Season 1 Episode 2 – “The Same Old Story” – Review
My Score 92/100
This episode of Fringe was greatly superior to the pilot in every way, shape, and form. The first episode was rushed due to the writer’s strike but you can tell that episode 2 was streamlined like a brand new Lamborghini. The characters were more fleshed out and you developed a connection with all of the main characters, even Agent Farnsworth got to do something.
There was a 4 minute sneak peek on the Sunday prior to the Tuesday, 9/16/08 episode and I really wasn’t impressed with the preview at all. It very much seemed like an X-Files episode and I totally expected an alien baby to pop out, but that’s why you watch the show. It turns out that the baby was a ridiculously fast-aging baby that died within minutes of his birth of old age. That leads us to this episodes fringe science “Celermitosis,” in which the pituitary gland is manipulated to speed up the growth process. This process obviously hasn’t been streamlined with the old baby and that is where the antagonists for this episode comes in. The serial killer is actually a creation of this science and he is stealing the pituitary glands of his victims. All in all, it leads to an action packed show that our field team of Agent Dunham and Peter Bishop are running down the suspects and our science unit of Dr. Bishop, Agent Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole), and of course Gene, figuring out how to revive dead people over the phone. I do find trouble in the fact that they let Peter run around as a citizen FBI/DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security) agent however.
Episode 2 raises even more questions and intriguing sciences to uncover. What is Massive Dynamics’ tie to the DHS? Who are the people in the last scene? How crazy is Dr. Bishop? Will Peter ever get a gun of his own? Is Peter okay? I want to know the answers to these questions and that’s why I’m gonna continue watching.
Star of Show – Dr. Walter Bishop
Mad scientist extraordinaire. Who else can reference LSD and Cocaine and get away with it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he became an icon for absent minded professors right up there with Dr. Julius Kelp, Prof. Ned Brainard, and Einstein himself.
