This episode, “Night of Desirable Objects,” picks up roughly where the last one left off, and we see Olivia being discharged from the hospital.  She’s not 100%, though, not by any means: she’s walking with a cane, has nasty bruises all over her back and shoulder, still has a bit of the shakes in her hands, and … what else? … oh yeah, she’s got superhearing.  That’s right, if you ever wanted to know what a fly’s footsteps sound like, you might want to have a talk with Olivia Dunham; she’s got the scoop.

I’m already seeing reviews that are expressing disappointment with the lack of development in the alternate-universe storyline, but as with last week, I found this week’s episode to be a perfectly satisfactory example of making Olivia’s amnesia, and her confusion over it, a vital enough part of the story that I’m okay with not knowing more for now.

This episode isn’t as good as the season premiere, but it’s certainly got its moments, and it’s grounded enough in character that it easily sails over the more problematic elements.

Those problematic elements?  Well, it’s hard to care about the monster of the week very much.  There are some wonderfully creepy moments, some of which rival vintage X-Files monster-moments; however, as was the case with many a lesser X-Files episode, the monster plotline just never manages to amount to much of anything on the whole.

The opening sequence is great, though, featuring a creepy cornfield and a creepy scarecrow and a frightening Carrie-esque moment.  Later, there is a spooky shot of a monster bounding into partial view in an underground cave, and toward the end of the episode, there is a genuinely frightening moment in which the same monster suddenly appears behind one of the main characters.

But the mumbo-jumbo about the monster being a genetic experiment using scorpion DNA to allow a baby to gestate inside a lupus-stricken mother is of almost no interest at all.  I’m thnkful that it didn’t turn out to be yet another former experiment of one Walter Bishop, though; maybe that too-frequently-used plot device has seen its last days.

What we’re left with is the story of Olivia continuing to deal with her amnesia, and now with her ability to hear all sorts of things she shouldn’t be able to hear.  To me, that’s what this episode is really about, and it mostly succeeds on that level; the monster stuff is just window dressing.

Olivia’s enhanced hearing first manifests itself when she suddenly begins hearing a fly as its feet make noise while it walks.  Later, she hears somebody moving around in a house she and Peter are investigating, and she is so much on edge as a result that she very nearly puts a bullet in Peter’s skull.  Even later, while she’s in the tub — oooh, Anna Torv plus bubbles – she begins hearing all sorts of things all at once, and then abruptly stops hearing them again.

She’s also been visited by Nina, who gives her the contact information for one Sam Weiss, a fellow who helped put Nina “back together again” at one point, whatever that means.  Olivia goes to see Weiss, who apparently works at a bowling alley; he asks her if the headaches have begun yet, and when she says no, he says that they will.  Who is this Weiss?  I’m sure we’ll find out; as far as information goes, we’re just along for the ride with Olivia on this one, for now.

Olivia has also confided in Charlie, who, as you might recall from last week, is no longer Charlie at all.  No, he’s just a soldier from another dimension wearing a copy of Charlie’s body, and he gets to sit for another session at the interdimensional typewriter.  Whoever is on the other end isn’t happy to find out that Olivia doesn’t remember anything, and orders “Charlie” to help her remember … presumably by any means necessary.

Another element running through the episode is a theme involving Walter and Peter, father and son.  Just as Dr. Hughes has gone to great lengths to create a son for himself, Walter has … well, we still don’t know what he’s done, but we know by now that he’s surely done something.  Walter just has too knowing a look in his eye after it is discovered that the grave of Baby Boy Hughes is empty; “The grave of a boy who is not in his grave,” Walter says to himself, significantly not specifiying who he’s talking about.  John Noble, as always, is great this week.

He’s also got a fine scene in which Peter makes a date with him to go fishing.  While investigating this new case, Peter has seen a fishing lure on a wall; it’s called a “Night of Desirable Objects” lure, and Peter once bought a similar one to take on a fishing trip with his dad.  That trip never came off, but years later, they’ve got a second chance.

Joshua Jackson is good in this scene, and in the episode as a whole.  Anna Torv is very good this week, also, and the chemistry between her and Jackson — practically nonexistant during much of the first seaon — is finally starting to click.

