Fringe Recap: “Pilot”

Episode Title:Pilot
Season: 1
Episode: 1
Network: FOX
Airdate: Tuesday September 9, 2008

Ground Rules:

Rule #1: Never board an international flight when J.J. Abrams is involved, because you will end up dead, on a deserted island, or liquefied.
Rule #2: Follow Rule #1 as if you life depended on it – it does!

Cruising at 30,000 feet (mini-synopsis):

An international flight, Flight 627, headed from Germany to Logan Airport, Boston, MA, USA lands with no survivors aboard. The FBI are brought in to investigate and uncover a world of paranormal, fringe science where it seems anything can happen. After chase scenes, both on foot and by car, an explosion, a mad scientist, a cow, and lots of twists and turns, we learn that the dead do speak, as long as they have been dead for less than six hours.

Ground level (the plot):

Flight 627, flying from Germany, autopilots itself and lands at its destination, Logan Airport, Boston, MA. There’s creepy red muck on all the windows. Why? It’s a J.J. Abrams’ show silly, and because the entire crew and the plane full of passengers are all dead, liquefied by some creepy air-borne virus. The FBI is called in to sort it out and “keep it secret, keep it safe.” Leading up the team is Special Agent, Homeland Security, Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick), who has a bristly relationship with FBI Liaison Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) because of a military case she investigated in the past against one of his friends. He sends her out to follow a lead at a storage facility, and she takes along her FBI partner, John Scott (Mark Valley). Within one of the storage lockers, they uncover strange laboratory equipment and biological experiments.

A suspicious person emerges and a foot race ensues. (This is one of many, “What the — ?” moments for the viewer, because we know he looks exactly like the passenger on the plane who was the first to be affected by whatever killed them. How did he survive?) During the chase, Agent Scott is seriously injured in an explosion and seems to be affected by the same virus that killed everyone on the flight; his skin takes on a translucent quality. He is placed in a drug-induced coma and kept at a very cool temperature to slow the process down while the CDC attempts to figure out a cause; they only have 24 hours to do so. Start your stop-watches now!

Agent Dunham, who happens to also be Agent Scott’s love interest, uses the Interagency database and locates someone who is familiar with what is going on. The only trouble is that this person, Dr. Walter Bishop, has been locked away in a prison mental institute for the past 17 years for the alleged murder of his lab assistant that occurred while he was conducting his experiments. The only way to gain access to him is through his next of kin, Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) – Dr. Bishop’s estranged son. And where is Peter? In Iraq, which means that Agent Dunham is about to violate Rule #1. Dunham flies to Iraq, convinces…err…blackmails Peter into coming back to Boston (a violation of Rule #1 again) and ultimately “talks” him into signing his father out of the mental institute and into Peter’s care once they are back in the US.

Enter Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), a “fringe scientist” (the study of teleportation, mind control, reanimation, invisibility, etc.) who does not quite have a good grasp on reality and one cannot really tell if it is due to his eccentricity and brilliance or if it is more a result of his lack of interaction with the outside world. Either way, Dr. Bishop, eccentric or not, gets down to work and his first order of business is to pee (“just a squirt”) in Agent Dunham’s car as he is riding from the mental institute to the hospital where Agent Scott is being kept alive. Arriving at the hospital, Dr. Bishop takes a “flesh” (if you can call it that) sample and demands to be taken to his lab to conduct experiments on it.

What lab? The lab he is referring to is his old lab from 17 years ago, located in the basement at Harvard, which has since been converted to storage space. Never fear, Agent Dunham is on the job and she coordinates getting the storage area cleaned out and his lab set back up. Good thing that most of Dr. Bishop’s equipment is still there and still in working order. It had just been covered up with tarps and sheets and 17 years of dust. While giving the lab a quick cleaning, Dr. Bishop rattles off a list of supplies he will need in order to conduct his tests, including a cow.

Dr. Bishop has done some crazy experiments in the past and one of them was the ability to connect two minds together for the purpose of gaining information after one of those people had been dead for nearly 6 hours. If they want to catch the person that did this to Agent Scott (because Agent Dunham did not see the person’s face that they were chasing at the storage facility) then Dunham is going to need to be “linked” mentally with Scott.

For that to take place, Scott must be brought to the lab and Dunham will be doped up with an LSD cocktail whipped up by Team Bishop (father and son – did I mention Peter has an I.Q. of 190? Yeah, he’s probably qualified.), have a metal rod inserted into the back of her head and then placed in a floating salt water, sensory deprivation tank.

