Looking at the Big Picture?

Episode Commentary: Night of Desirable Objects

This is the problem with “Fringe.” This is what may end up alienating fans.

To be clear, this is not a knock on the episode, which itself is good and entertaining, but rather the fact that this week’s plot has little to do with the larger story. Maybe by the end it will all come together and maybe there will be a piece of the puzzle that connects all of these events, known as “The Pattern,” that makes them all important. But as of now, “Fringe” is a show with a big picture, actually infinite big pictures, but one that only shows pieces of that picture and unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though all the pieces matter.

On the bright side, if you’re one who accepts the show as an episodic paranormal police procedural, then “Night of Desirable Objects” was an enjoyable hour to watch.

This year, Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson, “ Dawson’s Creek”) said he wants to take a more proactive approach to the mysterious transformations and deaths that they’ve been investigating. So instead of waiting for the FBI to find a case, Bishop finds one in a rural Pennsylvania town that has had several mysterious disappearances.

The latest of those disappearances opens the episode. As two construction workers are finishing up their job, readying themselves to go home, one checks to make sure he didn’t forget anything. As he looks around he spots a blue goo in the soil and as he goes to touch, something pulls him down from under the ground.

“CSI” ain’t figuring this one out.

Before they are roped into the case, Walter (John Noble, “Lord of the Rings Return of the King”) was working on how to explain Oliva’s (Anna Torv, “The Secret Life of Us”) accident from last episode. Not enough can be said about how wonderfully Noble plays Walter Bishop. A highly intelligent man who lost his child and his research is responsible for the death of dozens, Walter is an old man who has the social skills of a child. He is a smart, quirky and tragic character all in one and Noble plays him perfectly.

Unlike in the premiere, Olivia isn’t sitting this one out. As she and Peter work the case, she begins experiencing strange physical reactions that, as Massive Dynamic CEO Nina Sharp (Blair Brown, “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd”) explained, were a side effect of traveling through universes.

The one bit that did- and in all likelihood will continue to- connect to the multiverse and Olivia’s importance to the multiverse’s story is Agent Charlie Francis. (Kirk Acevedo, “Oz”) As Acevedo said so over the summer, last week Charlie was killed off only to be replaced by the shape shifter. Charlie was a great complimentary character last season so it is sad knowing he’s not in this series for the long haul, but having him as a spy should be fun while it lasts. The biggest questions in this young season so far is, who is “Charlie” communicating with in another universe on that typewriter and what do they want with Olivia? Hopefully the answers are coming soon.

Stand-alone episodes are no fun, even when they’re good like this one. There is so much to tell about characters’ pasts and such a deep mythos, (there’s a manifesto of that mythos in the show for goodness sakes!) that when “Fringe” barely touches on it, the episode is a let down. Taking it at face value, “Night of Desirable Objects” was a good episode, but “Fringe” should be so much more.