And Kirk Acevedo makes for a great creepy faux-Charlie; he was underused during the first season, and it’s gonna be a shame to see him leave the show, but at least he’s getting to go out playing something interesting.

The guest cast is pretty good this week, too, with Charles Martin Smith playing a thankless role as a police officer; it’s always nice to see him, though, even if he’s wasted, as he is here. 

Also popping up is John Savage, who you might remember from The Deer Hunter, and — in the role of Sam Weiss, who is sure to be a recurring character — Kevin Corrigan, from The Departed amongst many other roles.

All three of those actors have more gravity and weight than is typically the case for guest stars on Fringe; it tends to be workmanlike in many of its smaller roles, and having people a bit further up the talent scale makes the whole endeavor seem a bit more worthy this week.

Not a perfect episode, by any means, but good enough for me to heartily endorse it.

Now, just you try and tell me you aren’t glad to see this show back for a second season.

And a pretty darn good season premiere it is, too.  “A New Day in the Old Town” is the title; it was scripted by J.J. Abrams and Akiva Goldsman, and directed by Goldsman, who previously directed the first-season episode ”Bad Dreams.” 

As you might recall, that episode was probably the best of the first season, and while this one isn’t quite up to that standard, it is nevertheless fairly gripping stuff.  This suggests two things: one, that J.J. Abrams being hands-on with his shows is almost always a good thing; and, two, that Akiva Goldsman ought to direct one out of at least every four episodes of this series.  The dude knows what he’s doing; it’s just that simple.

I can imagine large portions of the audience being quite disappointed with this episode, though, based not so much on what it is, but instead on what it isn’t: a direct continuation of last season’s finale, which found Olivia Dunham chatting up William (Leonard Nimoy) Bell in a parallel universe’s version of the still-standing World Trade Center.  Yes, I’d imagine a lot of folks will be annoyed that this episode doesn’t pick up exactly where that one left off.

I’d be one of them, too, if not for the fact that Abrams and Goldsman obviously want you to be expecting the episode to begin that way.  The fact that it doesn’t immediately mythologizes whatever experiences Olivia has been through while sojourning in that other dimension, and it means that the mystery surrounding those events is almost certainly going to form a large part of what this sophomore season will be about.  Also, since for the time being Olivia herself doesn’t know what happened, it’s not at all a cheat; instead, it’s a device, and one I’m happy to let play out.  Abrams ain’t no chump; he’ll bring the goods, if not this episode, then maybe two or three or twelve down the line.

I’m all for that.  Assuming Olivia’s extradimensional vacation will be an ongoing plot thread, I’ll be pleased for the series to contain more mythology and less X-Filesish standalone plots.  (Speaking of that show, you can glimpse it playing on a television at one point while a particularly X-Filesian incident is taking place.  Later on in the episode, a senator even refers to paranormal things as having “the old ‘X’ designation.”  Nice.  I think it’s something the FBI actually does — label unexplained cases with an “X” designation — but, still … nice.)

As with “Bad Dreams,” what Goldsman really seems to bring to the table as a director is a great skill with his actors.  Anna Torv spends the entire episode bedridden — oops, spoilers, lol — but shows more vulnerability than we’ve ever seen her imbue Dunham with heretofore.  I think I said this when I reviewed “Bad Dreams,” but I’ll just go ahead and repeat it here, since it’s still true: I think Torv is a pretty good actress, and Goldsman seems to be good at both writing ways for her to show it and then capturing her actually doing it.  And he’s also quite good with Joshua Jackson as Peter.  Both Olivia and Peter seem to be richer characters in this episode than was typically the case during the first season, and that is why Goldsman needs to be a regular fixture on the show.  Abrams’ writing is probably also responsible for this in no small way.

The episode — and I won’t be doing much more in the way of spoiler-divulging — mostly involves Olivia returning in an unexpected way from the parallel universe, and being pursued by a shape-shifting soldier whose mission is to get some (apparently crucial) information out of her.  Do we learn exactly what it is he/she/it is looking for?  Of course not, silly!  Haven’t you figured out by now that it makes no sense to do anything other than play that sort of plot out over numerous episodes?