After a short while, a connection is made between Dunham and her comatose boyfriend, Scott (shown through the use of some trippy special effects and editing). Through Scott’s eyes, Dunham sees the suspect and then the Bishops drag her from the tank and disconnects all their wires and removes the rod.

Based on what she saw, she puts together a computer rendering of the perpetrator and the manhunt is on. However, a passenger manifest is produced with head shots of the people and the first person we saw infected on the plane matches the composite drawing to a “T.” Conclusion – he must be a twin and his name is Richard Steig. (Evil twins? That’s a new one for J.J. Abrams.) In researching Steig, she discovers he was fired from Massive Dynamics for compromising their high-tech secrets.

Massive Dynamics, is a multi-million dollar tech corporation that was founded by a Dr. William Bell. It just so happens Bell shared a lab with our Dr. Bishop at Harvard in the 70s. Dunham visits with a representative at Massive Dynamics who is elusive of Dunham’s questions about Steig. She asks Dunham, “Do you think this is all part of the pattern?” When Dunham doesn’t know what she’s referring to, the representative says she must not have security clearance for that and tells her to “be careful.”

The FBI catches Steig at his home trying to elude pursuit again and they bring him in for questioning. After a little friendly finger-breaking, Steig gives up the goods on the chemical concoction that is affecting Agent Scott. Although he does not give up who he is working for, but simply replies, “Who says I’m working for anyone?”

They rush back to Dr. Bishop’s lab to create an antidote, which is given just in time to save Scott and the cure is nearly immediate as you see his skin changing back. While she is waiting in the hall for Agent Scott to be transferred back to the hospital, Special Agent Broyles approaches her about being part of a special investigation, and mentions the “pattern” of strange occurrences, as if someone is doing experiments on the whole world. Dunham turns him down, saying she likes the job she has and just wants to go back to the way things were. He tells her that may not be possible.

As Agent Scott recovers in the hospital, he finds out Steig is being treated down the hall, so Agent Scott gets out of bed, puts on his FBI suit and goes to Steig’s room. One pillow later, and Scott successfully smothers Steig and then rushes out of the hospital.

In the meantime, Agent Dunham has returned to Steig’s residence because during questioning he reveals that he was working with a rogue agent in the FBI and that he has a recording of an incriminating conversation buried in his yard. Dunham finds the recording and listens to it. The rouge agent’s voice is familiar…very familiar…it’s Agent Scott. While Dunham is listening to the recording in stunned silence, she comes to her sense and rushes back to the hospital to arrest Scott. Too late…Scott’s already murdered Steig and is on the run, but she sees him driving out of the parking lot in an SUV at high speed – the chase is on again.

After a car chase through the streets of Boston, Agent Scott crashes and dies at the scene. With his last breath, he ominously tells Dunham to question why Broyles chose her to investigate the storage locker. The final shot of the show is Agent Scott’s body being wheeled on a gurney into a high-tech lab. A woman enters the shot and asks how long has he been dead? “Five hours,” the man replies. “Question him,” she says.

Roll credits.

Quote of the night:

“The only thing better than a cow is a human. Unless you need milk, then you really need a cow.” – Dr. Walter Bishop

Parallel Universes?

With J.J. Abrams working on both LOST and Fringe, did you think that there would not be any cross-over?

• Philip Broyles (played by actor Lance Reddick) works for the FBI in some capacity. On LOST, he is better known as Matthew Abaddon. Can he be trusted on either show?
• Flight 627: The numbers add up to 15 (6+7+2=15) – part of the numbers from LOST (4 8 15 16 23 42) and is also reminiscent of Flight 815 from LOST.
• I heard that there were 108 passengers on the international flight, but I might be mistaken about that. However if there were, then this the same number of seconds that the button had to be pushed each time at one of the stations in LOST so that the island would not blow up. This also is the sum of all the LOST numbers (4+8+15+16+23+42 = 108).
• An earthquake was mentioned during the show that registered 8.7 on the Richter Scale. LOST connection, 8+7=15 – the numbers again.
• LOST has the evil Dharma/Hanso foundation. Fringe has the evil Massive Dynamics corporation.

Other Fringe/LOST notes: It seems that there were a lot of left over graphics, sound effects and music from LOST that are used on this show. I really like how they are using the graphics for introducing locations – pretty clever stuff.

Miss Anything?

If I missed something, then leave a comment and let me know.
If you missed something then pay attention. You can watch an encore presentation of the show this coming Sunday (9/14/2008) 8:00 PM on FOX.