Fringe: Season 3 Episode 11 - Reciprocity

Hello my "weaponized" friends and welcome back to another fresh serving of Fringe Recapping!  If this is what we are in store for every Friday, there will be no more complaints from me for the big move from Thursdays.  What an outstanding episode!  The best part has been that the past 2 episodes seemed to be 100% based on moving the mythology forward.  Like I've said before, I rarely complain about the Fringe "Monster of the Week" episodes because they tie in so nicely to the show.   But, I think the producers are at the point where they know they are playing to the fans of the show and not looking to expand their audience.  If the networks are on board, this can be a pretty liberating feeling!  No need to force a procedural story into the mix if it doesn't warrant one!   Then again, there was a case to solve this week, but it turned out to be VERY relative to the show's central story.  And I must say that it was a BOLD direction for the show to go.  But here I am throwing my chips in to the center of the table.  I'm all in, Fringe!  Let's see those cards!

This episode revolved around Peter and his relationship to the almighty Universe Destroying Machine.  Decryption of Fauxlivia's (officially dubbed by Walter) computer is continuing on in hopes that they will unravel Walternate's agenda.  Peter and Olivia's story advances in a positive direction as we suspected last week, but there is lots of darkness still looming!  Oh yeah, and there's a mystery killer on the loose knocking off Shapeshifters.  But, clues were dropped throughout the episode to let us know that this storyline would tie the rest of this paragraph all together in the end.  Let's bring on the recap!

Fringe: Season 3 Episode 10 - The Firefly

Greetings Universe Hoppers and Observers alike!  It brings me great pleasure to be able to recap Fringe once again.  Things have looked pretty bleak over the past couple months with Fringe's inevitable move from Thursday night.  I have finally convinced myself, as many Fringe fans have, that Friday night may possibly be the best night for the show.  Yes, the same night that has been the "DEATH SLOT" for so many sci-fi shows that have preceded it.  And the irony does not escape anyone that the FIRST Friday episode of Fringe has the word "FIREFLY" in it.  I, myself, have still not gotten around to watching the TV Show Firefly nor the entire movie Serenity, but I know it has a very loyal fan base who are still recovering from its cancellation (yes, it was also moved to Fridays).   But, here we are, a day after the first Fringe Friday.  How did we all do? Did we find time to watch?  I must confess, I couldn't watch live.  Friends called me out, I went to dinner and kept looking at the time wanting to be home.  Got home at 9:59 and started the TiVo.  (I still don't really understand how same night DVR delay ratings work but I always convince myself that if I watch it the same night I'm included in the ratings!  And no, I don't have a Nielsen box)  Fridays are going to be tough, but I have faith that FOX is going to give Fringe a long leash for its dedicated fans.   And if the coming episodes are as good as the one that we just had, I can see my Friday struggle between a social life and Fringe continuing!  If the Mrs. is reading this, she's rolling her eyes and looking forward to future Fridays, I know it!  (Note: as I was writing this up, I received a tweet that the ratings INCREASED from the fall numbers last night.  If they stay up, we can definitely look forward to a renewal.  GREAT NEWS!!!)

Anyway, Great Scott this was a good episode!  Very heavy indeed, something definitely wrong in the future with the world's gravitational pull.  If I had to rate the episode in terms of electricity, I would give it a 1.21 GIGAWATTS!   Why am I quoting Back to the Future so incessantly?  Because Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown, Professor Plum - you know, the classics) was a very special guest star!  There were enough subtle references to Back to the Future to make any geek's brain explode.  It was good stuff.  You need to pull in the big guns if you want to attract a Friday crowd!   Besides having Doc Brown by our side for this risky endeavor, there was plenty of OBSERVER goodness, course correction for LOST fans and Peter/Olivia/Altlivia drama to keep us all thoroughly entertained all hour long.   And Walterismns....I love me some Walterisms.  But we'll get to it all in the recap below.  Let's go!