The shape-shifting soldier plotline is executed quite capably; the Olivia/soldier story is interesting, and is intercut with a b-story involving the government trying to shut down the Fringe Division because, under Broyles’ leadership, it has failed to produce anything usable.  Abrams and Goldsman do a pretty good job of making that storyline dovetail with the main one, and as such, the episode stays interesting pretty much all the way through … something first-season episodes were not always successful in achieving.  Hopefully, this is a sign that the second season is going to be an improvement on an already good show.

Other items of interest:

*     The episode begins with a brand-new saga-sell in which Blair Brown tells the audience — which Fox obviously hopes will include millions of new members in the show’s new Thursday-night home — what Fringe is all about.  Saga-sells are a strange, and somewhat antiquated, device, but if this one keeps the show a hit, I’m all for it.

*     I’m not sure what to think about the new FBI agent: Agent Jessup, played by the oddly attractive Meghan Markle.  Markle has done a fair amount of acting, but she was also one of the suitcase models on Deal or No Deal at one point, and I’ve got to be honest here: I’m not sure Markle has the chops to be on this show.  Considering how good Goldsman seems to be at directing actors, I’m not sure it’s anything other than a terrible sign that so many of Markle’s line readings in this episode sound stiff and forced.  We’ll have to see how it plays out, I guess, but for now, I’m kinda pessimistic on the subject.  As for Jessup herself as a character … same deal.

*     How cool was that interdimensional typewriter?  When I was a kid, I used to pretend that typewriters were the helm controls of the U.S.S. Enterprise, so I guess I’m predisposed to enjoy this as a sci-fi device.  Either way, it’s one of the cooler things the show has come up with so far.

*     Going back to that photo I posted up top … seriously, Gene the Cow wearing a birthday party hat is just genius.  Unfortunately, there is still no sign of an actual storyline for Astrid in the near future.

Video Games

Rock Band: Beatles – PS3 / XBox 360 / Wii

Featuring more than forty songs from the band’s career, this game appears to have all the polish and care that are completely missing from the band-specific titles put out by that other music-based franchise. From the faithful replicas of the Fab Four’s instruments to the high-gloss, era-specific videos in the song backgrounds, this one looks like it will be bigger than Jesus for any fan.

Mini Ninjas – PS3 / XBox 360 / Wii / Nintendo DS / PC

I know very little about this title except for the following: the demo is fun, the character designs are awesome, the humor is sharp, and I have a badass button with the “Fox” character on it. In truth, this one looks to be a fun-for-anyone action/platformer in the tradition of the Spyros and Jaks out there.

Dirt 2 – PS3 / Xbox 360 / Wii / Nintendo DS / Sony PSP

The sequel to one of the most critically-acclaimed — and drop-dead gorgeous — racers on the market brings even more to the table, according to the developers. Apparently, the focus this time is on “making players feel like they’re at a real event.” So in the background of any screen, there will always be other races taking place, crowds coming and going, and the general atmosphere of being at a rally tournament. If the controls and car modeling can hold up, this one might steal some thunder from later racing releases.

DVD / BluRay

The Office Season 5 – DVD / BluRay

Arguably the best season of the show so far, this DVD release is a no-brainer for me, even though I already have access to all the episodes. The additional features on this title tend to be excellent, and I will undoubtedly end up sitting in front my of TV for hours on end re-watching these episodes.

Fringe Season 1 – DVD / BluRay

My knowledge of this show extends no further than J. Wolfwood’s initial description of it to me: “It’s like Fergie mixed with Jesus.” I do know that word-of-mouth on it alone will probably get me to buy this set, especially since the upcoming season will feature Leonard Nimoy in a recurring role. Like Lost, I will probably watch through it non-stop until I fall asleep from sheer exhaustion and have to start whole sections over again.

Parks & Recreation Season 1 – DVD

Another one that passed completely under my radar, friend reviews tell me that it delivers the laughs. Not likely to pick this one up, but very likely to borrow it from someone soon.

