down before announcing he’s a murder suspect.

Another suspect turns out to be an animal psychic who was belittled by Coleman a year or so ago and the show rerun a couple weeks before his death. Sweets is sent to check her out, but she claims to have an alibi checking out a horse with displacement issues and any of the farm yard animals can back up her claim. (Sweets makes the greatest no-verbal cues in this scene.)

Booth reveals to Brennan that he saw the Yeti (abominable snow man) when he was on a ranger training mission in Nepal. Of course Brennan tries to refute what he saw and he pushes back and says “Why can’t you just believe I saw the yeti?” It’s a straining point for their relationship and for her to either trust him or stick to science. Booth fans the flames by saying to her “You know what Bones, you’re no better than those who think the sun revolves around the earth.” OUCH!

As the evidence is gathered, it looks more and more like the creature was faked (gee, there’s a shocker) as they piece together the hair of a bear, the teeth marks of a bear, and the final element “jaw jelly”, used in taxidermy to make an animal’s mouth shine like it’s wet. When they get back to the lodge, they find that business is booming because of the recent news and the innkeeper is brought in with rope burns on his hands that correspond to rope marks on the victim’s ankles. His skin and Coleman’s is found on the rope and Sweets is about to write him up because he has evidence against him, knows who did it, but won’t tell. Finally the guy caves and says that he “did all that other stuff, but didn’t kill him”. It’s pretty gruesome and I won’t go in to the details here.

Nope, not going to tell you who did it, but I’m sure you can guess by now due to the process of elimination – or can you?

Booth finally reveals to Bones that he never really saw the yeti at the end of show and messes with her mind a bit before telling her why he did it. “The world is a confusing place.”

Editor’s notes: I thought the ending was a little weak. A hunting accident? With all those suspects? Not much of a homicide. The other guy staged a (pretty damn good) chupacabra attack to drum up business? I don’t know about you, but a chupacabra attack (or murder) at a lodge wouldn’t exactly cause me to book a weekend at the place. I do like the character writing with the regular crew. The tangle between Hodgins and Vincent Nigel-Murray is sure to pop up again soon. The “test” between Booth and Brennan has me wondering about what else might be lurking in Booth’s head.