How I Met Your Mother: Season 6 Episode 13 - "Bad News"

Hello TV Addicts and happy New Year! I know it has been awhile and we are still in a bit of a TV hiatus, but I feel compelled to write about last night's How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM to the more obsessed fan). One of my favorite things about HIMYM is that they are always able to tie in punchlines from previous episodes in this season or from 5 seasons ago and the fans will remember and appreciate it without hesitation. This episode did a great job at utilizing that tactic while still setting the stage for future events. That is when the show fires on all cylinders. I didn't mind the past couple seasons where the critics and fans were crying for the show to end, but I can clearly see that the quality of the show has greatly improved this season and is reminding me of its season 2 glory days. Anyway, I just wanted to jot a few things down about the episode and see if anyone else out there watched and has any thoughts. Sorry folks, I know it's not Fringe, The Event, Walking Dead or even LOST but I like me some good COMEDY too! So, while we're waiting for our serialized TV to return this is what you get!  Let's dive in:

Fringe: Season 3 Episode 9 - Marionette (Discussion)

Hello Fringe Dwellers and Universe Hoppers alike! I believe I have given you all fair warning that I unfortunately am unable to recap this episode due to being on a much needed (and deserved) vacation! But, I didn't want this to prevent any other fans from discussing their thoughts! Feel free to talk about what you liked, disliked and any theories you may like to share. If you have spotted the observer or figured out the Glyph code for the week, share that too! I may update this post with some of my own "OBSERV'ER'ATIONS" when I finally get to the episode or at least a chance to write about it!

In the meantime, enjoy the episode and Happy Holidays!

The Walking Dead: Season 1 Episode 6 - TS-19

Hello Walkers! WO..! (I'm close!!) What a great and unexpected gift this show has been to us this fall season! This 6 episode masterpiece came to us in our great time of need and now has secured its place in the TV Classics Pedestal for years to come. A completely thought out season from start to finish with just enough loose ends to make us wonder what could be in store for these folks in season 2. There is some speculation that there could be a writers room reshuffling in the off-season, but with Executive Producers Frank Darabount (showrunner) and Robert Kirkman (comic-book creator and Exec Producer/writer on show) staying with the show, it's definitely in good hands. It will be a long wait until next October, but there is no telling what kind of schedule reshuffling AMC may be considering to bring us our favorite shows in a timely manner. They have 3 classics on their hand now and all are in equal demand (I would have argued Rubicon should be on that list too but Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and Mad Men are definitely class acts). Season 1 is already available for pre-order on DVD and Blu-Ray and will be released on March 8. If you missed it and all of the reairings they have been doing, you'll have your chance then to catch up!

There's nothing left to do for now except dive into my thoughts for the season finale: TS-19! I may as well call it a recap now.  I think it's there!  I look forward to all of your thoughts as well!  Here we go.

Fringe: Season 3 Episode 8 - Entrada

Welcome back Fringe Dwellers!  What a fantastic hour of TV we were treated to tonight with this always fantastic show.  It was the moment we've been waiting for and it didn't happen a moment sooner than it needed to happen.  We have had just enough time for Faux-livia to stir things up in our world and for Olivia to spend some time over there and have us grow to enjoy some new characters and versions of the same characters for future episodes.  And without the proper build-up that the 7 preceding episodes accomplished, we would not have been as excited for Olivia's suspenseful return!   Just fantastic stuff.

Of course, since we last met, we have received some unfortunate news about Fringe and its move to Fridays.  FOX does not seem concerned as a good portion of Fringe Fans are DVR Time-shifters.  Hopefully, this is true because I'm going to miss next Thursday's episode (more information on that after the recap)!  I hope all fans of the show made a point to send a message to FOX tonight by watching live.  We'll see after the numbers are announced on Friday!  But enough of this public service announcement, it's time for some FRINCE-Capping!

The Event: Season 1 Episode 10 - Everything Will Change

Everything will change, eh?  Well, thank goodness for that!  I will not be the first one to say that the show has seemed to be running in circles for the past couple of episodes.  I know I tended to reflect that in my recaps!  Joking my way through the Sean/Leila story, joking about logistics of travel, and latching on to some hope with the EBE story lines.  Well, I also said that everything is a building block to get to payoff episodes.  This final installment of the fall is partially a payoff episode that rewarded the viewers that have stuck with it.  There was a nice twist in the EBE story, there was a twist that MAYBE we kind of saw coming with the Sean/Leila story and there was a promise of a whole lot more good stuff to come.   So my verdict on our fall finale?  Much better than last week's episode!  I'm excited about the cliffhanger, I just hope NBC has a plan to lure the viewers back at the end of February.  3 months is a long break for a show with dwindling ratings.  Maybe with Monday Night Football off of the air they'll be able to get some of their DVR audience to tune in LIVE.  We'll see!  But until then, we have this recap to tide us over.  So, let's dive in and see if we can get some good discussion out of this one!