Harper’s Island: The DVD Edition – DVD

Apparently, I just didn’t watch TV recently… This one comes from Jericho veteran Jon Turteltaub, and will be purchased because my mom freakin’ loved this show. I’m stoked about getting to watch it, but do not want spoilers! I’m looking at you, Jeremiah.

Crank 2: High Voltage – DVD / BluRay

As kick-ass a movie as I have ever seen, this sequel delivers in an over-the-top way that makes it equal to the first, if different. Maintaining the tongue-in-cheek humor and breakneck pace of the first one, Crank 2 goes one step further by eliminating any semblance of reality. Balls-out (literally) fun, this one’s best when viewed with friends.

Airing Fringe against those other heavyweights is likely a tremendous sign of faith in the J.J. Abrams-produced series.

In other Fox news, James Hibberd spoke with Joss Whedon about the renewal of Dollhouse.

I’ve got to be honest: the season finale of Lost is on the air right now, so I’m not inclined to take very detailed looks at these two episodes.  I’m going to put in the due diligence, though, so here goes.

In “Omega,” the finale of the first (and possibly only) season of Dollhouse, we find out a bit more of what the deal is with Alpha.  About half of the episode consists of flashbacks to Alpha’s rampage that left Saunders scarred; the rest of the episode splits time between Alpha trying to create a new mate (Omega) in the body of Caroline and the Dollhouse’s attempts to track them down.

This was a good episode, but it wasn’t entirely satisfactory.  Some of it may have played better on paper than it does in fact: much of the confrontation between Alpha and Omega/Echo/Caroline (sheesh!) seems silly and ill-advised.  The location shooting at the factory or wherever they are has an incredibly hollow feel to it, and has no visual appeal whatsoever; zero, zip, nada, zilch.  You never want that, but a season finale is definitely the wrong place for it.  I also detested the choice of wardrobe that Echo wore; the old flannel shirt and jean shorts thing isn’t hot, it’s just trashy, and while I get that that was the point, it was quite unappealing visually.

I also can’t say I was a fan of the way Alpha’s shifts between different personalities was executed.  Now, Alan Tudyk is a very good actor, and each one of his different takes on the character was outstanding … but by throwing flash edits into the mix, so that you’re literally cutting briefly when his personality changes each time, it makes it seem as if you’re having to cut around the performance in order to create the semblance of some sort of unity.  Yes, I know that the intended effect is one of disorientation and tension, but that wasn’t the effect it had on me; it made it seem like the editors weren’t confident in Tudyk’s ability to telegraph the transitions between different personalities.  That was ill-judged, in my opinion.

I’m also not quite sure what to think of the choice Eliza Dushku made to not do something similar to Tudyk’s performance in her scenes as Omega.  I might have liked to see something a little more manic.  On the other hand, isn’t it kinda cool that Echo/Caroline seems to be able to process all of these personalities and retain some semblance of normalcy?  I think it works, from a character standpoint, and I also like the authority that Dushku brings to these scenes; she feels very much in control, at least of herself.  I continue to think that she’s a better actress than she’s getting credit for being.

Lest it sound like I’m totally bagging on this episode, I’d better talk briefly about what I liked.  As I just hinted, I liked — “loved” might not be wrong to say — the fact that Omega didn’t go nuts because her core, original personality (her soul, according to Ballard) is fundamentally stable.  That’s a nice wrinkle, and that part of the story helps make up a bit for how unsuccessful the rest of the scenes in Alpha’s hideouts tend to be.

The Saunders/Whiskey storyline was satisfying.  It hadn’t occurred to me to think that “Saunders” was an Active, but it makes perfect sense.  Amy Acker is particularly good in this episode.  Why hasn’t someone figured out how to build a show around her yet?

The episode’s beginning — in which a customer’s Natural Born Killers fantasy goes horribly awry — was suitably horrific, and it’s also believable: I totally buy that someone would pay for that type of experience, and that it would be approved so long as the Dollhouse felt it could control the situation.

I also enjoyed Ballard’s new allegiance with the Dollhouse.  I’m not 100% sold on it, in terms of its believability — Ballard has been so obsessed with bringing the thing down, I’m not sure I can buy him even considering working with them — but Tahmoh Penikett has such great chemistry with Olivia Williams, Harry Lennix, and Fran Kranz that it’s easy to see why Whedon would want to push the show in that direction.

All in all, it was a good finale, but only good; definitely not great.  It was clearly an attempt to resolve many of the plot threads from the season, but I don’t think it was entirely successful in actually doing so.

There is one remaining episode, “Epitaph One,” which will apparently make its debut on DVD.  From there, who knows.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Fox network has been meeting with the Fox studio (they;re not entirely the same entity, it seems) to try and figure out how to make a second season a financial reality.  That’s encouraging news.

Moving on to Fringe, I was also disappointed a bit in this show’s season finale, “There’s More Than One of Everything.”  I’ll say this for Dollhouse, it at least tried to wrap up the first season.  The producers of Fringe seem a lot more interested in setting up the second season, and more or less forgot to provide a compelling episode to hang that setup upon.

The main thrust of the episode involves David Robert Jones, who shot Nina at the end of last week’s episode; we find out that he did this so he could steal an ultra-powerful energy cell out of Nina’s cyborg arm.  He uses this energy cell to punch a hole between the dimensions, through which he apparently plans to journey for nefarious reasons.  He does all this wrapped in Invisible Man bandages, which makes for some good, creepy shots.

I’m most disapointed by how little last week’s Observer-takes-Walter plotline yields this week.  Turns out, the Observer takes Walter to the cemetery (Peter Bishop 1979-1985!), and then to the beach and the old family beachhouse.  There, Walter finds a device he created that is capable of sealing holes between the dimensions.  Now, this is obviously an important device, but it doesn’t really feel that important for some reason.

Nina manages to convince Olivia, Broyles, and Charlie that William Bell is actually in one of these other dimensions, which can be accessed through thin spots between the worlds.  For anyone who’s read The Dark Tower, this might sound like a thinny; for anyone who’s read The Talisman or Black House, the title of the episode might remind you of Twinners.  (While we’re on that subject, how awesome a Speedy Parker would Lance Reddick make?)  I’m not crying foul; Abrams and company are on record as enormous Stephen King fans.

The final scene, in which Olivia side-steps into another world and meets Walter Bell, is pretty damn cool.  Nimoy is great, performing with far more energy than he does in Star Trek; you almost sense that he feels the opportunity at hand to put a solid asterisk on his career with a great role in a new hit show.  The episode ends with a pullback revealing that Bell’s office is in the a World Trade Center!  It’s a great end to a mediocre episode; a great end to a good first season.

But I’m not entirely on the Fringe bandwagon yet, truth be told.  The show is swimming in potential, but it hasn’t paid off enough of that potential for me to be a huge fan yet.  Hopefully, the second season will accomplish that goal.

Spoilers are throughout, but there is an especially big one for Fringe in the first paragraph, so if you don’t want to know, you might want to skip reading this.

The next-to-last episode of the first season of Fringe, “The Road Not Taken,” is a great example of why I try to not watch the “next-week-on…” clips for shows anymore.  Unfortunately, I’d seen a promo for this episode during House on Monday night, so I saw the Observer come into Walter’s lab and tell him that it was time to go.

That was in the final seconds of the episode, and was obviously intended by the show’s writers and producers to be a giant cliffhanger of an ending leading into the season finale.  So why Fox would then decide to put it in a promo is a mystery to me.

Actually, it’s not a mystery.  They do things like that for the same reason any marketing hack does things like that: because they think more people will watch if they do. I don’t believe it’s true, though.  Fringe is getting perfectly good ratings right now, and one thing that can increase its ratings is for the people currently watching to get so hooked on the show that they feel the need to get friends to watch.  You get people hooked on a show by surprising them and making them freak out a little over how cool what they just saw was.  If you’re giving away giant surprises like the one which ends this episode, then you’re dulling what should have been a great moment.  If my logic is sound, then you are therefore depriving the show of potential viewers in the future.  Well done.

It’s an annoying trend, and it must drive television producers up the wall.

Nevertheless, this was still a pretty good episode.  “Bad Dreams” writer/director Akiva Goldsman returned, this time as the contributor of the story, and while “The Road Not Taken” isn’t nearly as good as his first episode, it’s still good enough that I hope he returns for the second season.

He returns to the idea of the Jacksonville cortexophan trials, this time with a tale of twin sisters who have apparently been given pyrokinetic abilities.  (Yes, it’s a Firestarter reference, and yes, the writers acknowledge it.)  This leads to a scene in which one of the sisters incinerates Agent Harris, who has been revealed to be a mole … though who he is a mole for, exactly, has yet to be determined.  I’m guessing David Robert Jones, mainly because this episode is working so hard to make me believe it’s William Bell.

Olivia spends a decent amount of this episode experiencing some sort of deja-vu-like halucinations, in which she seems to be side-stepping into a parallel universe where things have happened slightly differently.  These scenes are shot well, and are creepy as hell.

I don’t have a lot to say about this episode, but I would like to take a moment to applaud some of the acting.  Anna Torv is steadily growing on me as an actress.  She’s quite the beauty, of course, so I’ve enjoyed seeing her the entire season from that shallow perspective, but for most of the season I’ve felt like she was curiously free of any real charm or charisma.  It’s now becoming apparent that that was simply how she was playing the role, and that there may have been reasons for it.  In the last few episodes, she’s started to seem a little crisper, a little more driven; or maybe it’s some other quality I can’t quite put a name to.  Either way, it’s not just Anna Torv that’s happening to, it’s Olivia Dunham; so I don’t think it’s a mistake, and I’m curious to see where it goes from here.

However, this episode — like several others before it, and arguably the entire season — belonged to John Noble.  He gets two incredibly juicy scenes.  The first is when he is confronted by Olivia, who demands to know what he and Bell did to her — to all the test subjects — during the cortexophan trials.  Noble’s work during this scene is tremendous, although I would like to point out that I had no idea Dunham knew Walter was involved in those trials.  That’s no reflection on Noble, of course.  But seriously, did we know she knew about this?  Did my attention slip at some point during a previous episode?

Bringing this review full circle, we return to the scene which ends the episode: the Observer showing up for Walter.  Earlier in the episode, Nina has alluded to something happening the last time the Observer showed up with the regularity he’s apparently been showing up lately.  Was this also something that involved Walter, or is Nina hinting at something even more ominous?  Either way, John Noble gets several more great moments during this final scene.  He finds the missing part of the ZFT manuscript, and calls out “Astrid, I’ve found it!”  That’s surprisingly touching; the poor guy has been saying Astrid’s name wrong all season, and now he finally gets it right.

Except it’s not Astrid walking into the lab; it’s the Observer, who says, “Hello, Walter.  It’s time to go.”  Walter replies, “Is it time?”  He doesn’t seem surprised; if anything, it seems as if (possibly subconsciously) he’s been waiting to hear those very words.  “I’ll get my coat.”

“Follow the Leader” is an episode of Lost that I know I probably should have loved.  I didn’t, though.  I liked it, don’t get me wrong; it just seemed very much like a getting-the-pieces-into-place episode, and while there were numerous moments of excellence, overall it felt a little lacklustre to me.

The two cruxes of the episode are Jack in 1977 trying to talk Eloise into helping him detonate the bomb and Locke in the present trying to take firm command of the Others.  The “leaders” of these two parts of the episode are seemingly Jack and John — appropriate, given how much of the series has revolved around the leadership of those two men — but both also feature Richard Alpert in a very prominent way.  I can’t help but wonder if he isn’t the leader the title is referring to.  I suspect we’ll find out next week.

Jack’s plan is to complete — or should I say “follow”? — Farraday’s plan to change the future by detonating the bomb.  Kate is not happy with this idea.  When Eloise asks her if Jack knows what he’s talking about and she replies, “He thinks he does,” I have rarely seen a more hateful look in anyone’s eyes than I saw in Kate’s.  It looks like this is it for Jack and Kate; I don’t see how she would ever even consider being close to him again.  Jack, in fact, is dangerously close to turning into a villain.  If this show can manage to persuasively pull that off, it’ll be one of the great coups in the hidtory of television.  And frankly, if they can turn him back into a genuine hero, at this point that would be a coup, also.  Once this Jack playing Sam Beckett, striving-to-put-right-what-once-went-wrong thing shakes out, it’ll be interesting to see where Jack is as a character.

Meanwhile, also in 1977, things are going poorly in Dharmaville.  Sawyer and Juliet sell out the location of the Hostiles in return for being put on the sub and evacuated from the island.  Things are looking pretty peachy for them until Kate shows up; nobody seems pleased that she’s there, except maybe for Kate herself, who now appears to have signed a lifetime contract with Team Sawyer.

The sub is evacuatig people because Dr. Chang has found Hurley and Miles and gotten the truth: that they are from the futre.  He puts Hurley on the spot, and Hurley says he’s crazy, but Chang presses the matter, asking Hurley a series of questions such as what year he was born.  1931, says Hurley, unconvincingly.  Dr. Chang asks sarcastically if he was in the Korean War.  “No such thing,” says Hurley, trying to salvage the situation.  He ends up saying, “Alright, dude, we’re from the future,” in his best hand-in-the-cookie-jar voice.  Jorge Garcia ought to be eligible for the next Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a comedy; he’s been pure gold this season.

Back in the present, Locke is doing trippy things like leading Richard to the Nigerian plane so that Richard can give past-John the compass and take the bullet out of his leg.  He is also asserting his supposed control over the Others, demanding that Richard take him to see Jacob.  In fact, since nobody has apparently ever seen Jacob, John wants the entire troupe of Others to go along for the visit.  “I’m starting to think John Locke is going to be trouble,” confides Richard to Ben.  “Why do you think I tried to kill him?” Ben replies.

Tried to kill him, huh?  Well, that’s interesting, innit?

Obviously, here, things are not entirely what they seem.  This shouldn’t surprise me, but somehow it did, and effectively.  This is probably why I’m getting a distinctly Wizard-of-Oz vibe off of Jacob.  Once again, I’m curious to see how this plays out.

I’ve got a feeling next week’s season finale is going to be monumental.

One last note: 1977 Eloise is played by Alice Evans, who is great, but it’s weird casting, because you could neve ever convince me that a smoking hot fox like her could eventually turn into Fionnula Flanagan.  Simply not possible.

Speaking of Flanagan, her Brotherhood co-star Kevin Chapman (he was Freddie Cork) shows up in this episode.  I hope he’s got a real role to play in future episodes; I’d hate to see him get wasted the way this show has occasionally wasted such fine actors in the past.

Harris will appear in ten episodes as Lane Pryce, the financial officer for Sterling Cooper.

Filming on the award-winning AMC series’s third season began yesterday.  New episodes will air beginning in August.

In other television news, NBC has announced part of its fall schedule, and the Amy Poehler sitcom Parks and Recreation – a new Honk Mahfah favorite — has scored a renewal for a second season.

Read the full press release here at ComingSoon.net.

The network also announced several new series, a couple of which caught my eye: Parenthood, a reworking of the Ron Howard/Steve Martin film (the series is from Friday Night Lights producer Jason Katims and stars Peter Krause, Maura Tierney, and Craig T. Nelson); and Day One, a drama which “tells the story of life on earth following a global catastrophe that has devastated the world’s infrastructures.”

NBC has not yet revealed the fate of some of its shows, such as Loaded Couch Potatoes darling Chuck.  The network is expected to announce additional series pickups (of both new and returning series) on May 19.

Spoilers fo sho.

Well, I’d be a complete and utter liar if I said I wasn’t disappointed with this episode.

Coming on the heels of last week’s outstanding “Bad Dreams,” we get a mediocre tale of a former ZFT scientist whose wife has been abducted by the group and dosed with a weaponized pathogen (based on an extinct form of syphilis) as a punishment for her husband’s departure.  She’s been turned into what amounts to a vampire, compulsively killing men so she can suck the spinal fluid out of their bodies.  While Dunham and Peter try to track her down so she can’t claim any more victims, Walter works with the scientist to find an antidote.

Truth be told, this isn’t a bad episode; it just doesn’t add up to much, and apart from the final-scene revelation (we’ll get to that in a bit), nothing of much interest happens.

The best part of the episode is probably the cold-open.  We begin with a man getting ready to go out on the town, and on the television in his apartment, we also see a news story about a grisly murder.  The guy looks a little creepy in a Patrick Bateman kind of way; he even takes a knife with him when he leaves.  He’s so obviously being pointed at as the killer that I knew he wouldn’t end up being one.  He picks up a woman in a club, takes her home, and she suddenly snaps his neck, killing him.  I knew she was up to something creepy, but the neck-snap happens so quickly that I was genuinely surprised.  Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the rest of the episode is not handled quite so deftly.  At one point, Olivia and Peter have Valerie the spinal fluid vampire tranquilized in the back of a car, and are taking her to Walter’s lab.  Now, if you’ve got any sense, you’re figuring she’s going to wake up and go for one of them, and she does … but it’s played as poorly as could be.  Olivia and Peter and talking; cut to the back of the car, where Valerie’s eyes open; cut to commercial.  How fucking lame is that shit?  The obvious thing to do in that scene is to play Olivia and Peter’s conversation in a single take, and let it go on for a while, and then have Valerie jump up, jaws bulging and teeth pointing, with no warning at all.  Everyone is already expecting that to happen; why not give them what they’re expecting, since it’s the “when is it gonna happen?” factor that makes the tension of the scene anyways?  That’s a giant missed opportunity.

When we come back after the opening credits, we’re seeing Olivia and Rachel having tea with a couple of friends of Rachel’s.  She’s apparently trying to sell her sister on the idea of signing up for a singles service called Two Singles Together, which involves two people with little in common getting together to have children, and not so much worrying about actually pleasing one another in any way.  The couple seem disinterested in each other, cold, distant.  During this scene, we find out that Rachel’s husband has filed for a divorce.

Now, what, pray tell, was the point of Two Singles Together?  The only sense I can make out of it is that it might be a hint that later in the episode, when we learn Rachel’s husband has filed for sole custody of Ella on the grounds of her unfitness to raise a child, we’re supposed to take Rachel’s enchantment with this obviously bizarre and unsuccessful couple as a sign that she really might be unfit.  But don’t we already get that idea from her threat to take Ella and run?  The scene with the Two Singles Together weirdos is playing into the episode’s general theme of marital devotion, that much is clear; what I’m not clear on is what that theme is doing in an episode of Fringe.  Perhaps future episodes will make this clear, but I doubt it.

A couple of good lines, including one from Walter, who expresses pleasure when Peter speculates that they’re dealing with a vampire.  He congratulates his son on being open to new possibilities, but then says, “No, there are no vampires … sadly.”  (Thing is, Valerie kinda is a vampire; somebody ought to have written a line somewhere in the episode for either Walter or Peter to acknowledge the similarity.)

Later, while using a heat-sensing device to find Valerie (her body temperature is way up) in the club, Peter is approached by an obviously-interested woman.  “You’re definitely hot,” he says, “but I’m looking for someone with syphilis.”  That’s a Fox Mulder line if I ever heard one.

The episode ends with the former scientist telling Dunham — via videotape, since he’s died creating an antidote for his wife — the names of the few people he knew of who were affiliated with ZFT.  Dunham tells Broyles that one of the names he gave her was “William Bell.”  Worse, he’s apparently the guy funding the whole group.

Number one, I’m not sure I know how such a low-ranking member of ZFT would have that information.  That smells like bullshit to me.

Number two, does this news come as a surprise to anyone who watches Fringe?  Can this possibly have surprised anyone?

Frankly, the episode smells like little more than a means to an end, with the end being establishing that Bell is the guy Dunham needs to hunt down.  The entire episode seems designed to get to that point.  It’s a clunky device, at best, and with mediocre execution on top of the mediocre concept. The episode had a few grace notes here and there that I enjoyed, but overall, this is an enormous step down from “Bad Dreams.”

Maybe next week will be better.

Nicole answers questions about such topics as her screen time, her favorite scene to film, whether Lance Reddick is a gigglebox, moving with the show to Vancouver, and, of course, Gene the cow.